[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 59 (Monday, April 26, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2611-S2637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 RESTORING AMERICAN FINANCIAL STABILITY ACT OF 2010--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3217, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to the consideration of S. 3217, a bill 
     to promote the financial stability of the United States by 
     improving accountability and transparency in the financial 
     system, to end ``too big to fail,'' to protect the American 
     taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from 
     abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, as I understand it, there is a vote 
scheduled at 5 p.m., is that correct?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. That is correct.
  Mr. DODD. And the time between now and 5 p.m. will be for general 
debate on the matter of the motion to proceed, is that correct?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. That is correct.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I see my friend and colleague from Delaware, 
Senator Kaufman. How much time does the Senator need?
  Mr. KAUFMAN. About 16 minutes.
  Mr. DODD. I yield 16 minutes to the Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Connecticut for 
the incredible work he has done on putting this bill together. It is a 
historic effort. It is the third historic effort he has taken on this 
year. That is not just a word, ``historic;'' it is putting into 
perspective the last 40 years. The Senator from Connecticut has been a 
leader on three truly historic pieces of legislation this year. I have 
never seen a Member do that. There were credit card reform, bringing up 
the health care reform bill, and now the financial regulatory reform 
bill.
  I return to the floor to discuss the problem of too big to fail, 
which I remain convinced is a key issue in any financial reform bill. 
First, I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to proceed, 
because these issues are of profound importance to our country and they 
deserve to be debated and voted upon.
  For example, it was over 10 years ago that Congress debated and 
passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which formally repealed the Glass-
Steagall Act's sensible and longstanding separation of commercial 
banking and investment banking. While this landmark legislation passed 
the U.S. Senate by a 90-to-8 margin, there were some voices who spoke 
out then that the bill would lead us on a glided path to disaster.
  I recently reread the speech given in 1999 by the senior Senator from 
North Dakota, and I was thunderstruck, truly, by how accurately Byron 
Dorgan warned then about the future. There were eight people who voted 
against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. They were Senators Boxer, Bryan, 
Dorgan, Feingold, Harkin, Mikulski, Shelby, and Wellstone. I first came 
to this body as a staff person in 1973. I have seen times when a few 
people in the Senate--I don't think either party has a monopoly on it--
get together and say the Senate is off in the wrong direction. Those 
eight people said that on that day. Senator Dorgan deserves a special 
recognition and award, because he predicted this in 1999, when he said:

       We will, in 10 years time, look back and say: We should not 
     have done that [repeal Glass-Steagall] because we forgot the 
     lessons of the past.

  He went on to say:

       This bill will, also, in my judgment, raise the likelihood 
     of future massive taxpayer bailouts. It will fuel the 
     consolidation and mergers in the banking and financial 
     services industry at the expense of customers, farm 
     businesses, family farmers and others.

  That is absolutely amazing. He absolutely totally completely nailed 
it. He predicted it would lead to ``future massive taxpayer bailouts.'' 
I think we should listen to Senator Dorgan now and any prediction he 
makes about what we are going to do today in the Senate.
  He also said quite presciently:

       We also have another doctrine . . . at the Federal Reserve 
     Board called too big to fail. Remember that term, too big to 
     fail. . . . They cannot be allowed to fail because the 
     consequence on the economy is catastrophic and therefore 
     these banks are too big to fail. . . . That is no-fault 
     capitalism; too big to fail. Does anybody care about that? 
     Does the Fed? Apparently not.

  These words would work just as well on the floor today. How many of 
us thought the term ``too big to fail'' was coined only in this recent 
disaster? Not Senator Dorgan. He knew and warned about too big to fail 
in 1999.
  He also said:

       I say to the people who own banks, if you want to gamble, 
     go to Las Vegas. If you want to trade in derivatives, God 
     bless you. Do it with your own money. Do not do it through 
     the deposits that are guaranteed by the American people and 
     by deposit insurance.

  Again, right on point, and perfectly accurate today. Byron Dorgan and 
Brooksley Born were warning about derivatives in 1999, but we did not 
listen, And America suffered a catastrophe of monumental proportions--
less than 10 years after these prophetic words were spoken.
  Finally, Senator Dorgan said:

       I will bet one day [I think we are at that day] somebody is 
     going to look back at this and they are going to say: How on 
     Earth could we have thought it made sense to allow the 
     banking industry to concentrate, through merger and 
     acquisition, to become bigger and bigger and bigger; far more 
     firms in the category of too big to fail? How did we think 
     that was going to help this country?

  Well, Senator Dorgan, you were right, and we have arrived at that 
day. Let me repeat: Did it help our country? Will it help our country 
in the future? Each Senator has to answer that question.
  Senator Dorgan knew that further unbinding the financial industry 
would accelerate the process of deregulation and lead to far greater 
risks, ushering in a new era of too big to fail and an ever more 
casino-like version of financial capitalism. He knew that by lifting 
basic restraints on financial markets and institutions and, more 
importantly, by failing to put in place new rules to deal with the 
market's ever more complex innovations, that this deregulatory 
philosophy would unleash the forces that would cause our financial 
crisis and great recession of 2008.

[[Page S2612]]

  I could not agree more with Senator Dorgan. Banks and other financial 
institutions that are too big to fail have become only more so today. 
They are so large, so complex, and so interconnected that they cannot 
be allowed to fail because their demise would threaten the stability of 
the overall financial system.
  There are those on the other side of the aisle who propose to simply 
let them fail. They say the solution is to stand back and let these 
megabanks follow the normal corporate bankruptcy process. I call that 
``dangerous and irresponsible,'' a slogan of an answer, not a real 
solution. President Bush did not allow that to happen, and no President 
should be faced with that decision again. When Lehman failed, our 
global credit markets froze and creditors and counterparties panicked.

  We have the opportunity today to restructure our financial industry 
so that it will be safe for generations. That is what the Senate did in 
the 1930s when it passed the Glass-Steagall Act, and it withstood the 
test of time for six decades.
  When I look at the current legislative approach, in my view it relies 
too much on regulator discretion and on a resolution mechanism that is 
ultimately unworkable for the largest and most complex financial 
institutions. Under this arrangement, the megabanks will still have 
incentives to arbitrate their capital requirements, thereby continuing 
to grow and take on even greater and greater risks.
  The six largest U.S. banks have assets totaling more than 63 percent 
of our overall gross domestic product. Fifteen years ago, the six 
largest U.S. banks had assets equal to just 17 percent of gross 
domestic product. In 15 years, it went from 17 percent to 63 percent.
  Instead of girding a broken regulatory system, Congress must act 
decisively now to end the ``doom loop'' Senator Dorgan accurately 
identified and warned the Senate about in 1999. We need stronger 
statutory medicine.
  I believe the time has come for Congress to draw hard lines and high 
walls in statute. We need statutory size and leverage limits on banks 
and nonbanks in order to eliminate too big to fail.
  Senator Dorgan said he is working on an amendment to address this 
problem. I look forward to hearing more from Senator Dorgan about his 
proposals, and I hope the Senate will listen carefully to him since his 
credibility on this issue was born in the wisdom he showed in 1999.
  Congress, which represents the people who are most hurt by the 
financial crisis, should not pass the buck to the very regulators who 
failed to prevent the crisis in the first place. Congress must do it, 
as it did in the 1930s, by separating commercial from investment 
banking activities and putting limits on the size and leverage used by 
systemically significant banks and nonbank players alike. This is a 
proposal I introduced last week with Senator Brown and other 
colleagues.
  Of course, there are those who make the argument that the problem is 
not really about size; that these institutions are not actually too big 
to fail. Instead, they say institutions such as Lehman Brothers were 
actually too interconnected to fail based upon interlocking counterpart 
exposures arising from credit derivatives and repurchase contracts.
  But trying to contrast the distinction between too big to fail and 
too interconnected to fail is a distinction without a difference. The 
massive growth from the derivatives market, including that for credit 
derivatives, which intertwine the fates of banks, hedge funds, and 
insurance companies through side bets on whether mortgages, corporate 
bonds, or other assets would pay off, moved in lockstep with the 
runaway growth of the megabanks' balance sheets.
  All of these activities interconnected their fates, while also making 
them far more risky and far bigger, so big, in fact, that the failures 
would threaten the stability of the financial system.
  As Senator Brown and I emphasized last week, our bill is a 
complementary idea, not a substitute to the Banking Committee bill.
  There are many regulatory provisions in that bill that are designed 
to make the megabanks less risky and less interconnected, and we 
strongly support them. But why gamble that the regulators will do a 
better job now and well into the future when they have the power today 
to impose a redundant fail-safe solution to limit the size and leverage 
of our biggest banks? We will not lose out globally, other than in a 
race to financial destruction. The limits Senator Brown and I propose 
would shrink these banks from massively large institutions to only 
large institutions, at a size well beyond the level at which economies 
of scale are achieved.
  As Senator Dorgan asked in 1999: Why leave oversized institutions in 
place when they are too big to fail? Instead, we should meet the 
challenge of the moment and have the courage to act to limit the size 
and practices of those literally gigantic financial institutions, the 
stability of which is a threat to our economy. But we can only meet 
these challenges once the bill reaches the Senate floor. Again, I urge 
my colleagues to vote yes on cloture and not stand in the way of the 
debate and collective wisdom from this body that this country so badly 
needs. If we are to prevent another financial crisis, we must move 
forward with this debate and act strongly in the interests of the 
American people.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suspect sometime over the next hour and a 
half, Members will come to the floor--including the Presiding Officer--
and I will be glad to take a few minutes and share some opening 
comments and then give him relief so he can be heard on this matter.
  I thank Senator Warner and my colleagues on the Banking Committee, 
both Democrats and Republicans. We have spent a lot of time together 
over the last 2 years now--longer, in fact, going back even before the 
arrival of my friend from Virginia.
  When I became chairman of the Banking Committee in January of 2007, I 
was asked to pick up this issue. We began to look at the issue of the 
mortgage crisis in the country through all of 2007 and, of course, the 
following year when events began to unfold, culminating with the 
disaster we encountered in the fall of 2008.
  The members of the committee have worked very hard. We have had 
literally hundreds of hearings and meetings, listening to people across 
the spectrum of how best to address these issues, filling in the gaps 
that led to the near collapse of our economy; what steps we ought to be 
taking to provide intelligent, thoughtful, commonsense regulation, as 
well as to see to it, in the process of doing so, we do not stifle the 
ability of this country to lead in the financial sector globally; as 
well as provide for the innovation and creativity necessary for our 
country to grow and prosper economically, the wealth creation that is 
necessary for our country. It has been a long and arduous journey.
  I was speaking with Bob Corker of Tennessee, with whom I spent a 
great deal of time, as I know the Presiding Officer has as well. I 
thank Senator Shelby, my colleague and former chairman of the Banking 
Committee, who is the ranking member on our committee. We have spent a 
lot of time on these issues, including some time earlier this 
afternoon, and we will be meeting again depending on the outcome this 
evening one way or the other. We will continue our conversations to try 
to resolve some of these outstanding matters in a very long and complex 
piece of legislation.
  I will not enumerate every member of the Banking Committee, but 
suffice it to say, to this juncture, the work they have done has been 
tremendously helpful and has produced a good and strong bill on 
financial reform.
  Today the Senate faces its first vote on the issue, which will occur 
in a little less than 2 hours from now, deciding whether we can even go 
forward and debate the matter. My hope is our colleagues will allow us 
to debate this issue.
  I understand there are differences. There is hardly unanimity in 
caucuses, let alone in the Chamber, on the way

[[Page S2613]]

to go, particularly in areas involving systemic risk, dealing with the 
so-called too big to fail provisions, dealing with the provisions of 
how we administer the notion of exotic instruments, the derivative 
community, and the like. Significant discussions have gone on. The 
assumption we are going to resolve all of those issues prior to 
debating the issues is somewhat unrealistic if we are trying to reach 
accommodation on all the various matters that are included in the 1,400 
pages of the proposal which we will have before this body.

  Today my plea is not so much on the substance of what is here, 
although I am willing to discuss all of that because it is important 
our colleagues know what we have tried to achieve and accommodate in 
our legislation, but a plea to let us get to the debate.
  I do not think the American people understand this. Regardless of 
where you come out on the issues, whether you stand on the various 
provisions of the bill, I do not know how to explain to people to make 
them realize how vulnerable we are today in the waning days of April 
2010 as we were in the fall of 2008 when we saw what happened to our 
economy. Nothing has changed except, of course, jobs have been lost, 
homes have gone into foreclosure, retirement incomes have evaporated, 
and housing values have declined. Almost $11 trillion in household 
wealth has been lost. That is what has happened over the last 18 
months.
  We have yet to stand and address what caused that to happen in our 
country, to fill in those gaps to provide the regulation, put the cops 
on the beat, create provisions that would minimize the next economic 
crisis. And it will occur. There is nothing I have drafted that can 
protect our country from future economic difficulty.
  As certain as I am standing here today, we will face yet another 
crisis or crises in the future. The question is, Are we going to be 
better positioned to minimize that crisis so we do not see the 
collateral damage that has been caused to businesses, individuals, 
retirement, homes--all of the things that we have suffered because we 
did not have in place the kind of safeguards that might have put a 
tourniquet on this problem in its earliest stages, not to have 
eliminated the crisis but certainly eliminated the damage it caused 
because we did not have the cops on the beat, we did not have the 
regulation, and we did not have what is exactly included in this bill 
to minimize the danger in the future.
  I have tried to explain this issue. Obviously, it is complicated when 
you start talking in these words that are archaic; talking about credit 
default swaps and derivatives and systemic risk and all the other 
terminology that is used to talk about financial services. But let me 
try to phrase this in more graphic terms, if I can.
  Imagine coming home from a weekend away. You have been away. You have 
taken your family out on a trip and you come home to find the front 
door swinging wide open, flapping back and forth. When you walk in the 
house, you realize you have been robbed. Your TV is gone, your 
furniture, your jewelry, important documents, cash, and family photos, 
all have been stolen out of your home. Maybe worst of all, there is 
broken glass and shattered pottery. Not only did they steal, but they 
decided to wreck the house as well. So you are angry and frightened, 
wondering what is coming next and how much it will cost you to replace 
your TV and your stereo. Then you find out, at the end of all this, 
that they have identified the robbers who have broken into your home 
and stolen everything and, by the way, you have to write a check to 
them. The very people who caused the damage are now going to get a 
check written out to them--those who caused the problem in the first 
place.
  Well, that is what happened, in effect, 18 months ago. People came in 
and robbed our homes, in effect. In fact, they took the home, they took 
the income, and they took the retirement. They watched jobs go out the 
window. The very people who were responsible for it, of course, were 
stabilized because we wrote a check for $700 billion to stabilize those 
institutions. As we did so, and, of course, we got them back on their 
feet, the very leaders of these industries began to reap massive 
bonuses to put themselves on solid footing. So they have benefited from 
this financially. Yet 8\1/2\ million jobs were lost, 7 million homes 
ended up in foreclosure, there was a 30-percent decline in home values 
and a 20-percent decline in retirement of working families, all who 
thought they were protected. All that is gone, and somewhere between 
$11 trillion and $13 trillion--not ``b'' as in billion but a trillion 
dollars--in household wealth has been lost in 18 months.
  If that is not wreckage of your home--your economic home--I don't 
know what is. Today, we are as vulnerable as we were 18 months ago. Our 
house is still unlocked, in a way. What happened 18 months ago could 
happen again. The difference this time is I don't think there is an 
ounce of willingness on the part of the American people to write that 
check again. What they are asking is for us to step up, to think 
carefully--as we have tried to do over the last year or so as we have 
gone through this process--and craft some ideas that would minimize 
that from happening again so there is not a huge part of our economy 
that is totally unregulated, as we had with real estate brokers who on 
their Web site had as their first rule to brokers, convince the 
borrower you are their financial adviser, when they were anything but 
their financial adviser. So they were luring people into mortgages they 
couldn't afford and convincing them they could pay for it, knowing full 
well they never ever could. Of course, the banks themselves were then 
bundling these mortgages, only holding them for 8 or 10 weeks and then 
selling them off, branding them AAA to unsuspecting investors, and that 
created that bubble that ultimately was the major cause of the 
collapse.
  Today, that same problem can exist in the absence of the law we are 
putting before our colleagues. Maybe I should have said this at the 
outset, but we hardly claim perfection in what we have written here. 
Hardly. But we believe they are sound ideas that deal with these very 
issues that caused the problem in the first place, and what we need to 
do is to be able to debate those ideas. If my colleagues disagree, as 
many do--some think I have gone too far, some think I haven't gone far 
enough, and those are maybe two legitimate points--how are we to 
resolve our disagreement if we can't bring up the bill and have the 
debate this Chamber was designed to engage in? What is the point of 
having 100 seats, coming from 50 States, when a major issue affecting 
our country cannot even be the subject of a debate?
  So I urge my colleagues--I urge them--to let us get to this debate. 
Let us do our best to resolve these matters as adults, as people who 
have strong views and feelings, many of which we agree on, by the way. 
I mentioned my colleague from Virginia, the Presiding Officer. I don't 
know how long Mark Warner and Bob Corker spent--hundreds and hundreds 
and hundreds of hours--to make sure that in this proposal never again 
would a financial institution in the United States of America reach 
such a status that it would be guaranteed implicitly that the Federal 
Government would bail them out when they engaged in excessive risk and 
put themselves in great jeopardy. Our bill does that. Without any 
question whatsoever, those entities, if they reach that point, will 
fail. They will go into bankruptcy, they will go into receivership, and 
management gets fired. They don't get a bonus, they get fired. 
Shareholders lose their resources or their investments, as well as do 
creditors, not to mention other problems associated with it. But the 
idea is, those entities go out of business, and we wind them down in a 
way that doesn't jeopardize other sectors of our economy.
  Nothing could be more clear in our bill than that. If there was one 
issue I think we all agreed on, it was to make sure that didn't happen. 
Again, the Senators from Tennessee and Virginia, and there were others, 
by the way, who were engaged in that debate in writing this bill to 
achieve that desired result by the American people.
  We also said: Look, one of the problems that happened over the years 
leading to this crisis is that we didn't even know what was going on 
out there. We heard Bob Rubin, the former Secretary of the Treasury, 
and we heard Alan Greenspan and others--whether you believe them--who 
said we

[[Page S2614]]

didn't understand how this was happening or why it was happening or 
even that it was happening.
  Well, that excuse ought to never occur again. So we create in our 
bill that early radar system--again, maybe a more graphic description 
of what the Systemic Risk Council does. This is made up of various 
Federal agencies, so that there is not just one but a multiple set of 
eyes with differing backgrounds and experience to deal with the 
economic issues of our Nation; to be constantly watching and monitoring 
what is occurring out there and not just in our own country, by the 
way, but around the world. How many of us have read headlines over the 
past few weeks about Greece and what problems it may pose to Europe and 
other parts of our global economy or what happened in the Shanghai 
stock market a number of years ago, where a decline in value in that 
exchange put the entire world in a tailspin for several days. So the 
notion that it is just what happens here at home on mortgages or other 
issues is not limited, it is also what happens around the world today 
that can affect us.
  Anyway, this part of the bill is designed to be that early warning 
system--that radar system. Again, I wish to thank my colleague from 
Virginia and my colleague from Tennessee. One of the provisions in that 
early warning system is data collection on a daily basis, so we know 
what is happening economically literally on an hour-to-hour basis. That 
will be a great value as we sit there and try to make these assessments 
and pick up on these problems in the earliest stages before they can 
occur.
  Consumer protection. This ought not be a radical idea--to protect 
consumers from any problems financially. How many of us, of course, 
read the tragic news over the last few weeks about an automobile 
manufacturer that had a defective accelerator? What was the first thing 
you heard? Those cars are being recalled so you would not be at risk in 
driving them. We hear of recalls all the time on products we buy. You 
buy that nice TV and it doesn't work, you can send it back, you can 
recall that product, and you will be protected as a consumer.
  What happens when you get a financial product that doesn't work or is 
defective or certainly producing results that were never intended but 
are causing major problems? Where do you go to get a recall on a faulty 
mortgage or a credit card deal that is corrupt or fraudulent or 
deceptive or abusive? Why shouldn't we deal with financial products 
that can bring someone to financial ruin? We can do it with a toaster, 
a TV or an automobile. Well, our bill sets up a Consumer Financial 
Product Safety Commission or bureau or division that we have 
established in this bill. So consumers themselves can have someplace to 
go to get redress.

