[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 25 (Monday, February 13, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1100-S1112]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Nomination of Neil Gorsuch

  Mr. President, now, one final matter. When President Clinton took 
office in 1993, he named his first nominee to the Supreme Court, Ruth 
Bader Ginsburg. Ginsburg's nomination was not without controversy. She 
had argued for positions that are still quite controversial today. For 
example, she had questioned the constitutionality of laws against 
bigamy because they implicated private relationships. For the same 
reason, she had opined that there might be a constitutional right to 
prostitution. She always advocated for coeducational prisons and 
juvenile facilities. She even proposed abolishing Mother's Day.
  So you can understand why Senators wanted to get her views on issues 
that might come before her as a Justice, but when pressed at her 
confirmation hearing, here is what she had to say:

       You are well aware that I came to this proceeding to be 
     judged as a judge, not as an advocate. Because I am and hope 
     to continue to be a judge, it would be wrong for me to say or 
     preview in this legislative chamber how I would cast my vote 
     on questions the Supreme Court may be called upon to decide. 
     Were I to rehearse here what I would say and how I would 
     reason on such questions, I would act injudiciously. Judges 
     in our system are bound to decide concrete cases, not 
     abstract issues.

  She went on:

       A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, 
     no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the 
     specifics of a particular case, it would display disdain for 
     the entire judicial process.

  So summing it up, she said: No hints, no forecasts, no previews, and 
that is what has become known as the Ginsburg standard. Supreme Court 
nominees of Presidents of both parties have adhered to it.
  For example, President Clinton's second nominee, Stephen Breyer, 
noted that ``there is nothing more important to a judge than to have an 
open mind and to listen carefully to arguments,'' and so he told the 
Judiciary Committee he did ``not want to predict or commit myself on an 
open issue that I feel is going to come up in the Court.'' That meant, 
he said, not discussing ``how'' a ``right applies, where it applies, 
under what circumstances'' it applies.
  When his nomination to be Chief Justice was pending, John Roberts 
said that adhering to the principle embodied in the Ginsburg standard 
is ``of great importance not only to potential Justices but to judges, 
which most nominees to the Supreme Court already are.''
  ``We're sensitive,'' he said, ``to the need to maintain the 
independence and integrity of the Court.''
  Let me repeat that. The Chief Justice said this principle was 
necessary ``to maintain the independence and integrity of the Court.''
  He then explained how the Ginsburg standard helps maintain that 
independence. Nominees, he said, ``go on the Court not as a delegate 
from [the Judiciary] Committee with certain commitments laid out and 
how they're going to approach cases.''
  Rather, ``[T]hey go on the Court as Justices who will approach cases 
with an open mind and decide those cases in light of the arguments 
presented, the record presented, and the rule of law.

[[Page S1101]]

And the litigants before them,'' he concluded, ``have a right to expect 
that and to have the appearance of that as well. That has been the 
approach that all of the Justices have taken.''
  At the time, my colleague from New York and other Senate Democrats 
were upset that the Chief Justice followed Justice Ginsburg's 
approach--even though many of them didn't complain when she refused to 
preview or prejudge legal issues during her confirmation hearing.
  But guess who came to the Chief Justice's defense. Justice Ginsburg. 
She felt compelled to depart from protocol and weigh in on the matter. 
She said: ``Judge Roberts was unquestionably right'' in refusing to 
preview or prejudge legal issues at his confirmation hearing.
  Both of President Obama's nominees adhered to the Ginsburg standard 
as well. His first nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, explained that what her 
``experience on the trial court and the appellate court have reinforced 
for me is that the process of judging is a process of keeping an open 
mind. It's the process,'' she continued, ``of not coming to a decision 
with a prejudgment ever of an outcome. . . . `' That process, she said, 
applied not only to the cases that would come before her on the Supreme 
Court if she were confirmed but that could come before her in her then-
current capacity as a circuit court judge.
  Most Senators of both parties have respected the Ginsburg standard.
  For example, during her hearing, Senator Leahy told Justice Ginsburg 
that he ``certainly'' didn't want her ``to have to lay out a test here 
in the abstract which might determine what [her] vote or [her] test 
would be in a case [she had] yet to see that may well come before the 
Supreme Court.'' Even my friend from New York has recognized the 
Ginsburg Standard is a ``grand tradition.''
  The far left has been pushing my counterpart and other Senate 
Democrats to oppose anyone--anyone--whom the President nominates to the 
Supreme Court. So the Ginsburg standard is given way to the double 
standard.
  My friend from New York now says this Supreme Court nominee has to 
pass some ``special test''--some ``special test''--to show his judicial 
independence. He says Judge Gorsuch, a highly respected, experienced 
jurist, must preview his approach or even prejudge legal issues that 
could come before him, like whether the President's Executive order on 
refugee vetting is ``constitutional.'' This is clearly an effort to get 
Judge Gorsuch to prejudge not a matter that could be in the Federal 
courts but to prejudge on a matter that is in the Federal courts right 
now.
  Senator Schumer is not alone in wanting to replace the Ginsburg 
standard with a new double standard. His colleague who serves on the 
Judiciary Committee, the senior Senator from Connecticut, also says 
that Judge Gorsuch, for the first time with Supreme Court nominees, has 
some ``special obligation''--some ``special obligation''--to give his 
views on ``specific issues,'' without the benefit of the judicial 
process that Justice Sotomayor noted was so important.
  Under our colleagues' approach, there is no need to review the record 
in the case, no need to do any legal research, no need to hear the best 
arguments from each side, no need to deliberate with your colleagues on 
the bench to arrive at a correct result. Nope. Just give a driveby 
legal conclusion on a complicated and consequential matter of 
constitutional law.
  Let's be clear about what is going on here. This new ``special test'' 
and ``special obligation'' aren't about ensuring Judge Gorsuch's 
judicial independence; they are about compromising it. Our friends on 
the other side of the aisle want to constrain his ability to rule in a 
later case according to the facts and the law by holding him to what he 
said in their meetings or what he said under oath at his hearing.
  In the upside down world of my Democratic friends, Judge Gorsuch must 
lose his judicial independence--both as a sitting circuit court judge 
and as a future Supreme Court Justice--in order to prove his judicial 
independence.
  As Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer and Justice Sotomayor all 
noted, the process of judging is about having an open mind, seeing what 
the facts are in a particular case, hearing the arguments on both 
sides, and making what the judge believes is the correct ruling 
according to the law. It is not about a judge hemming himself in before 
a legislative body by previewing how he would view a legal issue, or, 
as Senator Leahy noted, announcing the legal test he might apply in a 
particular case, and it is definitely not about that judge saying 
whether something in the abstract is constitutional.
  So under this double standard, Senators must respect the need for 
judicial independence of the Supreme Court nominees of Democratic 
Presidents, even when those nominees espouse views that are far, far 
outside the mainstream, like suggesting there is a constitutional right 
to prostitution or urging the abolition of Mother's Day.
  Under this double standard, Senators can compromise the judicial 
independence of clearly mainstream Supreme Court nominees of Republican 
Presidents, even when those nominees are, like Judge Gorsuch, well-
known proponents of maintaining judicial independence, who have a long 
record on the issue.
  That is not just my view of Judge Gorsuch's commitment to judicial 
independence, by the way; that is according to prominent Democratic 
lawyers like President Obama's top litigator in the Supreme Court.
  This Democratic double standard, though, is not surprising. Recall 
that the Democratic leader said he was prepared to keep Justice 
Scalia's seat open for 4 years--4 years. That was made difficult by the 
nomination of an outstanding candidate like Judge Gorsuch.
  So our colleague came up with a new supermajority standard for his 
confirmation--a standard that didn't exist for seven of the eight 
Justices currently on the Court--a fact my friend later had to admit.
  The Democratic double standard on requiring nominees to prejudge 
issues is just the latest attempt to come up with something, with 
anything--anything--to justify opposing an exceptional nominee like 
Judge Gorsuch. Judge Gorsuch is one of the most impressive, most highly 
qualified nominees to ever come before us. He has won kudos from across 
the political spectrum. Even the top Democrat on the Judiciary 
Committee couldn't help but praise him.
  Instead of appreciating that our new President has nominated an 
accomplished, independent, and thoughtful jurist, Democrats are viewing 
this outstanding nominee as a political problem. Their base is 
demanding total resistance to everything, but they can't find a good 
reason to oppose Judge Gorsuch on the merits. They are in a pickle.
  So we have this attempt to replace the bipartisan Ginsburg standard 
with the double standard. I understand the difficulty of their 
situation, but the standard we are going to follow with this nominee is 
the same one--the same one--we followed for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 
every other Justice on the Court since then: no hints, no forecasts, no 
previews, fair consideration, and an up-or-down vote.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we are currently in the midst of the 
longest transitional leadership gap at the Department of Treasury in 
our Nation's history. The Senate has never let this much time go 
without a Treasury Secretary. In fact, the Senate has never left 
Treasury without a confirmed Secretary in between administrations for 
this long. Yet, despite the obvious need to fill this position, we have 
had to deal with continual and pointless delays, courtesy of some of 
our colleagues.
  I will not begrudge any Senator for taking advantage of the 
privileges offered to them under the rules of the Senate; however, I 
think we have ample reason to question some of our colleagues' judgment 
and priorities with regard to how we have dealt with the nomination of 
Steven Mnuchin to the Office of Treasury Secretary.

