[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 45 (Wednesday, March 14, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1696-S1729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ECONOMIC GROWTH, REGULATORY RELIEF, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 2155, which the clerk will
report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2155) to promote economic growth, provide
tailored regulatory relief, and enhance consumer protections,
and for other purposes.
Pending:
McConnell (for Crapo) modified amendment No. 2151, in the
nature of a substitute.
Crapo amendment No. 2152 (to amendment No. 2151), of a
perfecting nature.
Mr. McCONNELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The Democratic leader is recognized.
Gun Violence
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, at this moment all across the country,
students are walking out of school for 17 minutes in memory of the 17
Americans who died at Stoneman Douglas High School 1 month ago today.
Here on the floor of the Senate, I join with those students in
remembering the fallen students and teachers of Stoneman Douglas. I
join with them in remembering the beautiful children who died at an
elementary school in Newtown. I join with them in remembering a long
line of American children who perished in the slow-moving tidal wave of
gun violence that is consuming our country--all the unopened presents
and uncelebrated birthdays, all the empty chairs at dinner tables,
graduations, and holidays. These kids had their whole lives ahead of
them.
This has gone on for too long. When a disease plagues our people, we
seek a cure. When we see drug addiction stealing the lives of our
youth, we get together here in Congress and try to do something about
it. Why is it that when it comes to gun violence--which is responsible
for just as many, if not more, deaths--we throw up our hands and
pretend there is no solution?
We know there are commonsense things we could do. Close the dangerous
loopholes in the background check system; ensure that anyone with a
criminal history or history of mental illness can't get their hands on
a gun; and, yes, we should debate the assault weapons ban because
weapons of war have no place on our streets and no place in our
schools.
While so many students today are mourning their friends and
classmates, we in Congress are in a unique position. We alone have the
ability to change our laws to make America safer and, God willing,
prevent another one of these massacres--these horrible, horrible
massacres.
What will we do with that awesome responsibility? I was here on the
floor of the Senate when this body failed to advance any legislation in
the wake of Sandy Hook. The shame we all felt, and America felt, as
this body was unable to act because a powerful special interest seems
to have its grip on too many of our colleagues. Well, let this time be
different. Let this time be different.
In a moment, I will read the names of 17 Americans--14 children--who
were killed in the horrific attack at Stoneman Douglas High School. I
am joined by a good number of my colleagues who wish to read the names
of children and other victims who died at the hands of gun violence in
their States. May their memories--may their memories--inspire us to
act.
Alyssa Alhadeff, Martin Duque Anguiano, Scott Beigel, Nicholas
Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jaime Guttenberg, Christopher Hixon, Luke Hoyer,
Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow
Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, Peter Wang.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I join with my colleagues today to give
the country a sense of the scope of this epidemic. We have tried every
means to move our colleagues to action, but in remembering the names of
people who have been lost, it is a reminder that there is a human face
behind every single one of these numbers, and behind that victim there
is a trail of trauma--family members, friends, classmates--that is
difficult to unwind.
[[Page S1697]]
On December 14, 2012, armed with a tactical semiautomatic weapon with
clips of 30 bullets, a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School
in Newtown, CT, and killed 20 children, 6 adults, and himself.
Among them were Rachel D'Avino, 29, a teacher's aide; Dawn
Hochsprung, 47, the principal; Anne Marie Murphy, 52, a teacher's aide;
Lauren Rousseau, 30 years old, a teacher; Mary Sherlach, 56 years old,
a school psychologist; Victoria Soto, a 27-year-old teacher.
The students were Charlotte Bacon, 6 years old; Daniel Barden, 7
years old; Olivia Engel, 6 years old; Josephine Gay, 7 years old, Dylan
Hockley, 6 years old; Madeleine Hsu, 6 years old; Catherine Hubbard, 6
years old; Chase Kowalski, 7 years old; Jesse Lewis, 6 years old; Ana
Marquez-Greene, 6 years old; James Mattioli, 6 years old; Grace
McDonnell, 7 years old; Emilie Parker, 6 years old; Jack Pinto, 6 years
old; Noah Pozner, 6 years old; Caroline Previdi, 6 years old; Jessica
Rekos, 6 years old; Avielle Richman, 6 years old; Benjamin Wheeler, 6
years old; Allison Wyatt, 6 years old.
I have a 6-year-old, and yesterday he and 24 of his classmates were
locked in a tiny bathroom for several minutes for an active shooter
drill. When he came home last night, he said: Daddy, I didn't like it.
Since Sandy Hook in Connecticut, there have been hundreds more: Lisa
Infante, 52, of Shelton; Antoine Heath, 29, of New Haven; Jonathan
Aranda, 19, of New Haven; Miguel Arguelles, 22, of Bridgeport; Cameron
Chapman, 25, of Waterbury; Sherrie Blount, 31, of Danbury; Ebony Swaby,
22, of Waterbury; Daniel Joseph Caron, Sr., 63, of Bristol; Michael
Watkins, 26, of Bridgeport; Keon Huff, Jr., 15, of Hartford; Joshua
Rivera, 28, of New Haven; Deon Rodney, 31, of Bridgeport; Khali Davis,
22, of Bridgeport; Norris Jackson, 36, of Bridgeport; Eduardo Anes, 37,
of Hartford; Alfanso Anderson, 49, of Bridgeport; Guy Moore, 26, of
Waterbury.
That is just the tip of the iceberg as to what has happened since
Sandy Hook, just in my State of Connecticut--representing only 1
percent of the population.
A 6-year-old shouldn't be locked into a bathroom, smushed together
with 24 of his classmates, preparing for the day when a shooter
potentially walks into his public elementary school. We have a duty to
act.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, along with my colleagues today, I
rise to address what has unfortunately become the norm for our kids in
schools and across the country.
On October 1 in Las Vegas, we saw the worst mass shooting in the
history of this country--innocent concertgoers attending an
entertainment venue outdoors. There were 58 killed and 500 injured at
the hands of a madman with an assault weapon.
In the past 5 years, we have lost an average of 10 children each year
to gun violence in Nevada alone. Today I speak in memory of the 50
children from my home State who will never get the chance to grow up
and graduate from high school, pursue their dream job, or even have
children of their own.
The names I am about to read aloud were beloved sons, daughters,
friends, and classmates whose lives were tragically cut short in the
last 3 years:
Clemente, 17 years old, from Las Vegas; Jovanni, 16 years old, from
Las Vegas; Terry, a 17-year-old from Reno; Tiris, 17 years old, lived
in Las Vegas; Marcus, 3 weeks old, lived in Las Vegas; Anthony, 17
years old from Laughlin; John, 11 months old, from Las Vegas; Anthony,
16 years old, from Las Vegas; Bradley, 4 years old, lived in Las Vegas;
a young male victim, 16 years old, from Reno; Giovanni, 14 years old,
Las Vegas; another young victim, 16 years old, lived in Las Vegas;
Luis, 16 years old, from Las Vegas; another young victim, 15 years old,
from West Wendover; Sincere, 12 years old, from Las Vegas; Ethan, 17
years old, from Las Vegas; Angelo, 15 years old, lived in Las Vegas;
Benjamin, 17 years old, lived in Las Vegas; a young female victim, 3
years old, from Las Vegas; another male victim, 4 years old, lived in
Las Vegas; Jhronne, 17 years old, from Las Vegas; Joshua, 17 years old,
from Las Vegas; Xonajuk, 14 years old, from Las Vegas; Anhurak, 9 years
old, from Las Vegas; Dalavanh, 15 years old, from Las Vegas; Robert, 17
years old, from Las Vegas; another young female victim, 17 years old,
from Reno; and Fabriccio, 13 years old, from Las Vegas.
Across the country students are saying ``Never again'' to another
child lost to gun violence, and I ask that this Congress do the same
thing.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today to remind all
of us of those who have been lost due to gun violence from Washington
State.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the names be printed in
the Record to remind all of us that this is just a fraction of those we
know have been lost.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Carrie Parsons, Sam Strahan, Deputy Daniel McCartney,
Officer Jake Gutierrez, Sergeant Mark Renninger, Officer
Ronald Owens, Officer Tina Griswold, Officer Greg Richards,
Deputy Anne Jackson, Trooper Troy Giddings, Army Sergeant
Timothy Hovey, Michelle Vo, Denise Burditus, Sarai Lara,
Shayla Martin, Chuck Eagan, Belinda Galde, Beatrice Dotson,
Joe Albanese, Andrew Keriakedes, Kimberly Layfield, Donald
Largen.
Gloria Leonidas, Anna Bui, Jordan Ebner, Jake Long, Zoe
Galasso, Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, Gia Soriano, Andrew Fryberg,
Pam Waechter, Frank Cohens, Jr., Thomas Ianniciello, Erick
Valdez-Herrera, James Smith, Michael Clayton, Demonte Young,
Karen Perez-Placencia, Carl Phelps, Junior, Justin Love,
Brandon Perry, Trina Bolar, Eddie Holmes, Jenna Carlile, Ava
Field.