  Rules can be written to protect them against abusive practices. I 
appreciate my colleague from Delaware mentioning my credit card bill, 
but we shouldn't have to write a bill every time there is a deceptive 
or fraudulent practice that does damage to consumers. Why does it take 
writing a bill every time there is a problem? Why not have regulations 
in place that would protect consumers?
  Let me mention what else that does. It isn't just protecting the 
consumer from a faulty financial product. One of the most important 
elements in our economy is consumer confidence--having a sense of 
optimism and confidence or faith that our institutions will be there to 
work for them and not against them. One of the great damages to our 
country--and I don't know how you put a number on it. I can't cite the 
number on home values lost or wealth lost or mortgages or foreclosures 
or jobs lost. Tell me what price we put on the loss of the American 
public's confidence in our financial system. What is that number; that 
people no longer trust or have deep questions about whether they are 
going to be protected with their hard-earned dollar with that insurance 
policy or that stock they want to buy? Not that they ought to be 
guaranteed a return on it but that there isn't going to be some 
deceptive, abusive practice that will put them at risk. To me, that is 
about as important an issue as you can have--confidence of the American 
people that the architecture of our financial system is one they can 
have faith in, that they can have confidence in. That reputation has 
been damaged severely over these last number of months.
  I don't claim what we have written in this area of consumer 
protection solves every problem. But for the first time in our Nation's 
history, for the very first time, we will have a consolidated consumer 
protection agency with the principal responsibility of watching out for 
the consumers of financial products. I think that is a major 
achievement for our bill.
  Lastly, let me mention the old issue of these exotic instruments that 
I mentioned earlier that have complicated definitions of what they do 
and how they work. One of the major problems is, of course, it has been 
an unregulated area. It has been what they call the shadow economy. To 
give an idea of how the issue has exploded, in 1998, the area of 
derivatives generated about $91 billion in activity. That is 12 years 
ago. Last year--I think it was 2009 but the last year we have numbers 
on this, the amount of activity in this area jumped from $91 billion to 
almost $600 trillion--$91 billion to $600 trillion in 10 years in 
unregulated activities, in this shadow economy. It was those activities 
that also contributed so much to the economic difficulties we are going 
through.
  The Agriculture Committee, run by my good friend from Arkansas, 
Blanche Lincoln, and the members of her committee and our Banking 
Committee have worked out a sound and solid proposal on how we can 
protect the American consumers from these very risky instruments if 
they are not subjected to some basic rules of margin requirements--
capital. Let the Sun shine on them in the exchanges, where people can 
see the value. The market can determine that. All those things are 
critical. Derivatives are not a bad thing. They are needed, in fact, to 
have economic growth and prosperity. The problem isn't using them, it 
is how they are used and whether they operate in the shadows or in the 
bright light, where everyone knows what they are and how to value them. 
That is in our bill as well.
  There is a lot more in this legislation, and my intention was not to 
go through and enumerate every section of the bill--all 12 sections of 
the bill. My point to my colleagues is: Let us get to this debate. Let 
us have a chance. If you don't like what I have done on consumer 
protection, on derivatives, if you don't like what we have done on too 
big to fail, if you don't like what we have done on other provisions in 
the bill, then come and bring up amendments. Let's debate them and 
let's have that ability to at least try to shape this legislation.
  At 5 o'clock this afternoon, for the very first time since the crisis 
hit--other than the credit card bill and a housing bill that we had 
come out of my Banking Committee--this is the first chance we will have 
in 18 months, since the worst economic crisis in 80 years--which we are 
still suffering from. I know the markets are doing better, I know 
corporations are doing better, I know the stock market is making more 
money, but for most of us in this Chamber, we know it hasn't quite 
reached down yet--the economic recovery--to average citizens who have 
lost their jobs, who have lost their retirement, who have lost the 
wealth they built up over the years. All that is gone. For a lot of 
them it is not going to come back. So what we need to do is step up and 
try to provide some answers the American public is looking for. A lot 
of the rage and fury and anger we are seeing around other issues 
happened in no small measure because of what happened to our economy 
and because of the failure to have regulatory procedures in place, to 
have cops on the beat to enforce those regulations, to be able to have 
the early warning system to identify problems before they spun out of 
control.

  Our bill, we believe, steps up and addresses those issues. Again, 
give us the opportunity to at the very least debate them. We cannot get 
to the resolution of these matters if the matter is not on floor. 
Senator Shelby and I have been talking. We talked over the weekend. We 
talked already this afternoon. We will meet again. Even if we get this 
done and move to the bill, we have to sit down and work out how to 
manage all of this, so I thank him again for his willingness to do 
that. I deeply believe Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama

[[Page S2615]]

wants to get to a bill, as I believe do most of my colleagues here, but 
we cannot ever get there if we do not have that debate.
  I did not mean to speak this long but I wanted at least to let my 
colleagues know how important I believe this issue is. Frankly, I don't 
think it serves our interests well to be screaming at each other about 
who cares more about this issue than the other. I think it unfortunate 
that a number of my Republican friends who I know care about this very 
much would be branded that somehow they don't care about it to such an 
extent that they would not even let it get to a debate. They have ideas 
on this legislation. They want their amendments considered and they 
don't want to be told you cannot even do that because we do not have 
some large, sweeping agreement on a bill here.
  Senator Shelby and I are very close on some issues that we think we 
can reach an understanding. Basically we are there in a lot of these 
matters. I had hoped maybe we would get there before this afternoon, 
but there is no reason to stop all this, in my view, and not get to the 
adoption of the motion to proceed.
  For all of those reasons, I urge my colleagues at 5 p.m. to vote to 
proceed to this matter and let us take the next few days to consider 
this legislation.
  I 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.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaufman). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
support bringing forward Chairman Dodd's regulatory reform bill. The 
chairman has just spoken with great passion about how we got here. I 
want to take perhaps somewhat of a similar tack and describe, as a new 
Member, why I think this legislation is so terribly important.
  I have had the opportunity today and on other Mondays, as is often 
noted, to sit in the chair and listen to my colleagues come in and talk 
about this issue. I heard today my colleagues talk about health care, 
talk about stimulus, talk about unemployment, as somehow reasons why we 
should not start a debate about financial regulatory reform. I am not 
sure I understand the connection.
  Candidly, the American people could do with a little less political 
theater and a little more action. Regardless of what happens this 
afternoon at the vote at 5 o'clock, I hope--and I honestly believe most 
of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle hope--that we will get to 
that agreement in a bipartisan new set of rules of the road for the 
financial sector that will stand the test of time for not a year or two 
but for decades to come.
  Before I get into a substantive discussion about how we got here and 
how I believe the Dodd bill takes dramatic steps forward, there is one 
other issue I need to address. I have sat in the chair as the Presiding 
Officer and have heard--and I know as Presiding Officer we have to bite 
our tongues sometimes--colleagues come forward and somehow portray this 
piece of legislation as a partisan product.
  I have only been here for 15 months but in the 15 months I have had 
the honor of serving this body, I have not seen any piece of 
legislation that anywhere approaches the type of bipartisan input, 
discussion, and ongoing dialog that Chairman Dodd's bill has. 
Literally, in the 15 months I have had the honor of serving on the 
Banking Committee, we held dozens if not hundreds of hearings on the 
objectives of this legislation, objectives, again, that I think 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle agree upon: making sure there is 
never again taxpayer bailouts for mistakes made by too large financial 
institutions, making sure we have more transparency and, as the 
chairman said, a return of a sense of fairness to our whole financial 
product system and, third, that ultimately the American people, the 
consumers of this Nation, will make sure there is somebody watching out 
for the financial products that sometimes they have been purchasing 
without appropriate knowledge or appropriate recourse, when these 
products explode in their faces.
  Again, unlike the Presiding Officer who served around this body for 
many years, I am a new Member. But I saw where the chairman did 
something I thought was somewhat unusual with a major piece of 
legislation. Rather than saying he had all the knowledge and all the 
input, he actually invited in the members of the committee, junior 
members, senior members of both parties to set up working groups to 
take on some of the challenging aspects of this bill--consumer 
protection, systemic risk, corporate governance, the whole question of 
derivatives. Let me state absolutely, because I can state from the 
systemic risk/too big to fail portions, the products we developed that 
are critical parts of this legislation are bipartisan in nature, 
bipartisan in ideas, and find that common ground that has been so 
absent from so many of the previous debates we have had over the last 
15 months--I think particularly about the fact of the systemic risk, 
too big to fail, and resolution authorities Senator Corker and I worked 
on. There has been no better partner I could have had than Senator Bob 
Corker, grinding through hundreds of hours, recognizing there was no 
Democratic or Republican response to systemic risk and too big to fail, 
but we had to get it right. While there may be parts of this bill that 
can still be tightened and need to be tweaked here and there, and the 
Senator and I may add a few improvements, on the overarching goal of 
making sure the taxpayers never again would be on the hook, I believe 
we have taken giant steps forward.
  As you heard from the chairman already, those conversations are 
ongoing even today. Please, while we kind of get sometimes subject in 
this body to hyperbole, anyone who makes the claim that this 
legislation is partisan only doesn't recognize the facts or has not 
seen the experience of the members of the Banking Committee over the 
last 15 months.
  Let me also acknowledge--and I recognize I have a number of things I 
want to say and maybe other Members want to come, but let me 
acknowledge something else about this discussion. Sixteen months ago, 
when I came to this body, I actually thought I knew something about the 
financial services sector. I spent 20 years prior to being Governor 
around financial services, taking companies public. I had some ideas 
about how we would sort through these issues. I have to tell you what I 
quickly found was that oftentimes my original idea, or oftentimes the 
simplistic sound bite solution that I thought might be the solution, 
more often than not proved not to be the case and that trying to sort 
our way through this labyrinth of financial rules and regulations in a 
way that brings appropriate regulation but maintains America's 
preeminent role as the capital markets' capital of the world has been 
challenging.

  Again I thank my colleague Senator Corker. I think we both realize 
there is no Democratic or Republican way to get this right but we had 
to get it right. Over the last year we have set up literally dozens of 
seminars where we invited members of the Banking Committee to come in 
and kind of get up to speed as well. Fifteen months later, with this 
legislation now before the floor, I think we have taken giant steps 
forward in getting it right.
  I also want to revisit for a moment, before we get to the substance 
of the bill, how we got here. I have actually been stunned sometimes, 
sitting in the Presiding Officer's chair, hearing colleagues come in 
and try to cite as the causation of the crisis that arose in 2007 and 
2008 a single legislative action back in the 1970s or a single 
individual's activities over the last two decades. The claims are so 
patently absurd, sometimes they do not even bear recognition or bear 
rebuttal. But it is important to take a moment to look back on the fact 
that none of us comes with clean hands to this process of how we got to 
such a mess in 2008 that we were on the verge of financial meltdown.
  Think about the fact back in the early 1990s, back in 1993, Congress 
actually passed legislation to give the Federal Reserve the 
responsibility to regulate mortgages--responsibility that we have seen 
time and again they didn't take up the challenge to meet.

[[Page S2616]]

  The Presiding Officer spoke very eloquently earlier this afternoon 
about the actions of Congress in 1999, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill, 
that basically broke down the walls between traditional depository bank 
and investment banking that had been set up by the Glass-Steagall Act 
in the early 1930s. Where the Presiding Officer and I may differ now is 
I am not sure we can unscramble those eggs, but clearly we needed a 
little more thought back in 1999, as we internationalized our financial 
markets and turned these large institutions into financial 
supermarkets, which was one of the precipitating factors in this crisis 
as well.
  Candidly, bank regulators were not given the tools to regulate, and 
oftentimes regulators of both depository institutions, their bank 
holding companies, and their securities firms, had no collaboration or 
coordination.
  During our hearings in the Banking Committee when we looked into one 
of the most egregious excesses in the last few years, the Bernie Madoff 
scandals, we heard regulators had started down the path to try to find 
out the source of some of the criminality that took place in the Madoff 
case, only to find because of our mismatch of regulatory structure they 
got to a door they couldn't open because that was the purview of 
another regulator.
  Regulators, under our existing rules, were actually prohibited from 
looking at derivatives. Derivatives, as the Chairman mentioned, in the 
last decade have gone from what seems like a large number--$90-plus 
billion--to literally hundreds of trillions of dollars in value.
  Responsibility continues, again, in some of our monetary policy. In 
the early part of the 2000s--and again, not many people sounded the 
alarm at that point. We overrelied on low interest rates and monetary 
policy to pull us out of the 2001 recession. But as we came out of that 
2001 recession, we left those monetary policies in place, which led to 
a housing bubble for which we are still paying the price.
  I know some of my colleagues on the other side said this bill does 
not take on the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, yes, to a 
degree, they are right. And then, in a subsequent action, we will have 
to make sure we have a new model in place for these institutions. But 
that should not be used as an excuse to not put in place major 
financial regulatory reform.
  Candidly, if we are going to be really truthful with each other and 
the American people, we have to acknowledge that everyone--not just the 
banks but everyone--got overleveraged. Quite honestly, we all, the 
American people, probably need to take a look in the mirror as well. I 
think, as we bought those adjustable rate mortgages; took out that 
second and third loan on our home; ended up getting that deal that 
seemed too good to be true; moved away from the conventional idea that 
you ought to go ahead and, before you get a mortgage, be able to put 20 
percent down and be able to show you can pay it back, we all got swept 
up in this ``who cares about tomorrow; let's just borrow for today.''
  We also saw innovations, and American capitalism has worked pretty 
well, particularly in the last 100 years. But we particularly saw 
innovations in the last 5 or 6 years alone, innovations that originated 
on Wall Street that were supposed to be about better pricing risks: 
derivatives and all of their cousins, nephews, and bastard offspring. 
But these tools that were supposed to be a better price risk we have 
now found were more about fee generation for the banks that created 
them and, instead of lowering overall risk, created this intertangled 
web that, once you started to put the string on, potentially brought 
about the whole collapse of our markets.
  Time and again, we saw, rather than transparency in the market, 
opaqueness and regulators who never looked beyond their silos.
  I think most all of our colleagues want reform. Colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle want to get it right. But I believe there are two 
real dangers as we go down this reform path. One is to resort to sound-
bite solutions that at first blush sound like an easy way to solve the 
problem but in actuality may not get to the solution we need.
  I know we are going to have a fervent debate on this floor--and I 
look forward to it--about the question of whether the challenge with 
some of our institutions was their market cap or was it really putting 
pressure on the regulators to look at their level of interconnectedness 
and the level of risk-taking that was taking place. I look forward to 
that. There are valid points on both sides. When we get to that debate, 
I will point out the fact that in Canada, where there is actually a 
higher concentration of the banking industry than in the United States, 
because there was greater regulatory oversight and actual restrictions 
on leverage, those Canadian banks didn't fall prey to the same kind of 
excess we found here in the United States.
  I know the chairman and Chairman Lincoln are working through the 
question of derivatives, where they should be housed, because they do 
provide important tools when used properly. And there will be a 
spirited debate on whether we should break off derivatives functions 
from financial institutions. I look forward to that discussion. By 
simply breaking off these products into a more unregulated sector of 
the industry, we could, in effect, if we do not do it right, create an 
even greater harm down the road than we have right now.
  So the first challenge is to make sure we don't fall prey to the 
simple solutions and recognize the complexities of these issues.
  The other challenge we have to be aware of is the converse. I know 
the chairman has heard, I know the Presiding Officer has heard--any of 
us who have tried to get into this issue have had folks from the 
financial industry come in and talk to us about the unforeseen 
consequences of any of our actions. Some of those arguments are valid, 
but oftentimes those arguments are simply--they always start the same: 
We favor financial reform, but don't touch our portion of the financial 
sector because if you do this, the unintended consequences would be 
enormous.
  Because the knowledge level and the complexity of these discussions 
are so challenging, what we also have to fight against in this body is 
the more easy process to default to the status quo because timidity in 
this case will not solve this crisis and will not provide the new 21st-
century financial rules of the road we need.
  We can't be afraid to shine the light on markets or, for that matter, 
to raise the cost of certain activities, because the unforeseen 
consequences of the interconnection of these activities, as we saw in 
2007 and 2008, pose grave risk to our financial system--and as we have 
seen with the 8 million jobs lost and literally trillions of dollars of 
value lost from the American public.
  So what does S. 3217 do to accomplish this? I spent most of my time 
on the two titles that Senator Corker and I worked on and the chairman 
and his staff adopted and changed a bit but that still provide the 
framework and, I believe, the right structure.
  First--the chairman has already mentioned this--we create for the 
first time ever an early warning system on systemic risk. If there is 
one thing that has become clear from all of the hearings that have been 
held, not just at the Banking Committee but under Senator Levin's 
Investigations Committee and Chairman Lincoln's Agriculture Committee, 
it is that there was very little combination and sharing of information 
between the regulatory silos.
  The chairman's bill creates a nine-member Financial Oversight Council 
chaired by the Treasury Secretary and made up of the Federal financial 
regulators. This group will bear the responsibility, both good and bad, 
if they mess up, of spotting systemic risk and putting speed bumps in 
place because we can never prevent another future crisis, but to do all 
we can to slow and minimize the chance of those crises. The most 
important part of this systemic risk council is it will actually share 
information, so no longer will we have one regulator who is looking at 
the holding company, another regulator looking at the depository 
institution, a third looking at the securities concerns and not sharing 
that data.
  We will place increased cost on the size and complexity of firms. The 
largest, most interconnected firms will be required--not optional but 
required--to have higher capital, lower leverage, better liquidity, 
better risk management. Those have all been traditional tools that have 
already been in our regulatory system, but this systemic risk

[[Page S2617]]

council will require those large institutions to meet all of these 
higher costs--in effect, their cost of being so large and 
interconnected.
  But what we are also bringing to the table are three brandnew tools 
that I think, if executed and implemented correctly, will provide 
tremendous value in preventing that next financial crisis. Those three 
tools are contingent debt, our so-called funeral plans, and third, the 
Office of Financial Research. Since these are new tools, let me spend a 
moment on each.
  One of the things we saw in the 2007, 2008 crisis was that as these 
firms got to their day of reckoning, it became virtually impossible for 
them to raise additional capital and shore up their equity. Once they 
start going down the tubes, the ability to attract new investors, 
particularly from a management team that sometimes doesn't recognize 
how far and how close they are coming to the brink, is a great 
challenge.
  So working with folks from the Fed and experts across the country, 
this bill includes a whole new category within the capital structure of 
those large institutions: contingent debt. There will be funds within 
the capital structure that will convert into equity at the earliest 
signs of a crisis. Why is this important? This is important because if 
this debt converts into equity, the effect it has on the existing 
shareholders is it dilutes them. It takes money right out of their 
pockets. So existing shareholders will have a real incentive to hold 
management accountable, not to take undue risks, because long before 
bankruptcy or resolution we will be able to have this trigger in place 
that will convert this debt into equity, diluting existing shareholders 
and, candidly, diluting management as well. How effectively we use this 
tool has yet to be seen, but it will provide another early warning 
check on these large institutions.
  The second new addition to the chairman's bill is basically funeral 
plans for these large institutions. What do I mean? I mean a management 
team will have to come before their regulators and explain how they can 
unwind themselves in an orderly way through the bankruptcy process.
  We heard stories--I will not mention the institution--we heard 
stories in the height of the crisis in 2008 about how certain very 
large international institutions in effect came before the regulators 
and said: You have to bail us out because we cannot go through 
bankruptcy; it is just too hard. Never again should any institution be 
allowed to be in that position. And if we use this tool correctly--this 
is an area where I know the Presiding Officer has great interest--if 
the regulator does not sign off on the funeral plan for this 
institution, on how it can unwind itself, even with many of its 
international divisions, through an orderly bankruptcy process, then 
the regulator can, in effect, make this institution sell off or dispose 
of parts that can't be done through a regular order of bankruptcy. By 
doing this, we create the expectation in the marketplace that 
bankruptcy will always be the preferred option.
  Never again will there be an excuse that, we are too big and too 
complicated to go through that orderly process. Creditors and the 
market will know there is a plan in place that has to have been 
approved by the regulator and constantly updated so we have a way out.
  The third area--again, I was very pleased to hear the chairman 
mention this because within the press and the commentary, it has gotten 
no information or no focus at all--is the creation of a new Office of 
Financial Research within the Treasury.
  One of the things we heard time and again from regulators as we kind 
of went back and looked at how we got in the crisis of 2007 and 2008 
was that the regulators didn't realize the state of interconnectedness 
of some of the institutions they were supposed to be regulating. No one 
had a current, real-time market snapshot of all of the transactions 
that were taking place on a daily basis, so nobody knew what would 
happen if you pulled the string on AIG, even though it was their 
London-based office, what would happen if those contracts suddenly all 
became suspect.
  By creating this Office of Financial Research, we will give the 
regulators and the systemic risk council, on a daily basis, the current 
state of play across all the markets of the world.
  This tool, if used correctly, would be another terribly important 
early warning system. But as the chairman has mentioned, with all this 
good work, we still can't predict there will never be another financial 
crisis. Chances are Wall Street and others, creativity being what they 
are, will find some way, even with all this additional regulatory 
structure and oversight. We can never predict there might not be 
another crisis. So what do we do?
  First and foremost, what this bill puts in place is a strong 
presumption for bankruptcy so that creditors and the market alike will 
know what happens if they get themselves in trouble. Particularly for 
these largest institutions that are systemically important, they will 
have to have their preapproved, in effect, bankruptcy funeral plan on 
the shelf so that we can pull that off in the event of a crisis and 
allow the institution to go through an orderly bankruptcy process. 
Again, bankruptcy will be the preferred option of any reasonable 
management team because through bankruptcy there is at least some 
chance they may emerge on the other side in some form or another. They 
may be able to keep their job, if they are part of management. Some 
shareholders may still have some equity remaining.
  What happens if we have a firm that doesn't see the inevitable and 
isn't willing to move to bankruptcy? What happens if we have a 
circumstance where the failure of an institution could cause systemic 
risk and bring down the whole system?
  With an appropriate check and balance--and again, I commend Senator 
Corker for his additions--in effect, simultaneous action of three keys: 
the Treasury Secretary, the head of the Fed, the FDIC, and additional 
oversight--all of these actions taking place, there then is an ability 
to say, how do we resolve an institution, in effect put it out of 
business--unlike in 2008 where the government invested, in effect, in a 
conservatorship approach that said: We will prop you up to keep you 
alive because we don't know what to do with you to keep you alive 
because you are so large and systemically important.
  We have created in this bill a resolution process that says: If you 
as a management team are crazy enough not to go into bankruptcy, but 
actually allow resolution to take place, you are going out of business. 
Senator Corker said: You are toast. Your management team is toast. Your 
equity is toast. Your unsecured creditors are toast. You are going 
away.
  Again, we are going to put this institution out of business in a way 
that does not harm the overall financial system. We have to have an 
orderly process.
  We saw during the crisis of 2008 what happens when one of these 
institutions fails without any game plan. We saw the value of these 
institutions disappear overnight as confidence in the market, 
confidence within the market in the institution was lost. So working 
with my colleagues and experts from the FDIC and others, we said: What 
you have to do is, you have to have some dollars available to keep the 
lights on so that you can sell off the portions of the institution that 
are systemically important and unwind this in an orderly way that 
doesn't have an effect, the equivalent of a run on the bank or a run on 
the financial system.
  Again, we have heard critiques of the approach Senator Corker and I 
came up with in this resolution fund, this ``how do you put yourself 
out of business in an orderly way'' fund. We actually thought it ought 
to be paid for by the financial industry, with the ability then to have 
that fund, in effect, replenished after the crisis is over.
  I saw polling today that shows the overwhelming majority of Americans 
actually think the financial sector ought to bear the cost of unwinding 
one of these large, systemically important firms. Let me say, if there 
are other ways to do it--as a matter of fact, some in the 
administration have suggested other ways--I am sure we can find common 
ground as long as we do have at least two principles: First and 
foremost, the taxpayer must be protected, and industry, not the 
taxpayer, has to take the financial exposure. Second, funding has to be 
available quickly to allow resolution to work in a way to orderly 
unwind the process. But it ought to be done in a