[[Page S1102]]

  Let's get the obvious points out of the way. Mr. Mnuchin has 30 
years' experience working in a variety of capacities in the financial 
sector. He has experience managing large and complicated private-sector 
enterprises and in negotiating difficult compromises and making tough 
decisions--and being accountable for those decisions. He has the 
support of a number of key organizations and associations within the 
finance industry, and experts across the ideological spectrum have 
endorsed his nomination.
  Long story short: Under any objective standard, Mr. Mnuchin has ample 
experience, credentials, and qualifications for this important 
position. Yet my colleagues have done all they can under the rules--
even to the point of casting aside some longstanding customs and 
traditions of the Senate--in order to delay his confirmation.
  I will not relive the entire chain of events that got this nomination 
through the Finance Committee, bringing us to this point. For now, I 
would urge my colleagues to look fairly at the record. In every case, 
as the committee processed his nomination, Mr. Mnuchin responded to 
questions and allegations with full and complete answers and 
demonstrated no signs of acting or responding in bad faith toward the 
committee or its members.
  People are free, I suppose, to walk into the confirmation process 
with an assumption of bad faith. But throughout my time in the Senate--
and keep in mind, I have been here a long time--that isn't usually how 
we operate around here.
  My colleagues on the other side have put forward a number of claims 
and allegations about Mr. Mnuchin. They have essentially thrown 
everything, including the kitchen sink, at this nominee in a desperate 
attempt to block his confirmation. Well, so far, nothing has worked. 
That is because none of the allegations my colleagues have raised can 
withstand even a modest amount of scrutiny. But that hasn't stopped 
some of them from trying.
  I have found it particularly interesting to see my friends raise 
concerns about matters that did not bother them in the least when it 
came to voting for Democratic nominees for Treasury Secretary. Indeed, 
with regard to Mr. Mnuchin, my Democratic colleagues have created a 
wholly new set of standards from those that were applied to the most 
recent previous Treasury Secretary. Many issues that seemed to be of 
little or no concern to my colleagues and my friends on the other side 
during the confirmation process for Secretary Jack Lew have been 
considered disqualifying for Mr. Mnuchin. By the way, many of these 
problems existed in the prior Treasury Secretary too. But we, in good 
faith, brought him through and allowed him to go through without a lot 
of fuss and bother.
  Let me review just a few of the discrepancies that are claimed.
  Mr. Mnuchin placed some investments offshore, in full conformity with 
the law and not for the purpose of avoiding U.S. taxes. But my friends 
have simply asserted that no one uses offshore financial vehicles 
unless they are trying to avoid U.S. taxes, and, therefore, Mr. 
Mnuchin's investments disqualify him to serve as Treasury Secretary. 
Yet Secretary Lew, prior to his confirmation, actually made investments 
in the famous Ugland House in the Cayman Islands, which President Obama 
described as ``outrageous'' and ``the biggest tax scheme in the 
world.'' My Democratic colleagues knew this, but did not care, and 
happily confirmed Secretary Lew with hardly a mention of this matter. 
We allowed him to go through, in the interest of civility and getting 
along with our colleagues.
  Democrats have argued that Mr. Mnuchin unduly profited from the 
housing market collapse. Yet Secretary Lew, prior to his nomination, 
ran ``proprietary trading'' groups at Citigroup, where they invested in 
a hedge fund that bet heavily on the collapse of the housing market. My 
Democratic colleagues knew this, but did not care, and happily 
confirmed Secretary Lew without really ever acknowledging this part of 
his record.
  Democrats claim that Mr. Mnuchin unfairly foreclosed on homeowners, 
despite evidence to the contrary. Yet Secretary Lew, prior to being 
nominated, ran a Citigroup division that was, according to arbitration 
panels at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and later the 
SEC, ``defrauding investors.'' When asked about the toxic securities 
sold by his Citigroup unit, Secretary Lew's answers varied between not 
remembering any specific securities to claiming he somehow wasn't 
involved in the investment decisions made at the Citigroup unit he 
oversaw. My Democratic colleagues knew this, but they did not care, and 
happily confirmed Secretary Lew without anything resembling full and 
complete answers to these questions.
  Despite ample evidence to the contrary, Democrats claim that Mr. 
Mnuchin ran a ``robo-signing'' foreclosure machine. Yet Citigroup, 
while Jack Lew was in senior management, sliced and diced mortgages and 
was alleged to have ``robo-signed'' mortgage documents. Democrats knew 
this, but they did not care, and happily confirmed Secretary Lew 
without ever really asking him about these issues.
  I can go on and on. There are many other issues that my colleagues 
were willing to overlook, if not outright ignore, with regard to 
Secretary Lew that have resulted in hyperbolic attacks on Mr. Mnuchin.
  I wish to remind my colleagues that despite the numerous concerns 
that I and others have had about Secretary Lew and the many significant 
disagreements that I had with President Obama's agenda, I voted in 
favor of Secretary Lew's confirmation. On this very floor, I stated the 
following:

       I have always believed that . . . [the] President--any 
     President, regardless of party--is owed a certain degree of 
     deference when choosing people to work in his administration. 
     Therefore, though I personally would have chosen a different 
     person for this position, I intend to vote in favor of Mr. 
     Lew's confirmation.

  I wasn't alone. Many other Republicans also voted to confirm 
Secretary Lew, despite serious reservations, in recognition that the 
President had a right to appoint who he wanted to--as long as they were 
not crooks and people of unsavory reputation. Well, Mr. Lew was not 
either of those.
  My, how times have changed. As is typically the case, when a group of 
Senators is unable to make a believable case against a nominee, they 
tend to just raise every possible issue and hope something gains 
traction. When in the end nothing works, they cling to whatever 
allegation came last and hope it is enough to change the outcome. That 
is why, over the past couple of weeks or so, we have heard an awful lot 
about ``robo-signing.''
  Here is the basic rundown of what has happened on this issue: My 
friends on the other side got an answer to a poorly and vaguely worded 
question that was not the answer they wanted to receive. The answer 
from Mr. Mnuchin, that OneWest Bank did not engage in ``robo-signing'' 
under his leadership, was truthful and defensible, but it did not 
conform to the Democratic talking points drafted for this nominee.
  Since that time, Senate Democrats have repeatedly referenced new 
stories that purportedly prove that not only did Mr. Mnuchin run a bank 
that engaged in the nefarious, yet not well-defined practice of ``robo-
signing'' mortgage documents, he lied about it in his answers to the 
committee. However, I would urge my colleagues on both sides to 
actually look at the supposed evidence from those news articles.
  Put simply, to say that my Democratic friends are trying to make a 
mountain out of a molehill would be an insult to moles everywhere. 
There is no molehill to be found here.
  To make the case that Mr. Mnuchin was untruthful in his answers, the 
articles rely on quotes mined from a single deposition of a OneWest 
employee. Quoted out of context, the employee seems to have said that 
she rapidly signed several hundred foreclosure-related documents a week 
without fully verifying their accuracy. That is the supposed smoking 
gun on the Mnuchin ``robo-signing'' question.
  However, if you read the full deposition, the employee makes it 
absolutely clear that she was not the employee responsible for 
verifying the accuracy or validity of everything in the documents. She 
was part of a process that included several steps and multiple 
employees to verify the accuracy of different parts of the documents. 
We don't even have to dig for this explanation. It is not a matter of 
any interpretation. That explanation, in plain

[[Page S1103]]

English, is right there in the deposition my colleagues and the news 
articles have been using as ``evidence'' that Mr. Mnuchin lied to the 
Finance Committee.
  Nothing--not a single thing--in the deposition quoted in those news 
articles could be considered evidence of ``robo-signing'' on the part 
of OneWest Bank.
  While I can understand that my colleagues don't like seeing or 
hearing anything that contradicts their preconceived notions, 
particularly when it comes in the form of an answer to one of their 
questions, that is no basis or justification to make wild and brazen 
accusations that a nominee has been lying. And make no mistake, that is 
precisely what they are doing with Mr. Mnuchin.
  On a related note, it is really amazing to me that my friends on the 
other side are now feigning outrage over alleged lack of responsiveness 
to their questions after having gone through the last 8 years with 
Treasury Secretaries who routinely ignored questions and requests for 
briefings posed by myself and a number of my other Senate colleagues. 
But I digress.
  I certainly sympathize with the many people who suffered through the 
foreclosure crisis and with Democrats in Congress who were, and 
continue to be, frustrated that Treasury officials in the Obama 
administration failed to construct effective homeowner relief programs, 
despite having made numerous promises to do so.
  However, given that frustration, it is odd to me that my colleagues 
remain so opposed to Mr. Mnuchin's nomination when he was very much 
engaged in the practice of making mortgage modifications work during 
his time as the head of OneWest Bank. Moreover, Mr. Mnuchin worked 
diligently with regulators and others to clean up the system under 
which foreclosure documents were being processed. You don't have to 
take my word for it; you can examine the numerous letters of support we 
have received from a range of people and organizations, from community 
groups to community bankers, which attest to Mr. Mnuchin's success in 
turning a bank that was plagued by toxic loans and numerous processing 
errors into a viable financial services firm that provides jobs and 
support to communities.