Ashen Field, Tiana Montgomery, LeRoy Lange, Wayne Anderson,
Judy Anderson, Scott Anderson, Erica Anderson, Olivia
Anderson, Nathan Anderson, Paul Lee, Maxine Harrison,
Samantha Harrison, Jayme Harrison, Heather Harrison, James
Jr. Harrison, George Brown, Davary Hicks, Jeffrey McLaren,
Alex Kelley, Wesley Gennings, Tabitha Apling, Adam Gutierrez,
Dennis Sloboda.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in recognizing that
we must take action to protect the safety of our communities.
Senator Van Hollen and I are on the floor, proud of the Maryland
students who are here today to speak in solidarity with the students
from Parkland, FL, in recognizing and remembering the 17 victims of
that tragic episode. We also wish to point out that so many others have
lost their lives to gun violence.
In the State of Maryland, we have not been spared. Just Monday night,
10 people, including 2 teenage boys, were wounded in 5 separate
shootings in Baltimore. They are the lucky ones who will likely survive
their injuries.
Two men killed in separate shootings on Monday were Montrel Rivers,
age 20, and Ronald Preston, age 30, both from East Baltimore.
On March 5, 23-year-old Devonte Rhodes was lost to gun violence in
Baltimore. One day earlier, Jashawn Ivory, also of Baltimore, was the
fatal victim of a shooting.
In February, 28-year-old Jasmine Chandler and her pregnant friend,
Mia Robinson, who was also 28, were shot as they sat in a parked car in
Northwest Baltimore. Also last month, off-duty Prince George's County
Corporal Mujahid Ramzziddin lost his life to gun violence.
Fatal victims of gun violence in Maryland include young people like
Tre'Quan Bullock, age 18, the first of seven students at Excel Academy
in West Baltimore shot and killed since October 2016.
Lavar Douglas, age 18; Bryant Beverly, age 18; James Martin, age 55;
``Sonny'' Buchanan, age 39; Prenkumar Walekar, age 54; Sarah Ramos, age
34; Laurie Ann Lewis-Rivera, age 25--the list goes on and on and on.
In memory of all of those who have lost their lives to gun violence,
it is imperative that we speak out and act.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to thank the young people
throughout this country who have the courage to do what the U.S.
Congress is not doing; that is, to lead us forward in a way to lower
the slaughter we are seeing from coast to coast in terms of gun
violence.
The bad news is that people continue to be killed every day. The good
news
[[Page S1698]]
is that the American people have come together around commonsense
solutions to lower the level of gun violence we are experiencing. The
American people know that we need to expand and improve background
checks, that we need to do away with the gun show loophole, and that we
need to do away with the straw man provisions. More and more Americans
understand that we should ban the sale and distribution of military-
style weapons.
In my small State of Vermont between 2011 and 2016, 42 people were
killed by guns. Some of them are Lara Sobel, Julie Falzarano, Regina
Herring, Rhonda Herring, Molly Helland, Molly McLain, Kevin DeOliveira,
Rhonda Gray, Marcus Austin, and Obafemi Adedapo. These are just some of
the people who lost their lives to gun violence in Vermont.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, today many of us will join with
Maryland students and other students throughout this region to demand
that this Senate and the House of Representatives take commonsense
action to reduce gun violence in America--gun violence that has
resulted in massacres at concerts, slaughters in churches, and, of
course, mass deaths at schools throughout the country, and the death
toll we see in the streets of America every day.
I am going to read the names of 17 Maryland young people, people
under age 20, who have died just in the last year as a result of gun
violence in Maryland.
Andre Galloway, 16 years old; Lavander Edwards, 16 years old;
Dashanae Woodson, 17; Shaquan Trusty, 16; Thomas Johnson, 16; Anthony
Cheeks, 17; Tyrese Davis, 15; Jeffrey Quick, 15; Xavier Cole Young, 14;
Kymici Brown, 17; Larry Aaron, 19; Terry Joseph Bosley, 17; Iyanni
Nachae Watkins, 13; Shadi Adi Najjar, 17; Artem Ziberov, 18; Dustin
Khoury, 17; and Laila Goodwin, 4 years old. That is not the entire list
of people under age 20 who were shot and killed in Maryland. In the
State of Maryland, in 2017, 481 souls were lost to homicide, and in
2016, 436 Marylanders were lost to homicide, in all cases by gun
violence.
The time to act has long passed, but for goodness' sake, let's join
with the students and Americans crying out throughout this country to
say enough is enough and enact commonsense gun safety legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, these are the names of 17 children who
were killed with guns in my State. I will read their first names only
because it makes us remember they could be anyone's children.
Lisa Marie, age 15; William Robert, age 15; Anthony, age 16; Jacob
Alexander, age 14; Joseph Anthony, age 17; Terrell, age 3; Joshua
Albert, age 15; Alisha, age 17; Jesse, age 18; Cedric, age 18; Darion
Joseph, age 15; Justin Daniel, age 17; Jennifer Ellen, age 17; David
Andre, age 17; Tabitha Lee, age 16; Terrence, age 16; Anthony Michael,
age 3.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, Congress does not have the courage to act
on gun violence, but young people across this country are showing the
way. They are speaking up, and they are demanding action. I honor them,
and I commit to fight alongside them.
I am going to read the names of some of those lost from
Massachusetts. They didn't get a chance to join this fight before they
died from gun violence, so I take this opportunity to join them to the
young people who are fighting today for sensible gun reforms.
Gerrod Brown, 16 years old; Anthony Scaccia, 6 years old; Angel
Suazo, 16 years old; Alejandro Lorente, 11 years old; Tenzin Kunkhyen,
16 years old; Janmarcos Pena, 9 years old; Chantal Matiyosus, 16 years
old; Latoya Graham, 15 years old; Brian Crowell, 12 years old; Ross
Mathieu, 12 years old; Liquarry Jefferson, 8 years old.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, today is a momentous one in the
Capitol because the students of America are giving us a real life
lesson in the American Constitution. Their energy and passion are a
civics lesson for America. What a proud and wonderful moment today is
for our democracy. It is sad--indeed, tragic--that this lesson must
concern gun violence that has taken such a devastating toll, most
recently in Parkland, FL, but literally that toll is true of America
every day. We can never become numb to the catastrophic costs of gun
violence in America today.
I have the honor to read the names of some of those victims of gun
violence; indeed, the Sandy Hook victims. Their deaths are still in our
hearts. Their lives are still with us. Their memories are alive today.
My friendships with their loved ones, particularly their parents,
inspire me to continue this fight against gun violence in America.
Their courage and strength have inspired so many of us in this country,
and their names deserve to be remembered and read again in this
Chamber.
Noah Pozner, age 6; Charlotte Bacon, age 6; Jack Pinto, age 6; Olivia
Engel, age 6; Dylan Hockley, age 6; Catherine Hubbard, age 6; Avielle
Richman, age 6; Jessica Rekos, age 6; James Mattioli, age 6; Josephine
Gay, age 7; Caroline Previdi, age 6; Benjamin Wheeler, age 6; Chase
Kowalski, age 6; Ana Marquez-Greene, age 6; Grace McDonnell, age 7;
Emilie Parker, age 6; Madeleine Hsu, age 6; Allison Wyatt, age 6;
Daniel Barden, age 7; Jesse Lewis, age 6. And their teachers: Victoria
Soto, age 27; Lauren Rousseau, age 30; Anne Marie Murphy, age 52;
Rachel D'Avino, age 29; Mary Sherlach, their psychologist, age 56; Dawn
Lafferty Hochsprung, the principal of the school, age 47.
All of them died in December of 2012. All of them will be remembered
not only on this day but forever, not only in Connecticut but around
the world. We must always keep them in our hearts as a reason to keep
this fight against gun violence going.
In the hearing presently underway in the Judiciary Committee, as I
speak, there is testimony from members of the government investigative
agencies which have responsibility for stopping gun violence. My fear
is, this hearing will be an excuse for inaction and continued
complicity by Congress in the failure to act. The complicity in those
deaths is on our hands in this body by failing to take action.
There are actions we can take that will help to save lives--
commonsense, sensible action--that Congress has failed to take:
universal background checks, ban on assault weapons and high-capacity
magazines, a red flag statute that will prevent people who are
dangerous to themselves or others from having or buying guns. Many of
these measures are bipartisan, and we can come together with the lesson
from the students and young people who are in the streets coming to the
Capitol today. That lesson should be a reminder that the right side of
history is in favor of preventing gun violence.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COONS. 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. COONS. Mr. President, today is 1 month to the day from a tragic
shooting in Parkland, FL, where 17 high-school-aged students lost their
lives. As so many of my colleagues have done, I come to the floor to
remember them, to honor their loss, to speak to their classmates,
colleagues, and families, and to share from the experience of my own
home State of Delaware.