[[Page S2618]]

way--again, this is where some of the judgment comes in--where there is 
not so much capital available that we create a moral hazard, but a 
bailout fund is created.
  Personally, I believe the House legislation goes too far in creating 
a fund of that size. I think the chairman's mark strikes a much more 
appropriate balance. But if there are ways to do this that protect the 
taxpayer, allow speedy resolution with funds that will be available so 
we don't have a run on the market, a run on the institution that 
creates more systemic risk, as long as the industry at the end of day 
is going to pay for it, I am sure there are other ways and we can find 
that common ground.
  What we did in this process of resolution is we said: Let's take what 
is working. Let's see what is best from the FDIC process which 
currently resolves banks on a regular basis. One of the things I have 
heard from some of my colleagues on the other side--I don't know about 
their community banks, but my community banks in Virginia; I would bet 
the community banks in Delaware and the community banks in 
Connecticut--we don't want to get stuck paying the bills for the large 
Wall Street firms that bring the system to the brink of financial 
catastrophe. So, again, one of the aspects of the chairman's bill is to 
make sure any resolution process does not burden, charge, or in any way 
otherwise interfere with community banks.
  What we think we have struck is a process that puts costs on those 
institutions that make the business decision to get large and 
systemically important. We think we have put in place abilities for the 
regulators, with the funeral plans, to make sure if this 
interconnectedness is so large that they can't go through bankruptcy, 
then we can stop them from taking on these new activities. But because 
we can't always predict eventuality, we have then said: If you need to 
use a resolution process, let's make sure it is orderly, paid for by 
industry, and that you have stood it up in a way that no rational 
management team would ever expect or want to choose resolution.
  I know my colleague from New Hampshire has been a great partner in 
this legislation and is on the Senate floor. I will end with just a 
couple more moments. There are other parts of this bill that have not 
received a lot of attention. In this bill, the chairman has included an 
office of national insurance.
  One of the things we saw in the crisis in the fall of 2008 was that 
nobody knew how entangled AIG's activities were with the whole 
financial system. This doesn't get to the question of who should 
regulate insurance companies, but it does create at the Federal level 
at least the knowledge within the insurance sector of its 
interconnectedness. The chairman has mentioned that he and Chairman 
Lincoln are working to grapple through one of the toughest parts of the 
bill--again, an area I know my colleague, Senator Gregg, has been 
working on: How we get it right around derivatives.
  Again, there is no policy difference. Both sides agree derivatives 
are an important tool when used appropriately. Particularly industrial 
companies need to use the derivative to hedge against future risk 
within their business. The challenge is, how do we not draw that end 
user exemption so large that every institution on Wall Street suddenly 
transforms itself into an industrial end user. Secondly, while these 
contracts are unique, they have to have more light shown on them in 
terms of clearing and exchanges.
  I know Chairman Dodd and Chairman Lincoln and Senator Reid and 
Senator Gregg will be working through this. One suggestion I would 
have--because as someone who has seen Wall Street act time and again, I 
wish them all the luck--part of my concern is that whatever rule we 
come up with, there is so much financial incentive on the other side 
that a year or two from now, we may be back because they found a way 
around it that we again need to give the regulators certain trip wires. 
I, for one, believe we ought to take the industry at its word. The 
industry says end users are only going to be 10 percent of total 
derivative contracts. Then let's put that in as a regulatory goal. If 
they end up exceeding that, then we can bring draconian consequences to 
bear. Or if they say, yes, we can make most of these transactions and 
most of these contracts transparent through clearing or exchange, 
great; let's accept them at their word.

  But if they don't get to those totals, then perhaps some of the 
actions that particularly Members on my side of the aisle would like to 
take can be put in place. But, again, folks of goodwill can find common 
agreement.
  Finally, the area around consumer protection, where the chairman and 
the ranking member have worked at great length to kind of sort this 
through, everybody agrees on the common goal. There needs to be 
enhanced consumer protection, particularly for the whole nonregulated 
portion of the financial industry that now exceeds the regulatory half. 
Too often it was the community bank that was chasing the mortgage 
broker on some of the bad financial products because there was no 
regulation on the mortgage broker to start with. So, again, there will 
be differences, but I think the approach of the chairman, which is to 
keep this with the appropriate rulemaking ability but to make sure, 
particularly for those smaller banks, that we don't end with 
conflicting information of a consumer regulator showing up on Monday 
and a safety and soundness regulator showing up on Wednesday, to do 
that in a combined fashion so there is commonality of message, 
particularly to smaller banks, that strikes that right balance.
  Again, I can only say for the banks in my State of Virginia, those 
smaller banks who oftentimes have said they didn't cause the crisis--
and they didn't--they are the first to say: We need enhanced consumer 
protection to make sure that our financial products are regulated by 
the type of product, not by the charter of the institution that issues 
the product. There may be ways to improve on this section. But, again, 
I think Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby are working to get it right.
  We have seen, as well, major action on the rating agencies, questions 
around underwriting. There are tremendous parts of this bill that 
haven't been the subject of great criticism because they are that 
common ground that, I think Senator Shelby has said in earlier quotes, 
80 or 90 percent of both sides agree on. Where we don't agree, we ought 
to debate and offer amendments.
  I look forward to candidly working with a number of colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle on technical amendments to this bill where we 
think we can make it slightly better. But if we are going to get there, 
we have to get to the debate.
  I hope we move past procedural back-and-forth that, as a new guy, I 
still don't fully understand. I think it is time to fully debate this 
bill out in the open. The chairman made mention of what has been taking 
place in the last few weeks in Greece. I know the Presiding Officer has 
helped educate me on a whole new activity that is taking place in the 
financial markets right now around high-speed trading and co-location 
that could be the forbear of the next financial crisis.
  How irresponsible would we be, 18 months after, again, the analogy of 
the chairman, after our house was broken into, when we haven't even put 
new locks on the door, if we ended up with another robbery, whether it 
was caused by internatinoal action or whether it was caused by high-
speed trading, because we don't have new rules of the road in place?
  In the 15 months I have had the honor of serving in the Senate, I 
can't think of a piece of legislation that better represents what is 
good about the Senate, folks on both sides of the aisle coming forth 
with their ideas, trying to fashion a good piece of legislation. I 
can't think of an area where there is less traditional partisan, left 
versus right, Democrat versus Republican divides. I can't think of an 
applause line better, whether I am talking to a group of liberal 
bloggers or folks from the tea party, than the notion that we have to 
end taxpayer bailouts.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let's get through 
the procedural wrangling. Let's find that common ground that I think we 
are 90 percent of the way there. Let's pass a bill that gets 60, 70, 80 
Members of the Senate and set financial rules of the road

[[Page S2619]]

that will last not just for the next congressional session but for 
decades to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the bill. This is such a 
complex piece of legislation, it is difficult to debate in a sense that 
is understandable because there is so much of a technical aspect to the 
bill.
  Let's start with the purpose or what I believe the purpose should be. 
Our purpose should be, one, to do as much as we can to build a 
regulatory regime which will reduce the potential for another event, 
the type of which we had at the end of 2008 where we had a massive 
breakdown in the financial system and, as a result of huge systemic 
risk being built into the system, which wasn't properly regulated and 
certainly was not handled correctly by either the financial 
institutions or by the Congress--the Congress maintains a fairly 
significant responsibility for the meltdown that occurred at the end of 
2008, for the policies that we had running up to that period in the 
area of housing. That should be our first goal, prospectively, trying 
to reduce systemic risk as much as possible in the system and putting 
in place policies which will accomplish that.
  The second goal, however, should be that we maintain what is a unique 
and rare strength which America has, which is that we have the capacity 
as a country to create capital and credit in a very aggressive way so 
entrepreneurs who are willing to go out and take risks have access to 
capital and credit, that creates jobs, and that creates the dynamics of 
our economy.
  We should not put in place a regulatory regime that overly reacts 
and, as a result, significantly dampens our capacity to have the most 
vibrant capital and credit markets in the world while still having safe 
and sound capital and credit markets.
  The bill the Senator from Connecticut is bringing forward, I presume, 
is going to have a lot of different sections in it. I want to focus on 
one because it has become a point of significant contention, and that 
is the derivatives section. Derivatives are extraordinarily complex 
instruments, and there are a lot of different variations of 
derivatives. They are basically insurance policies on an underlying 
product that is occurring somewhere in the economy. Their notional 
value is almost staggering. There is $600 trillion of notional value 
out there in derivatives, which is a number that nobody can comprehend. 
But you can understand it is a pretty big issue.
  Notional value means, of course, that if everything were to go wrong 
at the same time, you would have $600 trillion of insurance sitting out 
there that had to be paid off. That obviously is never going to happen. 
But the fact is, it shows the size of the market and what its 
implications are. There are all sorts of different elements to this 
market. It is not one monolithic market. It is not even a hundred, it 
is thousands--tens of thousands--of different and various things that 
are having derivatives written against them, although they divide into 
pretty understandable categories.
  Within the bill that came out of the Agriculture Committee, there 
was, for lack of a better word, an antipathy expressed toward the 
entities which presently manage the derivatives market in this country, 
which are essentially the large financial houses. There was an equal 
antipathy expressed relative to the entities that use these 
derivatives, including large amounts of manufacturing companies in this 
country, people who are dealing with financial debt instruments in this 
country, people who are dealing with the housing markets in this 
country.
  It was almost as if somebody sat back and said: We dislike these 
folks, and we are going to put in place a regime which will sort of 
gratuitously penalize them for the business they do because we do not 
like it. It is too big. It is too complicated. I think the people who 
wrote it felt it was not understandable and, therefore, they decided to 
put forward proposals which would fundamentally undermine the capacity 
to do derivatives in this country.
  Is that bad? Yes, it is very bad because derivatives basically are 
used for the purpose of making commerce work in our Nation, of making 
it possible for people to borrow money in our Nation, of making it 
possible for companies in our Nation to sell overseas, of making it 
possible for people to put a product in the stream of commerce and to 
presume that when they enter into an agreement on that product, the 
price would not be affected by extraneous events, such as the 
fluctuation of currency costs or fluctuations in material costs. So it 
is critical we get the derivatives language right.
  There needs to be a significant new look at the regulatory regime of 
derivatives. The essence of the exercise should be transparency, 
maintaining adequate capital for the counterparties and margins, 
liquidity. That should be where we focus our energy: trying to make 
sure the different derivatives products that are brought to the market 
are as transparent as possible and also have behind them the support 
they need in the form of collateral, capital, and margin, so if 
something goes wrong they will be paid off, for lack of a better word.
  This proposal, as it came out of the Agriculture Committee, does not 
try to accomplish that. Rather, it tries to essentially eviscerate the 
use of derivatives as products amongst a large segment of our economy. 
It sets up something called section 106, where it essentially says the 
people who are doing derivatives today, which are, for the most part, 
financial markets, must spin those products off from their financial 
houses.
  That sounds, in concept, like a reasonable idea, especially if you 
were in Argentina in the 1950s and working for the Peron government. 
But as a very practical matter, it is a concept which will do 
fundamental harm to the vitality of our economy. Why? Because you will 
not have a lot of derivative products in this country that will be able 
to pass the test of being spun off. You do not have to listen to me to 
believe this. Let me quote from a message that was sent to us by the 
Federal Reserve, which is a reasonably fair arbiter in this exercise. 
They do not have a dog in the fight other than the financial stability 
of our country. This is the Fed talking, not me:

       Section 106 would impair financial stability and strong 
     prudential regulation of derivatives; would have serious 
     consequences for the competitiveness of the U.S. financial 
     institutions; and would be highly disruptive and costly, both 
     for banks and their customers.

  That is about as accurate and succinct a statement as to what the 
effect of this section would be as I could have said. I did not say it. 
Nobody would probably believe me. The Fed said it. The fair arbiter 
said it.
  Why did they say that? Well, it is pretty obvious if you know 
anything about the way these products work. But essentially, if you 
spin off these products, you are going to have to create entities out 
there to replicate the entities they were spun off of. So if a large 
financial institution is now doing derivatives, and you spin the 
derivatives desk off, the swap desk off, from that financial entity, 
that spun-off event is going to have to replicate the capital structure 
of the financial institution which was basically underpinning the 
derivatives desk. That capital structure is estimated to be somewhere 
in the vicinity of a quarter of a trillion dollars to a half a trillion 
dollars of capital, which will have to be created.
  Well, what is the effect of that? When you start putting capital like 
that into the system, that capital comes from somewhere--assuming it 
comes at all--it comes from somewhere, and where it comes from, quite 
honestly, is the creditworthiness of other activity. It is not new 
capital. It is taking capital and recreating an event, a freestanding 
entity here, of which capital is not around.
  It will also mean there would be a contraction--and this is an 
estimate not of the Fed but of the group of entities that actually do 
this business and, therefore, it can be called suspect, but I think it 
is in the ballpark, give or take a couple hundred billion dollars--it 
will also cause a contraction of about $700 billion of credit in this 
country, to say nothing of the fact that if you are looking for a 
derivatives contract and you cannot go to the financial houses that 
usually do it in the United States, and you are a commercial entity or 
a hedging group, you are going to go overseas and do it because they 
are not going to have these types of restrictions and you are going to 
be able to buy that contract in Singapore.

[[Page S2620]]

  So a large amount of entities, a large amount of business, will move 
offshore almost immediately upon the passage of this bill, should this 
section be kept in it.
  Is it necessary, is the question. Is it necessary to make the 
derivatives market work right in this country? Absolutely not. This is 
punitive language put in out of spite because there is a movement in 
this country, and in this Congress, unfortunately, which I call 
pandering popularism, which simply dislikes anything that has to do 
with Wall Street.
  I am sure they did a lot of things wrong and they caused a lot of 
problems. But if you are going to apply the problems that occurred 
around here fairly, we should be looking in our own mirror, at 
ourselves, for some of the problems we caused to the American economy, 
by forcing a lot of lending in a housing market that could not sustain 
it. It is penal. That is the purpose of this: punitive. In the end, it 
is going to cut off our nose to spite our face because it will be our 
credit that contracts, and business can be done and could be done in a 
very effective way, here in the United States, overseas.

  What should be done here? What should be done rather than this 
exercise, as the Fed has said, in causing a ``highly disruptive and 
costly'' effect on banks and their customers, and having serious 
consequences on the competitiveness of the United States? Remember, we 
are competing in the world. That may have escaped the attention of the 
Agriculture Committee when they wrote this language, but we are in a 
world competition. Derivatives are not a unique American product. They 
are a world product. So these are jobs that go overseas. This is credit 
that goes overseas. This is business that goes overseas. This is Main 
Street that will be affected by this language.
  How should it have been done? Well, it should have been done in a 
rational way, not in a punitive way. We know the derivatives market was 
not transparent enough. We know there was not enough capital, 
liquidity, margin--whatever you want to call it--behind the products 
and the counterparties that were exchanging products in the derivatives 
market in the over-the-counter system. We know--because we have AIG as 
example No. 1--a tremendous amount of CDs, especially, were being 
written with nothing behind them except a name.
  We can fix all that. It can be fixed in a way that almost everybody 
is comfortable with by, first, making sure the exempted products from 
going on a clearinghouse are only products which have a specific 
commercial use and are customized and are narrow, and that the people 
doing those products are not large enough in their business so there 
are systemic issues. Secondly, we put everybody else in a 
clearinghouse.
  What does a clearinghouse mean? It essentially means there will be a 
third party insurer or holder of the basket of assets necessary to 
support the derivatives contracts so we are fairly confident when a 
trade is made in a clearinghouse, the counterparties have the liquidity 
in the margin behind their positions to support their trades. At the 
same time, the clearinghouse itself must be structured in a way that it 
has adequate capital.
  Where is that capital going to come from? It can only come from one 
place. It comes from the people who trade in these instruments. They 
are going to have to put up the capital. The regulators--the SEC, the 
CFTC--will have direct access to controlling and making sure that 
capital is adequate in the clearinghouses and making sure the 
clearinghouses are adequately monitoring the contracts.
  Then as the contracts become more standardized--and they can and they 
will; we all accept that--they move over to exchanges where they are 
basically traded like stock. Then you have absolute transparency, price 
disclosure, and you do not have the issue of the over-the-counter 
market that causes so much problem for us. That will happen. That will 
happen almost naturally, but you could have the regulators stand up and 
say: Well, we think this group of derivatives is standardized enough 
and you have to move it to an exchange. We could give that power to the 
regulators, and that makes sense. But it would happen naturally anyway 
as these clearinghouses become more effective and standardized in the 
products, and people become more comfortable with standardized products 
in these areas.
  Of course, there would have to be real-time disclosure to the 
regulators of what the prices were, if they are OTC prices or 
clearinghouse prices, so they know what is going on. Then it would be 
up to the regulators to decide when that information should be 
disclosed to the markets, depending on how you make these markets. 
Sometimes you cannot disclose the information immediately; otherwise, 
you would not be able to make a market; otherwise, you would not be 
able to do the contracts and, therefore, you would not be able to do 
the business, which underlies the need for the derivative.
  So all of that could be done. All of that could be done, and it does 
not require creating this entity or these series of entities out there 
which the Federal Reserve has described as impairing the ``financial 
stability and strong prudential regulation of derivatives.'' In other 
words, what the Federal Reserve is saying is, when you go in the 
direction of what is being proposed from the Agriculture Committee in 
the area of derivatives and set up this independent swap desk, you are 
not making things stronger in our financial structure; you are making 
them weaker. You are significantly reducing the strength of the 
regulatory arms that guide derivatives or oversee derivatives. You are 
also, as I mentioned earlier, creating an almost guaranteed-to-fail 
situation relative to the need for capital to support these derivative 
transactions. It is just--it just makes no sense at all.