  Along the way, Mr. Mnuchin's companies significantly outperformed 
rivals in the industry in terms of offering loan modifications to help 
keep Americans facing foreclosure in their homes. Mr. Mnuchin has 
acknowledged that his efforts were not without errors and that he 
genuinely regrets any mistakes that were made. He has also made clear 
that OneWest was committed to providing remediation in order to 
compensate those who were affected.
  It should also be noted that in the vast majority of independent 
evaluations of OneWest's practices, the banks's error rates were 
routinely below the average for the industry and often zero.
  I think people should quit using false arguments against this man. 
All of this was discussed out in the open during the Finance 
Committee's hearing on the Mnuchin nomination. Nothing was hidden. No 
one was misled.
  Unfortunately, rather than focusing on the actual facts surrounding 
OneWest's performance under the nominee's leadership, my friends on the 
other side opted to try to smear Mr. Mnuchin. In essence, they have 
tried to relitigate the foreclosure crisis, with Mr. Mnuchin's company 
confusingly placed in the crosshairs. This is a company that, according 
to a letter from Faith Schwartz, former executive director of the Hope 
Now Alliance, ``was committed to avoiding foreclosures where 
possible.''
  As I said, with Mr. Mnuchin, my colleagues are applying a clear 
double standard for confirming a Treasury Secretary. For Republican 
Treasury Secretary nominees, any allegation, no matter how careless or 
untrustworthy the source, is enough to inspire the Democrats' outrage 
and trigger a seemingly endless bout of name-calling. For Democratic 
nominees, on the other hand, even proven instances of questionable 
actions and poor judgment on the part of the nominee fail to even make 
a blip on their radar screens.
  I have spent quite a bit of time in recent weeks decrying the antics 
of my Democratic colleagues with regard to President Trump's Cabinet 
nominations. Frankly, I am tired of talking about it. My colleagues 
are, of course, free to do whatever they think will help them hobble 
the new administration and score points with their political base, even 
if it breaks from the longstanding customs and traditions of the Senate 
and even if it puts our financial stability and the stability of our 
relations with Finance Ministers of other countries at greater risk. 
However, they should know that these tactics do absolutely nothing to 
help American families seeking greater opportunities and economic 
growth. They don't help us fix our broken Tax Code, reform our failing 
health care system, and empower businesses and job creators to grow and 
expand.
  The bottom line is this: Mr. Mnuchin is clearly qualified to serve as 
Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.
  Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle made clear they 
intend to vote no on the nomination, and that is their right. However, 
while each Senator has a right to vote according to his or her own 
judgment, Senators do a disservice to the country and the Senate as an 
institution when they concoct stories and antics designed merely to 
delay a vote for the sake of delay. Going forward, I hope my colleagues 
will recognize the problematic precedence they are setting with regard 
to these nominees and opt to change course.
  I intend to vote in favor of confirming Mr. Mnuchin, and so should 
everybody else in the U.S. Senate. I urge all of my colleagues to do 
so.
  When I first met Mr. Mnuchin, I hadn't met him before. I didn't even 
know his name. I have to say I was really impressed.
  I said to him: Why are you doing this? You are going to lose a lot of 
money because you are going to have to sell your holdings and get rid 
of them. Why are you doing this?
  He looked at me, looked me square in the eyes, and he said: I am 
doing it because I love my country, and I want to help. I want to help 
turn it around.
  I was pretty impressed with that. I have been pretty impressed with 
Mr. Mnuchin ever since. I think we need a terribly smart guy who is 
honest, who is decent, who has made a great success of his life, who 
understands where money comes from and where it goes, who literally is 
willing to sacrifice and lose some of his savings and money in order to 
save this country and because he wants to work with our good President, 
who every day is going through calumny and slanders like I have never 
seen anybody go through before.
  The slowdown in the Senate that is occurring here is unbelievably 
stupid. Yes, I know they want his first 100 days to not be successful, 
but gee-whiz, to do this kind of maneuvering and this kind of playing 
around with the facts is beneath the dignity of my colleagues on the 
other side.
  If my side was doing this, I would be chewing them up. The fact is, 
we didn't do this. The past two Treasury Secretaries--I personally said 
``We are going to support them'' even though we could have pulled this 
kind of stuff on them, and the facts were true. Both of them were good 
people. Both of them had made a couple of mistakes. Both of them made 
mistakes in their filings. But they were good men, good people, and so 
is Mr. Mnuchin.
  Wouldn't it be wonderful if both sides would treat people with 
respect and dignity? I have to admit, sometimes our side could do 
better, but what we have been going through for the last almost 2 
months now is pathetic. I think it is all done in the hope that they 
can ruin the first 100 days of this President. Well, there are 200 
days, and we are going to keep going.
  They are not making any headway with the President where they could 
make headway. He is someone who actually came from their side of the 
floor--at least at one time when I knew him long ago. He is a person 
with an open mind. He is a person who has supreme intelligence. He is a 
person who is bringing with him some of the best people in this 
country, not the least of whom is Mr. Mnuchin.
  I think they ought to wake up and quit this slandering and even 
libeling this really fine man who is willing to sacrifice much of his 
personal fortune to serve in this government as the Treasury Secretary. 
We are lucky that

[[Page S1104]]

people like this are willing to do it, to take all the guff and calumny 
and slander and libel they have to go through. Thank goodness we have 
people like Mr. Mnuchin who are willing to do this. I don't intend to 
see him fail, so I hope we can all vote for him tonight and send a 
message. I hope some of my colleagues on the other side will vote for 
him. They should. They should, in good faith. Yes, they can play this 
game of having a lot of votes against him, but some of them should vote 
for him. The truly honest, the truly fair, and the truly good people--I 
think all of them are good people on the other side and on this side, 
but it is not showing up as well as I would like it to show up in these 
confirmation fights.
  In this particular one, there is a fellow who is willing to sacrifice 
immensely to be able to help our country, who is known on Wall Street, 
who is known as one of the bright lights up there, who has been 
immensely successful, and he has had a wide variety of experiences in 
the area of finance. We ought to be getting on our knees and thanking 
him for being willing to go through this and being willing to serve his 
country.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I take this time to explain to my 
colleagues why I will be opposing Steve Mnuchin's nomination for 
Secretary of the Treasury.
  Mr. Mnuchin has an impressive record of accomplishment, and I admire 
his willingness to serve the public. But because of his advocacy for 
fiscally irresponsible and unfair fiscal policies, which I believe will 
add to the deficit of this country, I cannot support his nomination.
  Let me go back a while, if I may. I was in the Congress when we 
passed a budget that balanced the Federal budget, where we were 
actually reducing the Federal debt. It was controversial at the time 
because we did it by cutting spending first--and we did--but making 
sure we had adequate revenues in the Treasury to pay our bills because 
we recognized that we had a moral obligation to pay our bills, that we 
are wealthy enough of a nation that we don't have to ask our children 
and grandchildren to pay for our spending today. We took the steps to 
balance the Federal budget, and we did it by making some tough votes. I 
was proud to be in the Congress that took those tough votes that 
balanced the Federal budget.
  After we balanced the Federal budget, we saw unprecedented economic 
growth because we took the responsible actions. We should take a lesson 
from the past and recognize that there is no easy way to get our budget 
in better balance. It requires a fiscal policy that is fair--that is 
fair to middle-income families, that is fair to our children and 
grandchildren, that is fair to those who depend upon the services that 
are financed through the government sector, including our seniors with 
Medicare and Social Security. We can do that if we work together.
  But Mr. Mnuchin's economic plan, the one that he has submitted to 
Congress, I think, would put us at great risk. The main part of what he 
is advocating is tax cuts primarily for the wealthy. The top 0.1 
percent under the Mnuchin plan will receive in excess of $1 million in 
tax breaks; the upper 1 percent in excess of $200,000 in tax cuts.
  Here is the problem: How do we pay for this? How do we offset the 
cost of these tax cuts? Because I don't think any of us wants to add to 
the deficit.
  So we asked Mr. Mnuchin that question during the confirmation 
process. Let me just read for the Record the questions that I asked him 
as to how he would offset the cost of the tax cuts. The Trump plan, 
including those cuts, is estimated by the Tax Policy Center to add $6.2 
trillion to the deficit and by the Tax Foundation to add $3.9 trillion 
to the deficit.
  I asked Mr. Mnuchin:

       In your hearing, you discussed the importance of economic 
     growth in offsetting the revenues lost under the President's 
     tax reform plan. . . . For instance, you've said, ``[s]o we 
     think that by cutting corporate taxes, we'll create huge 
     economic growth and we'll have huge personal income, so the 
     revenues will be offset on the other side.''
       Is it your view that the tax cuts in the President's plan 
     will be fully offset by economic growth?

  That is the question I asked.
  Mr. Mnuchin's answer: ``Our objective is to have any tax cuts offset 
by economic growth.''
  I asked: ``If so, could you please share your team's analysis 
supporting that position?''
  Mr. Mnuchin's answer: ``Our objective is to have any tax cuts offset 
by economic growth.''
  I then asked: ``Will you commit, as we discussed in our meeting, not 
to put forward a plan that will increase the deficit and put our 
country in a worse financial position?''
  Mr. Mnuchin's answer: ``Our objective is to have any tax cuts offset 
by economic growth.''
  In other words, there is no effort here to offset the cost of this 
tax cut, other than borrowing money, putting our children and 
grandchildren at greater risk.
  I want to repeat again the estimate that we have heard on the 
President's tax proposal--that it will add anywhere from $6 trillion to 
almost $4 trillion in deficit. Those estimates are from progressive and 
conservative groups, and they do consider that there will be some 
dynamic score keeping here, that there will be some economic growth. 
That is in those estimates. So even with economic growth, these 
proposals will greatly enhance the deficit of this country, something 
that we should not be doing.
  What does that mean? You increase the debt of this country. America 
has to borrow more. Interest rates go up. Middle-income families have 
to pay more on mortgage payments or car loans.
  Middle income families are the ones who get hurt by this. If we are 
going to see real economic growth, we have to help the middle class--
the growing middle class--the consumers, those who buy the goods, those 
who are struggling every day to make ends meet. This plan doesn't help 
them. What they are going to be saddled with is more debt and higher 
interest costs, which will be a drag on our economic growth.
  So for all those reasons, I think what is important to have is an 
advocate for the President as Secretary of the Treasury, someone who 
recognizes the balance here.
  Let me tell you what else deficits do. They are used as justification 
to continue to cut our discretionary spending accounts, as well as to 
take a look at entitlement spending.
  I acknowledge that, as part of the strategy to balance the Federal 
budget, we must look at our spending, but we have to have the revenues 
in order to make it balance. If you don't have the revenues, and you 
are taking another $4 to $6 trillion out of the equation, there is 
going to be a lot more pressure to make irresponsible cuts on the 
spending side.
  I heard Candidate Trump talk about that we are not going to cut 
Social Security. But can you really have $6 trillion of tax cuts 
without looking at Social Security? And how about Medicare? These are 
programs that are vitally important for our seniors. It provides them 
money to live on so they don't have to live in poverty, so they can pay 
their medical bills. For a majority of seniors, Social Security is 
their largest source of income. Are we really thinking about equating 
that with tax cuts for the wealthiest in this country of over $1 
million? I don't think that is fairness. I don't think that is what we 
should be doing.
  When you look at the programs that are financed through government, 
are we going to take away from our students? They already are suffering 
too high, as far as the cost of attending colleges. Interest rates are 
already too high in regards to what they do.
  Are we going to put more pressure to make more cuts in regards to how 
we help our students? Are we going to cut maintaining our highways? We 
want to spend more on highways, bridges, transit systems, and water 
infrastructure, which I think we need to do. How do you do that if you 
cut $4 to $6 trillion of revenue on the revenue side without adding 
greatly to the deficit, which is something none of us wants to do?