This morning, today, there are high school students across our
country and across my home State of Delaware who are walking out of
class to try and draw the attention of those of us in Washington to the
urgent need that we work across the aisle to tackle the plague of gun
violence that affects communities all over this country. That is why we
see young people not just across the country but including in my home
State of Delaware demanding that we take action. We need to answer
their call.
Let me speak to my hometown of Wilmington, DE. Just last month, 5
people--5 people, last month--under the age of 21 were shot in
Wilmington,
[[Page S1699]]
and 2017 ended as one of the worst years ever for gun violence and
homicides--197 individuals shot, 32 wounded fatally.
If I could, I wish to read the names of 31 individuals who were
victims of gun violence in the city of Wilmington in 2017. We are
working--Federal, State, and local officials; police departments and
community and civic leaders--to try to tackle these challenges, but
some of the core causes can only be addressed here. We need to find a
way to work together, to respect each other, to compromise, and to
tackle the very real epidemic of gun violence in our country.
These 31 Delawareans lost their lives in the city of Wilmington to
gun violence in the year 2017: Dariberto Velazquez Mendez, age 32;
Santanu Muhuri, age 64; Jermaine Francois, age 34; Charles Mays, age
66; Jamiere Harris, age 21; Kayden Young, age 21; Ainsley Cumberbatch,
age 23; Jamiel Congo, age 23; Keevan Hale, age 38; Tajuane Helton, age
41; Richard Crosby, age 30; Yaseem Powell, age 18; Tyree Robinson, age
23; Bryan Brooks, age 29; Tynesia Cephas, age 16; Joquon Coverdale, age
22; Derrius Jackson-Paul, age 23; Sherman Pride, age 22; Shamar
Lindsay, age 25; Cyree Watson, age 22; David Bailey, age 23; Nycire
Mills, age 23; Kai'Mel Ennals, age 20; Barry White, age 19; Allen
Melton, age 28; Albert Hazzard, age 33; Dwayne Grimes, age 19; Justin
McDermott, age 18; Andrew Pennewell, age 25; Shawn Lockhart, age 29;
and Keanan Samuels, age 20.
The facts of all of these different episodes of violence and loss
vary widely, but the conclusion must be the same: We have to find ways
to listen to each other, to work across the aisle, and to stop deadly
shootings in our country.
I am encouraged that many of my colleagues today have introduced
legislation that would take meaningful steps to tackle gun violence and
make all of us safer. We must act. We must listen to the voices of
young Americans demanding that we do our job and make our country
safer.
I yield floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. CANTWELL. 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. CANTWELL. Mr. President, in every corner of our country today and
across my State in Washington, countless students are taking part in a
walkout in support of reforms to combat gun violence. I stand in
solidarity with these students who are trying to provide an example of
why we must make progress on this issue. No student should fear for
their life while attending school, and I will continue to work on
solutions here to curb gun violence.
We in Washington State have been able to make progress by passing
initiatives to close gun show loopholes and to move forward on extreme
person legislation. I should say that that was passed by the citizens
of our State. We should look at the example of Washington's initiatives
and the success we have had in our State in curbing gun violence as
commonsense solutions that should be considered here in Washington, DC.
When we look at these issues, I am reminded of the tragic shootings
in our State--of Sam Strahan, from Spokane, who was killed, and
individuals who were killed in Washington in a Marysville-Tulalip
shooting when Jaylen Fryberg, at just 15 years old, opened fire on
students and killed Gia Soriano, Andrew Fryberg, Shaylee Chuckulnaskit,
and Zoe Galasso and wounded Nathan Hatch.
These tragedies are more than we can take at our schools. These
tragedies are something that we need to address here in Washington. So
I stand in solidarity with our students who are trying to address these
issues and address our Nation's need to come together and provide
better solutions to protect our students.
We are still heartbroken about this shooting in the sense of it being
an example of the challenges we face--a young man who took his father's
gun. He was a father who never should have had the gun to begin with
because he was on a domestic violence restraining order. Yet he was
still able to go to a store, get the gun, and keep the gun in the home.
Then the young student was able to take that to school.
I want all of these families to know that we still think of them,
that we are still mourning the loss of these individuals, and that we
are working very hard with our colleagues to come to some resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about the
legislation before us, which is the banking legislation that has been
reported out of the Banking Committee on a bipartisan vote and awaits
our attention here today.
Mr. President, like my colleague from Washington State, I will also
speak briefly to the issue that is being raised in States across
America and in schools across America, where students are demonstrating
their support and their solidarity with the folks in Parkland, FL,
where 17 kids were lost earlier this year.
My dad was a hunter, grew up in West Virginia. I was born in West
Virginia and grew up in Virginia. I bought my first BB gun when I was
10 years old, and I still have the shotgun that my grandfather gave me
just before he died, when I was just a pup of a teenager. In my family,
we are big believers in Second Amendment rights--to own and bear arms.
We are also big advocates of using common sense with respect to
weapons.
My dad was not only a hunter, he was also a gun collector. He would
buy and sell guns to other people whom he knew. From the time my sister
and I were little kids, my dad would always say to us, ``Just use some
common sense.'' He said it a lot to us when we were growing up. We must
not have had much of it because he said it very often. My dad said that
it didn't make common sense for somebody who had serious mental health
problems or a felony record to be able to go to a gun show and buy a
weapon. It also doesn't make a lot of sense for people who can't fly on
airplanes because they are on a terrorist watch list to be able to buy
guns. My dad would have said that didn't make a lot of sense.
What is happening across the country is that the kids are leading us.
In a verse in the Bible, it reads that the ``child shall lead them.'' I
think that is really what is going on here, and I think States are
already starting to address this issue in a more constructive way than
we have done thus far.
My hope is that the children will lead us and that the States will
lead us as well. Maybe we will be able to come to agreement on some of
these issues that are respectful of our Second Amendment rights in the
Constitution but that are also consistent with the kind of common sense
that my dad always talked about with respect to everything, including
the buying and selling of weapons.
Mr. President, I remember standing on this floor--I think it was
about 8 years ago--when we debated the Affordable Care Act. That was at
a time when we were spending about 18 percent of the GDP for healthcare
in this country--18 percent. The Japanese were spending 8 percent. They
had better results in Japan for their healthcare than we had, and they
covered everybody. Think about that. We had been spending 18 percent,
and they had been spending 8 percent. They had gotten better results in
healthcare--in life longevity for adults and in lower rates of infant
mortality. They covered everybody. When people went to bed in this
country at that time, 40 million people went to bed without having any
healthcare coverage. I think most of us realized at the time that that
was not a good thing. I used to say that the Japanese can't be that
smart and we can't be that dumb.
We passed the Affordable Care Act. There was a lot of debate and a
lot of amendments offered in committees, including in the Finance
Committee on which I served, Republican amendments and Democratic
amendments. As we know, the final vote here on the floor was not a
bipartisan vote. It was a huge issue that we were trying to address--
delivering healthcare to 300 million Americans.
For those who supported the legislation, even they realized that it
was not perfect and that we were going to have
[[Page S1700]]
to come back at some point in time and make changes to it. The
Democrats felt that way. The Republicans and Independents felt that way
as well. We ended up not coming back and offering modest amendments or
making tweaks to the legislation. At the end of the day, we ended up
with a battle here, initially over the repeal of the ACA and later over
repealing and replacing it.
I felt proud of the work we had done on the ACA. In my knowing it was
not perfect, I always looked forward to coming back shortly after we
had adopted it, actually, and making some tweaks. I felt the same way
about Dodd-Frank, the banking legislation that we passed after the
great recession about 7 or 8 years ago.
I will just remind everybody, especially our young pages here today,
who were probably about 7 or 8 years old at the time, that we didn't
fall into a burning ring of fire--we fell off a cliff. The unemployment
rate shot up to 10 percent, and banks stopped lending money to send
kids to school or to allow people to buy a car or a house. Credit was
shut off for businesses as well. The unemployment rate skyrocketed. Our
economy was locked up, and we felt that we had to do something.
What we tried to do was to figure out how we ended up in that mess in
the first place. What had gone on is that the people who wanted to buy
houses, who were not creditworthy, ended up being loaned money by banks
across the country to buy houses. In many cases, the appraisals for the
houses were not worth the paper they were written on. The
creditworthiness of the buyers was not worth the paper it was written
on as well. We had unqualified people who were trying to buy property.
They were unable, realistically, to repay their loans. It all worked
just fine until we went into a slump. As the unemployment rate started
to go up, people found it more and more difficult to make their
payments.
In the olden days, I remember the first house I lived in when I was a
kid. My parents borrowed money from a bank for a mortgage, and then
they paid it off to that bank. I remember, when they paid off the
mortgage to the house they owned in Danville, VA, it was a big deal. My
dad actually took the mortgage and burned it up outside, not inside our
house.
Yet, 7 or 8 years ago, for a lot of people, after they borrowed money
from banks, the banks sold those mortgages to somebody else, oftentimes
to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would package
those mortgages into mortgage-backed securities--into a security that
could be sold to investors in this country and to investors around the
world. As long as housing prices continued to rise, everything worked
fine. When they stopped rising and started falling, a number of those
mortgage-backed securities were riddled--almost like Swiss cheese--with
bad mortgages. As more and more people failed to be able to pay their
mortgages, the mortgage-backed securities lost their value. Those
investors around the world who had invested seriously in mortgage-
backed securities got scared, and it started to spiral down from there.
