[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.
____________________