  To begin with, derivatives are, by definition, a bank product, so the 
idea that they have to be spun out of banks and financial institutions 
is, on its face, absurd, truly absurd, and counterproductive to the 
whole purpose of doing derivatives, which are very important. The 
Congress recognizes that. In Gramm-Leach-Bliley, we called derivatives 
a bank product. We understood that then. We seem to have forgotten it 
now.
  I have been trying to figure out what is behind this type of language 
because it is so destructive to our competitiveness as a nation. This 
is the type of thing, as I said earlier, we would have seen in 
Argentina in the 1950s, this almost virulent populist attack on 
entities simply because they are large and because obviously there is a 
populous feeling against them, which ends up, by the way, significantly 
impacting Main Street in a negative way. Look at Argentina. In 1945, I 
believe, or 1937, somewhere in that period, they were the seventh best 
economy in the world, the seventh most prosperous people in the world. 
Now they are like 54th. It is because of this populous movement which 
has driven basically their ability to be competitive offshore. So now 
we have this huge populous movement here, and I am trying to think what 
is behind it. What is the rationale here, other than just rampant 
pandering populism? A vote occurred in the Budget Committee last week, 
of which I happen to be ranking member, which crystallized the 
situation. Senator Sanders from Vermont--whom I consider a friend and I 
enjoy immensely. He is a great guy. He has a great sense of humor, but 
we disagree on a lot of things. He runs as a Socialist. I run as a 
conservative. Senator Sanders offered an amendment which said that the 
government--and the government, I assume, would be four or five people 
down at Treasury or four or five people down at--I don't know where 
they would be, some new offices somewhere--has the right to break up 
large corporations. It didn't say break up large corporations which had 
problems, which had overextended themselves, which everybody agrees 
should happen. That is what Senator Warner was talking about. He has 
done extraordinary work in this area and I am supportive of his efforts 
on resolution authority, where if a big bank, a big financial house or 
a big entity gets into trouble, if they overextend themselves or they 
are essentially insolvent, they get broken up. There is no--the 
taxpayers do not come in, in any way, shape or manner and support that 
entity. That is what the Warner-Corker language does, and I believe the 
Senator from Connecticut has tried to incorporate a large amount of 
that. That should be our policy. But what the Sanders amendment said 
was anything--any financial house--could be

[[Page S2621]]

broken up simply because it was deemed to be big, no matter how 
resilient or strong it is; no matter if it is a major player for our 
Nation in being more competitive internationally.
  Remember, when an American company goes overseas, they want to use an 
American bank. They don't want to have to use the Credit Suisse or the 
Bank of Singapore. They want to use an American bank to follow them 
around the world, and those banks have to be pretty big to do that. 
Some of them are quite profitable and quite strong. Well, this language 
would have said no matter how strong and profitable you are and how 
robust you are and how much you contribute to the American economic 
system by giving us one level of financial services--which we need as a 
country, large financial institutions that can support very complex, 
sophisticated, international economic activity and domestic economic 
activity--that they would be broken up because a group of people in 
Washington didn't like them for social policy, social justice reasons. 
They didn't lend enough money to some group they wanted them to lend to 
or they lent too much money to some group they didn't want money lent 
to. For social justice reasons, we will go in and break up this 
company, even though it is totally solvent, strong, fiscally 
responsible.
  That is the policy that was proposed in the Budget Committee. Ten 
people voted for that policy. Ten. Ten out of the twenty-two people who 
voted, voted for that policy. Incredible. Where does that stop? Where 
does that stop? Where does this section 106 stop? Do we break up 
Walmart because they are not union? Do we break up McDonald's because 
they sell food that some people think makes you too fat? Do we break up 
Coca-Cola because they have too much sugar in their products? Does 
anything that is big in this country get broken up because there is an 
attitude that big is bad, whether it contributes or not? Unless you 
happen to be big and union, in which case you get saved, of course, as 
the UAW was able to work out with GM and Chrysler.
  That is the essence of this language. This language isn't about 
fixing the derivatives market at all. You can fix the derivatives 
market in a most comprehensive and substantive and effective way that 
keeps America the best place to create these types of products in the 
most sound and safe way. You can do that, and I have outlined pretty 
specifically how you would do it, without this section. I will close by 
reading one more time how the fair arbiter has defined it, the Federal 
Reserve. This is such a damaging section that it cannot be 
underestimated the damage to our economy were it to be approved.

       Section 106 would impair financial stability and strong 
     prudential regulations of derivatives; would have serious 
     consequences for the competitiveness of U.S. financial 
     institutions; and would be highly disruptive and costly, both 
     for banks and their customers.

  Remember, their customers are the people who work on Main Street for 
the companies that use derivatives, and almost every company in this 
country of any size uses a derivative to hedge their risks. Ironically, 
this is all done in the name of social justice because Wall Street is 
bad, so we are going to go out and cut off our nose to spite our face.
  It is incomprehensible that a nation which has become as strong and 
as vibrant as we have by promoting a market economy would decide to go 
down this route, which is the antipathy of a market economy, but that 
is where we are. That is what has happened here, and that is the 
direction we are going. It is unnecessary, by the way, as I said 
earlier; unnecessary, because derivatives can be made safer and sounder 
by simply restructuring the transparency and the manner in which they 
are put on clearinghouses, limiting the amount of those that are 
subject to exemption, and pushing people toward exchanges, to the 
fullest extent possible and to the extent it will work. All that can be 
done without this type of language which is so destructive and, as the 
Fed has said, will have the exact opposite effect of what it is alleged 
to be doing.
  Mr. President, I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Hampshire. We 
are great friends and have worked together on a number of issues over 
the years together. In a matter of months, both of us will be former 
Members of this institution. Let me express my gratitude to him for his 
service over the years and his commitment to these issues.
  He has focused his attention on the particular matter coming out of 
the Agriculture Committee, of which we are all very much aware. That 
proposal was supported by Democrats as well as, as my colleagues know, 
a Republican on the committee. As my colleague from Arkansas pointed 
out and as I am sure we have heard already, there was at least an 
appearance of bipartisanship on this bill.
  The Senator from New Hampshire raises some very important issues. 
There are a number of our colleagues who have very strong feelings, 
different than those of my friend and colleague from New Hampshire, as 
we know; otherwise, it wouldn't have come out of the committee with the 
vote it did, and, therefore, the subject of a debate in this Chamber. I 
should, of course, begin by thanking him as a member of the Banking 
Committee for his participation involving our product in the Banking 
Committee.
  The issue before us in the next few minutes is whether we can have 
this debate on these issues. Again, as my colleague from Alabama has 
pointed out on several occasions, we are 80 percent or 90 percent, 
whatever the number he wants to talk about, there in terms of agreeing 
to a major part of what our bill proposes. Obviously, we are not all 
there. You can't ever get ``all there'' in one of these debates, before 
you have the opportunity to do exactly that, where Members have a 
chance to be heard, to raise their ideas, a different point of view, 
and my friend from New Hampshire feels as passionately as do others 
about their point of view. That is the purpose of having a debate and 
an institution such as this for that debate to occur.

  My hope would be, again, that when this motion to proceed occurs, 
though some may share the views of my friend from New Hampshire or some 
may have an alternative view, as is certainly the case in major parts 
of this bill as I have written it along with my committee members--that 
is the purpose for which this institution exists, to have that debate. 
No one Member, no one committee, no handful of Members should even 
suggest that they have the right to write the legislation without the 
consideration of others. So there is a difference of opinion on these 
matters.
  I see my colleague from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, if my friend will yield for a few 
minutes, I understand my friend from New Hampshire had something to 
say.
  Mr. DODD. What time is the vote to occur?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. At 5 p.m.
  Mr. DODD. The Senator from Vermont better take the next 3 minutes.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I will do what I can in 3 minutes.
  My good friend from New Hampshire, my colleague from across the 
Connecticut River, apparently does not have a problem with the fact 
that the largest financial institutions in this country that we bailed 
out because of their recklessness, greed, and illegal behavior have, 
since the bailout, become even larger. Three out of the four major 
financial institutions, all of which were bailed out, have become 
larger. No matter what anybody tells you, when one of these 
institutions is about to tip over and take a good part of the economy 
with them, despite the rhetoric today, people are going to be bailing 
them out, and they are going to lose millions of jobs if we don't.
  The reality is, we have a situation now where the top six banks in 
this country, despite what the Senator from New Hampshire has 
suggested, now have total assets in excess of 63 percent of GDP. We are 
talking over $7 trillion. When you have six institutions with 63 
percent of total assets compared to GDP, I think we have a problem, and 
we have a problem for two reasons. No. 1, we have a problem in terms of 
taxpayer liability and the fact that we will, once again, have to bail 
these behemoths out. Secondly, as Teddy Roosevelt told us 100-plus 
years ago, it is time to break up these guys because they have 
incredible concentration of ownership over our entire economy.
  It is incomprehensible to me that the Senator from New Hampshire can 
be

[[Page S2622]]

comfortable as a conservative--doesn't like big government but 
apparently doesn't mind huge financial institutions.
  So I think that anyone who is not worried about the concentration of 
ownership within our financial institutions is missing an enormously 
important point, not just from too big to fail but economic 
concentration of ownership.
  With that, I thank my friend from Connecticut and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 349, S. 3217, the Restoring American 
     Financial Stability Act of 2010.
         Harry Reid, Christopher J. Dodd, Byron L. Dorgan, Mark 
           Udall, Roland W. Burris, Daniel K. Inouye, Sherrod 
           Brown, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Mark Begich, Patrick J. 
           Leahy, Tom Udall, Patty Murray, Tom Harkin, Richard J. 
           Durbin, Frank R. Lautenberg, Benjamin L. Cardin, Bill 
           Nelson, Jack Reed.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call is waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to S. 3217, the Restoring America's Financial 
Stability Act of 2010, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Utah (Mr. Bennett) and the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 57, nays 41, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 124 Leg.]

                                YEAS--57

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--41

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Brown (MA)
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Bennett
     Bond
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 57, the nays are 
41. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote by 
which cloture was not invoked on the motion to proceed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is entered.
  The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, I was not intending to speak because I 
was hopeful that tonight we would have a simple vote that would move us 
to debate on a bill that I think people have been waiting for, for a 
long time, and that is getting reform to our banking institutions and 
financial institutions.
  I will say for those who are watching and listening, I am new here. I 
have been here a little over a year, and I am trying to understand all 
of the process. But one thing I have learned is this great motion 
called a motion to proceed--a lot of people watch and see us vote and 
think, oh, the bill has gone down.
  This motion was a very simple motion. It allowed us to move to the 
bill so we can debate. What I have heard over the last several weeks 
and literally the last 48 hours is the desire for people to add 
amendments and talk about it and do all of the things we want to do and 
to have full debate on the floor. But because of this simple motion 
that the Senate requires, which I think is kind of a foolish motion--
that is my personal opinion--this motion to proceed, we are not even 
allowed now to debate this bill and offer amendments to this very 
important financial reform legislation.
  So I am disappointed. I am disappointed for us as a body that we 
can't move forward. Second, I think my constituents in Alaska are 
disappointed that we don't have an opportunity to debate this issue and 
throw amendments on the floor to refine a good piece of legislation and 
move us forward to getting reform in our financial institutions, 
especially these megabanks.
  Over the last year and a half since I have been here--almost a year 
and a half--all I have heard about is how bad this economy was a year 
or so ago and what caused it was the financial institutions just kind 
of crashing in because of the rules--or the lack of rules--under which 
they operated. The goal of the Senate is to try to create some rules, 
to make sure the public sees some transparency in these megabanks. Yet, 
for whatever reason, our friends on the other side are not willing to 
even move this forward.
  But I also learned today, just reading some of the material we get 
every single minute around this place, that they have been working on a 
bill for months. I don't know where they have been working on this bill 
because I sure as heck haven't seen it. The public hasn't seen it. I do 
know they have been having a lot of meetings up on Wall Street, and 
maybe that is where they are writing the bill. But I haven't seen this 
bill for 2, 3, 4, 5 months, whatever the timetable they claim they have 
been working on some legislation. That is what I read today. But the 
public hasn't seen it. The American people haven't seen it. And we 
actually had a chance tonight to vote to allow us to see it and have a 
debate, and they wouldn't allow that.
  So I am disappointed. I am disappointed that we don't have that 
opportunity. I am disappointed for the American people that we will not 
move forward on banking and financial reform, which is desperately 
needed. It is what crashed this economy, because of the lack of rules 
and the carelessness of so many with hard-earned dollars from working 
people across this country that they had put into banks and anticipated 
it would be put aside and protected and not put into some high-risk 
ventures that later on banks did and other megabanks did and caused 
this economy to be in the position it is in today.
  In Alaska, we have some great institutions. Our credit unions and our 
community banks did a great job. They were not investing in risky 
ventures. They were not investing in risky financial instruments with 
hard-earned dollars people put into those banks as investors or people 
deposited in those banks. The credit unions and these small community 
banks did a great job.
  This is our opportunity to not continue the status quo. It is clear 
to me that the other side is interested in the status quo, where 
billionaires became billionaires again by betting against the recovery 
of the economy, which is amazing, to me. They bet against the American 
people. They hoped they would be foreclosed on. Those are the rules the 
other side wants to continue. Now, maybe I am living in another world. 
I am betting on the American people. I am betting on Alaskans, that we 
want to move forward, not the status quo where this economy almost 
crashed and burned.
  At the same time, we want to make sure that banks in the future 
cannot be coming to the taxpayers and asking us for a bailout because 
that ain't happening, at least while I am here, anymore. It is 
outrageous that the taxpayers got left behind in this process.

[[Page S2623]]

  So, again, I am disappointed. It is amazing, as I said, that they are 
drafting some bill somewhere in some dark room somewhere. I don't know 
if it is in the Capitol or up on Wall Street. It is somewhat amazing to 
me, the people were complaining some time ago on some legislation they 
said we were drafting in the back room--which was not true--and now 
they are doing the exact same thing they complained about. The 
hypocrisy is unbelievable.
  So I was not planning to come down here and speak. I was voting like 
the rest of us, thinking we were going to move forward, and here we 
are: No bill to offer amendments, no bill to strengthen our financial 
position. Same old business as usual, status quo. The rich get richer. 
The people who are working hard every single day suffer, lost their 
401(k)s or their education retirement accounts they set aside for their 
kids or thought they put them in a bank that was supposed to be secure, 
ended up who knows where, except in a few people's pockets who were 
working on Wall Street.
  So I am disappointed. I would hope our colleagues on the other side 
would allow us the opportunity to offer amendments to financial reform 
legislation that will, for once and for all, hold these financial 
institutions accountable for the actions they caused to this country 
that almost put us on the verge of bankruptcy.
  Thank you for the opportunity to vent, I guess would be my view right 
now, in aggravation of what is going on. But, again, it is our job to 
hold these financial institutions accountable for what they did to the 
taxpayers of this country. I hope our colleagues on the other side will 
see the light of day and join us to offer a debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I am pleased to be here with my 
colleague from Alaska. I also was not planning to come to the floor to 
talk about this tonight because I thought the vote was going to pass. 
This is called a motion to proceed, and around here, I think that is 
Senate-speak for a motion to not get anything done. That is what 
happens when we do these motions.
  It is particularly aggravating because I was back in Colorado this 
weekend, as I am every weekend, traveling the State and had the chance 
to see the TV from time to time. You couldn't turn on a television 
station without seeing some politician from this town on TV talking 
about the importance of getting this work done, Democrats and 
Republicans, people taking the time out of their weekend to say to the 
American people: We are actually working hard to try to correct the 
problems that led us into the worst recession since the Great 
Depression. Then we all get back to town on Monday and we don't get 
anything done. We take a vote, not on the bill but a vote that would 
just allow us to debate the bill, to amend the bill, to get Republican 
amendments and Democrat amendments, to improve the legislation, and we 
are told we can't do that. We can have the debate on the airwaves, we 
can have the debate all weekend long on television in front of the 
American people, but when we come back here, in theory, to do the 
people's business, somehow we cannot debate it anymore. This is the 
reason so many people across the country think Washington is completely 
out of touch.
  There are people saying: Well, the recovery started. Everything is OK 
again. And I am glad to see there are some signs of improvement in our 
economy. But for the families in Colorado, there is still a lot of 
struggle going on, there are still of lot of people worried about 
losing their houses or how to replace the houses they have lost, 
worried about losing their jobs or how to pay for their kids' higher 
education.
  The last period of economic growth in our country's history before we 
were pitched into the worst recession since the Great Depression was 
the first time in this Nation's history ever, ever, that our economy 
grew, our gross domestic product grew, but middle-class incomes fell in 
the United States. In Colorado, it fell by $800, while the cost of 
health insurance went up by 97 percent, the cost of higher education 
went up by 50 percent.
  Our families are recovering not just from one recession but 
effectively from two recessions, and you would think the least we could 
do would be to put some commonsense regulations in place that, had they 
been in place before the last crisis, we wouldn't have had the crisis 
to begin with.
  Our last period of economic growth in this country was based on debt, 
too much debt at every level of the economy.
  The consumers have too much debt. Washington has too much debt. Some 
bankholding companies in New York that historically had 12 to 14 times 
debt to equity decided during that period to go to 28 and 30 times. By 
any standard, it is an incredibly risky strategy. To make matters 
worse, the way they leveraged themselves up was with derivatives that 
no regulator was looking at, that shareholders didn't even understand, 
that bondholders didn't even understand. The commonsense reforms that 
are in place in this bill--because of the work of the Banking 
Committee, the work of the Agriculture Committee, both committees on 
which I serve--would have cured that problem.
  Ultimately, what we are trying to do is put ourselves in the position 
of never having to say some financial institution is too big to fail or 
that the taxpayers have to hold a gun to their head and clean up 
somebody else's greedy mistake; to make sure there is transparency in 
the marketplace so we know what securities are being traded.
  I have spent half my life in the private sector, a lot of it in the 
capital markets. This is not an antibusiness piece of legislation. In 
fact, quite the contrary. There are a lot of businesses out there that 
have been harmed terribly by judgments that were not made because they 
were prudent business decisions but to make a fast buck.
  Here we are on Monday night, after a weekend of people talking on 
television programs, and we can't get done the American people's 
business. Again, this is not an up-or-down vote on the bill. This is 
just a vote so we can have a debate on the floor of the Senate, so we 
have the opportunity to amend and improve the bill. I am sure the bill 
is not perfect. In fact, I know it is not perfect. It has room for 
improvement.
  I see my colleague from the Banking Committee from the Commonwealth 
of Virginia is here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, let me thank my colleague from Colorado, 
a member of the Banking Committee, who has been part of trying to get 
this bill right over the last 14, 15 months. He has spent a career in 
the private sector, as I did. I think we both can read a balance sheet. 
We both understand it is the capital markets that drive the American 
economy. I think we both agree we want to keep America the capital of 
capital formation for the whole world. We don't want this to migrate to 
London or Shanghai or elsewhere around the world.
  We also know 18 months after we came to the precipice of a financial 
meltdown ought to be enough time to put rules of the road into place so 
we can give the market what it craves most, which is predictability.
  I will not go on at length. I had the opportunity earlier when the 
chairman was here, and I think, unfortunately, I probably spoke for 
about 40 minutes going through how we got to this point and all the 
things in this bill to put these new rules of the road in place. I will 
only make two or three quick points.
  One, in my 15 months here, as a new guy, I have never seen a bill 
that has had more bipartisan input than this piece of legislation. I 
had a great colleague in Senator Corker from Tennessee. We worked on 
the too-big-to-fail and the resolution piece. There are places that can 
still be improved. I would love to work with Senator Corker on some 
technical amendments to make this better. But this was a bipartisan 
piece of legislation.
  Two, I actually think there is a great deal of agreement on both 
sides of the aisle about our policy goals. I am not talking about the 
role of government or who should get covered or not covered, the way it 
was with health care. We all agree, no more taxpayer bailouts, more 
transparency, that there ought to be some sense of fairness in the 
financial system, and that consumers ought to know the financial 
products they are using and buying, or