That was not really the only reason we got into a burning ring of
fire all those years ago, but it was a big reason. Part of what we
decided to do with Dodd-Frank was to make sure that didn't happen
again. We would make other mistakes, but we were not going to make that
mistake again.
The legislation was passed. Again, not everybody was for it. I voted
for it and helped to write some of the provisions in the bill. I knew
at the time, as I think we all did, that anything that big--a massive
change in our banking regulatory approach in this country--was going to
have to be tweaked and revisited just like the Affordable Care Act. It
has taken a while.
For the most part, our Republican friends--not all and probably not
including the Presiding Officer--were interested in repealing Dodd-
Frank. I and, I think, the majority of folks on our side were
interested in fixing the provisions that needed to be fixed but not in
throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The legislation before us today was reported out of the Banking
Committee but not unanimously. It was reported out, I think, last fall,
by the chairman of the committee, Mike Crapo from Idaho, whose name is
on the bill. I am going to spend some time here today talking about
what it does and what it doesn't do.
If the bipartisan bill before us becomes law, 90 percent of Dodd-
Frank will remain unchanged. Let me say that again. If the banking bill
before us today becomes law, 90 percent of Dodd-Frank will remain
unchanged.
The legislation that has been authored by Senator Crapo and others
does not touch some of Dodd-Frank's most important reforms. Some of
those most important reforms include the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau. It remains. The Financial Stability Oversight Council remains.
It is affectionately known as FSOC, and it works to identify and to
address overarching threats to the financial system. The regulations
that crack down on risky derivative trading remain, and the ability of
the FDIC to wind down failing complex institutions through an orderly
liquidation authority remains.
Under this legislation, the Federal Reserve would retain the
authority to apply enhanced standards to any bank with over $100
billion in assets. In addition, banks with over $100 billion would
still be subject to numerous regulatory requirements. Those
requirements include, one, meaningful stress tests; two, increased
capital requirements to provide a cushion in tough times and bad times;
and, third, vital international reforms to leverage in liquidity
standards.
I have a number of charts. I have more charts today than I think I
have ever brought to the Senate floor. I promise we will be done by
sundown. It will seem that long, but in reality it will not be.
Let me start off, if I could, with a couple of claims made about the
bill and, then, talk about the reality.
One of the claims is that this bill would gut Wall Street reform that
was passed after the financial crisis to prevent another global
meltdown.
That is the claim. Here is the reality. This bipartisan bill makes
targeted, commonsense fixes that will provide tangible relief to
community banks and credit unions, while leaving in place the rules and
regulations that will keep Wall Street accountable.
Before we look at the next claim, like the Presiding Officer, I do
customer calls all over my State. The Presiding Officer has a big
State, and I have a little State. I visit businesses, schools,
hospitals--you name it. I do customer calls literally every week,
including the credit unions and small community banks. Sometimes they
come to see me, and oftentimes I go to see them. For years, during
those customer calls, visiting credit unions and community banks,
especially in the central and southern part of our State, they would
say to us: We didn't create the financial meltdown that led us to the
great recession. Yet we bear the burden of the regulatory reform for
that meltdown.
It wasn't their fault. We need a lot of the regulation that is
adopted in Dodd-Frank, but keep in mind that credit unions and
community banks didn't cause the problem but yet they bear a big part
of the burden of fixing it.
Another claim is that this bill rolls back stress test requirements
for all big banks. I will say it again. This bill rolls back stress
test requirements for all big banks. That is the claim.
Here is the reality. This bill continues to require stress tests for
all banks over $100 billion in assets. That would be the largest
financial institutions. That is the reality.
The claim is that this bill does nothing to protect consumers. That
is the claim--that the bill does nothing to protect consumers.
Here is the reality. This bill actually creates new protections. It
provides free credit freezes and allows year-long fraud reports. It
allows parents to turn credit reporting on and off for minors. It
provides free credit monitoring for all Active-Duty servicemembers.
I am a retired Navy captain. Our Presiding Officer is a colonel--Navy
salute.
It was one of the things that Senator Coons and I insisted on in
order to support this legislation, and that was to provide free credit
monitoring for all Active-Duty servicemembers as part of the bill.
Another reality in terms of new protections is that it encourages
banks to report suspicious behavior they become aware of.
[[Page S1701]]
That is a little bit of the claims and the reality. I can go on with
that, but I will not. I will actually turn to the words of other
people, starting off with questions from Senator Jon Tester of Montana,
a senior member of the Banking Committee. The first question he asked
last November was to a fellow who had been nominated to be Chairman of
the Federal Reserve, Jay Powell, who was confirmed on this floor with
80 or 90 votes--a big bipartisan vote.
Senator Tester asked Mr. Powell, who was a Governor, if I am not
mistaken, at the time within the Federal Reserve System. He asked:
Part of that bill--
The bill before us today--
is eliminating the Volcker Rule compliance for community
banks that have less than $10 billion, as long as they have
less than 5 percent, trading assets and liabilities. Any
concerns there?
The witness, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, said: ``None.''
Senator Tester went on to ask the Federal Reserve Chairman--I think
this was in February of last year. Senator Tester, my colleague, is a
farmer out in Montana. He asked Jay Powell, who was not yet the
Chairman of the Federal Reserve:
But I'm a dirt farmer, OK? I just, kind of, read things as
they are and don't read a lot of extra stuff into it. You're
the--you're the man on the Fed and so I need to know your
opinion. Does 2155 require the Federal Reserve to weaken any
of the Dodd-Frank enhanced prudential standards for . . .
[foreign banks] such as Deutsche Bank, UBS or Barclays?
This was the response of Chairman Jay Powell of the Federal Reserve:
It does not, according to my reading of the text.
I will just add that this is the text of the bill.
Senator Crapo, the chairman of the Banking Committee, has put
together this bipartisan legislation, with a lot of help from Jon
Tester and others. In a hearing last July, he questioned the woman who
was then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen. I think she did
a very good job. She stepped down, and I thank her for her service and
leadership.
Senator Crapo said:
There appears to be growing consensus that Congress should
consider changing the $50 billion SIFI threshold [for big
banks]; also, changing the Volcker rule, exempting certain
institutions from company-run stress testing requirements and
reducing the burdens on community banks and credit unions.
He went on to ask:
Do you agree that it would be appropriate for Congress to
act in each of those areas?
He asked: Do you believe it would be appropriate for Congress to act
in each of those areas--changing the SIFI threshold, changing the
Volcker rule, exempting certain institutions from stress test
requirements, reducing the burdens on community banks and credit
unions.
Do you agree that it would be appropriate for Congress to
act in each of those areas?
She said four words: ``I do--I do.''
Again, in February of last year, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet
Yellen, on the Volcker rule, said:
So, yes, let me reiterate what I said there. It's important
to look for every way we can to mitigate the regulatory
burden. What we've suggested previously and I would reiterate
with respect to Dodd-Frank is that Congress might want to
consider exempting community banks from the Volcker rule. . .
.
That is what she said last February, a year ago.
Then, former Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo spoke. I think
his position is held now by Andy Cohen. Last year, Daniel Tarullo said:
We have found that the $50 billion in assets threshold
established in the Dodd-Frank Act for banks to be
``systemically important,'' and thus subject to a range of
stricter regulations, was set too low. . . .
He went on to say:
The fact that community banks are subject at all to some of
the Dodd-Frank Act rules seems unnecessary. . . .
I will say it again.
The fact that community banks are subject at all to some of
the Dodd-Frank Act rules seems unnecessary to protect safety
and soundness, and quite burdensome on the very limited
compliance capabilities of small banks.
Dan Tarullo said that last April.
Here are the words of former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker,
whom I got to know and work with when I was in the House of
Representatives. He was Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and I was on
the Banking Committee. He was a giant then and still is--literally and
figuratively.
Here are his words in February of this year. He said:
I am pleased that the Senate Banking Committee has forged
ahead with meaningful bipartisan financial reform to ease the
unnecessary regulatory strain on small banks, helping them to
flourish as an engine of economic prosperity. . . .
He goes on to say that he doesn't agree with every single word of the
legislation before us today, but he concluded by saying:
I thank you for the opportunity to comment on this
important piece of legislation and look forward to its swift
passage.
This is in a letter to Senator Brown, I believe. It doesn't mean he
agrees with every single sentence and paragraph, but he looks forward
to it.
Former Congressman and former Banking Committee chairman and my
colleague Barney Frank, spoke on whether Dodd-Frank needs reforms in a
CNBC interview last February. He was asked if Dodd-Frank needed
reforms, and he said: ``Of course.''
On the $50 billion SIFI threshold, he said: ``I think it should be
changed,'' and he went on to say: ``It's too low, I believe it is.''