[[Page S1105]]

  How about something like our national parks? We take pride and want 
to maintain that, but with the pressure on the budgets that is a result 
of taking the revenues out of government, we know what is going to 
happen. We have seen this movie before. We have seen what has happened 
before. The driving force behind all of this is that the most important 
thing, the most important part of the economic program, is to have 
these tax cuts primarily for the wealthy.
  No, I think the center of our economic policy needs to be fairness--
fairness for middle-income families, fairness so that Americans can 
afford to raise their families and send their kids to college and can 
afford to have decent opportunities in this country. That is how we all 
grow together, and that requires a balanced approach to our Nation's 
budget--one that, yes, looks at restraining spending but also looks at 
having a Tax Code that is fair and raises the revenues to pay our bills 
and not pushing that off to future generations.
  I think for all those reasons, we need a person who is going to 
advocate on behalf of middle-income families and on behalf of a growing 
economy. I think the plan that Mr. Mnuchin is advocating will not 
accomplish that. For these reasons and others, I cannot support his 
nomination for Secretary of the Treasury.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, the Secretary of the Treasury is one of 
the most powerful positions in our government, as we know. The Treasury 
Secretary has broad responsibilities--for the economy, for our tax 
system, trade, our pensions, housing, and so much more. It is critical 
that anyone who holds that position use their power to help working 
people. It is clear to me that Mr. Mnuchin's policies will, in fact, 
hurt middle-class families and working people.
  There are also serious ethical concerns that neither he nor my 
Republican colleagues have been able to address. As a result, I will be 
voting no on his nomination.
  I would like to talk about something that has not received the focus 
that I think it deserves and certainly that the people of Michigan feel 
it deserves, and that is the question of pensions and what is happening 
to pensions in our country.
  Mr. Mnuchin has a history of fighting against working people and 
profiting off their misfortune. As we know, pension funding can have a 
significant impact on a company's bottom line. But losing a pension can 
destroy a family's bottom line, and it seems that Mr. Mnuchin doesn't 
know this. When serving on the board for Sears, Mr. Mnuchin played a 
critical and direct role in how to fund the company's pensions. So what 
happened? Sears routinely underfunded the company's plan throughout his 
tenure. Analysts predicted that Sears ``massively underfunded'' their 
pension plan. They said their ``massively underfunded'' pension plan 
was ``a ticking time bomb'' that could even hasten or bring down the 
financial collapse of the company.

  The company used investment return projections that were too 
optimistic, along with accounting gimmicks so they could avoid paying 
into the pension fund. They inflated their earnings on paper while 
contributing less to the pension.
  Sears did such a bad job managing their pension fund while Mr. 
Mnuchin was on their board, that the fund only made a return of 1.5 
percent, putting their fund in the bottom 5 percent of all the pension 
funds over $1 billion. Is this the kind of result the American 
taxpayers want when he manages their money?
  Already, Sears has been cutting its employees' pensions. In 2014, the 
company eliminated the monthly health care subsidy that helped its 
retirees afford their health care premiums. That saved Sears and Kmart 
about $6.2 million a year.
  I have received a lot of letters from Michigan families a lot from 
families who are very concerned about their pensions. One of my 
constituents who worked in the trucking industry said:

       We took small raises on our paycheck each contract so the 
     company could put more in the pension fund--

  That is what people do. They take less every month in their paycheck 
so they can have more in the pension fund. I know in the Presiding 
Officer's State and my State, that is what they do. He continued--

     and [we] were told we would receive a certain amount for the 
     rest of our lives. That is what we based our retirement on. 
     Through no fault of ours, over the years, government 
     deregulation of the trucking industry, passing trade 
     agreements and other laws that have devastated the economy, 
     have made our pensions become doubtful.

  Can you imagine paying all your lifetime? My brother drives a truck 
and counts on the fact that he is working hard every day and putting 
money into a pension fund for his family when he retires, and it is 
supposed to be there, right? The pension is a promise that is supposed 
to be there.
  Another woman from West Michigan wrote in worried about her Central 
States Pension Plan. That is the pension plan my brother is in as well. 
She said:

       My husband retired from Grocers Baking Co. of Grand Rapids 
     and has a pension in Central States Pension Fund. As you 
     know, that pension fund is in critical status and the 
     Treasury Department turned down a plan to save all the 
     pensions. My husband is 74 and I am 78 and we rely on that 
     pension and Social Security to live on. We try to save, but 
     it is difficult. We are hoping that the pension will last 
     more than 10 years, but who knows.

  I also hear from people in Michigan all the time about how little 
accountability there is when it comes to the management of people's 
pensions.
  One man wrote in from Macomb County about his own pension plan:

       Why are none of the trustees being held accountable for the 
     bad investments or failure of the plan? I'm sure they all 
     have their golden parachutes in place for when they retire. 
     Why do we, the hard workers, have to suffer because of their 
     incompetence? I am just an average guy hoping that you can 
     help protect the benefits that are due to me, so I can enjoy 
     retirement when my time comes.

  The Treasury Secretary nominee sat on the Sears board when they were 
making changes that created the investments that were not as good as 
they should have been, when they underfunded their pension system, cut 
back on help for health care, and he is asking for a promotion. I 
wonder what my constituents in Macomb County will be saying about that.
  The Treasury Secretary plays a very important role in the security of 
our pension system--one of the basic tenets in our country, the way we 
support each other, the way people have trust in the system, you know 
that when you pay into the pension and then when you retire you get the 
pension.
  The Treasury Secretary oversees implementation of the Multiemployer 
Pension Reform Act and serves on the board of directors of the pension 
overseers. I asked Mr. Mnuchin in committee: What is your position on 
the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act, which Treasury is responsible for 
administering?
  How do you propose to shore up our multiemployer pension system and 
protect people who are counting on their pensions? His answer was: 
``You have my commitment to work with you to find solutions to the 
multiemployer pension crisis.''
  That is it. I resubmitted the question, hoping for a more detailed 
response.
  His response was: ``If confirmed, I will consult with you and other 
interested parties on the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014.''
  That is not much of an answer for the people whom I represent, who 
want to know how he feels and what he is going to do to protect their 
pensions. The American people deserve a better answer than that.
  People are struggling, retirees are struggling after trusting the 
system and paying into their pensions their whole life--the whole time 
they have been working, paying in, counting on having that dignity in 
retirement. We need a Treasury Secretary who understands that a pension 
is a promise. Mr. Mnuchin's actions have not demonstrated that he 
understands that.
  Even when it comes to something as basic as Social Security, during 
our Finance Committee hearing, Mr.

[[Page S1106]]

Mnuchin couldn't tell me the average monthly benefit when I asked him, 
which, by the way, one-third of our seniors virtually rely on that 
alone, and the rest are putting together a small pension, and most 
seniors are counting on Social Security and their pension to have 
dignity and a quality of life in their retirement. The Treasury 
Secretary is a key overseer of the laws and management process and 
accountability for both of those systems. So for me this is a very big 
deal who is in this spot, in terms of how this affects working people, 
middle-class families, and retirees.
  I didn't mention earlier that when I asked him what the average 
Social Security payment was--which he could not answer--he also 
couldn't tell me what he meant about a ``cut'' in Social Security; if 
he wasn't going to cut, what that meant. Did that mean putting in place 
a lower cost of living? What did that mean? He did not answer that.
  Let me talk about another pretty basic area. Pensions are critically 
important so is the ability to have a home. Up until the financial 
crash, the disaster in 2008 and 2009, most families' savings for 
retirement, savings to put their kids in college, were through the 
equity in their home. In 2008 and 2009, for millions of Americans, that 
disappeared.
  Mr. Mnuchin has made his career profiting from the misfortunes of 
working people, and let me talk about the financial crisis and how he 
benefitted from that as well. During the financial crisis, he put 
together a group of investors to purchase IndyMac Bank, which was 
renamed OneWest. During that time, OneWest was notorious for taking an 
especially aggressive role in foreclosing on struggling homeowners. 
OneWest Bank pushed people into foreclosure and made their last-ditch 
efforts to save their homes through a mortgage modification or other 
means all but impossible.
  When their voices were not allowed at the hearing on this 
confirmation, I was pleased to join with colleagues in putting together 
a forum where homeowners who had been impacted could share their 
experience. We held this forum for homeowners who were repeatedly given 
hope by OneWest that they might be able to avoid foreclosure, only to 
have it snatched away every time. One small business owner at the forum 
told us her story of how OneWest defrauded her and ultimately 
foreclosed on her. She told us that ``despite how difficult OneWest 
made the process, I did everything I was told, because I wanted to keep 
my home.''
  Twice she applied for a loan modification. She submitted two checks 
with her new modification offer. OneWest cashed the checks--they cashed 
the checks--but told her that both offers were never received.
  Wait a minute. What is that? They cashed the checks, then told her 
the offers were not received, and therefore the offer was void.
  Eventually, she said: ``I received a knock on my door and a man 
introduced himself as the owner of my house.'' Unbelievable. Shortly 
thereafter she had to leave her home. OneWest was Mr. Mnuchin's 
company. This is one of the many stories about OneWest's abusive 
conduct. When OneWest Bank sold, Mr. Mnuchin and other investors made 
about $3 billion off the backs of folks who lost their home and many 
were like the women we heard from who tried desperately to work it out 
to keep their home. I wonder if the checks they cashed from her after 
they said they didn't get them were a part of that $3 billion.
  Finally, I want to express my concern over statements that Mr. 
Mnuchin made at the Finance Committee hearing that just don't line up 
with the facts; particularly, Mr. Mnuchin was asked whether his bank, 
OneWest, robo-signed foreclosure documents. To be clear on what this 
is, the banks, during the foreclosure crisis, had sworn documents robo-
signed, automatically signed so they could foreclose on homeowners 
quickly without anyone even reading the documents. They just signed the 
papers--signed the papers--nobody reviewed whether they added up or 
whether they were right, whether they could help them. They just had 
the machine signing, signing, signing, foreclose, foreclose, foreclose.
  Mr. Mnuchin said in the hearing his bank didn't do that. He said his 
bank didn't do that. The Columbus Dispatch did an investigation that 
found that OneWest did do that in Ohio. A source in Texas reported that 
OneWest did do it in Texas. New Jersey temporarily banned OneWest from 
foreclosing on homeowners at all in New Jersey because of its history 
of robo-signing documents. Sign, sign, sign--don't look at it, just 
sign away. We heard the story of one woman who lost her house because 
of a 27-cent difference. I wonder if she was in one of those piles they 
just signed away. Mr. Mnuchin said they didn't do that. There is 
evidence to the contrary.
  Mr. Mnuchin also forgot to disclose to the committee that he owned a 
company organized in the Cayman Islands. When I asked him about that, 
his best defense was that ``I did not use a Cayman Islands entity in 
any way to avoid paying taxes myself.'' At the time, I said: Oh, so you 
just helped other people avoid paying their taxes.