[[Page S2624]]

mortgages they are making have some basic underlying protections. I 
have yet to hear any of my colleagues on the other side disagree with 
those basic premises. I think we are still working toward what I hope 
will be, as opposed to some of the disappointments that have come out 
of this Chamber, something we can all be proud of and something the 
American people can be proud of in that we found some common ground.
  I have to acknowledge, I am not a very good political prognosticator. 
I assumed last week there was an 80-percent chance we would get a 
bipartisan bill. I still believe that. I am not sure anybody who is 
listening tonight understands procedurally why our colleagues who share 
the same goals, those of us who have been working in bipartisan teams, 
who have amendments that will help strengthen the bill, shouldn't be 
spending tonight talking about those amendments, offering those 
amendments, offering those improvements, having those who disagree 
debating, when there was a bipartisan product to date and will be a 
bipartisan end solution, I believe. The American people demand, 18 
months after the fact, that we put these new financial rules of the 
road in place.
  Unlike many of my colleagues, I get to go home to Virginia tonight. 
If I run into a Virginian who wants an explanation of why we are not on 
the bill, I would not know what to tell them. My friend from Colorado 
spent the weekend crisscrossing Colorado. He is asking folks to rehire 
him. I share he is head scratching on why we aren't here talking about 
something on which there is not major policy differences. There is 
common agreement that we need to have reform, and a lot of the reform 
parts there is agreement on. Where there is not agreement, there is 
actually more bipartisan consensus on the form of the amendments.
  I would love to hear from the Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Virginia. As 
he was talking, I was thinking about my work in the real world, as he 
has had that experience. If you were in a position where everybody 
wanted to get it done, if there was general agreement that you were 80 
or 90 percent of the way there, the way to get it done was not to not 
continue discussion. It wasn't to say: Well, I am going to pick up and 
fly back to Denver or fly back to Virginia until cooler heads prevail. 
It was to stay in the room and get it done.
  I think, particularly when this isn't about a private sector 
transaction, this is about the American people's business, the people 
who have hired everybody here to do this job, it is a shame that we 
should not be out here tonight in a bipartisan way figuring out how to 
cross the t's and dot the i's and put a framework in place that would 
have prevented the catastrophe our families are now continuing to live 
through.
  Sometimes that is one of the things people forget. There are parts of 
the economy that have recovered faster than others. There are parts of 
the economy where people are getting hired or paid, other parts where 
people are still struggling along. The people I saw this weekend were 
people who were struggling along. They are not interested in engaging 
in class warfare, as some people say. What they are interested in is 
making sure we create a set of conditions where the game is not rigged 
and where they have some predictability in their lives as business 
people and as working families.
  Like my colleague, I am new. Maybe we don't know exactly the way this 
place works. I hope somewhere in this building there are people who are 
coming together to figure out how we can create the conditions where we 
could at least get a vote to have the conversation about how to get to 
that last 10 percent on this bill.
  Mr. WARNER. Again, one final comment. I know the Presiding Officer is 
a new Member as well. This is one of those moments when there has been 
a year and a half of bipartisan work that has gone on, when there seems 
to be a commonality of interest in what the goals of financial reform 
are. I don't know about the Presiding Officer, I don't know about my 
friend from Colorado, but I never got the memo that said our job wasn't 
actually to get stuff done. There were legitimate, major policy 
differences in the health care discussion. But in this discussion, 
there are things that need to be worked out, but the goals we have all 
agreed on. The bipartisan working groups have been at it for more than 
a year.
  I implore my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, I don't 
know if maybe there was some procedural shenanigans, that kind of back 
and forth. But I hope my colleagues from the other side of the aisle--I 
see my colleague actually who has great expertise in the financial 
sector, the new Senator from North Carolina coming in--some of the 
newer folks, whatever the reason our colleagues on the other side 
didn't want to get to a real discussion of the bill, I hope they can 
come back later tonight, first thing tomorrow, and we can move to this 
bill, talk about it, put forward those amendments. I know I will have 
some bipartisan amendments to make the bill stronger.
  I know my colleagues will. At the end of the day, let us get the 
people's business done. As my friend has said, the Dow may be back 
north of 11,000, but that doesn't mean much if you don't have a job. 
One of the ways we can guarantee the financial markets will continue to 
have the capital to make the loans, to make the investments, to create 
that next wave of jobs is to make sure we have in place financial rules 
of the road.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mrs. HAGAN. Madam President, I, too, am disappointed that my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided against even 
debating Wall Street reform legislation in the Senate. It has been 
almost 2 years since our financial system stood on the brink of 
absolute catastrophe. The meltdown on Wall Street has wreaked havoc on 
Main Street across America. Millions of Americans lost their homes, 
their jobs, their retirement savings. Taxpayers were asked to fund a 
massive bailout of Wall Street.
  Here we are, a full 2 years later, trying to debate a bill that will 
establish new rules of the road, create a more stable financial system, 
and ensure the American taxpayer will not be asked to bail out Wall 
Street banks again. I am sorry to say my colleagues today voted to 
stand up for Wall Street instead of standing up for all the people on 
Main Street who lost their job and their entire life savings.
  They voted against the seniors who saw their 401(k)s instantly eaten 
away by the reckless games Wall Street was playing with their hard-
earned money.
  In my State, this recession, the worst since the Great Depression, 
has meant that currently half a million North Carolinians are out of 
work. In many families, both the husband and wife are out of a job. 
They are worried how they will put food on the table for their 
families.
  Democrats have been working in good faith for many months on a bill 
to hold Wall Street accountable for gambling with the money of North 
Carolinians and people across the country. I know Chairman Dodd has 
been working with Republicans on the Banking Committee for the last 
year and a half. The time has come to have this debate on the floor of 
the Senate. Wall Street reform means ending taxpayer-funded bailouts. 
It also means establishing new standards for the complicated financial 
products that contributed to this economic downturn.
  The purpose of this bill is to ensure the recent financial meltdown 
never happens again and that we protect seniors who lost retirement 
savings and small business owners who got caught up in the credit 
freeze and the countless Americans who lost their job. It means 
protection for consumers from irresponsible banking practices and 
greater certainty for bankers. Banks need to be able to understand what 
the ground rules will be so they can focus on the business of banking. 
North Carolina is a leader in the banking industry. Both our State's 
banks and banking customers will benefit from responsible financial 
reforms.
  The proposed legislation also creates an office of financial literacy 
that will develop initiatives intended to educate and empower consumers 
to make informed financial decisions. Our students today need the tools 
to understand financial products and how to manage debt, including 
mortgages, student loans, and credit cards.

[[Page S2625]]

  I hope my colleagues will listen to the American people on this 
issue. It is imperative we pass commonsense Wall Street reform so 
American taxpayers will never again have to shoulder the cost of a 
financial crisis.
  Madam President, I yield my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I am disappointed but not surprised 
that our Republican colleagues have chosen not to go forward in terms 
of financial reform because we should be very clear that when we do 
financial Wall Street reform, we are taking on not only the most 
powerful people in the United States of America but some of the most 
powerful people in the world--people of endless resources.
  When Congress deregulated Wall Street, against my vote, Wall Street 
and their allies, over a 10-year period, spent $5 billion fighting for 
deregulation so they could be in a position to do anything they wanted, 
which was, of course, what brought us the terrible recession we are 
currently in. Last year alone, in 2009, the financial interests spent 
$300 million in lobbying, campaign contributions, in order to fight 
finance and Wall Street reform. So I am not surprised that at this 
point our Republican friends have not chosen to go forward. I hope they 
change their mind, and I hope they know back home the American people 
are profoundly disgusted at the behavior of Wall Street, and they want 
to make sure we never again will be placed in the position of having to 
bail out people who, through their greed and recklessness, have brought 
suffering to tens and tens of millions of Americans.
  As we proceed--and I believe we will proceed--to Wall Street reform, 
it is also important we not just pass something for the sake of a press 
release but we do something substantive. There are a lot of issues out 
there. I know Senator Dodd has brought forth a bill with 1,600 pages in 
it. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of important issues. I want 
to touch on simply three that I believe are essential if we are going 
to be serious--underline ``serious''--about Wall Street reform.
  Issue No. 1. I receive calls every week from Vermonters--and I 
suspect the Presiding Officer does from people in New Hampshire--who 
are disgusted by having to pay 25-, 30-, 35-percent interest rates on 
their credit cards. In my view, usury is immoral. If you look at 
Christianity or Judaism or Islam or any of the major religions, they 
make the point that charging outrageous interest rates to desperate 
people is immoral.
  We finally have to end usury in the United States. We have to put a 
cap on the interest rates that financial institutions can charge when 
they issue credit cards. The amendment I will be bringing before the 
floor is similar to what has existed for several decades now for credit 
unions. Credit unions today are doing just fine, but they cannot charge 
more than 15-percent interest rates, except under exceptional 
circumstances. If it is good for credit unions, it is good, in my view, 
for Wall Street and large financial institutions.
  Second of all, I think there is great skepticism about the role of 
the Fed and the lack of transparency that exists in the Federal 
Reserve. About a year ago, Chairman Bernanke came before the Budget 
Committee on which I serve and I asked him a pretty simple question. I 
said: Mr. Chairman, you have lent out trillions--underline 
``trillions''--of dollars in zero or near-zero interest loans to the 
largest financial institutions in America. Could you please tell me and 
the American people who received those trillions of dollars in loans?
  I do not think that was a terribly unfair question to ask. Mr. 
Bernanke said: No, I am not going to tell you. He gave me his reasons 
why. I disagreed. The American people have a right to know who received 
those loans. The American people have a right to know whether some of 
those large financial institutions took those zero-percent interest 
loans and then went out and bought government bonds, T bonds, at 3-
percent interest, which, if true--as I suspect it is--is a huge scam, a 
huge scam. So we need transparency in the Fed, and I am going to bring 
an amendment to the floor to do that.
  The third point I want to make is, in, I believe, November of 2009 I 
introduced legislation--three pages--very simple legislation, which 
called for breaking up large financial institutions. As this bill 
proceeds, my colleagues Senator Brown and Senator Kaufman are going to 
be offering a bill along those lines, which basically says if an 
institution is so large that its collapse will bring systemic damage to 
the entire economy, we have to start breaking up those institutions--
break them up. If a financial institution is too big to fail, in my 
view, it is too big to exist.
  The issue here is not just the liability, the potential liability for 
the taxpayers of this country if a large financial institution 
collapses and we have to bail them out, it is also an economic issue. 
Are we comfortable when, according to Simon Johnson, the former chief 
economist of the IMF, ``as a result of the crisis and various 
government rescue efforts, the largest six banks in our economy now 
have total assets in excess of 63 percent of GDP. . . . This is a 
significant increase from even 2006. . . .''
  I find it quite interesting the senior Senator from New Hampshire was 
on the floor a little while ago attacking me because in the Budget 
Committee I brought up a resolution which lost 12 to 10 to begin to 
break up these large financial institutions. I get a little bit tired 
of our conservative friends who say: Oh, the government cannot do 
anything. We hate big government. But apparently they do not hate large 
financial institutions, six of which have assets equivalent to over 60 
percent of the GDP of this country.
  Teddy Roosevelt, a good Republican, over 100 years ago started 
breaking up large financial institutions, large corporations. What we 
are talking about now is a handful of corporations, of financial 
institutions that play a very negative role in creating a stranglehold 
and a lack of competition in our entire economy. I intend to be 
strongly supporting the amendment brought forth by Senator Brown and 
Senator Kaufman. I think it is moving exactly in the right direction.
  So I am disappointed but not surprised that the Republicans have not 
chosen to go forward on Wall Street reform. I hope they will reconsider 
that. When we do go forward, I hope we listen to the American people, 
we take serious action, and we start the process of standing up to some 
of the most powerful people not only in this country but in the world.
  With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I appreciate the words from the 
Senator from Vermont and his support of the Brown-Kaufman amendment and 
his work on real Wall Street reform.
  Two years ago, as we know, we were on the verge of another Great 
Depression. Wall Street had gorged itself on greed and junk debt. 
Markets panicked and chaos and hardship threatened Main Street. At the 
request of the Bush administration, we acted swiftly, we acted 
bipartisanly, to pull ourselves back from the brink of economic 
collapse. We saved the banks temporarily, as we should have, but Wall 
Street recklessness, aided and abetted by lax regulation and 
deregulation and appointments by the Bush administration of people far 
too friendly to Wall Street, had done its damage. Wall Street's greed 
led to more than 7 million Americans losing their jobs.
  Go to Mansfield or Lima or Sandusky or Cleveland or Zanesville and 
see the damage it did to American manufacturing. Wall Street's excess 
and rampant speculation caused nearly 6 million home foreclosures. Go 
to neighborhoods in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati or go to neighborhoods 
on the west side of Cleveland or go to neighborhoods in north Columbus 
and see the damage Wall Street excess and rampant speculation caused to 
homes and families in my State.
  Here we are 2 years later and Wall Street is continuing to risk Main 
Street jobs, Main Street pensions, and Main Street homes on get-rich-
quick schemes. Here we are 2 years later in reach of legislation 
designed to put an end to the recklessness, and Wall Street and Senate 
Republicans--and sometimes it is hard to tell the difference--are 
delaying and hoping to kill any such reforms. We cannot afford to let 
this be delayed any further. Bear Stearns collapsed 2 years ago.

  Senator Dodd, after careful thought, put out a working draft of 
legislation

[[Page S2626]]

the following November. There was a big hue and cry over that draft--
many said it was too tough on Wall Street--but Chairman Dodd continued 
working on the draft, talking to Republicans and Democrats on the 
Banking Committee and throughout the Senate. He put together bipartisan 
working groups, including Senators Corker and Warner, Senators Gregg 
and Reed, Senators Dodd and Shelby, and Senators Crapo and Schumer--a 
Republican and a Democrat in each negotiating team.
  So we have been working on this since the start of the financial 
crisis. It has been months since Senator Dodd first put his legislation 
out for the public's review. But here we are tonight--requesting a 
simple up-or-down vote so we can start debate--and the entire Senate 
Republican caucus said no.
  They are filibustering. They are delaying. I think they are trying to 
destroy this bill. All we are trying to do tonight is--not pass 
legislation; we know we are not ready to do that yet--all we are trying 
to do is move the bill forward so any Senator, whether it is a 
Republican colleague or a Democratic colleague, can offer an amendment. 
There are good amendments out there that can make a strong bill even 
stronger.
  There is an amendment going to be offered by Senator Corker. He and I 
talked about this on our Sunday morning show this week--just 
yesterday--an amendment on clawing back executive compensation that he 
has been working on that seems to make sense.
  There is an amendment Senator Kaufman and I have been working on to 
put size limits on banks and end the days of banks that are too big to 
fail. If banks are too big to fail, those banks simply are too big.
  I would add, 15 years ago, the combined assets of the six largest 
banks in America were 17 percent of GDP. The combined assets of the six 
largest banks in America today are 63 percent of GDP.
  There are other amendments that can finally hold Wall Street 
accountable for its own mistakes offered by some Republicans and some 
Democrats. We just want to move forward so those amendments can be 
considered.
  So it is unfortunate when Senate Republican leadership--and I know 
there are Republicans who want to work with us, but when Senate 
Republican leadership pulls their colleagues back from doing the right 
thing. We saw the same tactic with the health insurance debate--delay 
and delay--only to find obstruction at the end. We know if they can 
delay and delay, as officials in the American bank associations have 
said, that is the best way to kill this legislation and to get their 
way--if they can delay this for months and months and months. We saw 
those same delaying tactics with essential programs such as 
unemployment insurance and COBRA.
  This is not a time to play games with the financial well-being of 
hard-working Americans, of hard-working middle-class Ohioans. I wish 
Republican Senators could vote to do the right thing instead of simply 
following the political calculus that the minority leader and the rest 
of the Republican leadership wants. It certainly is not the will of the 
American people.
  Just today, a Washington Post/ABC News poll release said 65 percent 
of Americans favor ``stricter federal regulations on the way banks and 
other financial institutions conduct their business.''
  It certainly is not following the experiences of people in Ohio and 
across the country who have lost jobs and lost much of their wealth 
because of Wall Street greed and excess. It is not following the 
experiences of small business owners across the Nation.
  I have talked to small business owners in Dayton and Springfield and 
Zanesville and Cambridge and Steubenville and Findlay who simply cannot 
get credit. They cannot understand, with the money Wall Street has been 
rewarded with, if you will--or they were bailed out with--that they 
still cannot get the kind of credit they need to make their businesses 
a success.
  This legislation would make financial institutions, not American 
taxpayers, pay for their mistakes. We can't predict the next economic 
disaster, but if we protect consumers and investors, we can probably 
prevent it. Wall Street reform could provide the strongest consumer 
protections for Ohioans. No more of the tricks and the traps in the 
mortgage market and elsewhere that led to the near collapse of our 
economy.
  Wall Street banks wrecked our economy, got a taxpayer-funded bailout, 
and are profiting again, while working Americans continue to suffer. We 
can't sit by any longer and continue to do nothing. We need to move 
now. No more meltdowns. No more bailouts. No more cutting backroom 
deals to prevent reform.
  In order for us to get there, we need to move this bill forward. We 
need our Republican colleagues to say yes--not vote for the bill but 
just say yes to move the bill forward so we can actually have debate on 
the bill. We need to bring this bill out into the public light so the 
American people know who is fighting on their side.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll, and the following Senators 
entered the Chamber and answered to their names:

                          [Quorum No. 2 Leg.]

     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cardin
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Kaufman
     Klobuchar
     Lincoln
     McCain
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Reid
     Schumer
     Shaheen
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum is not present.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to instruct the Sergeant at Arms to 
request the presence of absent Senators, and I ask for the yeas and 
nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the 
Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. 
Carper), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Kohl), the Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), the 
Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman), the Senator from Maryland 
(Ms. Mikulski), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller), and 
the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Webb), are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Utah (Mr. Bennett), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the 
Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. 
Johanns), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kyl), the Senator from Alaska 
(Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), the Senator 
from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. 
Wicker).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 31, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 125 Leg.]

                                YEAS--50

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Casey
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--31

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     LeMieux
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Risch
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Vitter

                             NOT VOTING--19

     Bayh
     Bennett
     Bond
     Byrd
     Carper
     Ensign
     Johanns
     Johnson
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lieberman
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Voinovich
     Webb
     Wicker
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. A quorum is present.
  The Senator from New Jersey.

[[Page S2627]]

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, what is the status of the business 
before the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to proceed to S. 3217.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I wish to talk about the vote we had 
just a few minutes ago, a vote that was a victory for Wall Street but 
not a victory for the American taxpayer. We hear our Republican 
colleagues proclaim they are for Wall Street reform, that they are on 
the reform bandwagon, but then they seem to pull the emergency brake. 
They say they are on the reform bandwagon, and yet when they have a 
chance to move forward and simply to debate the process, they pull the 
emergency brake.
  The approach our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have taken 
on Wall Street reform symbolizes America's worst fears about how the 
powerful operate. They held a closed-door strategy session with Wall 
Street executives that, from published reports, included solicitations 
for their campaign committee. Then they marched into this Chamber with 
a script, a Wall Street playbook written by the Nation's most 
significant Republican political consultant. Rather than debating what 
was in the bill, they went to the Wall Street playbook. They waved the 
flag. They proclaimed their patriotic intention to protect Americans 
from those who took us to the brink of economic disaster. But then they 
played the fear card and they talked about bailouts and told Americans 
they would pay.
  Americans realize our Wall Street reform is actually what, in 
essence, has to be done to end taxpayer bailouts, that opponents are 
just playing fast and loose with the facts to protect the big banks 
instead of taxpayers. Our colleagues on the other side claim to embrace 
Wall Street reform in front of the cameras, while behind the scene, 
behind closed doors they continue to strategize with Wall Street about 
how to kill this legislation.
  I am sure families in my State and across the country who are 
hurting, who lost their jobs, their health care, lost their homes 
because of the reckless excesses of Wall Street profiteers driven by 
profits at any cost, the value of their property has plummeted, their 
401(k)s have been decimated, their hope for a decent retirement that 
they had worked for is largely gone at this point, American taxpayers 
want accountability, not trickery. They want all of us in this Chamber 
to stand up for them and mean it, not stand up for Wall Street and try 
to find a clever way to make it look like they are for Main Street.
  We need only to look at the actions of those on the other side over 
the past 2 weeks to see the other story. They huddle with Wall Street. 
They strategize about how to protect Wall Street, but they make it 
sound like they are protecting Main Street. It is a game of mirrors: 
appear to stand for reform but do Wall Street's bidding. They hired a 
political consultant to tell them which words to use and came up with: 
The American people do not like taxpayer bailouts. All you have to say 
about this real effort for reform is that it is a taxpayer bailout, and 
they will hate it.
  The only problem is, the facts do not fit their rhetoric. The bill we 
would have gone on to debate, in fact, ends taxpayer bailouts by 
reining in the excesses of Wall Street, and that is exactly why Wall 
Street is working so hard with the other side to defeat it. They play 
the fear card, as they always have. Then they try to distance 
themselves from that consultant, but not before they march in lockstep 
to the microphones and tell Americans this is a bailout bill, it will 
cost taxpayers billions and lead to more and bigger bailouts, that it 
is another government intrusion into their lives.
  Fear is a powerful force, and in the short term sometimes fear is far 
more powerful than the truth. But in the long term, it simply is not 
true. Maybe that is why truth has been the first casualty of every 
argument we have heard from the other side, whether on the Recovery 
Act, on putting people to work, on making health care more affordable, 
on extending unemployment insurance for those who are struggling, and 
now on reining in those who brought us to the edge of economic ruin 
after 8 years of lax regulatory policies that let Wall Street run wild.
  Now that the fear card does not seem to be working, suddenly our 
friends stand in front of the microphones and claim to be in favor of 
reform. Yet at the end of it all they could have cast a vote to let us 
begin to work together on the process. But they continue to confer with 
Wall Street and tell their members once again, as they have on every 
major piece of reform legislation that has come before this Chamber, to 
stand in lockstep and vote no--a ``no'' vote against even starting the 
debate.
  I say to my colleagues today, blindly following your consultant did 
not work out so well, and neither will blindly following an 
obstructionist strategy work out very well either. The American people 
have figured out the trick. You cannot talk like a gladiator and put on 
the show for the taxpayers and then be a mouthpiece for Wall Street.
  Doing nothing and calling it leadership is not an answer. Saying no 
once again and keeping the status quo is not an option. Saying no to 
sensible Wall Street reform is a sure-fire way to wind up right back in 
the same mess we just got out of recently. Saying no is the surest 
recipe for more taxpayer bailouts.
  The bottom line is, we as Democrats are here to say yes to 
commonsense reform so that Wall Street excesses will never take us to 
the brink of economic ruin again, yes to a free market. But there is a 
difference between a free market and a free-for-all market. What we 
have had is a free-for-all market.
  Our Republican colleagues seem to want the free-for-all system to 
remain exactly as it is: same lack of rules, same lack of oversight, 
same megaprofits for the large Wall Street banks. I ask, at whose 
expense, at what cost to American families, at what risk to the very 
foundation of our economic system?
  If our colleagues are serious about ending taxpayer bailouts, then 
they should favor making banks pay for their reckless behavior. 
Instead, they come to the floor one after another in an attempt to gut 
it. What they oppose, what they are once again saying no to is asking 
the Wall Street firms to pay to insure against their own failure.
  We should also remember today, after this vote, as we look back at 8 
years of an administration that nodded and winked and turned a blind 
eye to Wall Street's schemes, that history has a way of repeating 
itself. Let's not forget the reckless behavior of the big banks and 
other entities and lenders and Wall Street speculators that sent the 
economy into a near depression last year has a historic precedent, as 
do the muscular safeguards and regulations that we must implement this 
year to protect consumers so it never happens again. That precedent was 
the Great Depression. It came after a period of Republican Presidents--
Harding, Coolidge, Hoover--who sided with free-wheeling companies to 
overcome commonsense regulations. We had no choice but to clean up the 
mess with a period of sustained, robust regulations implemented by 
another Democratic administration at that time.
  Once again, the time has come after the economic damage has been done 
to put in place a series of robust reforms and safeguards so it never 
happens again. Once again, just as they did after the Great Depression, 
our Republican colleagues are saying, no, leave things as they are. 
There is no need for Wall Street reforms. Let the market take care of 
itself. They want to say no to the lessons of history. We need to say 
yes to commonsense reforms; yes to sensible oversight and regulations; 
yes to protecting the jobs, homes, and retirement savings of families 
who have been playing by the rules; yes to protecting them from more 
reckless financial gambling and creative derivative schemes; yes to 
guaranteeing taxpayers will never be on the hook the next time risky 
corporate decisions force a too-big-to-fail company into bankruptcy.
  We cannot have a system where big Wall Street banks and others take 
huge gambles knowing they can keep the gains if they win but we as a 
country will pay the costs if they lose. That is playing Russian 
roulette with our economy. When that happens, the victims are hard-
working families who did everything right. They played by the rules. 
Wall Street did not. And they expect us to make it right. They worked 
as hard as they could at every job they had and earned all their lives 
to buy a