Again, former Congressman Barney Frank on November 27 of last year
said:
If this bill became law tomorrow, well over 90 percent of
the Wall Street reform bill would be unchanged. . . . The
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; the strict regulation
of derivative trading; the orderly liquidation authority; the
risk retention requirements on securitizations and most other
provisions would remain in full force. . . .
In full force.
We are almost done here. I thank my colleague from Vermont for his
patience.
This is former Congressman Barney Frank on relief for community
banks. These words are from the CNBC interview last February, a year
ago.
With regard to banks under $10 billion, some of them are
spending more money than they should complying with
provisions that were never really intended to apply to them
and I understand that. The Volcker Rule which says that large
banks should do more lending and less derivative trading,
which I think is a wholly good thing, a number of small banks
which never did much derivative trading are overdoing the
effort to show [that] they aren't there. I would exempt some
of the banks under $10 billion from some of those rules and I
would agree to raise the $50 billion threshold.
Last but not least, a couple of comments more--one from the
Bipartisan Policy Center recently; the words of two of the folks from
there:
As U.S. politics descends ever further into partisanship,
there are still signs that old-fashioned legislating is not
dead. This week, the Senate Banking Committee will mark up
one of the first significant pieces of financial regulatory
legislation in years with real bipartisan support. . . .
These are not major changes. Yet taken together, they are
constructive and should provide greater incentives to extend
credit, particularly to Main Street small businesses, without
undermining the progress made since the crisis in making the
financial system safer.
This statement is from the president and CEO of the Independent
Community Bankers of America:
The markup of S. 2155 is a rare opening for real, impactful
relief that will strengthen economic growth, job creation,
and consumer protection. It is the culmination of years of
collaborative effort to achieve consensus among Members of
Congress across the spectrum and community bankers in their
home States and districts. Community bankers urge all members
of the Senate Banking Committee to vote YES on S. 2155.
This is from the president and CEO of the Credit Union National
Association, or CUNA:
This bill includes credit union-specific provisions that
provide meaningful regulatory relief, a sign that
policymakers are praying close attention to the needs of
credit union members. We thank Senator Crapo and his
colleagues for working across party lines to advance
regulatory relief legislation that benefits community
financial institutions, and look forward to continuing to
work closely with them as the bill moves through the
legislative process.
I hope we will keep these words in mind in the hours and days ahead
as we take up this important legislation.
I have no interest in undoing Dodd-Frank. I am a strong supporter of
Dodd-Frank. I helped to write some of the provisions in Dodd-Frank, and
I have no interest in pulling the plug on Dodd-Frank.
[[Page S1702]]
Can we make some reasonable changes? Yes, we can. I felt the same way
about the Affordable Care Act.
With that, I yield the floor to my friend from Vermont, and I thank
him for his patience.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Gun Violence
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I was just at a hearing in the Judiciary
Committee, and we were talking about what continues to happen, over and
over again in this country--mass shootings. We are an outlier in this
country, as we have far more shooting deaths per capita than any other
similar country in the world, and we heard some of the things that make
it difficult to attack the problem.
For example, Congress has passed legislation that cripples the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. When ATF is asked to perform a trace
on a gun involved in criminal activity, they have to go to a warehouse
with stacks of papers to do a physical search of records. They search
warehouses that contain the amount of information I can store on an
iPhone and find in a matter of seconds. This physical search is
something Congress has required them to do.
We heard about the fact that you can buy magazines carrying 15 or 20
rounds, even though many states including my own State of Vermont,
limit the number of rounds you can have in your weapon for deer season.
We want to give the deer a chance, but we don't want to give children
in school the same chance. This is the world upside down. We limit what
you can buy and use to go deer hunting but not what can be sold to
people who want to shoot children.
Outside the Capitol right now, there are young students who have
brought their powerful message to those of us inside the Capitol. They
say thoughts and prayers are welcome, but what the United States needs
right now is action.
I said this morning at the hearing that I am tired of people saying:
``Oh, this is not the time to talk about taking steps. This is the time
for prayer and reflection,'' as though it is an either/or thing. It is
getting kind of weary to hear that refrain over and over again--this is
not the time for action. Tell that to the parents, tell that to the
other children, tell that to their siblings when they are at the
funeral because somebody shot them.
Now, I am very, very proud of those students in Vermont whose voices
are joining this nationwide chorus of student voices. We have
Vermonters showing up, even though we have had 10 to 20 inches of snow
in some towns in Vermont in the last day or so, and it is still snowing
heavily there now. We know that in Washington, half an inch of snow
would close the place down but not in my State. These Vermont students
are not going to use a heavy snowstorm as an excuse for not showing up
to deliver their message. We are here in comfort in a secure building.
We ought to act in solidarity with these students and with the students
who put shoes out here on the lawn of the Capitol--rows and rows and
rows of shoes--symbolizing children who have died.
Now, I remember a little over a year ago, millions of women across
the Nation brought their energy into the halls of government. In my own
hometown of Montpelier, VT, where I was born, our State's capitol,
there are only 8,500 people. We had 19,000 to 20,000 show up on the
statehouse lawn for the women's march there. Brave and strong, they
were speaking out. My sister was one of those joining them. In fact,
some had to park their cars on the interstate; they caused such a
traffic jam just to be there.
I remember the hundreds and hundreds of Vermonters who came here to
Washington. My wife Marcelle and I hosted them before the march with
coffee and doughnuts, and we had to keep sending out for more coffee
and more doughnuts because of the number of people there.
We marched with them alongside our daughter and granddaughter. We saw
people of all races, all backgrounds, all across the economic and
political spectrum marching for women's rights. They made a difference,
and now our students are doing the same thing. Our students are acting
as a catalyst to break the inertia that has prevented Congress from
dealing with the plague of gun violence.
When I was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, we brought
several pieces of gun legislation here, and even those that got 50-plus
votes were blocked from going further. There was heavy pressure from
powerful lobbyists. The lobby that wasn't heard, though, were the
children who were facing this danger. Now they are being heard. Now
they are being heard.
The question is, does Congress have the courage to listen? The
strength of our democracy is citizen engagement. At a time when it has
never been more important to protect and engage in our democracy, I am
deeply moved by the students who are making their voices heard today. I
think of those students in Florida and elsewhere who faced a horrendous
thing that most of us will never see, even if we have been in combat,
but they had the courage to go back to school after the shooting. They
saw this tragedy, they faced the danger, they saw their classmates and
teachers killed, and they still had the courage to go back to school.
Well, I would ask: does Congress have the courage to do something?
That is the question they are asking. If we can't answer it positively,
then we in Congress have failed these students.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Women's Healthcare
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, time and again, President Trump and Vice
President Pence have made clear they will put extreme ideology ahead of
women's health and constitutional freedoms. We have seen it in their
efforts to undermine women's ability to get reproductive healthcare
from providers they trust. We have seen it in their efforts to let
employers deny women birth control coverage based on what they believe
and regardless of what the women who work for them believe. We have
seen it in the administration's close coordination with a hate group on
tailoring policies to undermine Planned Parenthood. We heard it loud
and clear when Vice President Pence laid out his far-right vision that
women's freedom to have safe and legal abortions could end in our time.
We have also seen it implemented to an appalling extreme in Scott
Lloyd's inexcusably harmful and ideologically driven actions as
Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement is a little-known but very
important office inside the Department of Health and Human Services.
They are supposed to be helping resettle refugees who are fleeing
violence, to resettle and integrate Iraqis and Afghans whose lives are
actually in danger because they work for the U.S. Government. They
provide rehabilitative, social, and legal services to survivors of
torture, and they are charged with overseeing a network of providers
across the United States who care for unaccompanied children who arrive
at our Nation's borders--children and youth--seeking safety in our
country.
However, under Director Lloyd, it has become a testing ground for the
radical Trump-Pence agenda to interfere with women's health choices.
Repeatedly, under the supervision of Director Lloyd's office, when
young women--some of whom are survivors of sexual abuse--have sought
safe and legal abortions, his response has been to personally step in
and put up barriers to their care. He worked to prevent young women in
his custody from speaking with lawyers about their rights. He
personally interfered to try to pressure women out of their decisions
to have abortions. Director Lloyd even had his office explore the
possibility of reversing an abortion once the medical procedure was
underway--a practice that the American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists has noted is ``unproven and unethical.''
A deposition from ongoing litigation shows just how reckless and
irresponsible Scott Lloyd has been. In emails,
[[Page S1703]]
he admitted he was making these decisions on an ad hoc basis. In other
words, Director Lloyd wasn't concerned with fulfilling his duty as the
head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. He wasn't concerned with
the well-being of women. He wasn't concerned with their personal
decisions or their freedoms. He was only concerned with furthering an
extreme, ideological agenda.
Women and men across the country are not having it. They are standing
up and standing against Scott Lloyd's extreme policies. Many have
signed a petition calling for his removal, and they are just the latest
addition to a growing outcry against Director Lloyd's willful disregard
for women's rights.