  We find out now he did use it to help foreign investors avoid paying 
U.S. taxes. I have a funny feeling that he made money by helping those 
investors avoid paying their U.S. taxes.
  He also forgot to disclose that he owned $95 million in real estate 
in various locations. I forget that all of the time. I have so many 
houses all over the place, it is easy to forget. So $95 million in 
property that he ``forgot'' to disclose. He said he didn't know his 
real estate was an asset. He didn't know his real estate was an asset. 
That is alarming.
  I don't mean to be flip, but this is so shocking when I listen to 
some of this. The idea that we would believe someone who says this, 
that it somehow is making sense--that is why we as Democrats on the 
Finance Committee, before this final confirmation vote, asked that he 
be required to come back in and answer questions, because these are 
serious questions.
  This nominee has not been properly vetted. He supports policies that 
do not have the interests of the working men and women in Michigan at 
heart or people across the country. He adheres to policies that don't 
protect the pensions of hard-working men and women in Michigan and 
across the country or people's retirement systems. I don't know where 
he really is on Social Security, which is the other big piece of the 
promise we made as Americans, where people pay into Social Security and 
are counting on that being there. He has personally profited off the 
misfortune of those who need help the most.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I, too, will be voting no on the 
candidacy of Mr. Mnuchin to become Secretary of the Treasury.
  Rhode Island got hit so hard by the mortgage meltdown that Wall 
Street created. Frankly, I can never forget the Rhode Islanders who 
lost their homes in the course of that debacle. We were able to help 
some of them in my office.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, when you come to the Senate, you put 
together a constituent office, and your constituent people work on 
usual constituent business. In the ordinary course, constituent 
business is dealing with Federal agencies. It is making sure Social 
Security is fine, getting people replacement passports that they put 
into the laundry by accident, dealing with veterans issues and getting 
veterans their benefits, helping people with Medicare and Medicaid 
confusion. It is all generally involving people who have gotten somehow 
fouled up in the Federal programs of which they are beneficiaries.
  In our case, we had to open a constituent wing for dealing with the 
big banks because they were foreclosing so recklessly and in such a 
mercenary fashion on Rhode Islanders. It was such torture for Rhode 
Islanders, once the foreclosure process began, because they could never 
get the same person twice on the phone; there was always a mismatch 
between what they were being told on the phone and being told on paper. 
It was a nightmare of bad information and bad practice by these big 
banks.
  What we would often be able to do is to say: Look, at least give this 
person one person they can deal with, that they can call every time so 
it is not ``Hi, I am John'' on one phone call and

[[Page S1107]]

``Hi, I am Mary'' on the next phone call and ``Hi, I am Joseph'' on the 
third phone call and nobody ever remembers the other phone calls, 
nobody ever knew where they were in the process. You can't move the 
process forward if the person on the other end of the line can't keep 
track of the conversation. So we were able to get that done, and that 
actually was able to help Rhode Islanders come to a deal with these big 
banks and save their homes. But for all the ones we were able to help, 
there were many, many we were not.
  I simply cannot forgive somebody who took a look at that banking 
crisis, who took a look at the pain Wall Street sent in a wave across 
all of America, and thought: Oh, here is a great new way to make 
money--foreclosing on people.
  Done. I am out. Sorry, I can't vote for somebody like that.
  What I hope, though, is that he will at least show some common sense 
and some decency when it comes to other issues, and one of them is 
climate change.
  If you go to the financial sector, they are taking climate change 
pretty seriously. Frankly, the financial sector is probably about as 
big as the fossil fuel industry, so when the fossil fuel industry comes 
around bullying and shoving and lying and going through all of its 
usual climate denial nonsense, the financial guys really don't care. 
They just do their thing. You are not going to intimidate Goldman. You 
are not going to intimidate BlackRock. You are not going to intimidate 
Bank of America. It just doesn't make any sense. So when you look at 
what these guys are saying, they are being pretty straight up about it.
  As long ago as 2013, Goldman Sachs issued a report that said: ``The 
window for thermal coal investment is closing.'' That is the caption of 
the report. ``Thermal coal's current position atop the fuel mix for 
global power generation will be gradually eroded,'' it said. And sure 
enough, it has been. There was no grief for coal in there; they were 
just trying to predict the market. In 2015, Goldman Sachs did another 
report about the low-carbon economy. It was ``Goldman Sachs equity 
investor's guide to a low carbon world, 2015-25.'' So unless somebody 
is going to say that Goldman Sachs is in on the hoax, they are taking 
this pretty seriously. From 2015 to 2025, they expect a low-carbon 
world.
  And it is coming on fast and furious now. Just recently, a global 
task force was set up by the G20 companies--the 20 biggest economies in 
the world. They have a group called the Task Force on Climate-related 
Financial Disclosures. They have asked that companies begin to come 
clean on the climate risk they face.
  The news report about this says:

       Concerns among the financial community are growing that 
     assets are being mispriced because the full extent of climate 
     risk is not being factored in, threatening market stability.

  The story continues:

       According to Barclays--

  Barclays is a significant international banking institution--

     the fossil fuel industry could lose $34 trillion in revenues 
     by 2040 as a global deal to limit temperature rise to well 
     below 2 degrees Celsius reduces demand for oil, coal, and 
     gas, returning reserves into stranded assets.

  If, in fact, this is an industry that could lose $34 trillion in 
revenues by 2040, that explains a lot of their misbehavior around 
Congress. Obviously, for that kind of money, there is very little 
mischief these folks wouldn't get up to, and sure enough, they are 
getting up to all of that mischief, and more, around here. But the 
financial industry itself is pretty big, and it doesn't care. It is not 
going to be pushed around and bullied.
  This Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure is described 
as having 32 members from large banks, insurance companies, asset 
management companies, pension funds, credit rating agencies, and 
accounting and consulting firms--32 members representing the 20 biggest 
economies in the world, and they are saying: Here it comes. Let's get 
ready.
  So I hope colleagues will begin to listen to these folks in the 
financial services industry and these major market economies about what 
is going on and stop listening to the self-serving nonsense that the 
fossil fuel industry insists on trying to jam into our ears around 
here. It just is bogus. Bottom line: It is bogus.
  Most recently, at the end of last year, September 2016, BlackRock, 
which is one of the most significant investment firms in the world--I 
think it has more than $1 trillion in assets under management--issued 
this new report: ``Adapting Portfolios to Climate Change.'' OK. So 
BlackRock, one of the smartest and biggest companies in the world, is 
now talking about how we have to adapt to climate change and helping 
investors plan for it. In this building, can we have a sensible 
conversation about climate change? No, of course not, because the 
fossil fuel industry won't even let some of us mention the words, but 
in the real world, where real money and real decisions are being made 
by very smart people, they are all over this. Here is BlackRock: 
``Adapting Portfolios to Climate Change.''
  Sentence No. 1 in the report: ``Investors can no longer ignore 
climate change.''
  Investors can no longer ignore climate change. No, it takes Congress 
to do that. Investors can no longer ignore climate change, but don't 
worry, we will, as long as we are following the lead of our fossil fuel 
industry friends, right over the climate cliff.
  The report continues that we can expect more frequent and severe 
weather events over the long term--something that actually we are 
seeing already, not only in the United States but around the world. 
They say that there is a market failure in this area--a market 
failure--as current fossil fuel prices arguably do not reflect the true 
costs of their extraction and use.
  That is what we are fighting about here. The fossil fuel industry has 
the best racket going in the world. They are able to pollute like 
crazy, do immense damage in the world--damage that coastal homeowners 
in Rhode Island, fishermen in Rhode Island, people who have breathing 
difficulties and are trying to breathe on a hot summer day in Rhode 
Island--they all have to pay the price.
  Under real market theory, the harm of the product has to be in the 
price of the product for the market to work. That is market 101. Well, 
they don't want to play by those rules. They want to have everybody 
else cover the harm in their product, and they just get to shove it out 
into the marketplace with the biggest subsidy in creation.
  The International Monetary Fund is not a bunch of stupid people, and 
the International Monetary Fund, as far as I can tell, has no conflict 
of interest with respect to fossil fuel, unlike the fossil fuel 
companies, which are one massive example of a conflict of interest. The 
International Monetary Fund says that the subsidy to the fossil fuel 
industry every year--just in the United States of America--is $700 
billion--billion with a ``b.'' Like I said, how much mischief would 
they get up to for $700 billion? Oh, about $700 billion worth.
  Is there a fix to this? Yes, continues the BlackRock report. ``The 
most cost-effective way for governments to meet emissions reduction 
targets: Policy frameworks that result in realistic carbon pricing.'' 
Market 101. Of course, they don't want market 101, they want fossil 
fuels subsidies 101, and we go along with it because of the mischievous 
way they behave in politics. But we should not go along with it. It is 
not proper economics. It is not conservative. It is nothing except 
traditional, old-fashioned, special interests, special pleading. It is 
no different from any other polluter who wants to be able to dump their 
waste into the river or onto their neighbor's yard or wherever it is 
rather than having to pay for cleaning up the mess they made.
  We go on through the report: ``The world is rapidly using up its 
carbon budget,'' says BlackRock. ``The damage from climate change could 
shave 5 to 20 percent off global GDP annually by 2100.'' Up to a fifth 
of global GDP gone. That is a massive economic correction. That is 
massive economic pain.
  ``The economic impacts,'' it goes on to say, ``are not just in the 
distant future. More frequent and more intense extreme weather events, 
such as hurricanes, flooding, and droughts, are already affecting 
assets and economies.''
  For anybody just tuning in, this is not me making this stuff up, this 
is BlackRock investments.
  They talk about global fossil fuel subsidies--four times as large, 
they say, as renewable energy support.