[[Page S2628]]

home and raise their families, send their kids to college, and maybe, 
just maybe, put something away for a decent, safe, comfortable 
retirement.
  Now they sit at the kitchen table at night asking heartrending 
questions: Can we afford the mortgage this month? Can we keep our 
health insurance? How do we pay our credit card bills? Will we keep our 
jobs? Will we lose our home? Can we ever retire?
  These are the families who needed a ``yes'' vote a little while ago. 
They need our protection. They did not deserve what happened to them. 
We have a chance to make things right so it will never happen again. 
The Senate needs to take up Wall Street reform.
  The choice is simple: Do we stand for a banking system that is fair, 
transparent, and honest or do we stand for a banking system that takes 
advantage of consumers, one in which speculation runs wild and puts the 
entire economy at constant risk? Do we stand on the side of working 
families who played by the rules, or do we stand on the side of Wall 
Street and big banks? Not the community banks because they are not the 
ones who got us into this but those large institutions that have gotten 
far too comfortable writing their own rules.
  In my view, the choice is clear. It is time for the Senate to step to 
the plate on behalf of working families. It is time for reform. It is 
time to end too big to fail. It is time to rein in the bulls. It is 
time to protect hard-working taxpayers. It is time to simply move 
forward and take up the debate.
  I hope the majority leader will bring us to another vote so that we 
can, in fact, get to that moment in which we can move forward and have 
the debate and have the amendments and ultimately know who stands for 
the taxpayer and who stands for Wall Street. I hope there will be 
enough votes here to make sure this institution of the people, by the 
people, and for the people is going to put them first.

  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to express my disappointment 
that we were unable to reach an agreement today to begin debate on 
reforming Wall Street. As my colleague from New Jersey, Senator 
Menendez, so eloquently put it, this is not the time to say no. This is 
the time to move forward and get something done.
  Someone referred to the Senate the other day as dysfunction junction. 
It was a nice little rhyme, and I can tell you it is incidents such as 
the one we saw tonight, where our friends on the other side of the 
aisle will not even allow debate to start, that leads to that sad name. 
We are ready to move away from the station. There are those of us who 
have been out talking to our constituents, and we know the train has to 
leave the junction. The train has to move ahead, and we need to move 
ahead with this Wall Street reform.
  Last week, I came to the floor with some of my colleagues to talk 
about another delay--a delay of nominations. These are nominees who 
have been voted out of committee, sometimes with unanimous support, but 
are now waiting months for a full vote on the Senate floor. During this 
same timeframe in the Bush administration, five nominees were 
outstanding. Yet the same time during the Obama administration over 100 
nominees are outstanding. So if there is anyone who doesn't believe us 
about this delay and what is going on, look at those numbers and look 
at what is happening with this reform.
  It is ironic we are talking about putting rules in place to prevent 
Wall Street from gaming the system, when we have plenty of Senators who 
are gaming the system right here. But there is a problem with that. The 
American people aren't a game of chance. They don't want the dice 
rolled over their futures. They don't want the dice rolled over their 
family homes. They want us to get this done.
  Look at what has happened with this filibuster, again stopping us 
from going to debate. In the entire 19th century, including the 
struggle and the debate about slavery, fewer than two dozen filibusters 
were mounted. Between 1933 and the coming of the war, it was attempted 
only twice. Under Eisenhower and JFK, the pattern continued. In 8 years 
of the Eisenhower administration, only two filibusters were mounted. 
Under Kennedy, there were four. But now we see this tactic being 
employed over and over. This year alone, since January, we have had 
over 50 filibusters.
  I can tell you I believe, in the end, we are going to get this done. 
I believe, in the end, we will have Republican votes for this bill 
because I know there are some colleagues on that side of the aisle who 
want to get this bill done and who have been working to get it done. 
But the reasons I heard raised today for holding up debate do not ring 
true.
  First off, advancing the idea that this bill isn't already a 
bipartisan product would be a slight to all those who have worked on 
it. I see Senator Dodd over here, who worked for months and months and 
months to craft a bipartisan bill. The bill we have before us is the 
product of countless hours of negotiation between Members on both sides 
of the aisle and incorporates many of the agreements that were reached.
  If anyone thinks there is a more important issue to have before the 
Senate, that there is some reason we shouldn't be debating this, I 
don't think they have been talking to the people back home. The people 
understand that while Wall Street maybe got a cold and has bounced back 
and is doing well, Main Street has pneumonia. Small businesses today 
are still starved for credit. The small banks, which Senator Menendez 
pointed out had nothing to do with starting this crisis, are also 
suffering. That is what is happening in this country today.
  Nearly 3 years after our financial system began to melt down, America 
continues to suffer the effects of the worst economic crisis since the 
Great Depression. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, homes, 
retirements, and savings. Although some key indicators are beginning to 
move in the right direction, I can tell you, having been home this last 
weekend, many families are still struggling, and the economic damage is 
slow to reverse itself on Main Street.
  Meanwhile, on Wall Street, the largest firms handed out record 
bonuses totaling nearly $146 billion, an 18-percent increase from 2008. 
What do we have at home? U.S. per capita income declined 2.6 percent. 
Boiled down to its essentials, the financial crisis was about risk. 
Everyone thought they could manage but, instead, things got wildly out 
of control. Three years later--and I think it is hard for people to 
believe this--we can't seem to even get past a debate tonight about 
actually getting the bill on the floor. Three years later Wall Street 
is still operating by the same old rules. That is why it is so 
important we begin this debate.
  There may be some of my colleagues who think all Wall Street needs is 
fixing a few potholes. Well, that has been tried before and it 
certainly didn't work. I think what we need are some stop signs at some 
intersections and some very good traffic cops. There is a lot more to 
the modern financial system, as we all learned, than meets the eye. We 
need transparency and accountability. That is in this bill. We need an 
early warning system for too big to fail. That is in the bill.
  We need derivatives reform, and I am not talking about the good work 
businesses do to weather an economic storm when they hedge their bets 
within their businesses. I am talking about the wildly out-of-control, 
over-the-counter derivative trails when financial institutions were 
trading things they didn't even understand and creating the big mess we 
are in.
  Reform legislation must include, and this legislation does include, 
provisions to look out for the best interests of consumers by educating 
them about their financial choices, ensuring that they have access to 
less risky products and protecting them from abusive sales practices, 
including from nonbank lenders. When we look back at what happened the 
last few years, it is like Wall Street was driving down the street in 
their Ferrari and the government was following behind in a Model T 
Ford. That has to stop.
  When we look at the history of this country, when we have been 
confronted by major challenges, we always rose to those challenges. 
When Hitler was running across Europe and Pearl Harbor happened, our 
country didn't just say no. We rose to the challenge, and the greatest 
generation won that war. When the Russians were going to put a man on 
the Moon, we didn't just say: Oh, go ahead. We are not going to get 
involved.

[[Page S2629]]

                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 349, S. 3217, the Restoring American 
     Financial Stability Act of 2010.
         Harry Reid, Christopher J. Dodd, Blanche L. Lincoln, 
           Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Bingaman, Bernard Sanders, 
           Russell D. Feingold, Kay R. Hagan, Tom Udall, Robert P. 
           Casey, Jr., Jon Tester, Charles E. Schumer, Jeff 
           Merkley, Byron L. Dorgan, Mark R. Warner, Jack Reed, 
           Roland W. Burris.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to the Senator 
from Minnesota for allowing my interruption.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota retains the floor.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. As I was saying, Mr. President, this country has done 
well not by saying no but by saying yes and by moving ahead and getting 
things done. We can't let this continue. We have to put these rules in 
place.
  Some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are, in good 
faith, negotiating; others are not. The American people will not allow 
this gamesmanship to continue. The game is over. Let's debate. Let's 
get some amendments. There are changes we can make to the bill, changes 
I support. But the only way we are going to get this done is by getting 
this bill on the floor and allowing for debate. The American people 
deserve nothing less.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I first came to this place in 1973, 
working for then-Senator Biden, and one of the things you learn around 
here, after you have been here a while, is the American people don't 
care about procedure. That is one of those things they don't care 
about--procedure. It is all too complicated. I don't blame them. Half 
the time, I don't know what the procedure is. Procedure doesn't work.
  But during those 37-some years, every once in a while something comes 
along where procedure matters. Our friends on the other side of the 
aisle have had a field day on procedure for the past 15 months I have 
been here, and they count on the fact that nobody in America cares 
about procedure. So what they have done is, time and again, they have 
filibustered motions to proceed. That is hard to explain to someone out 
in America.
  What is a filibuster on a motion to proceed? That is hard to figure 
out. So you can get away with that. You can filibuster on a motion to 
proceed and then you can filibuster on the bill and then filibuster on 
cloture and all these words mean nothing to most Americans.
  I am all for filibusters. I think it is important to maintain the 
rights of political minorities, and that is the way to do it. I say to 
my colleagues who are here and who want to change the filibuster rule, 
spend a year in the minority or 2 years in the minority and then come 
to me and tell me you want to change the filibuster rule. What people 
don't realize--those who want to change the filibuster rule--is that 
when one side or the other gets out too far, then the American people 
notice what goes on and they come in and they fix it.
  I am convinced that is what is going to happen today. I think the 
American people have figured out what it is my friends on the other 
side are doing. They are my friends. We just have a different point of 
view. Everywhere I go in this country, people are concerned about what 
happened--everywhere. They are concerned because they have so many 
friends and relations who lost jobs and other friends and relations who 
have lost their houses and they say: What are you going to do about it? 
What are you in Washington going to do about it? Don't you get it? 
Don't you understand what is happening here? You are not going to do 
anything about this?
  I have watched Senator Dodd work for hours and days and months--and, 
frankly, years--to try to put together a bill so we can vote on what 
will be a bipartisan bill. I have been hanging out at this place or 
teaching about it for 37 years, and I have never seen anyone work any 
harder to try to get a bipartisan bill. Frankly, Mr. Chairman, I got a 
little frustrated because it took so long. But Chairman Dodd did the 
right thing because I think he knew, at some point, if we didn't get 
agreement, we would be here and we would be faced with charges that 
this was a partisan bill. This is not a partisan bill.
  As you know, Mr. President, you and I have differences with this 
bill. The Presiding Officer and Senator Levin have an amendment to 
offer, which I am a cosponsor of, to change the bill. I have an 
amendment with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio to make some changes to 
the bill. Senator Cantwell and Senator McCain have an amendment that I 
am a cosponsor of. There are three amendments already that I am in 
favor of to change this bill. I have heard Chairman Dodd say time and 
again, this is not the perfect bill. This is a bipartisan bill. We have 
put a lot of effort into it. But he has welcomed the opportunity for 
people to come forward and offer amendments.
  I don't get it, how you can say you don't agree with a bill, but you 
will not let anything happen on it and on an issue such as this--an 
issue that is so important to the American people. It is so important 
that we get it right. It is time. Committees are great, and I support 
the committee system. I think they are wonderful. I think negotiations 
are great. I think the bipartisan negotiations that have been going 
on--and I know they are going on because I have seen them on the floor. 
I have seen there are about 10 or 12 members from the Banking Committee 
who are working.
  Chairman Dodd, in the beginning, set this up and he delegated it down 
so Senator Warner and Senator Corker were working together. He had a 
Republican and a Democrat working on each of these things. They are 
still working, as we talk now. But it is time for that to stop. It is 
time for us to get out in the open and be a Senate. It is time for us 
to debate these issues in the open. It is time for the Republican Party 
to decide if they want to do something about Wall Street reform. I hope 
they are listening. In my opinion, we should stay and discuss it until 
we are ready to go. We are going to disagree.
  One of the big things I am in favor of is returning to Glass-
Steagall. When we voted on that in 1999, Senator Dorgan voted against 
it and Senator Shelby voted against it. These are not issues that are 
Republican or Democratic issues, in my opinion. I have talked to my 
colleagues on the other side about some of the amendments I am 
offering, and they say they are interested in them. I don't see this as 
being a partisan fight. I think it looks like a fight to get political 
advantage. I am very hesitant to bring that forward, but that is what 
it looks like to me. It looks like they do not want to vote, period. I 
know that is not true for certain Members on the other side. I know 
they wish to talk about these issues.
  So I wish to say to the American people tonight, it is time to 
contact your Senator and say: Let's bring financial regulatory reform 
to the floor. Let's debate the issues on it. Let's get to the 
amendments and let's pass it so millions of Americans who have lost 
their jobs and their homes know we in the Senate have done everything 
we can to make sure this never happens again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am here tonight to join my colleagues 
because, like them, I am deeply disappointed that 41 Republican 
Senators tonight voted to stop us from even beginning to debate on 
legislation to rein in the reckless and risky Wall Street conduct that 
brought this economy to its knees. Rather than make the case out in the 
open on the floor of the Senate for the changes they want to the Wall 
Street reform bill, these 41 Senators who voted to block debate are, 
instead, saying they want changes worked out behind closed doors. They 
are actually saying they will prevent debate and hold this Wall Street 
reform bill hostage until they are accommodated behind closed doors.

[[Page S2630]]

  We heard Senator Kaufman say there are amendments he wants to the 
bill. There are amendments I wish to see in the bill. For example, I 
think we need to strengthen the provisions in the bill to prevent 
financial institutions that are supposed to be helping American 
companies finance their growth plans--that are supposed to be helping 
families save for their retirement, that are supposed to be helping 
families save for their kids' college education--to prevent those 
institutions from making risky side bets for their own profit. But 
rather than block the Senate from taking up the Wall Street reform 
until I get what I want, I intend to cosponsor the amendment the 
Presiding Officer and Senator Levin are sponsoring and then debate that 
issue openly on the floor of the Senate.
  Our amendment prohibits federally insured banks from engaging in 
proprietary trading and it imposes strict capital charges on large 
nonbank financial institutions to limit their proprietary trading.
  We have all learned in recent days about the proprietary trading that 
Goldman Sachs was doing, betting their own money that mortgage-backed 
securities would fail, while getting their clients to invest in those 
same mortgage-backed securities. I am sure there are a lot of people 
who think, as I do, that a system that allows that kind of conflict 
does not make sense and we need to change it. So I think we need to get 
this bill on the floor so we can debate this issue and so many others 
that we need to address to change the practices on Wall Street.
  We need to enact a strong Wall Street reform bill as soon as 
possible. While we delay, the big banks on Wall Street have returned to 
the same types of reckless and risky gambles that brought our economy 
to the brink of a complete financial meltdown. My grandmother used to 
say that while the cat's away, the mice will play. Today I think my 
grandmother would say while Wall Street reform is delayed, middle-class 
families are being played.
  Let's be clear. A vote against opening debate on holding Wall Street 
accountable is a vote to protect Wall Street. We are still suffering 
the consequences of unregulated Wall Street greed. Millions of hard-
working Americans lost their jobs through no fault of their own and 
they still can't find work. Too many small businesses still can't get 
credit. We need to do everything we can to ensure that the recent 
financial crisis never happens again, that taxpayers never again have 
to bail out Wall Street bankers for their bad bets. I hope all those 
Senators who tonight voted to block us from taking up Wall Street 
reform will reconsider that vote and that they will come to the floor 
of the Senate and let us do the work of the people of this country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. BURRIS. Mr. President, for years at big corporations such as 
Goldman Sachs, Wall Street bankers packaged bad mortgages and sold them 
to investors. They knew these investment vehicles would inevitably fail 
so they turned around and bet against them. They bet against the 
American people. That is what they did when they put these packages 
together. They sought to make a profit off the misfortunes of their own 
customers.
  Tonight we stand at the brink of a real debate on this topic, but our 
Republican colleagues will not even agree to let us move forward. We 
have to debate whether we are going to debate. Main Street suffered the 
most challenging economic situation in a generation. It has been made 
clear tonight who the Republicans stand with--they stand with Wall 
Street--because we are debating to debate.
  After the breathtaking scope of the economic crisis that America is 
only now coming to terms with, how can we simply refuse to move 
forward, refuse to debate this critical legislation? We are debating to 
debate--unbelievable. We have to debate to debate about fair, 
meaningful reform while Wall Street continues to pose a systemic threat 
to the American financial system.
  I know a little bit about the financial system. I am probably the 
only one here who is a banker. I spent my early years in the biggest 
bank of the State of Illinois, selling money for a living. I know about 
banking and I knew what Glass-Steagall would do at the time. It 
prevented us from getting into the insurance business, the investment 
banking business, and banks were still able to grow and to make loans 
to the various entities that needed the loans. That is what we were 
there for, to assist businesses to grow and provide capital and make 
sure they would be successful and repay their loans.
  As a matter of fact, I financed some of the most difficult businesses 
in the State of Illinois. We had a government-guaranteed loan section 
for startup businesses. I loaned $1 million to a church-owned hospital, 
the first Black church-owned hospital in America. I financed that in 
1969 with a $1 million loan. Guess what. The hospital paid every penny 
of that money back to our bank, plus we made interest on it. It wasn't 
a giveaway; it was not any type of charity; it was a business 
transaction to help the community. That is what banks ought to be 
doing. That is why we need to pass strong financial reform, to prevent 
bad behavior on Wall Street from sinking ordinary folk on Main Street. 
I know a little bit about Main Street because that is where I financed 
those businesses.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the reform legislation 
introduced by Senator Dodd, the distinguished Senator who put his life 
into this business, trying to make sure we have some type of financial 
security for the people and not a bunch of people who are going around 
ripping off folk and getting rich off of the work of other people. This 
bill would have prevented Goldman Sachs and other companies from 
getting into this mess in the first place and it can help ensure that 
we will never end up in this position again.
  I hope so, but we don't know what will come up. I heard Senator 
Warner on the floor today. Senator Warner was saying he might not know 
what will happen and probably won't. But I hope when we get this 
legislation to debate--the legislation we are debating to debate--it 
will never happen again. But first we need to agree to debate the bill 
on the floor.
  I ask my colleagues on the right to simply talk and debate about the 
ideas on this bill. I want Glass-Steagall. I am cosponsor of the 
amendment for the Glass-Steagall Act to come back. This legislation 
will create a consumer protection bureau designed to shield ordinary 
Americans from unfair, deceptive, and abusive business practices. As a 
former attorney general, I know what it is, in so many of these 
financial situations, mistreating our consumers. I defended those 
consumers tremendously during my years as Attorney General of the State 
of Illinois. I want the bill to establish an oversight task force to 
keep an eye on emerging risks so we will not be taken by surprise 
again. It will end too big to fail, protect taxpayers from unnecessary 
risk, and eliminate the need for future bailouts.
  This bill would also increase transparency and accountability for 
banks, hedge funds, and the derivative market. Some people don't even 
know what they are doing about it, so big companies such as Goldman 
Sachs won't be able to get away with fraud anymore. These basic reforms 
will establish clear rules of the road for the financial service 
industry so we can keep the market free and fair without risking 
another economic collapse.
  But if we fail to take action, if we do not pass this reform 
legislation, if we even fail to move forward on this simple procedural 
motion on the debate to debate, then we will be right back where we 
started--no safeguards against this kind of deception and abuse in the 
future.
  I call on my colleagues to join me in supporting moving on to Senator 
Dodd's bill. Let's move on to it and get on with the business of 
debating the bill and not debating to debate. I ask my friends on both 
sides of the aisle to stand with me on the side of the American people. 
Let's move to debate this financial reform legislation without delay.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we are now, for those who are tuning 
in, in a situation in which the Republicans who filibustered probably 
about 100 times in this session, are now filibustering not a piece of 
legislation, they are filibustering the ordinary procedural technical 
motion on the Senate

