[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 79 (Monday, May 24, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4138-S4140]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  VOTE ON HUTCHISON MOTION TO INSTRUCT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
instruct, offered by the Senator from Texas. The yeas and nays have 
been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Byrd), the Senator from Arkansas (Mrs. Lincoln), the Senator from 
Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill), the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer), and 
the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), 
the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), and the Senator from 
Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 87, nays 4, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 164 Leg.]

                                YEAS--87

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Brownback
     Burr
     Burris
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Johanns
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     LeMieux
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--4

     Bunning
     Cantwell
     Feingold
     Sanders

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Byrd
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Isakson
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Schumer
     Warner
     Wicker
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay 
that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, while I opposed the motion to instruct 
offered by the Senator from Kansas, Mr. Brownback, I did so with 
reluctance. The vast majority of auto dealers in Wisconsin do not 
engage in the kinds of behavior that have been held up as a reason to 
oppose the Senator's motion, or the amendment he had previously offered 
to the financial regulatory reform bill. Our dealers are wonderful 
corporate citizens, who have contributed significantly to our 
communities and our State.
  Some of that excellent track record stems from Wisconsin's tough 
consumer protection laws that not only safeguard consumers, but also 
protect those firms that treat their customers fairly from the fly-by-
night operators who seek to gain a competitive advantage over honest 
dealers at the expense of the consumer. Had Wisconsin's consumer laws 
and history of vigorous enforcement been reflected in other States 
across the Nation, there would have been a stronger argument for 
carving out an exception in the bill for a specific set of firms, as is 
proposed by the motion to instruct.
  Even though I opposed the motion to instruct, supporters of the 
motion are right when they note that auto dealers, who are almost 
uniformly small businesses, should not be treated the same as the large 
financial institutions that are the focus of much of this bill. That is 
why I supported the amendment offered by the Senator from Maine, Ms.

[[Page S4139]]

Snowe, to extend the Regulatory Flexibility Act provisions to the new 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That approach will not only 
address some of the concerns of the Senator from Kansas but also other 
small businesses that may fall under the oversight of that new bureau.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I would like to express my support for 
amendment No. 3809, which was offered by the Senator from Hawaii to the 
financial regulatory reform bill. His amendment would have stricken a 
provision in the financial reform legislation that allows the 
Securities and Exchange Commission to use fee revenues to fund its own 
operations without undergoing the annual appropriations process.
  While the President's budget request does not endorse ``self-
funding'' for the SEC, I understand the Commission itself supports the 
idea because it generally raises more fee revenue each year than 
Congress appropriates for the agency. Under self-funding, the SEC might 
receive more money without the challenges of the annual appropriations 
process by keeping all the fees it receives in the form of offsetting 
collections.
  While I appreciate that the appropriations process subjects the 
Commission to competition from other government programs, it is 
precisely that process that imposes discipline on Federal agencies and 
helps distill needs from wants. Self-funding would effectively exempt 
the SEC from Congressional budgetary oversight. Congress has important 
constitutional responsibilities for directing Federal spending and 
providing necessary oversight over the executive branch. The Commission 
has offered no compelling evidence that it cannot perform its statutory 
functions under the current budget structure or that its performance 
warrants being exempted from that structure.
  The Appropriations Committee has consistently responded to the 
resource requests of the SEC, recognizing its important enforcement 
role. Congress appropriated $906 million for the SEC in fiscal year 
2008, $960.1 million in fiscal year 2009 and $1.11 billion in fiscal 
year 2010. The fiscal year 2010 appropriation level provided by 
Congress was $85 million over the President's budget request.
  The President's appropriation request for the Commission for fiscal 
year 2011 is $1.25 billion, an increase of $139 million over the prior 
year's approved funding. As with all agencies, the chairman and I will 
carefully consider this request and work with the members of the 
committee to ensure that the funding provided to the Commission will 
enable it to carry out its important mission.
  If the SEC were to self-fund using fee revenues, the Securities and 
Exchange Commission is on track to set fees at levels sufficient to 
raise $1.7 billion in collections in fiscal year 2011, an increase of 
$220 million over fee collections in fiscal year 2010. This change 
would increase the SEC budget by $590 million in fiscal year 2011, when 
compared with the appropriated funding level in fiscal year 2010. It 
also represents an increase of $490 million over the President's 
appropriation request for the SEC for fiscal year 2011.
  It seems to me that, now more than ever, congressional oversight is 
needed to regulate the regulators and to hold accountable those 
regulators who fail to do their jobs correctly. The SEC made many 
mistakes during the financial crisis, including failing to bring an 
enforcement action against Stanford Financial for over 12 years after 
learning about the Stanford scheme. Recent reports by the SEC inspector 
general and others show that these problems were caused by 
mismanagement at the SEC and not by any funding shortages. Shouldn't 
Congress demand even more accountability of the SEC, rather than 
allowing the SEC to freely spend a greatly expanded budget?
  The financial downturn and its aftermath have highlighted the need 
for increased oversight and transparency throughout the financial 
system. They also have highlighted the need for increased congressional 
oversight. The annual budget and appropriations process ensures that 
Congress plays an active role in the oversight of important agencies, 
such as the SEC.
  Under the financial reform bill, the SEC will face new challenges as 
it takes on additional responsibilities. I am committed in my role as 
vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee to work with the 
administration and the SEC to ensure that all resource requests receive 
appropriate consideration. The Appropriations Committee has a history 
of responding to such requests and at times has provided additional 
resources based on the committee's assessment of the agency's needs. In 
addition, if for some reason the fees that the SEC collects are 
insufficient to support its mission, it is likely that the SEC would be 
back before the Congress, requesting additional resources.
  While the SEC may believe that the fees it collects provide a path to 
a dependable funding stream, I believe the appropriations process--
which is grounded in the Constitution and subject to scrutiny not only 
by the Appropriations Committee but by extension by the entire Senate 
and the Congress--is the path to dependable funding with appropriate 
checks and balances to ensure that funding decisions are made in the 
best interest of the taxpayers. With our Nation's fiscal situation as 
precarious as it is, Congress should not be putting yet another Federal 
agency on auto-pilot.
  Even though the Senator from Hawaii's amendment was not considered 
prior to the Senate's completing action on the financial reform bill, I 
hope the managers of the bill will duly consider the views of the 
amendment's sponsors and drop the SEC self-funding provision from the 
bill in conference.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I wish to take a few minutes to express my 
views on the bill overall and also to express my appreciation to an 
awful lot of people who worked very hard on this legislation over the 
last year and a half, not just over the last 4 weeks this bill has been 
the subject of Senate debate.
  Last week, the Senate voted to pass this historic and comprehensive 
Wall Street reform legislation. Over the weekend, the New York Times 
wrote:

       With the Senate's passage of financial regulation, Congress 
     and the White House have completed 16 months of activity that 
     rival any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition.

  I argue that it is not the scope of our mission that we will remember 
when we look back on this period in our Nation's history. Instead, I 
believe we will remember the scope of the challenge with which we have 
been confronted, the weight of the burden we have been asked to lift 
off the backs of the American people, and the difficult work we had to 
do to get the job done.
  Our Nation was founded on principles of religious freedom and 
representative government, but our history reveals that one of the most 
truly American principles is that of self-determination. In America, if 
you work hard and play by the rules, there is no limit to what you can 
achieve. That idea is so central to our national character that it is 
tempting to take it for granted. We rarely think about the foundation 
upon which that promise rests, but that foundation is there. It is 
real. It is made up of laws and rules and regulations and institutions. 
It is the charge of human beings, and thus it can fail.
  We all know what was lost when that foundation did fail 2 years ago--
millions of jobs, millions of homes, trillions in household wealth and 
retirement savings. But what we very nearly lost was that principle of 
self-determination. Small business owners who turned a good idea into a 
real business that employs real people suddenly found that despite 
having done nothing wrong, they could no longer find the credit they 
needed to survive. Homeowners who had put their backs into earning 
enough to own a piece of this country suddenly found that, despite 
having done nothing wrong, they had been ripped off by an unscrupulous 
lender. And people across America who got up early every day to go do a 
job that barely put enough food on the table found that they were being 
let go, not because they had done something wrong but because of the 
mistakes of a banker they never met, a corporate hotshot who had never 
had any trouble feeding his family.
  Over the many months, we looked at the foundation closely, and the 
closer we looked, the more cracks we saw. And the American people, 
never quick to lose faith, began to doubt whether the promise of our 
free markets and

[[Page S4140]]