[[Page S1108]]

  Here is an interesting thing: ``Scrapping energy subsidies could save 
governments some $3 trillion a year, more than they collect from 
corporate taxes,'' according to BlackRock.
  So here we have the fossil fuel industry over there, and they are 
getting the biggest subsidy in the world--by IMF calculations, $700 
billion a year--and the party that says it wants a more efficient 
government and that ordinarily would like to reduce corporate taxes is 
defending that subsidy, even though that is taking money out of 
government more than corporate taxes. It is quite astonishing. The 
BlackRock report gives such a window into Congress by comparison, 
frankly. They conclude here by giving some pretty dire warnings about 
where this goes if people aren't preparing for climate change. They 
say:

       Risk for the long-term investor . . . could lead to a 
     permanent loss of capital. The effects of climate change need 
     to be part of that equation, we believe.
       Yet even short-term investors would do well to integrate 
     climate factors into their portfolio.

  So from Goldman Sachs on to BlackRock, some of the most powerful and 
intelligent financial firms in the world are telling their investors: 
Get ready for climate change.
  The last page of the BlackRock report says:

       [C]urrent market prices arguably do not yet reflect the 
     social costs of burning fossil fuels. . . . This externality 
     is at the core of the climate challenge.

  The externality, of course, being that you take the harm that you 
cause and instead of putting it in the price of your product, you make 
everybody else around you pay for it by being a polluter.
  Then they asked the question:

       What is the correct price of carbon? It is hard to say. A 
     2015 U.S. government study estimated $36 of economic damages 
     for each metric ton of carbon emitted. Yet estimates are 
     rising: A 2015 Stanford University study points to $220 per 
     metric ton.

  I believe that our U.S. social cost of carbon is running at about $45 
per metric ton right now. And, by the way, it has been upheld twice--at 
least twice--by Federal courts. In fact, one court rather insisted that 
the social cost of carbon had to be baked into the underlying rule; 
otherwise, the underlying rule couldn't pass the test of being logical 
and fair and not arbitrary and capricious.
  So there is the case from some of our leading financial institutions 
about climate change. They have real money at stake. They have real 
clients. They can't engage in the kind of nonsense that we engage in 
around here about climate change not being real or not being important 
or being something that there is still debate about or being something 
that if we try to fix it, it is going to cost too much money. All of 
that is total bunkum processed through all sorts of advertising-type 
public relations firms by the fossil fuel industry and sold to a 
gullible public as if it were true.
  A few folks who aren't so gullible--all Republicans--have just come 
out with a very interesting report. Three of them were Treasury 
Secretaries. Republican Presidents trusted these folks with the conduct 
of the U.S. economy: Jim Baker, Secretary of the Treasury under 
President Reagan; Hank Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury under 
President Bush; and George Shultz, Secretary of the Treasury under 
President Nixon. These men have some pretty impressive credentials. Not 
only was he Secretary of the Treasury, but James Baker was also the 
Secretary of State. And not only was George Shultz Secretary of the 
Treasury and Secretary of State, he was also Secretary of Labor.
  These three former Treasury Secretaries have led a group of other 
investors, including the former chairman of the board of Walmart, the 
world's largest retailer and employer; Tom Stephenson, a Republican who 
is a partner at Sequoia Capital, a very successful venture capital firm 
out in Silicon Valley; and Greg Mankiw, who was Chairman of George W. 
Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, so this is a very Republican 
group. They have a lot of experience. None of them holds elective 
office now, so they don't have to worry about the fossil fuel industry 
threatening to crush them in a primary or spend millions of dollars 
through phony-baloney front groups against them or any of the usual 
stuff that politicians have to put up with from the fossil fuel 
industry as it fights to protect that massive subsidy that we have 
talked about already.
  Let's go through this report by these very senior Republican 
officials. The first sentence:

       Mounting evidence of climate change is growing too strong 
     to ignore. . . . For too long, many Republicans have looked 
     the other way.

  Indeed. They go on to propose a conservative climate solution--what 
they call a carbon dividends plan--which aligns actually fairly well 
with my American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act, which I have put forward 
in the past and am going to put forward in this Congress as well. I 
hope, given its alignment with this Republican leadership on climate, 
that we might actually begin to get some conversations going here. We 
may have to go hide out of State someplace so the fossil fuel folks 
don't find who is participating in the conversation and start punishing 
them for doing so, but we will see how that goes.
  The recommendation basically is for a carbon tax that collects 
revenue to offset the cost of pollution that is not in the price of the 
product and then return it all to the American people through a big 
dividend.
  The report says: ``A carbon tax would send a powerful market signal 
that encourages technological innovation and largescale substitution of 
existing energy and transportation infrastructures, thereby stimulating 
new investment.''
  Furthermore, a well-designed carbon dividends plan, the second half, 
the tax, would stimulate new investment and ``a well-designed carbon 
dividends plan would further contribute to economic growth through its 
dynamic effects on consumption and investment.''
  They definitely want to protect that one-to-one relationship so that 
all the money that comes in goes back out. That is the principle of my 
bill, as well, and I am more than willing to live with it. But the 
problems of failing to act also need attention.
  Since two of these gentlemen were Secretaries of State, we should 
take some interest when they say: ``Our reliance on fossil fuels 
contributes to a less stable world, empowers rogue petro-states and 
makes us vulnerable to a volatile world oil market.''
  We have to address this issue for a lot of reasons, and I couldn't be 
more satisfied that these two Republican Secretaries of State have 
actually made the connection that Thomas Friedman has made and that the 
Department of Defense has repeatedly made in its ``Quadrennial Defense 
Review'' between our overreliance on carbon and between the harms of 
climate change and a less stable world--a world in which climate change 
is what the Defense Department has so often called a catalyst for 
conflict.
  They then reflect a little bit on what is going on with their party: 
``The opposition of many Republicans to meaningfully address climate 
change reflects poor science and poor economics, and is at odds with 
the party's own noble tradition of stewardship.''
  You would never know it nowadays, but the Republican Party was once 
the party of Teddy Roosevelt. They point out that ``64% of Americans 
worry a great deal or a fair amount about climate change, while a clear 
majority of Republicans acknowledge that climate change is occurring.''
  They go on to point out ``that 67 percent of Americans''--two thirds 
of Americans--``support a carbon tax with proceeds returned directly to 
them.''
  Two thirds ``of Americans support a carbon tax with proceeds returned 
directly to them, including 54% of conservative Republicans.''
  So let's not pretend that this is a partisan issue. It is not a 
partisan issue. It is an issue in which a big special interest has 
thrown incredible weight around to try to crush one side of the debate. 
But clearly, if 67 percent of Americans supported anything and 54 
percent of conservative Republicans supported that, we would probably 
be having a sensible conversation in the Senate about whatever that 
thing was. We just can't do it when that thing happens to be climate 
change because we have the fossil fuel industry out there--powered up 
by Citizens United, spending all that money--trying to protect that 
huge, huge subsidy that they enjoy.
  Finally, the report points out--and I see the pages lined up here 
along the

[[Page S1109]]