[[Page S2631]]

floor to move to that piece of legislation. There will probably be a 
whole second filibuster when we actually get to the Wall Street reform 
bill. For now, what they are filibustering is moving to proceed under 
the Senate rules, to take up the bill and begin the debate.
  In obstructing us from even debating the Wall Street reform bill, the 
Republican minority has once again shown the American people whose 
business it is they serve. Make no mistake about it, Wall Street 
bankers are chortling tonight about this, Champagne corks are flying 
across Wall Street, all in celebration of the Republican success in 
once again obstructing reform. Each day the Republicans delay us, high-
powered investment banks make more money on highly leveraged gambles. 
Each day the Republicans delay us, mortgage brokers, unregulated by a 
consumer protection agency, push people into poor quality mortgages 
with confusing terms. Each day the Republicans delay us, CEOs continue 
to get rainy day bonuses, unchecked by proper corporate governance and 
oversight. Each day these Republicans delay us, credit card companies 
trick and trap American consumers with exorbitant rates and fees and no 
consequences. Each day the Republican minority delays us, Wall Street 
wins and Main Street loses.
  The ties between the Republican party and Wall Street CEOs are pretty 
well documented. News outlets, for instance, reported earlier this 
month that the leaders of the Senate minority sat down with two dozen 
top Wall Street executives to discuss Wall Street's concerns with these 
proposed reforms. Nobody is talking about what was said, what deals 
were made, what winks and handshakes were exchanged. The meeting was 
behind closed doors. But the very people who brought about the housing 
bubble and the financial meltdown and profited handsomely through both 
have been strategizing with the Republicans on how to prevent us from 
cleaning up their industry.
  They have good reason to do so. By continuing to operate too-big-to-
fail firms, these executives make millions in the good times and get 
taxpayer bailouts in the bad times. It is win-win for Wall Street and 
lose-lose for the American people. The American people have about had 
it with that deal. They want Wall Street cleaned up.
  An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted yesterday found that an 
overwhelming majority, 63 percent, of Americans support ``stricter 
Federal regulations on the way Wall Street firms conduct their 
business.'' Every one of us can vouch for that from what we are hearing 
from our constituents at home. The Republican minority can delay reform 
but they cannot defeat it. Remember Joshua; he walked around the city 
of Jericho blazing his horn. The first time the walls did not come 
down. The second time the walls did not come down. He had to go seven 
times around the city of Jericho before those walls came down, but the 
walls of obstruction of the Republican minority are going to come down 
on this issue because the American people will not have it any other 
way.
  Let's look at the provisions of the bill as it passed Senator Dodd's 
Banking Committee that they are so upset about, the bill that the 
Republicans are so upset about, they are obstructing us from even 
debating it and beginning the process of legislating.
  The bill would end government bailouts by establishing an industry-
financed wind-down mechanism to put banks that are failing out of their 
misery. That is how we would deal with future meltdowns--no more 
taxpayer bailouts, no more AIG.
  The Republicans, amazingly, assert that this industry-financed 
resolution fund to put an orderly end to banks that have gotten in 
trouble will actually perpetuate government bailouts. That does not 
even make sense. So why are they saying it? Well, they are saying it 
because a Republican pollster named Frank Luntz determined that if you 
call a bill a bailout bill, the public will be alarmed and confused and 
upset and against it. So they are saying it because the polling shows 
that is what will concern Americans.
  We have gotten to the point where it is no longer important in 
American debate for words to be true; it only matters that they have 
the requisite effect. Well, words that are used for their effect 
without regard for whether they are true have a name; it is called 
propaganda. Frankly, it is beneath proper debate in this forum.
  The bill would also create a strong consumer products regulator to 
make sure Americans are never again fooled into subprime mortgages and 
other tricky, ``gotcha'' financial products with little hooks and 
tricks and traps in there to catch the unsuspecting consumer. We need a 
regulator in place who can monitor the market and act quickly when 
there is a consumer hazard. We need this new agency to do for credit 
cards and mortgages what the Consumer Product Safety Commission does 
for toasters and toys. A tough, independent consumer protection agency 
is a plain-old good idea to give consumers a fair shake.
  The bill would also consolidate existing bank regulators so that 
banks cannot shop around for the most lenient regulator. Under the bill 
the Republicans won't even let us debate, regulations would be 
strengthened over all financial firms. No more changing your charter 
just to avoid the rules you don't like and picking your favorite 
regulator.
  Again, these are commonsense protections against Wall Street 
trickery. But they are being blockaded.
  Perhaps the provisions that have the CEOs most distressed are the 
ones that would crack down on runaway executive compensation. It is 
really remarkable that even in the worst of times, Wall Street bankers 
pay themselves multimillion-dollar bonuses. There really are no lean 
years, it appears, on Wall Street, just good times and really, really, 
really good times.
  The bill the Republicans will not let us debate would give 
shareholders a stronger say on management compensation and would ensure 
that the compensation committees of boards of directors, the ones who 
are figuring out what the CEOs should be paid, are composed of 
directors who are independent, who are not tied to the management: No 
more having your pals and golfing buddies decide how much you should be 
paid. It would also require companies to develop policies that would 
permit them to rescind compensation--to take it back--if the executive 
is found to have engaged in fraud.
  Again, these are commonsense provisions to prevent unfairness and to 
give the American people a chance. Yet the Republicans will not even 
let us debate them.
  The American people have grown sick and tired of delay and 
obstruction, and they want their Congress to move forward with the 
people's business. This is something on which we should agree. The 
American people also overwhelmingly favor stronger regulation over Wall 
Street banks. So let's get to it.
  I implore my Republican colleagues to cut the delay tactics and let 
us debate a bill that will help prevent future financial crises. If 
they have a better idea and they want to offer it on the Senate floor, 
that is what we are here for. But let's get to the bill. Let's begin 
the process of serving the American people. Let's end the endless 
filibuster and obstruction and delay.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the 
critically important legislation before the Senate, the bill to reform 
Wall Street and end the excesses that sent our economy into a tailspin.
  Having made the tough choice to fend off a collapse of our economic 
system, we must now look back and decide what actions are required to 
hold Wall Street accountable and put consumers back in control of their 
finances.
  This Congress has taken decisive action to stem the bleeding, actions 
that were not always comfortable, but were necessary. And our economy 
is starting to heal. Yet we remain at a seminal moment in history.
  One tenth of our population remains unemployed, the threat of home 
foreclosure haunts far too many families, and American seniors are 
scrambling to replenish what were once considered their retirement 
accounts.
  The fault for this economic decline, however, does not lie at the 
feet of the working class nor reflect the steady strength of American 
ingenuity. Instead, the Wall Street bailout, and the threat of global 
economic depression

[[Page S2632]]

that necessitated it, was thrust upon us by those who put short-term 
self-interest above the economic security of a nation.
  It is an unpleasant fact to admit. But the current financial system 
all too often rewards greed and recklessness, fans speculative trading, 
and has fostered shady dealings that are so complicated that only those 
Wall Street firms that stand to benefit can comprehend them.
  Compounding this, consumers have found themselves on the losing end 
of these deals. Wall Street executives have taken excessive risks, 
knowing a sweetheart contract, bonus or stock option will cover their 
losses while stockholders are left empty handed. Nearly one quarter of 
Americans have found themselves with home mortgages they struggle to 
afford, while the lender's commission has long been spent.
  And, American consumers have to jump through hoop after hoop and 
ultimately pay to have access to their own credit score, while banks 
and lenders can easily obtain this information to hike their annual 
interest rate or monthly payment.
  Don't get me wrong, I am the first to recognize that our financial 
sector historically has played a driving role in the growth of our 
economy. In many instances, Wall Street's ingenuity has spurred solid 
investment and helped U.S. businesses compete world-wide.
  But we cannot ignore the plain fact that transparent investing and 
fair business dealings seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.
  In one recent example, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission 
alleged that Goldman Sachs realized that the only way out of bad 
securities was to sell them to unwitting investors.
  This investigation is rapidly expanding to other financial firms and 
products, and is symptomatic of how out of touch Wall Street has become 
with the American workers who are the real engine of our economy.
  As the 2008 collapse washed away nearly half of Americans' savings 
and investments, these same taxpayers were on the hook to finance Wall 
Street's rescue. I understand the anger of Coloradans and Americans all 
around the country, many who felt that the big banks should have been 
left to fail.
  So our constituents have asked us: Please reform the current laws so 
that this does not happen again. Please hold Wall Street to the same 
rules that hardworking families and small businesses are held to.
  But now, as the economy recovers, slowly adding jobs and allowing 
families to rebuild their savings and retirement portfolios, Wall 
Street is reporting record profits and its executives are again 
pocketing record bonuses.
  It is time to put American consumers back in control of their 
financial future. We must hold Wall Street accountable and create a 
financial system that works for all Americans, not just rich 
executives.
  The legislation that we are trying to bring up for debate this week 
does just that. With Senator Dodd's leadership, the Wall Street 
Accountability Act will:
  Safely regulate the shadow markets and the hidden side-bet financing 
that escaped the regulatory radar and allowed financial firms to engage 
in the risky and irresponsible behavior that wiped out trillions in 
family savings.
  The bill will hold big banks and financial institutions accountable 
for the bad decisions they make, and make them plan ahead to deal with 
their losses to ensure that taxpayers are never again responsible for 
bailing out a financial firm that is deemed too big to fail, like AIG.
  The bill will also hold Wall Street accountable by giving consumer 
shareholders new power to prevent excessive bonuses that reward 
executive failures, while average Americans are left holding the bag.
  Complementing the credit card bill I introduced in the House of 
Representatives several years ago and legislation Congress passed last 
year, this bill forces big banks and credit card companies to provide 
clear, understandable information to consumers. This bill will also 
hold the nonbank lending industry to the same sort of standards as the 
traditional banking industry.
  Finally, this bill will start to change the culture of Wall Street by 
instilling new transparency and accountability rules to ensure that 
complicated financial derivative transactions take place in an open 
marketplace.
  This legislation provides what our friends, neighbors, and family 
members for years have been demanding, a system that is designed for 
them, rewards hard work, and is grounded in the kind of business 
integrity that Americans every day certify with a handshake. In short, 
Americans back in control of their financial well-being.
  That is why, in addition to the reforms we will be discussing this 
week, I introduced legislation last week with bipartisan support to put 
everyday Americans back in charge of their finances by giving consumers 
free access to their credit score.
  I thank Senators Lugar, Menendez, Lieberman, Levin, Hagan, Shaheen, 
Klobuchar, Tom Udall, and Scott Brown for joining me in putting 
consumers first by cosponsoring this commonsense legislation, which has 
the support of a wide range of consumer groups.
  Today, in looking back on the mistakes of the past and the imbalances 
that still disadvantage consumers, Americans deserve a Congress on 
their side.
  Yet some here appear to still support a risky system where Wall 
Street can act with impunity and get bailed out when things go bad. 
They want to protect speculators at the expense of consumer protections 
and shield financial institutions from rules that would avert taxpayer-
financed bailouts.
  I am here to say that those days are over. We must hold Wall Street 
accountable and we cannot let the status quo persist.
  A few blocks from here outside the Federal Trade Commission stands a 
pair of statues, each depicting a heroic figure straining to control a 
powerful horse. They were erected under the Roosevelt administration as 
an emblem to Americans from all walks of life that fair business 
practices would serve to further the common good of all. Well, I have 
news: Under our current system, the reins have been released when it 
comes to Wall Street. And now some 70 years later here we are, at a 
similar point in history. We must stand together once again as a nation 
committed to sound investing, transparent business dealings and an 
economic system that puts consumers first.
  This debate is about choices, and the American people have a clear 
choice. There are a lot of us here who want to get to work.
  But the vote we just took tonight also showed that some in this 
institution are willing to filibuster and delay to prevent the Senate 
from even debating Wall Street reforms.
  It is clear to me and clear to Coloradans that a vote against even 
having this debate is a vote to protect Wall Street at the expense of 
hard-working Americans. Too much is at stake to let this delay persist.
  President Roosevelt said in 1932, ``Never in history have the 
interests of all the people been so united in a single economic 
problem.'' Once again, as we did 70 years ago let us get to together 
put in place protections against the Wall Street excesses that threaten 
our economic stability.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, tonight we had a vote in which 57 Members 
of this body said we should proceed to have a fully public debate and 
votes on issues related to Wall Street and Main Street; 57, far more 
than a majority, said it is time for us to come to this floor, now well 
more than a year after our bubbled economy burst, and wrestle with the 
right rules of the road and lane markers for our financial system. But, 
unfortunately, 57 votes are not enough. We need additional votes from 
our colleagues across the aisle in order to have that debate on this 
floor. We need additional votes from our colleagues across the aisle to 
consider what the lane markers should be and what the traffic signals 
should be in our financial regulatory system.
  Tonight we did not get those votes. Instead, tonight my colleagues 
across the aisle said they do not want a debate in public on how to 
reform Wall Street. They want a conversation behind closed doors 
instead. Quite frankly, I don't think the American people agree with 
them.

[[Page S2633]]

  There are many parts of this story, but it is a story that can be 
told in millions, billions, and trillions. The millions are the size of 
the Wall Street bonuses. A single bonus can equal what a working family 
can expect to earn in an entire career. Then we have the billions, the 
billions of dollars of quarterly profits of many Wall Street firms. 
Then we have the trillions. That is the trillions of dollars of damages 
to working families in America.
  What happened when the bubble burst more than a year ago? We had a 
tremendous loss in the value of retirement savings. We had a tremendous 
loss in the family savings for children to go to college. We had an 
enormous drop in employment. We had a tremendous drop in families 
covered by health care because of the loss of employment. We had damage 
on every part of a family's finances, including the value of their 
home, so that millions of American families today owe more on their 
home than their home is worth.
  Quite frankly, I don't believe a system of million-dollar bonuses and 
billion-dollar profits and trillions of dollars of damage to American 
working families is a system we need in America. Tonight's vote was 
about whether to have a public debate on the rules of the road for Wall 
Street, but it was also about whose side are we on. Are we on the side 
of some Wall Street firms which don't believe that any additional rules 
of the road are necessary?
  They are happy with the status quo. Bonuses have rebounded on Wall 
Street. Profits have rebounded on Wall Street. But if you are not 
paying attention, let me clue you in. The American working family has 
not rebounded. Ten percent of American working families are unemployed. 
Houses are still underwater, savings still decimated.
  It is very important we have this debate on the floor of the Senate, 
that we ask ourselves about and we adopt the right rules of the road, 
the right traffic signals, the right lane markers to create a solid 
financial foundation for our economy to thrive.
  That is what happened after the Great Depression. New rules were 
adopted that restored the integrity of the American financial system, 
that restored the integrity of the stock market. Why was that 
important? It meant that people throughout America and around the world 
said: We can trust to invest in the United States because their system 
has integrity, it has transparency. That solid foundation has served 
our Nation well for decades until deregulation dismantled it, allowed 
wild speculation. Wild speculation and wild risk led to a spectacular 
collapse of the economy, and working families are still paying the 
price.
  So what is the way to be on the side of working families? It is to 
say: We will adopt those rules to provide that new foundation, that new 
muscular set of rules that will allow Wall Street to prosper but will 
also set the foundation for the American economy to prosper.
  How should we measure the success of that economy? This economy 
should not be measured by the size of the bonuses on Wall Street. The 
success of our economy should not be measured by the billion-dollar 
quarterly profits of Wall Street firms. The success of this economy 
needs to be measured by how well we build the financial foundations for 
working families throughout the Nation.
  Do we create the ability to have the next generation do better than 
we did? Do we create living-wage jobs that enable a family to have 
significant opportunities for their children? Do we proceed to 
strengthen, as we have been working at in this Chamber, the structure 
of health care? Do families in America have a share in the increased 
productivity of our Nation which has not been the case since 1974, the 
year I came out of high school? Yes, our Nation had a huge surge in 
productivity, a huge surge in national wealth. But that has not been 
shared with working families. That is a diversion from what happened in 
the earlier era.
  How do we rebuild our economy so it builds working families? That is 
what we are about. We can proceed to look at the pieces of this bill. 
Senator Dodd, who is here tonight, the chair of our Banking Committee, 
has put so many strong steps forward on the work that came out of his 
committee. A lot of folks don't realize the humble family mortgage and 
a new product that came out in 2003 is right at the center of the 
fiasco in our economy.
  What happened? A new mortgage called a subprime came out. It was 
designed differently than subprimes in the past. It was designed with a 
2-year teaser rate--that is a low interest rate--then with a prepayment 
penalty that prevented families, once the ink had dried on the 
mortgage, from ever escaping that mortgage without giving many pounds 
of flesh, and then an exploding interest rate that soared from perhaps 
4.5 percent or 5 percent to 9 percent or maybe even 11 percent, 
interest rates that could never be sustained.
  This diabolical device was worth a lot of money on Wall Street 
because it was going to make a lot of money pulling those exploding 
interest rates out of American families. So Wall Street paid bonuses 
back to brokers to say to them: I am your financial adviser. I 
recommend this subprime loan, instead of recommending a loan that was 
best for the family. So a vicious circle resulted in exploding subprime 
mortgages.
  This bill that has come out of the Banking Committee says: No longer. 
Prepayment penalties will not be allowed on subprime mortgages. We will 
break the cycle that led us into this economic fiasco, this financial 
fiasco.
  If my colleagues across the aisle have some ways to improve on that, 
then let's have a public debate. Let's have that amendment on the 
Senate floor. If my colleagues across the aisle think they don't want 
to protect a fair deal for consumers and they want to continue a 
diabolical subprime exploding interest rate trap that has destroyed 
millions of families, then go ahead and propose that amendment. I doubt 
the majority of people will support it. I certainly will oppose it 
vigorously. But if my colleagues want to do that, then have the debate 
on the Senate floor.
  This bill is designed to end the taxpayer from ever being on the hook 
for bailing out financial firms again. It does it by assessing 
financial firms for the cost of unwinding or, to put it a little bit 
more directly, dismantling a financial firm when it fails. To make sure 
the taxpayer isn't on the hook, it creates a fee on the financial 
industry to pay to make sure those costs are covered by the financial 
industry itself. This is a buffer that protects the American taxpayer.
  My colleagues across the aisle have said: No, here is a fund. It 
looks like a bailout fund.
  Quite frankly, it is amazing what we hear on this floor. Here is a 
fund designed to ensure that taxpayers are protected, to ensure the 
financial industry pays their own cost of dismantling their firms. Yet 
it is spun 180 degrees until north is south and south is north, trying 
to confuse the American public.
  I don't think the American public is going to be all that confused 
about this. They want to see the financial industry pay for the cost of 
dismantling their own failures. They don't want to be on the hook 
again. You can try to keep pulling the wool over the eyes of the 
American people, but it will not work. I say to my colleagues across 
the aisle, if you want to pull the wool over the eyes of the American 
people, come here and propose that amendment that puts the taxpayers 
back on the hook, when we are taking them off the hook. See how it 
fares. Make your case, make your fair debate on this floor. But come 
and face and present and debate and vote so that we can proceed to put 
the rules of the road back in place for Wall Street.
  This bill takes a huge stride forward on proprietary trading. It says 
we should not put fireworks in our living rooms. That is pretty 
straightforward. Fireworks are wonderful. I love fireworks on the 
Fourth of July. This bill says they should not be stored in the living 
room. I have an amendment that I think will further strengthen that 
concept.
  I applaud my colleague, Carl Levin from Michigan, my cosponsor, who 
has brought forward a part of that amendment and emphasized it, saying 
we need to address the conflict of interest in financial firms. What is 
that conflict of interest? You should not be in the position of 
designing and selling securities, telling your customers that they are 
the best thing since sliced bread over here, when at the same time you 
are betting against those securities because you think they are going 
to fail.