Many Senate and House Democrats have called for him to step down. I
am again calling on Secretary Azar to fire Scott Lloyd as Director of
the Office of Refugee Resettlement because Scott Lloyd's actions and
his personal beliefs about what women can and can't do with their
bodies show a fundamental disrespect for the rights and equality of
women, as does setting policy that has huge implications for women's
health and lives through an ``ad hoc'' process.
Scott Lloyd's actions to undermine women's health and to deny women's
rights are utterly unacceptable, and they cannot go unchecked. We
cannot permit bullies to try to intimidate vulnerable young women who
are making the healthcare decisions that are right for them--not
President Trump, not Vice President Pence, and not Scott Lloyd.
I am going to keep standing up and fighting for the rights of these
women and immigrants across the country and for the rule of law that
ensures those rights. I am going to keep fighting against those who
think they are above the law and who want to roll back the clock on
these freedoms. I urge my colleagues to join me today in standing with
women, standing for the rule of law, and calling for Scott Lloyd's
immediate removal from office.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague from
Washington to talk about the challenge that women both here in the
United States and across the world are facing from the excesses of this
administration.
What we have seen time and again is that the Trump administration has
exhibited a dangerous obsession with rolling back women's reproductive
rights here in the United States and abroad. Just in the past 14 months
in office, this administration has launched a multipronged and
aggressive assault on women's rights. One of President Trump's first
acts in office was to reinstate and greatly expand the global gag rule,
which prohibits U.S. funding for international women's health
organizations that so much as mention abortion. What they did was to
say that this is not going to just affect those organizations but any
health organization that the United States puts funding into. This
action will cause a significant increase in unsafe abortions and
maternal deaths across the developing world. The administration has
proposed budgets that would eliminate all Federal funding for Planned
Parenthood, and, going even further, would prohibit States that on
their own would direct Federal funds to Planned Parenthood for those
same health services. They would prohibit States from doing that.
Most recently, the State Department reportedly removed data on
reproductive healthcare from its annual human rights report. So is the
idea that if you don't give people access to data, then it doesn't
happen? The administration instructed career employees at the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention to remove words such as ``fetus,''
``diversity,'' ``evidence-based,'' and ``science-based'' from their
official vocabulary.
Well, if we are not basing decisions at the CDC on evidence-based and
science-based data, then what are we basing it on? As Senator Murray
says, they are basing it on ideology. Well, that is a lousy way to make
a decision about where to put our healthcare money.
This administration has even attacked women's access to birth
control, issuing new rules that allow almost any company to opt out of
the birth control benefit in the Affordable Care Act.
Simply put, you cannot support women's empowerment unless you support
women's access to family planning. Recently, the United Nations
Population Fund's ``Family Planning 2020'' report explained why women's
access to all healthcare services, including abortion, is so vital both
to women's advancement and to their country's economic development. The
report says:
Every woman and girl must be able to exercise her basic
human right to control her own reproductive health. Access to
safe, voluntary family planning is fundamental to women's
empowerment. It's also fundamental to achieving our global
goals for a healthier, more prosperous, just, and equitable
world.
The report goes on to say:
Rights-based family planning programs have a greater ripple
effect than almost any other development investment, from
saving lives and improving health to strengthening economies,
transforming societies, and lifting entire countries out of
poverty. It is the surest path to the future we want.
Well, I couldn't agree more. Study after study demonstrates that
access to comprehensive healthcare services is closely correlated to
the economic success of women and their families. By contrast, lack of
access to basic healthcare services, including family planning
counseling and all birth control options, is a major factor in
perpetuating the dangerous, life-threatening cycle of poverty.
Now, I think it is really ironic that those who seek to outlaw
abortion do so under what they say is the pro-life banner. I think it
is ironic because we know from experience that outlawing abortion
doesn't end abortion, it simply drives it into the shadows and unsafe
conditions. Like many in this Chamber, I remember the days before 1973,
when abortion was against the law. An estimated 1.2 million women each
year resorted to illegal abortions, typically performed in unsanitary
conditions by unlicensed practitioners and often resulting in
infection, hemorrhage, and even death. Just about every woman of my
generation has a story about a friend or an acquaintance who had to
resort to this kind of risky, dangerous abortion or who thought she had
to resort to that.
Well, I don't think we want to go back to those days. We know that
right now in the United States, we have the lowest level of abortions
that we have had since 1973. That is a success that is directly
attributed to the increased access to contraception that is in the
Affordable Care Act.
We know that again and again, studies have found that policies to
limit or ban abortion outright have the unintended consequence of
dramatically increasing abortion overall. Conversely, when family
planning services are accessible, the rates of unplanned pregnancies
and abortion go down. Again, according to the Guttmacher Institute, we
are seeing success in terms of reducing the number of abortions and
unintended pregnancies.
Now, what we have seen internationally is that the global gag rule
has had especially lethal consequences. It denies access to safe
abortions and, in doing so, it dramatically increases abortions
overall. A Stanford University study of implementation of the global
gag rule during the George W. Bush administration found that the number
of women having induced abortions more than doubled in countries that
were most impacted by the policy.
Today, in Nigeria--which is the one country we have data on to date,
based on the expansion of the global gag rule in the Trump
administration--health workers on the ground estimate that because of
the administration's new global gag rule, there will be an additional
660,000 abortions in Nigeria from now through 2020, and that could
result in nearly 10,000 additional maternal deaths.
The Trump administration claims it wants a smaller government. The
President ran on a platform promising to get the government out of
people's lives. Yet it is doing everything possible to inject the
government and law enforcement into some of the most intimate,
difficult, and personal decisions a woman has to make.
This is not only insulting, but it is condescending to all women. We
don't need guidance from the government for an adult. We need to be
able to consult those we choose to consult and make
[[Page S1704]]
our own decisions about the healthcare we need.
To take away women's access to full reproductive health services,
including abortion, is demeaning and unacceptable. We cannot allow the
Trump administration to turn back the clock and put women's lives at
risk.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, first of all, I wish to commend my
Pacific Northwest colleague Senator Murray for taking this time to talk
about these exceptionally important issues. I had a chance to listen to
the thoughtful remarks of our friend from New Hampshire--3,000 miles
away from the Pacific Northwest--and she has been, as usual,
extraordinarily eloquent and passionate about the cause of women's
health, and it is great to be able to follow her.
We can sum up the healthcare policy of the Trump administration in
just one word: discrimination. I am here with my colleagues today to
discuss a particularly alarming example of the Trump agenda of
healthcare discrimination and an example of where the administration is
working overtime to make women's healthcare worse.
What is particularly frustrating about this is we are dealing with a
bureaucracy run amok. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is part
of the Department of Health and Human Services, has made a critical
judgment. They will put ideology over the law of the land when it comes
to the medical care available to the young women in its custody.
Under Director Scott Lloyd, the office has attempted to block several
immigrants from exercising their freedom of choice with respect to
reproductive health. It has no legal right to do so. This issue is
settled law, but this hasn't stopped the Director and its agency from
dragging young women into prolonged, taxpayer-funded court battles.
There are roughly 5,000 young people in the Office of Refugee
Resettlement's custody. Most of them are from Central American
countries. Many of these young women are survivors of sexual violence.
They are on their own, and they didn't come here to have somebody
else's ideology dictating their medical care. In my view, this office
ought to uphold its duty to provide all the care these young women have
a right to receive, and it ought to check the ideology at the door.
That is not how the Office of Refugee Resettlement is working under
Mr. Lloyd. According to a recent report from VICE News, ``Mr. Lloyd
receives a spreadsheet every week containing information on every
pregnant teen in their custody.''
He reportedly sought to interfere in a young woman's medical
procedure that was actually already underway. In another case, the
report says he put a young woman at further risk by directing staff to
inform her parents--against her wishes--that she had an abortion.
Last fall, an HHS official was asked about Mr. Lloyd's direction of
the office and the matter of interfering in the medical care of young
women. Here is what that spokesman said: ``He by law has custody of
these children, just like a foster parent, he knows that that's a lot
of responsibility and he is going to make choices that he thinks are
best for both the mother and the child.''
I say to my colleagues, that is just rampant government paternalism
summed up in just one sentence.
Now, it ought to be no surprise, given his background, that this is
the direction the office is taking. This is a gentleman who has made a
career out of opposing the right of women to make their own judgments
about their own healthcare choices. He has fought access to
contraception and to a variety of healthcare services that are
important to women. His views are right in line--right in line--with
this administration's agenda of healthcare discrimination against
women.
Right out of the gate, the administration and Republicans in Congress
pushed for legislation that would have deprived hundreds of thousands
of women the right to see the doctor of their choosing. They made it
harder for many of those women to obtain routine, vital medical care
from providers like Planned Parenthood, including cancer screenings,
prenatal care, preventive services, physicals, and a whole host of
preventive services that have absolutely nothing to do with abortion--
nothing to do with abortion.