side of the podium: ``Increasingly, climate change is becoming a 
defining issue for this next generation of Americans, which the GOP 
ignores at its own peril.''
  If this party wants to write off the young generation as they follow 
the fossil fuel industry off the climate cliff, there will be a very 
grave price to be paid.
  The report concludes: ``With the privilege of controlling all 
branches of the government comes a responsibility to exercise wise 
leadership on the defining challenges of our era, including global 
climate change.''
  I don't know where Mr. Mnuchin will lead on climate change at the 
Treasury Department. There are a number of ways in which the Treasury 
Department can be influential in this area. To my knowledge, he has 
never said anything about it yet.
  It was not too long ago--2009--that a full-page advertisement ran in 
the New York Times, a full page advertisement that pointed out that the 
science of climate change was already, by then, to use the word in the 
advertisement, ``irrefutable.'' The science of climate change was 
``irrefutable,'' the advertisement said.
  Then the advertisement went on to say that the consequences of 
climate change would be ``catastrophic and irreversible.'' That is 
another quote from the advertisement: The consequences of climate 
change were to be ``catastrophic and irreversible.''
  On the one hand, you have science that is irrefutable; on the other 
hand, you have consequences of ignoring it that are catastrophic and 
irreversible. Who signed that advertisement? None other than Donald J. 
Trump--not only he, but his children, Donald Trump, Eric Trump, and 
Ivanka Trump, also all signed it.
  The year 2009 was not that long ago. It is possible that the Trump 
family could refer to what they knew in 2009 and perhaps take advice 
from a Treasury Secretary. I hope they take advice from three Treasury 
Secretaries, but we will see how that goes.
  Perhaps Mr. Mnuchin can be a voice to try to get the GOP out of the 
fossil fuel hole it is in, aligned with the 67 percent of American 
voters who want to see a revenue-neutral carbon tax, aligned with the 
majority of Republican conservative voters who would support that, and 
aligned with the irrefutable nature of the science, and addressing the 
catastrophic and irreversible consequences in this strange new 
administration in which the new normal is abnormal. It is perhaps hard 
to expect much good to come, but let's hope and let's hope Mr. Mnuchin 
makes himself a part of the solution rather than just a part of the 
climate-denial problem that so infects us, particularly here in 
Congress.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate will confirm the 
nomination of Steven Mnuchin to be the Secretary of the Treasury. It is 
a nomination I simply cannot support.
  The Treasury Department plays an essential role in the development of 
the economic policies that financially secure the United States in 
world markets, that expand the opportunities available to all 
Americans, and that help set the stage for a sound and growing economy. 
Our country's economic engine must be one that is accessible to all 
Americans, not just the wealthy few. Regrettably, while Mr. Mnuchin may 
have a knowledge of the inner workings of Wall Street, he seems to know 
shockingly little of the hardships faced on Main Street. One need look 
no further than his role during the height of the housing crisis in 
foreclosing on tens of thousands of American families. Reducing these 
actions to mere administrative matters belies the true struggles of 
those who don't boast the personal coffers Mr. Mnuchin enjoys. I simply 
cannot accept his explanation of his role in these actions.
  We cannot forget the devastation and hardship that the recent 
financial crisis brought upon our country, its people, its 
neighborhoods, its small businesses, and its communities. People lost 
their homes and their jobs, and our markets crashed. Many have still 
have not recovered from those losses. As Congress worked to find the 
answers, it became clear that many large investment banks and insurance 
companies hid the insecurity of their finances from stockholders and 
from the American people. While many people lost their life savings, 
corporate executives received outrageous severance packages. As the 
country lurched into a financial downward spiral, Mr. Mnuchin's 
company, One West, administered aggressive foreclosure tactics that 
added to the devastation of these families, including veterans. It was 
wrong. Mr. Mnuchin, in his testimony before the Senate Finance 
Committee, may have tried to convince the American people that his was 
an innocent role in the crisis. But given that he could not provide a 
valid reason for failing to disclose that he was the director of an 
offshore account worth more than $100 million, domiciled offshore in 
the Cayman Islands, I just cannot buy what he is selling--and neither 
can Vermonters.
  In 2010, Congress worked hard to pass the Dodd-Frank Wall Street 
Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This legislation included a number 
of financial reforms to change the way financial institutions and banks 
take on risk, while adding protections for customers of these 
institutions, and creating a new regulatory council in order to provide 
more effective oversight of the industry. President Trump has indicated 
that he will seek to roll back Dodd-Frank regulations, and Mr. Mnuchin 
reinforced this pledge in front of the Finance Committee. Since its 
inception in 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPBP, has 
received and sent to companies for review upward of 700,000 complaints 
from consumers across the country, ranging from abuses in debt 
collection and credit reporting, to student loans. I worry about the 
future of the CFPB under President Trump's administration. Its value 
and importance in protecting Americans from predatory practices, like 
those of OneWest, cannot be overstated. I cannot support a Secretary 
who would unravel the reforms we worked hard to enact and that protect 
the American people from the devastation of runaway corporate greed.
  For the last 8 years, we have focused with considerable success on 
rebuilding our economy. The unemployment rate is lower than it was 
before the financial crisis. Small businesses are growing. It is 
imperative that we continue to make economic progress and that we find 
additional ways to help those who have been left behind, without 
returning to the destructive policies that brought about the crisis in 
the first place. I am not convinced that Mr. Mnuchin is the right 
nominee to lead the Treasury Department and to continue this forward 
progress.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, today we consider the nomination of 
Steve Mnuchin, a multimillionaire former Goldman Sachs executive, hedge 
fund manager, and investor, to be Secretary of the Treasury. In our 
Nation's history, the Treasury Secretary was the first Cabinet official 
to be confirmed by the Senate, when Alexander Hamilton took his post in 
1789.
  The first Congress valued the Treasury Department highly, giving it 
more resources than all other government agencies combined. Today the 
mission of the Treasury Department is to:

       ``Maintain a strong economy and create economic and job 
     opportunities by promoting the conditions that enable 
     economic growth and stability at home and abroad, strengthen 
     national security by combating threats and protecting the 
     integrity of the financial system, and manage the U.S. 
     Government's finances and resources effectively.''

  While the Department always serves a critical function, it has been 
particularly vital in times of financial crisis. In 2008, in the wake 
of lax regulation and excessive speculation, a financial crash shook 
our Nation's economy. The Treasury Department was a key player to pull 
us back from the brink and keep the toxic contagion on Wall Street from 
spilling over to Main Street. We had to fight to ensure that the 
colossal failures of irresponsible corporate executives would not wipe 
out small businesses and citizens' savings.
  At that time, my congressional office helped hundreds of homeowners 
facing foreclosure, working them through the loan modification process, 
helping track down missing documents, and following up again and again 
with banks to make sure that paperwork was processed. We held a 
foreclosure prevention forum to connect people to

[[Page S1110]]

housing counselors. For too many, this process was extremely difficult, 
tremendously confusing, and, in some cases, deliberately misleading. 
While my office was always ready to help, there was no reason why 
congressional intervention should have been necessary to help families 
modify their payments to stay in their homes.
  Where was Steve Mnuchin at this time, when families across the Nation 
were struggling? He was profiting from it. In 2009, he joined a group 
of billionaire-investors to buy IndyMac, a failed bank that the Federal 
Deposit Insurance Corporation had taken over. The investors turned it 
into OneWest Bank, and they turned it into what the California 
Reinvestment Coalition called ``a foreclosure machine.''
  Though the majority did not permit the California Reinvestment 
Coalition to testify at an official hearing on Mr. Mnuchin's 
nomination, the coalition's Paulina Gonzalez spoke with a number of 
Senators at a forum on Mr. Mnuchin's bank. Ms. Gonzalez told us that 
OneWest was among the worst. OneWest denied more applications than most 
for the Home Affordable Modification Program, the government program to 
help homeowners avoid foreclosure by adjusting their payment schedule. 
Ms. Gonzalez told us, ``We have labeled OneWest a `foreclosure machine' 
not only because it foreclosed on more than 60,000 American families 
and because of its aggressive foreclosure practices, but because it 
seemed to do little else.''
  Consider some of the heartbreaking foreclosure stories that OneWest 
left in its wake.
  A 90-year-old Florida woman lost her home after making a 27-cent 
payment error.
  Christina Clifford attempted to modify her loan twice. Each time that 
she sent in her check with the paperwork, OneWest told her that her 
paperwork was not received--even though the bank cashed the check that 
was in the same envelope.
  A Minneapolis woman was in the process of negotiating a loan 
modification when she came home in a blizzard and found that her locks 
had been changed.
  OneWest and its subsidiary Financial Freedom were also notorious for 
what came to be called ``widow foreclosures.'' They lured seniors into 
reverse mortgages signed by one spouse of a married couple. When the 
spouse who signed the paperwork died, OneWest and Financial Freedom 
would immediately begin the foreclosure process, sending out notices in 
as little as 10 days to widows and widowers.
  Another egregious bank practice during the foreclosure crisis was 
``robo-signing.'' Mortgage officials would speed through foreclosure 
documents and sign off without reviewing their accuracy. This practice 
all too frequently led to the bank powering through as many 
foreclosures as possible.
  Mr. Mnuchin told the Finance Committee that ``OneWest Bank did not 
`robo-sign' documents.'' But in a deposition, a OneWest executive 
admitted to personally robo-signing hundreds of documents, even 
shortening her signature to her initials to speed the process even 
further.
  Thanks to these draconian practices, Mr. Mnuchin made a tidy $1.5 
billion in profit when he and his fellow investors sold OneWest after 6 
years.
  In the aftermath of the devastating 2008 financial crisis, Congress 
worked to reform the system with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and 
Consumer Protection Act. Congress intended the law to reduce the kind 
of risk and recklessness that led to the crisis and strengthen Federal 
oversight of Wall Street and Big Banks. Congress created the Consumer 
Financial Protection Bureau to be a watchdog for everyday Americans and 
prevent predatory lending and unscrupulous behavior by financial 
institutions. It began regulation of exotic financial derivatives that 
contributed to the crisis by masking risk and established the Volcker 
rule to place limits on ways that banks can invest to minimize 
conflicts of interest and high-risk transactions.
  While Congress can certainly do more to improve consumer and investor 
protections and ensure that no bank is ever ``too big to fail,'' Dodd-
Frank is a critical reform. And since the day it passed, Republicans in 
Congress have attacked it, seeking to roll back its protections, weaken 
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and reduce the oversight of 
the speculative transactions that increase risk in our financial 
markets.
  President Trump has called Dodd-Frank a ``disaster'' and vowed to 
``do a big number on it.'' And last week, President Trump signed an 
Executive order directing a review of Dodd-Frank regulations.
  By his side at that moment was Gary Cohn, who was co-president of 
Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis. As detailed in a report by 
the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Goldman survived 
the crash in part by betting against its own customers and sticking 
them with bad mortgages. In 2006, they saw trouble coming in the 
subprime mortgage market and realized that they were overinvested. So 
they packaged the bad deals into new mortgage-backed products and 
dumped them. In 2009, one analyst called Goldman ``a single underwriter 
solely interested in pushing its dirty inventory onto unsuspecting and 
gullible investors.''
  President Trump's adviser Gary Cohn was a leader of Goldman Sachs at 
that time. Now, after walking away from Goldman Sachs with a $285 
million payout, he has become chair of the National Economic Council. 
Mr. Cohn is at President Trump's side to work to unravel the reforms 
that Congress put in place to stop bad behavior of banks like Goldman 
Sachs.
  Mr. Mnuchin also worked at Goldman Sachs and continued to work in the 
hedge fund industry. Will he serve as a check on the impulse to reopen 
banking to greater risk? In an interview with CNN's Squawk Box after 
his nomination, he said, ``We want to strip back parts of Dodd-Frank 
and that will be the number one priority on the regulatory side,''--the 
number one priority.
  It is unclear how Mr. Mnuchin, Mr. Cohn, and President Trump plan to 
reshape financial regulation, how much risk they plan to reintroduce to 
the markets, and whether they would ensure adequate safeguards for 
consumers and investors. We do know, however, that Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. 
Cohn are cozy with Wall Street and Big Banks, and it appears now that 
Mr. Trump's talk about reining in Wall Street was just talk.
  In addition to the need to continue sensible oversight of the 
financial system, the next Treasury Secretary will have to confront one 
of the greatest challenges of our time--growing income inequality, 
wealth inequality, and wage stagnation.
  According to an Economic Policy Institute Analysis of data from the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis, from 1948 
until 1973, worker productivity and compensation rose at roughly 
similar rates--productivity increased by 96.7 percent and hourly 
compensation increased by 91.3 percent. Starting in 1973, however, 
growth in worker productivity and wages began to diverge dramatically. 
Between 1973 and 2013, productivity increased by 74.4 percent, but 
hourly compensation increased by just 9.2 percent.
  Not everyone, however, saw stagnation. The wages of the top 1 percent 
of earners grew 138 percent between 1979 and 2013, once again, 
according to analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. In that same 
time period, the wages of workers in the bottom 10 percent actually 
dropped by 5 percent.
  In 1965, an average company CEO made 20 times the salary of an 
average, nonmanagement worker. In 2014, the average CEO made 303 times 
the salary of an average worker.
  Many Americans feel that they are working harder than ever, but they 
aren't getting ahead. Too often, they are right. They are taking on 
more and not getting compensated for the extra effort. We need policies 
to help average workers, like increasing the minimum wage, fair pay, 
and improvements to the Tax Code to encourage hard work rather than 
simply rewarding those who make money off of money.
  Is Mr. Mnuchin the right person to address this problem? His 
experience is certainly different from that of the average worker. The 
son of a Goldman Sachs banker, he has accumulated enough wealth that he 
forgot to disclose a hundred million dollars in assets to the Finance 
Committee. He has said little about his ideas for tax reform, except 
creating what my colleague Senator Wyden has dubbed the