abundant wealth would still hold for them and their children.
  Our task in this institution, in writing and passing this bill, was 
not just to restore stability to our financial system or save our 
economy from further turmoil. Our task was to restore power to the 
uniquely American principle of self-determination. I believe that, in 
the view of history, we will be judged to have succeeded. And that 
effort means more to me and I presume more to this body than any 
political consideration ever could.
  Of course, our work is not quite finished. We must now work with our 
colleagues in the other body in conference. In that conference, I will 
fight to make sure the strengths of the bill that came out of this 
institution are reflected in the legislation we will send to the 
President's desk.
  At the heart of what makes our bill effective is its focus on the 
small business owners, investors, and consumers who are, in turn, at 
the heart of our prosperity. There is no interest more special than the 
public interest, and that is reflected in our legislation.
  Our Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rejects the notion that 
individual lobbies should enjoy special protections. We took special 
precautions to ensure that small businesses are not unnecessarily 
pulled into the regulatory regime. And we listened carefully to 
concerns about creating an unfettered bureaucracy, ensuring that the 
powers it has are matched by strong oversight. But we rejected carve-
outs and loopholes because the only special interests whose voice 
should be heard at this bureau is that of the American consumer. We 
took steps to ensure that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's 
funding will be independent and reliable so that its mission cannot be 
compromised by political maneuvering.
  In conference, I will do what I can to defend these important 
principles. I will also fight for our bill's approach to ending too-
big-to-fail bailouts, an approach that is the result of hard work and 
good, bipartisan compromise on the part of many Senators.
  Further, our bill includes lasting and durable protections against 
more taxpayer bailouts and the possibility of yet another widespread 
economic crisis.
  We have said all along that there needs to be a way for big firms to 
fail without incurring taxpayer expense or threatening the foundation 
of our economy. We have found that way, and we have ensured it will 
last for a long time. We have also included the Volcker rule to help 
ensure that the biggest firms are as stable as possible.
  We also have found a way to bring into the sunlight an entire market 
sector that for too long has grown in the shadows. Our bill has very 
strong protections for the derivatives market, and, like the Consumer 
Financial Protection Bureau, we have rejected carve-outs for special 
interests because those carve-outs would weaken protections against 
economic instability.
  Our bill also takes on the issue of Federal Reserve governance, 
mandating a General Accounting Office audit of the Fed's response to 
the financial crisis, changing the president of the New York Fed to a 
Presidential appointment, and making other improvements--increasing 
transparency at the Fed without threatening its independence or its 
ability to do important work of conducting monetary policy.
  Our bill strengthens the Securities and Exchange Commission, 
improving whistleblower protections and empowering shareholders and 
investors.
  Our bill, finally, reforms the credit rating agencies, allowing 
greater access to information, including an agency's track record, 
methodology, and the limitations of its ratings.
  This is a very strong bill. If you want to call it ambitious, that is 
fine, but I think that is missing the point. Everything in this bill is 
a response to the pain we have seen in our Nation and to the worry 
Americans have that it could all happen again.
  If the bill is comprehensive--and I believe it is--that is because 
the challenge was also comprehensive. We can no more let the principle 
of economic self-determination crumble than we can the principles of 
religious freedom or representative government on which our Nation has 
been founded and built. That is why I have fought as hard as I have, 
along with my colleagues on the Banking Committee and so many others in 
this Chamber--Democrats and Republicans--over the last month the 
legislation was on the floor of this body. That is why we will continue 
to fight for this strong legislation until it is signed into law by the 
President of the United States.
  As I said at the outset of these remarks, obviously those who get to 
speak at these lecterns, to debate in this Hall, receive the notoriety 
for good or real as a piece of legislation such as this moves through 
the legislative process. There are literally dozens of people who work 
every day, over the weekends, long into the evening to make sure 
legislation is comprehensive, well thought out, balanced, and fair.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of the 
people on our committee staff, legislative counsels, the floor staff, 
and the Republican floor staff, and thank them for their tremendous 
work over this last month. They do a tremendous job on behalf of the 
American public every single day, seeing to it that which we conduct 
here is done in a fair, open process that reflects well on this 
institution. Along with Ed Silverman, Amy Friend, Jonathan Miller, Dean 
Shahinian, and Julie Chon--I hesitate to go down the whole list. I 
thank all of them for their tremendous work, and I want the record to 
reflect their names. It is the least we can do. I can literally cite 
paragraphs about every one of them, the work they conducted to bring us 
to this point in the legislative process. I am grateful to them and the 
floor staff, Republicans and Democrats, who make this place work all 
day. The American public owes them a great debt of gratitude for what 
they do.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             Thank-You List


                            Committee Staff

       Ed Silverman, Amy Friend, Jonathan Miller, Dean Shahinian, 
     Julie Chon, Charles Yi, Marc Jarsuliq, Lynsey Graham Rea, 
     Catherine Galicia, Matthew Green, Deborah Katz, Mark 
     Jickling, Donna Nordenberg, Levon Bagramian, Brian 
     Filipowich, Drew Colbert, Misha Mintz-Roth, Lisa Frumin, 
     William Fields, Beth Cooper, Colin McGinnis, Neal Orringer, 
     Kirstin Brost, Peter Bondi, Sean Oblack, Erika Lee, Joslyn 
     Hemler, Dawn Ratliff, And all of their families.


                          Legislative Counsels

       Laura Ayoud, Rob Grant, Allison Wright, and Kim Albrecht 
     Taylor.


                       The Democratic Floor Staff

       Led by Lula Davis.


                       The Republican Floor Staff

       Led by David Schiappa.


                          Leader Ried's Staff

       Randy DeValk, Gary Myrick, Mark Wetjen.

  Mr. DODD. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________