Then the Trump administration sought to deny women guaranteed, no-
cost access to contraception. When women have guaranteed access to
contraception, it means healthier pregnancies, healthier newborns, a
lower risk of cancer, and, particularly, economic fairness for women of
modest means, but the Trump administration wants to unravel that
guarantee as well.
Then, the Trump team is green-lighting junk insurance policies that
drive up the cost of healthcare for women with preexisting conditions,
and they are involved in very elaborate--as my colleague knows--
discussions with the State of Idaho. People ought to understand exactly
what the Trump administration is saying to Idaho because they are going
to say it to other people. The Trump administration is saying to Idaho:
You can discriminate, just don't be too obvious about it. That is their
position with respect to these junk insurance policies.
The administration is exploring ways to place lifetime limits on the
care people can get from Medicaid, and that is a frightful proposition
for the millions of older women who count on Medicaid to pick up the
tab for their nursing and home-based care.
These are serious healthcare problems around this country. By the
way, we never heard anything in the campaign of 2016 about how we were
going to turn back the clock on older women for whom Medicaid is often
a lifeline for long-term care, but that is what we are dealing with
now. These are serious healthcare challenges women face right now--on
top of it, a raging epidemic of opioid misuse and abuse and the
skyrocketing cost of prescription medicine. When we are talking about
the Office of Refugee Resettlement, as my colleagues talked about so
eloquently, there is also a lot to be done to fix our broken
immigration system.
Finally, it is important, as we get into these issues, to recognize
how deep-seated this policy of healthcare discrimination is. The
example my colleagues are talking about here today is an example of
massive ideological overreach and paternalism. It is happening at the
Office of Refugee Resettlement, but it is not the only example. This is
behavior that ought to stop.
I thank my colleague, Senator Murray, who has been our go-to person
for years and years on women's healthcare. I want her and our
colleagues to know that I will be doing everything I can to be a part
of their efforts to push back on these policies that turn back the
clock and particularly discriminate against the rights of women.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Budget Reform
Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, when I was in college, I remember
watching a State of the Union speech by President Reagan in which he
took a 43-pound stack of papers and set them on the podium. As he was
giving his State of the Union Address, he said: This is the budget bill
that has been given to me--43 pounds of it, all stacked up. It was a
famous moment when the President said: Do not send this to me again.
Republicans and Democrats alike stood and cheered. They said: That is
a terrible way to do government.
For 5 of the next 6 years there were no more Omnibus appropriations
bills, but that did not last. Since 1986, there have been 22 Omnibus
appropriations bills. People may ask, what is that?
By law, Congress is to do 12 appropriations bills. Each part of that
has a section of the budget, and each one of those is passed as a
stand-alone. First, they go through subcommittee, then committee, then
to the full floor, and then they pass. But 17 times since 1998 and 22
times since 1986, all of those bills were just looped together to make
one giant document--the 43-pound document that President Reagan dropped
in 1988.
What is going wrong? We have another one of those omnibus bills next
week, in which all of the appropriations bills have been looped
together to try to simplify the process, but this actually provides
even less transparency.
[[Page S1705]]
What do we do with this? How did we get here?
The short story is that the Budget Control Act of 1974 was created
right after Watergate in a fight between Congress and President Nixon
over the fact that President Nixon was told that Congress wanted to be
able to spend certain amounts of money in certain areas, and President
Nixon basically didn't want to spend it. So Congress pushed back and
put additional requirements on him to actually do what Congress was
compelling him to do in that 1974 Budget Act, to try to create more
transparency and provide greater leadership for Congress. Out of that
was born this Budget Act, but also the House and Senate committees and
the Congressional Budget Office were born.
All of those things were to create more input and create a system in
which, each year, the President would create a budget and would submit
that budget to Congress. Then that budget would lead to authorizing
bills from the different committees. And then, from the authorizing, it
would lead to appropriations bills and final passage.
Well, how is that working for us? It is not. It created a process so
complicated and so slow that, although it makes sense on paper and in
legislative language, it doesn't actually work year to year, and it
pushes us into what is called continuing resolutions--or, as is
commonly thrown around here, CRs. Every year since 1995, Congress has
had at least one CR--one continuing resolution; that is, taking last
year's appropriations bill, just changing the date on it, and moving it
over. There is no strategic planning, nothing. That is a problem for
us.
The budget process itself has broken down and has fallen into omnibus
spending bills, with 12 bills, all combined. Some years, we fail to get
budget bills done at all.
The authorizing process that is supposed to go between the budget and
the appropriations process has completely collapsed for us. In fact, in
the 2017 appropriations, it happens that there were 256 expired
authorizations in the final appropriations bills. About $310 billion of
what was appropriated was not authorized even last year. Some of those
things hadn't been authorized for more than a decade. Finally, we have
passed all appropriations bills only four times in the last 44 years.
We have a major problem with the way we do budgeting. Year after
year, people visit me or people bring this to me in townhall meetings
or at the grocery store or at Taco Bell; people catch me and say: What
is going on with the budget process?
I can tell you that if it sounds as if you say that every year, it is
because you have said that every year now for a couple of decades.
How do we get out of this? There is a bipartisan, bicameral committee
that has been put together and met for the first time last week. There
are 16 total--8 Democrats and 8 Republicans, 8 from the Senate and 8
from the House. Our mission is to revise the way we do budgeting. A lot
of Americans probably will not watch this process, but it will be
extremely important that we actually fix it.
I am convinced that we are not going to get a better budget product
until we get a better budget process. This committee itself is designed
in such a way that it takes out the partisanship, not just with equal
numbers on both sides, but the agreement from the very beginning is
that if we don't have a majority of Democrats and a majority of
Republicans signing off on the final proposal, we will not bring it to
the floor. If we do, we hope to fix the budget process itself.
The budget process is set up to create gimmicks in the budgeting
rather than to fix them. We have a 10-year budget window, and there are
all these gimmicks that have been created to try to move spending
outside the 10-year budget window to make things look as though they
are actually going to balance when they actually don't balance. I would
like for us to consider some things like biennial budgeting. Twenty
States budget every 2 years. It gives budget certainty for 24 months.
We should get that. That helps our economy. That helps our businesses.
That helps our agencies. That helps in contracting. That helps us avoid
these continuing resolutions--if we can actually do budgeting in 2-year
cycles.
I would like to get out of the perpetual focus on government
shutdowns and the countdown clocks that happen. I proposed a bill 5
years ago called the Government Shutdown Prevention Act. It is designed
to get us to a spot where we actually put the pressure on Congress to
get the job done but hold agencies and hold the American people
harmless while we work through the process.
Quite frankly, I think the President's budget is a meaningless
document. It has never been passed by any President of any party. I
don't mind the Presidents releasing their budget priorities--ways we
can save money, duplication that they see, key aspects. That is
entirely appropriate. But the President's budget every year just
becomes a big fight, and when it is late, it throws the process off
even more and gives Congress one more reason to say that they are not
getting their job done because someone else was late in doing theirs.
We should reform that.
We should reform the way we do debt limits. We are the only country
in the world that does this. We have had some kind of debt limit since
the 1920s, actually. But originally, when it went to the form that it
is in now in the late 1930s, it was established as a way to protect us
from adding more debt, and it did work for decades.
It has not worked for decades. It has been another fiscal cliff out
there that has not resolved anything. We have to fix that so it does
what it is supposed to do or take it away, but we can't destabilize
international economies because we can't get our job done here.
We have to have some sort of focus on both revenue and spending. We
should deal with real consequences when we don't get things done on
time. We have to build internal processes that actually get things
done. We have to pay attention to $20 trillion, and growing, in
national debt.
These are things we can get done, but they will not get done if we
don't actually fix the process. There is no moment to actually get the
big things and hard things done.
My hope and my commitment, with this body and with this group of 16
of us who have grouped together from the House and the Senate--
Republicans and Democrats--is this: Bring a proposal to us that is a
fair, nonpartisan proposal that is not focused on what party is in
power at that moment but looks at the fiscal health of the Nation, how
we can plan for the future, and how we can actually get off this
endless cycle of nonaction and get back to a process of predictable
budgeting and appropriations. We will bring some of those solutions in
the days ahead.
Right now we are meeting and talking. I invite any Member of this
body who wants to contribute to catch any one of us in this group. We
are not saying that the 16 of us are exclusive to solving the problems.
I also say the same thing to the American people: Anyone in my State
or anyone around the country who wants to contribute good ideas, bring
them. Let's add these good ideas together. Let's fix the process. Let's
get back to actually talking about how we solve the budget issues
rather than how we solve our internal processes in the House and the
Senate. That is the last thing we should be arguing about and the first
thing we should fix.
With that, I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, according to the latest Gallup poll, 81
percent of the American people disapprove of the way Congress is doing
its job--81 percent. I suspect the other 19 percent are not really
paying attention. If you want to know why the American people have so
much anger and contempt for what goes on in Congress, it is because,
time after time, what we are seeing is Congress under the Republican
leadership doing exactly the opposite of what the American people want.