[[Page S1111]]

``Mnuchin Rule.'' In an interview, Mr. Mnuchin said of tax reform: 
``Any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less 
deductions, so there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.'' 
I would certainly welcome that outcome. Unfortunately, it is totally 
inconsistent with the Trump tax plan.
  According to Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on 
Taxation and Economic Policy, President Trump's tax plan is heavily 
weighted to benefit the wealthy, leading to ``a new era of dynastic 
wealth.'' A report from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center concluded 
that President Trump's plan would ``significantly raise taxes'' for 
about 8.5 million families, particularly working single parents. In 
contrast, the wealthiest one percent would receive 47 percent--almost 
half--of the tax cuts, saving on average $214,000. The 117,000 
households in the top 0.1 percent would receive, on average, a whopping 
$1.3 million each.
  In addition to exacerbating the problem of income inequality, the 
Trump tax plan would add $7 trillion to the national debt over the next 
decade. It would blow a hole in our Federal budget to give big checks 
to the superwealthy, provide limited benefit to the middle class, and 
hurt low-income families.
  This is entirely backwards. We have learned over and over again that 
massive tax cuts for the wealthy do not lead to economic growth for 
everyone. Trickle down has never worked. We need to build an economy 
that works for everyone, not just the very wealthy. And we certainly 
should not be rewarding the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
  Given what little we know of Mr. Mnuchin's policy priorities, we have 
to look to his career to determine his experience to carry out the 
mission of the Treasury to create economic and job opportunities and 
sustain economic growth. Unfortunately, Mr. Mnuchin appears to have had 
a canny ability to take advantage of the dire circumstances of others 
to benefit himself, particularly in pushing aggressively for 
foreclosures at OneWest. It is far from clear that he is willing to now 
work on behalf of all Americans and especially those who have been 
working harder and receiving no return. I hope to be proven wrong, but 
I cannot support his nomination.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill 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.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, on January 20, at his inauguration, 
President Trump stood before the American people and said: ``For too 
long, a small group of our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of 
government while the people have borne the cost.''
  President Trump is right. The people have borne unimaginable costs: 
the cost of foreclosure, the cost of inequality, the cost of poverty, 
and the cost of injustice. Sadly, it doesn't look like that is going to 
change soon with this administration. Three weeks into this 
administration, President Trump has already begun to restore power back 
to Wall Street and the very same people who he said have caused 
tremendous problems for us. The nomination of Steve Mnuchin, someone 
who spent his entire career working on behalf of Wall Street at the 
expense of hard-working Americans, is a clear example.
  Let me say at the outset, I have not met him, but I tried to, but we 
couldn't get an agreement as to when we might be able to get together. 
I wanted to talk to him about some important issues that many of us 
remember.
  We know what happened with the recession that greeted President Obama 
when he was sworn into office 8 years ago. We know about the 
foreclosures. We know of families being literally wiped out, all their 
savings gone because of misleading tactics by financiers.
  I still look at this, and as much as I respect President Obama and 
his administration, I shake my head and think: Nobody went to jail for 
all that occurred. People at the highest levels of the financial 
community on Wall Street and others were engaged in practices that we 
know now were unfair and just plain wrong and, in many cases, illegal.
  I have taken a look at Mr. Mnuchin's record. I have read a lot of 
stories about him. I have heard from homeowners' personally impacted by 
his conduct, and let me tell you, what I have seen and heard leads me 
to believe he is not the right person to be Secretary of the Treasury.
  Like most of President Trump's nominees, Mr. Mnuchin was not chosen 
for his knowledge and experience on critical issues he will face if 
confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury. He was not chosen for his 
commitment to work for average working families. He was chosen for his 
loyalty to the President, the new litmus test in the Republican Party.
  Before serving as President Trump's chief fundraiser on the campaign, 
Mr. Mnuchin worked to help wealthy individuals and powerful special 
interest groups reap the benefits of what the President has called ``a 
rigged system.'' He served as an executive at Goldman Sachs and as a 
hedge fund manager.
  Perhaps what troubles me the most about Mr. Mnuchin's experience is 
his tenure at the helm of a group known as OneWest, which came to be 
known as a foreclosure machine in America because of the aggressive and 
questionable practices it used to foreclose on the homes of thousands 
of American families.
  Mr. Mnuchin was the head of the company that was doing the 
foreclosure. After our country experienced the worst economic downturn 
since the Great Depression, Congress worked around the clock to prevent 
the economy from going into free-fall and end some of the worst 
practices that helped bring the American economy to its knees.
  As we were working to save American homes, Mr. Mnuchin--like 
President Trump--saw opportunity to make a profit, personally earning 
millions from OneWest's success as a foreclosure machine.
  As the head of OneWest, Mr. Mnuchin had the power to destroy lives 
through foreclosure or find ways to help homeowners stay in their 
homes. He chose to aggressively foreclose on families.
  During his nomination hearing, Mr. Mnuchin defended OneWest's 
foreclosure practices and said he was proud of the work of the bank 
during the foreclosure crisis.
  Let me tell you about some of the stories, and you can decide whether 
Mr. Mnuchin should be proud of the record of the company he was 
managing.
  Rex Schaffer and his wife Rose lost their home of nearly 50 years, 
despite having qualified for a loan modification.
  Ossie Lofton, a 90-year-old woman, was foreclosed on because she was 
short 27 cents in her mortgage payment--27 cents.
  The locks were changed on Leslie Park's Minneapolis home in the 
middle of a blizzard.
  We have seen how organizations headed by Mr. Mnuchin treat people. If 
confirmed, Mr. Mnuchin would have the ability to use the power of the 
U.S. Treasury Department to stand on the side of Wall Street and on the 
opposite side of millions of working Americans. I don't have 
confidence, based on his professional record, that Mr. Mnuchin will put 
the needs of hard-working families first over Wall Street.
  While the foreclosure crisis and its aftermath seem like something in 
the past for so many people, that is not the case in my home State of 
Illinois. Foreclosures are devastating for the families forced out of 
their homes, but they are also devastating to surrounding communities 
and neighborhoods.
  If you want to know what a community looks like 50 years after the 
foreclosure crisis, visit my birthplace, my hometown of East St. Louis, 
IL, or even some of the neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago, or 
the west side, for that matter--vacant lot after vacant lot, neglected 
buildings and homes, an economy devastated. And what is left? Some of 
the poorest families on earth.
  While we have made significant progress since the recession of 2008, 
many families in my State and across the country are still suffering. 
There is work to do. If confirmed, Mr. Mnuchin

[[Page S1112]]

will be responsible for protecting these families and ensuring that we 
don't have another financial crisis. All we have seen from him is his 
ability to profit from the foreclosure crisis and the devastation left 
in its wake. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, Congress 
got together with the President and passed Dodd-Frank. This was Wall 
Street reform determined not to let another economic crisis follow. The 
consumer protection act was also passed to prevent these crises and to 
reform the problems that caused them.
  Mr. Mnuchin has made no secret of the fact that his No. 1 regulatory 
priority is to roll back Wall Street reform, to return the barbarians 
to the gates. Despite the promises President Trump made during his 
campaign, including ``not letting Wall Street get away with murder,'' 
Mr. Mnuchin has an ally in President Trump in undoing Dodd-Frank. 
President Trump signed an Executive order that would begin rolling back 
the important consumer and financial system reforms we passed as part 
of Dodd-Frank. The President signed this order sitting among the 
biggest beneficiaries of his actions, some of Wall Street's high 
rollers. Make no mistake, if President Trump gets his way and Steven 
Mnuchin is confirmed, the banks are going to have the best friend they 
can think of in the Treasury Department, just like they did before the 
economic crash of 2008.
  It is clear the American people can't count on Mr. Mnuchin, based on 
his business experience, to decide with them over Wall Street. But, 
certainly, he should be committed to basic fairness of the Tax Code. He 
said he was until he wasn't. Shortly after his nomination, Mr. Mnuchin 
said there would be ``no absolute tax cut for the upper class.'' Yet he 
has not spoken out against the significant tax cuts the wealthy would 
receive from the repeal of the Affordable Care Act or under the 
President's and the House Republican's tax reform plan. We shouldn't be 
surprised by this because we are asking Mr. Mnuchin to close the 
loopholes and raise the taxes on the very people he helped to avoid 
paying taxes by using offshore tax havens as a hedge fund manager.
  We are still recovering from the devastation of that financial crisis 
8 years ago. We can't afford to have our Nation's top economic official 
be a man who has only been looking out for Wall Street. For a President 
who ran on bringing back jobs and being a champion of the working 
people, the choices of President Trump for his Cabinet are the opposite 
and have taken advantage of the very system he has derided as rigged 
against the people.
  The American people deserve better. When Mr. Mnuchin's nomination is 
brought to the Senate floor for a vote, I will vote no, and I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.