[[Page S2634]]

That is a conflict of interest. It should not be allowed.
  Under the Merkley-Levin amendment, we will address that as well as 
strengthen proprietary trading.
  I am comfortable bringing that to the floor of the Senate and having 
that debate. It may have a majority; it may not. But that is the type 
of debate we need to have on this floor.
  I could go on through the treatment of derivatives--and I applaud my 
colleague, Blanche Lincoln--the discussion of a consumer financial 
protection agency that provides the same fairness in financial 
contracts that the Consumer Product Safety Commission provides on 
toasters, making sure that tricks and traps and scams are taken out of 
financial products so that a consumer can make a fair choice without 
being misled by something hidden in the fine print. That is the type of 
option citizens in this country want.
  Wall Street plays a very important role in aggregating and allocating 
capital, but we need to make sure the rules are done such that that 
role is done well, that conflicts of interest are removed, that 
transparency is provided, that tricks and traps and scams are taken out 
of financial products. These are the sorts of things this bill does.
  This is a bill that is all about fighting for fairness for Main 
Street which, in the long term, will be a very good business model for 
Wall Street as well.
  Let's, as a Chamber, recognize our responsibility to build an 
economic system that strengthens the financial foundation of our 
families--that is what this bill is all about--and puts our country on 
a firm basis for decades to come. International investors will want to 
invest back here in America. They will trust the integrity of our 
system.
  I encourage my colleagues to come together when we have the next 
cloture vote and decide it is time to fight for the people of this 
country and fight for the economic future of our country by proceeding 
to the debate on this bill and the passage of this bill and getting it 
to the President's desk.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise this evening to talk about how we 
can take a big step toward holding Wall Street accountable and stopping 
it from lining its own pockets at the expense of America's families.
  Last month, as part of the health care reconciliation bill, the 
Senate also passed student loan reform that ended a longtime corporate 
welfare program. Our reforms halted the enormous subsidies the Federal 
Government paid to lenders in the student loan market, replacing it 
with a program called Direct Lending that slashes $61 billion--$61 
billion--in cost to the taxpayers by cutting out the middleman and 
lending to students directly. The money saved will go toward Pell 
grants, helping kids from working families go to college.
  Today, as we debate Wall Street reform, we continue that fight to end 
the stranglehold big banks have on our economy and, by extension, on 
the everyday life of the American people.
  Over the past year and a half, we have seen, in stark reality, the 
devastating impact Wall Street can have on our economy when it is left 
to its own devices. Fueled by unbridled greed, a love of risk--well, 
the love of risking other people's money--and an obsession with profit 
at all costs, banks bought up toxic mortgages by the thousands, driving 
the subprime lending market in the process. Credit rating agencies, 
conveniently funded by the same institutions they were rating--that is 
a bad idea--gave the resulting securities their highest AAA rating, and 
the initial ingredients of the financial crisis were born. 
Incidentally, today Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that 93 
percent of these AAA-rated subprime mortgage-backed securities have 
since been downgraded to junk status--93 percent. That is hard to do on 
anything.
  Several bank failures and a $700 billion-plus bailout later, the 
American people were left paying the price. By October of 2009, 
unemployment had jumped to 10.1 percent and even today it remains at 
9.7 percent. By contrast, just 10 years ago, in October of 2000, the 
unemployment rate was 3.9 percent. Americans have lost $11.7 trillion--
$11.7 trillion--in personal wealth since the financial crisis, and 
housing values have fallen 15 percent in just the past year. We have 
seen our retirement accounts shrink and our plans for the future 
delayed, sometimes indefinitely--and all because of Wall Street's 
incessant need to rack up enormous profits.
  Over the past few decades, Wall Street's profits have gone through 
the roof. In 1987, the financial industry represented only 19 percent 
of all domestic corporate profits. By 2009, that number was almost 32 
percent. Thirty-two percent of all the Nation's corporate profits went 
to the financial industry.
  The dramatic growth of the financial services industry would be fine 
if Wall Street was actually adding value--helping to invest in our 
economy in constructive ways and to create jobs. But, instead, they 
have been making bets on bets on bets on bets. It is one thing to have 
a commodities futures market that provides the resources for farmers to 
put crops in the ground, but it is another thing altogether when Wall 
Street is just gambling in areas where they have no real productive 
interest. Let's put Wall Street back to work investing in America, not 
gambling with its future.
  The bill we are discussing tonight would ensure that Wall Street can 
never again bilk the American people in the same way. It would create a 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--a true cornerstone of this bill. 
The bureau would be an independent watchdog for consumers housed inside 
the Federal Reserve. The bureau would force big banks and credit card 
companies to offer clear terms to families on credit cards, student 
loans, on retirement financial products. Just as importantly, it would 
make sure mortgage companies cannot sell misleading loans and mortgages 
to consumers so we avoid the kinds of problems that led to this crisis 
in the first place.
  For the first time, the bill would set up a council of regulators 
that would oversee the financial system as a whole. This council would 
monitor risk across the entire system and ensure that industries and 
companies do not fall through the cracks between regulatory agencies. 
This bill also includes a tough section on derivatives to ensure 
greater transparency and tighten their regulation.
  It ends taxpayer bailouts by forcing banks to pony up $50 billion to 
pay for their own funeral if they fail. This is not a taxpayer-funded 
bailout, and let me tell you why. First, it is not a bailout. The bank 
would get liquidated. Secondly, it is not taxpayer funded because 
taxpayers do not fund it. The banks do. I do not know how to make this 
any clearer to my colleagues across the aisle. Yet tonight we find 
ourselves where we are.
  Let me be clear: We cannot afford not to pass this bill. Americans 
are demanding we act to hold Wall Street accountable. Without further 
protections, it would be easy to have another crisis such as the one we 
have just been through. Yet tonight, despite the urgency and the 
importance of this bill, my colleagues across the aisle are 
filibustering our attempt to reform Wall Street and not just the bill 
itself. They have blocked us from even starting debate on the bill by 
filibustering the motion to proceed. They have done this despite the 
fact that many of them actually agree with substantial portions of the 
bill. They are doing this because they want to stop government from 
actually being able to accomplish anything.
  I have said it before, and I will say it again. This is a perversion 
of the filibuster and a perversion of the Senate. Let's turn our 
attention back to legislating, which is the reason voters put us in 
this august body in the first place.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Wall Street reform bill. We often 
talk on the Senate floor about wanting to make sure American families 
are protected. Now we have a chance to actually do something about it. 
America cannot afford another financial crisis. That is now in our 
hands in this body, and it is one of our greatest responsibilities.
  I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I have a favorite President and it is 
not President Obama. It is, in fact, President Harry Truman. I still 
cannot quite get over the fact that I am sitting at Harry Truman's desk 
on the

[[Page S2635]]

Senate floor and that I hold the seat in the Senate that Harry Truman 
held.
  Tomorrow, when I attend the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 
and as we see a parade of Wall Street executives justifying their 
behavior, I will be asking questions at the committee that Harry Truman 
made famous when he took war profiteers to task many years ago.
  Harry Truman said:

       If you can't convince them, confuse them.

  Well, I am confused. I read today that the ranking member, from the 
Republican Party, of the Banking Committee said the following at a 
meeting of community bankers. I am quoting exactly what he said:

       I think we basically know what went wrong. We had a lot of 
     hearings. We've been working on it 15, 16 months now.

  That is not Chairman Dodd who said: ``I think we basically know what 
went wrong.'' It is not Chairman Dodd saying: ``We had a lot of 
hearings.'' It is not Chairman Dodd saying: We've been working on it 
for 15 or 16 months. It is the Republican ranking member on the Banking 
Committee.
  I am confused. Is it that they do not realize it is a huge problem?
  Well, of course they realize it is a huge problem.
  Is it that they are not prepared, that they do not have enough 
information? Well, of course not. Senator Shelby said today: We 
basically know what went wrong. We have had a lot of hearings. We have 
been working on it for 15 or 16 months.
  Senator Dodd has sat here this evening as many Members of my class 
and the freshmen class have come to the floor to express regret and 
confusion about why we cannot debate this bill. It is admirable he has 
sat and listened to all these speeches tonight. He did not have to. He 
could have gone home. He is invested in this legislation for all the 
right reasons: Because he cares deeply about this country. He 
understands we have an obligation as Senators to address this problem. 
He sees it as his duty to see this through.
  So why--why--did this happen today? Why did we not move forward to 
debate? It is just politics, raw, bare-knuckled politics--the kind of 
stuff Americans are so sick of they want to throw up. They are so sick 
of this game playing, they want to throw everybody out of this place. 
Frankly, right about now, I do not blame them. What in the Lord's Name 
are we doing delaying the debate on this bill?
  I do believe the leader of the Republican Party thinks his success as 
a leader can only be defined by my party's failure. It is like it is a 
football game. I was confused when 41 people signed the letter saying 
they did not want to go forward. All 41 Republicans signed this letter.
  Then I got confused because Senator McConnell came to the floor and 
said black is white. He literally said that. He said: We cannot be for 
this bill because we want to stop bailouts. Well, of course this bill 
is about stopping bailouts. That is why we are doing the bill, to make 
sure we do not have any more taxpayer bailouts. He knows that. But he 
honestly, I don't think, believed the American people were paying close 
enough attention. Then we had the announcement that the SEC had come 
out of a coma and was going to do something about Goldman Sachs and 
what had happened. Then, as Senator Dodd said so well on the floor the 
other day, it is like the rooster taking credit for the morning. They 
said, Well, we wrote that letter and now we are back at the negotiating 
table. What hogwash. What hogwash. The negotiating table has always 
been open. The door has always been open. Senator Dodd has been out 
working the floor of this building and every building within a mile 
trying to find Republicans to sit down and negotiate and find what is 
the problem we need to solve to make sure we never have this kind of 
financial meltdown again in America.

  Here is another thing that is very confusing. It is time for the 
markup in the Banking Committee. I believe the number is over 400 
amendments were filed by the Republicans for the markup. The Friday 
before the markup, all of these amendments were on file. Many people 
worked all weekend long getting ready for the markup on Monday, for the 
markup of this bill. The chairman of the committee, assumed--as anybody 
would who has spent as many hours working in this august body as he 
has--that on Monday Republicans were going to offer amendments. In 
fact, the Democrats worked all the way through the weekend trying to 
figure out how many amendments filed by the Republicans they could 
easily accept without any debate or contention.
  So what happens when the committee starts? The ranking member on the 
Republican side says they don't want to offer any amendments. What? Now 
I am really confused. They don't even want to try to change the bill in 
committee. They make no effort to offer any substantive changes, and 
then they all vote no.
  If the American people don't realize that a game is being played 
here, they need to pause for a minute and think about that. Why on 
Earth would the members of the Banking Committee from the Republican 
Party fail to offer one amendment to this legislation, unless there was 
some kind of plan, political plan: Don't participate. Don't vote for 
it. Stop it. Obstructionism, saying the Democrats are doing something 
they are not trying to do: taxpayer bailout.
  It would be so easy to stand here and say there are ulterior motives 
about helping big bankers or helping Wall Street and campaign finance 
issues. I don't know. I just know I am confused. I am confused as to 
why the Republicans would march lockstep away from the debate on an 
issue that is of paramount importance to this country. I am confused 
why the Republicans would fail to offer one amendment at the committee 
level. I am confused why debating this bill is a problem for them 
politically. I am confused.
  Ronald Reagan is cited for this quote often, but it wasn't Ronald 
Reagan who first said it, it was Harry Truman: It is amazing what you 
can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit. Man, oh, man, do 
some people need that advice in this body. We need to quit worrying 
about whether the Democrats are getting credit or the Republicans are 
getting credit and realize all the American people want us to do is get 
to work. Get this thing done. Quit fooling around with this game that 
is being played. Tomorrow I think the leader may have a motion to 
reconsider. I would implore my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle: Reconsider what you are doing. Many of my colleagues are such 
fine, upstanding people who also care deeply about their country. They 
are just wrapped up. They have been convinced this is some political 
Tic-Tac-Toe match and if they hold on for a couple more turns they are 
going to be able to draw the line through the series of squares.
  This is about whether we fix a serious problem. I am a big fan of how 
hard Senator Dodd has worked. I think he is trying with every bit of 
intellect and passion he has to get this across the finish line, 
because he knows we need to do it for the American people. The games 
need to stop. The American people need to pay attention and realize 
they have a very good reason to be confused. Let's debate this bill. 
Let's debate it beginning tomorrow. Let's debate our differences. Let's 
try to amend it. Let's vote on amendments. Let's agree to disagree on 
some of it and decide who has the most votes to move forward a piece of 
legislation, the way our Founding Fathers intended. I guarantee they 
didn't intend this. They did not intend this, a refusal to even debate.
  So let the debate begin. If the Republican Party wants to lockstep 
and say we don't even get to debate it, then the American people are 
going to have to draw their own conclusions, and I have a feeling it 
won't be a good one.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me first begin by saying if Harry Truman 
were here tonight, he would be very proud of his successor sitting in 
that chair in the back of this Chamber. I wish to thank my colleague 
from Missouri for her passion, her eloquence, and her common sense, 
something that Harry Truman was noted for. My father actually seconded 
the nomination of Harry Truman at the convention in Philadelphia in 
1948, and I cherish the letter thanking my father for that nomination 
now hanging on the wall of my home--a wonderful personal letter 
thanking him for that seconded nomination. He didn't have many people 
in

[[Page S2636]]

1948. My father had not been elected at that time. He couldn't find 
elected officials to stand up for him in 1948. My father had a great 
relationship with President Truman and was always proud of it. He had a 
wonderful, direct--some would call it blunt--relationship with him. 
Frankly, at moments such as this, I think that is what is needed, 
because as the Senator from Missouri articulated, this is not a 
complicated moment.
  Maybe there are those who don't appreciate how an institution such as 
this is supposed to operate. It isn't always a pretty process when we 
engage in debate, with 100 people in this Chamber of different 
political persuasions, ideologies, and interests. We try to come 
together as a committee system chosen years ago in order to try and be 
efficient about our work, so we split up into various groups to 
consider various matters under certain headings. We sit as Democrats 
and Republicans, Independents, and try and work our way through a 
hearing process, listening to experts, gathering informally, talking 
with one another, reading and educating ourselves, whether it is 
agriculture or defense or the environment or energy or, in this case, 
banking, over a period of weeks and months--particularly after a moment 
in time in our history that nearly brought us to the brink of financial 
collapse--and then through our collective judgments try and frame to 
the best of our ability our answers to nagging questions: Why did we 
get into this mess? What was missing? What did we do wrong? What can we 
do right? How can we make this better so we don't go through this 
again, so we don't strangle the system, so we won't lack the creativity 
and imagination that have been the hallmark of our financial sector and 
not lose our financial leadership in the world as a nation? How can we 
harmonize those rules in a global economy today so we don't end up 
racing to the bottom the various nations who offer the least resistance 
to some of the practices that brought us to the brink in our own 
country?
  That is basically what we have engaged in for the last 38 or 39 
months since I have been chairman of this committee beginning in 
January of 2007. We didn't agree on everything, but we tried to fashion 
the best we could. I introduced a proposal back in November. My 
colleagues said that is a good beginning, but we ought to try some 
different ideas, so between November and this April, I divided up the 
committee labors. I asked Democrats and Republicans to take on subject 
matters because it was a highly complex area of the law dealing with 
derivatives, dealing with systemic risk, dealing with corporate 
governance, dealing with consumer protection and other matters; 
thinking that if we broke it up into groups, Democrats and Republicans 
would become invested and knowledgeable about the subject matter so we 
could then frame a proposal that would enjoy the kind of bipartisan 
support needed to advance the cause.

  Well, I wish to compliment my colleagues. Many of them worked very 
hard. While we didn't achieve a complete understanding in all of these 
matters, I think the bill reflects a lot of that labor, to such a 
degree that the proposal we tried to move to today is so fundamentally 
different than the bill I introduced in November as a result of that 
labor.
  I thank my colleague from Missouri for identifying what occurred a 
few weeks ago, and that is, of course, the committee markup. Again, my 
colleagues on the committee made a judgment. They thought that maybe it 
might be better--there were an awful lot of conflicting amendments, 
some of which didn't make a lot of sense, quite candidly, from the 
other side, and I say that respectfully. It was their determination 
that they would decide to go further in the process without engaging in 
the amendment process.
  So here we are. We need to get to this. I have listened very 
patiently this evening to some wonderful remarks. I wish to begin with 
Mark Warner, who spoke earlier this afternoon on the bill and has made 
a remarkable contribution to this body and to the Banking Committee. He 
spent about 20 years in the financial services area, so he speaks from 
a base of knowledge and personal experience. Bob Menendez of New Jersey 
as well was eloquent in his comments. Senator Klobuchar, and Senator 
Kaufman, who spoke on this before; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire as 
well, and Senator Burris of Illinois, and the Presiding Officer, 
Sheldon Whitehouse, a good friend who has been invaluable in these 
debates. We worked together on the health care matter for weeks and 
months over the last year and, again, his thoughts and ideas on this 
bill as well I am thankful for; Mark Udall of Colorado, Senator Merkley 
of Oregon, Al Franken and, of course, Senator McCaskill, who I spoke 
about as well. It is quite a group here, these new Members, their first 
or second terms in the Senate. I hope my other colleagues and their 
staffs were listening this evening. It wasn't just eloquence, it was 
common sense. They are people who have gone home and listened to their 
constituents. While we all may not agree--and I can't suggest that 
every amendment they have talked about is one I would necessarily even 
be supportive of when the debate begins--I firmly believe every Senator 
has equal status in this Chamber. Whether you are a chairman or a new 
Member, you are a Senator, and you deserve the courtesies of this 
institution. You deserve the history of this institution. You deserve 
to be heard and respected for your ideas and to be given the time to 
present them, to debate them, and to have an up-or-down vote on your 
proposals.
  That is how this institution is supposed to operate. I have been here 
for three decades, and in all of my three decades here, I have never 
gone through a period such as we have over the last couple of months 
where we can't even get to debate some of these critical matters.
  I am still optimistic. I guess that explains why I have been here for 
30 years. I still want to believe this is going to work, that all we 
have been through is not for naught. As does my colleague from 
Missouri, I have great respect for my colleagues in this Chamber, 
Democrats and Republicans, and I have over the years, even with people 
I have had basic and fundamental disagreements with. I am convinced the 
majority of us here--an overwhelming majority--want to be associated 
with passing legislation that we believe will make a significant 
difference in the economic life of our Nation by at least limiting or 
prohibiting the kind of activities that led us to the problems and 
economic difficulties we are in.
  I hope in the coming days we will have a chance to move to this bill. 
I hope sooner rather than later. It may be a matter not well known by 
many, but we only have by my count about 45 or 50 legislative days left 
in this session. We are working about 3\1/2\ days a week. We are here 
for about another 14 or 15 weeks, when you exclude the August break, 
the break for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and, of course, our 
departure sometime I presume in early October for the elections. That 
does not give us a lot of time. Last week we spent the entire week on 
five nominations that, as I recall--and I may be corrected--passed I 
believe overwhelmingly when the votes finally occurred. So 5 days on 5 
people who were filibustered and delayed. That is all we did last week. 
That was it: five nominations that were ultimately agreed to--not 
controversial nominations, just ones where votes were designed to slow 
the process. I don't think the American people want us to leave our 
work in this Congress without having addressed this issue.
  I will end on this particular note. If, for some reason, Lord forbid, 
a major financial institution were to begin to fail this evening, we 
are in no better shape than we were in the fall of 2008. There is an 
implicit guarantee that such an institution would receive the backing 
of the them and our economy. Despite what I perceive to be overwhelming 
objections to that kind of a bailout occurring, that is one issue on 
which there seems to be unanimity. Yet, if tonight a problem began to 
emerge, we would be in a similar situation as we were 18 months ago. I 
don't know of a single Member here who would want that to occur. That 
issue alone ought to cause every one of us to move to get to this 
debate. That is a principal part of this legislation. There are other 
features as well, but that alone ought to be motivation to begin this 
debate, listen to each other's thoughts and ideas, and to conclude that 
discussion and debate by passing

[[Page S2637]]

this legislation--or at least an amended version of this legislation.

  I thank these 12 or 13 colleagues for their patience, their 
eloquence, their determination, and their conviction. As I get ready to 
leave this Chamber in the coming months, I will leave with a high 
degree of confidence that this Chamber will be in good hands. After 
listening tonight to your words, advice, counsel, and determination, it 
is with a sense of optimism that we will get this bill done. I am 
confident of that as I stand before you this evening.
  With that, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________