This week could mark a new low for the Republican leadership in the
Senate in terms of ignoring what the American people want and doing
what they don't want. Today marks the 1-month anniversary of the tragic
mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL.
I just had the opportunity to be outside, in front of the Capitol, with
thousands of beautiful, beautiful young people from all over--I think
all over the country. The young people are saying to the
[[Page S1706]]
Congress: Do something about the gun violence.
Everyone knows there is not an easy solution; this is not an easy
problem to solve. There are hundreds of millions of guns in this
country. There are 5 million assault weapons. The young people are
saying: Do something. Have the courage to take on the NRA.
The American people overwhelmingly want to expand and improve
background checks. They want to do away with the gun show loophole.
They want to do away with the straw man provision. More and more people
think we should be banning military-style assault weapons--whatever.
The American people want us to do something. I don't see anything
happening here. The American people want it. It is not happening.
The American people want us to deal with the high cost of
prescription drugs. In the State of Vermont, elderly people are cutting
their pills in half. I don't see any legislation to deal with the high
cost of prescription drugs, to have the courage to take on the
pharmaceutical industry.
The American people, overwhelmingly--Democrats, Republicans,
Independents--want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. I don't
see anything happening on that issue.
On issue after issue, the American people want action, and they are
not getting it. What they are getting is exactly what they don't want
but what powerful special interests do want.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Bear
Stearns, one of the largest investment banks in America, whose greed,
recklessness, and illegal behavior triggered the worst economic crisis
since the Great Depression. What is the response of the U.S. Senate to
that? Are we talking about breaking up the large banks that have become
much larger? Is that what we are talking about? Are we talking about
protecting consumers who are paying 20 percent, 25 percent in interest
rates on products they buy at a department store? Are we talking about
taking on the payday lenders who are squeezing the lifeblood out of
poor people who, in desperation, have to borrow money from them? No,
that is not what we are talking about. We are not talking about the
need to guarantee healthcare to all people. We are not talking about
the affordable housing crisis. We are not talking about the fact that
millions of moms and dads in this country can't afford childcare. We
are not talking about the global crisis of climate change. We are not
talking about our crumbling infrastructure, our rigged trade deals that
have resulted in the deindustrialization of America. That is not what
we are talking about.
What we are talking about at this particular moment, right here in
the U.S. Senate, is the deregulation of some of the largest banks in
America, some of the very same banks that nearly drove the economy off
a cliff in 2008. That is what we are talking about.
Just last week, the Congressional Budget Office told us that the
legislation on the floor right now will ``increase the likelihood that
a large financial firm with assets of between $100 billion and $250
billion would fail.''
We are not talking about protecting consumers. We are not talking
about breaking up large banks. We are not talking about taking on the
power of Wall Street.
What we are talking about is deregulating some of the very same banks
that drove this economy into the worst economic downturn since the
Great Depression. In other words, this legislation will make it more
likely that we will see another financial crisis, another taxpayer
bailout, and massive dislocation of our economy.
What CBO tells us is that this legislation will increase the deficit
by more than $450 million over the next decade--$450 million. This
bill, which benefits some of the largest banks in America, will cost us
over $450 million. Who is going to pay for that? The big banks? No. It
will be the American taxpayers who will be picking up this tab.
The question we have to ask ourselves, which we don't very often--
although the American people, I think, understand this emotionally in
their guts--is this: How does it happen that a bill like this gets to
the floor while we are not dealing with the issues the American people
are concerned about, whether it is gun safety, whether it is DACA and
protecting the 1.8 million young people who are eligible for that
program, whether it is the high cost of prescriptions? How does this
particular bill get to the floor of the Senate? The answer is pretty
obvious. Follow the money.
Since the 1990s, the financial sector has given more than $3.2
billion in campaign contributions. Let me repeat that. Since the 1990s,
the financial sector--Wall Street, other parts of the financial
sector--has given over $3.2 billion in campaign contributions. Last
year alone, the financial sector spent over $200 million on lobbying.
That is why Congress is spending day after day trying to make life
easier for large financial institutions while continuing to ignore the
needs of working families.
Instead of listening to lobbyists in Washington, maybe, just maybe--I
know it is a very radical idea, but maybe, just maybe, we might want to
listen to the American people. The American people believe, as I do,
that we should strengthen, not weaken Wall Street regulations.
Now is not the time to be talking about deregulating large financial
institutions. Now is the time to take on the greed and power of Wall
Street, break up the large financial institutions in this country, and
stop big banks from ripping off the American people by charging
outrageous and usurious levels of interest rates. That is why I have
submitted two amendments to this bill that I would like the Senate to
vote on this afternoon.
The first amendment would break up large financial institutions so
that the taxpayers of this country will never have to bail them out
again. The second amendment would establish a 15-percent cap on the
interest rates private banks charge their customers on credit cards and
other consumer loans.
Before I talk about these amendments, let's be clear. Fraud is the
business model of Wall Street. It is not the exception to the rule; it
is the rule. Since 2009, major banks in this country have been fined
more than $200 billion for reckless, unfair, and deceptive activities.
By the way, those fines take place within a very weak regulatory
climate, but here are just a few examples of the kinds of activities
that large banks have engaged in.
In August 2014, Bank of America paid $16 billion to settle charges
that it lied to investors about the riskiness of the mortgage-backed
securities it sold during the runup to the financial crisis.
In November 2013, JPMorgan Chase settled for $13 billion for lying to
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the quality of the mortgage-backed
securities it sold them. Settlement documents revealed how every large
bank in the United States committed mortgage fraud.
In April of 2016, Goldman Sachs reached a $5 billion settlement for
marketing and selling fraudulent mortgage-backed securities that were
the foundation of the housing crisis.
In July of 2014, Citigroup reached a $7 billion settlement for
mortgage fraud. Then-Attorney General Eric Holder said that Citigroup's
``activities contributed mightily to the financial crisis that
devastated our economy in 2008.''
If you are thinking that the illegal behavior of Wall Street
executives was limited to the housing crisis, that it was a one-time
thing, guess again. Let me give some more examples.
In May of 2015, five banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup,
paid $5.4 billion in fines after pleading guilty to ``a brazen display
of collusion and foreign exchange rate market manipulation,'' according
to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
In March of 2014, the FDIC accused 16 large banks, including Bank of
America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, of fraud and conspiracy in an
epic plot to manipulate bank-to-bank interest rates that underpinned at
least $350 trillion in global financial transactions.
In April of 2011, Wachovia was fined for laundering billions of
dollars in illegal drug money. The Federal prosecutor said,
``Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international
cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations.''
That was from the Federal prosecutor. The fine was less than 2 percent
of the bank's $12.3 billion profit.
On and on it goes. Mortgage fraud, money laundering, currency
manipulation, bribery, conspiracy, rate tampering, and collusion are
the routine
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practices of Wall Street; they are not the exception. This is their
business model.
Our country can no longer afford to tolerate the culture of fraud and
corruption on Wall Street. Let us never, ever forget--although, I fear
many people have already here in Congress--that during the financial
crisis of 2008, the American people were told that they needed to bail
out huge financial institutions because those institutions were too big
to fail. Do people remember that? They were just too big to fail. If
they had gone down, the whole economy would have gone down with them.
Yet the four largest financial institutions in this country--JPMorgan
Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo--are, on average, 80
percent larger today than they were before we bailed them out. Today,
they are 80 percent larger than they were before we bailed them out
because they were too big to fail. Does that make sense to anybody?
Left alone, that is not even an issue that will be talked about here on
the floor of the Senate.
Incredibly, since the financial crisis, JPMorgan Chase has increased
its assets by more than $1 trillion. Bank of America has seen its
assets grow by more than $800 billion. Citigroup has grown by over $547
billion. After Wells Fargo acquired Wachovia, it nearly tripled in
size.
No single financial institution should be so large that its failure
would cause a catastrophic risk to millions of Americans or to our
Nation's economic well-being. No single financial institution should
have holdings so extensive that its failure would send the world
economy into crisis. If an institution is too big to fail, it is too
big to exist, and we should break it up.
Let me be very clear. We should not just be concerned about the
danger these institutions pose to taxpayers. The enormous concentration
of ownership within the financial sector is harming the middle class
and damaging the economy by limiting choices and raising prices for
consumers and small businesses.
Today--and it is important that people understand this, but
unfortunately it is not an issue that is discussed at all, not here in
Congress and not much in the media--the six largest banks in America
have over $10 trillion in assets, equivalent to 54 percent of the GDP
in America. When we talk about having the United States move in the
direction of an oligarchy, when we talk about a handful of institutions
and billionaires controlling the economic and political life of this
country, this is what we are talking about.
Let me repeat. The six largest banks in America have over $10
trillion in assets, equivalent to 54 percent of our GDP. The top six
banks hold more than half of all credit card debt, control over 90
percent of all bank derivatives, underwrite about a third of all
mortgages, and control over 40 percent of all bank deposits.
If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, I have a sense about what he
would be saying. He would say break them up, and he would be right.
That is exactly what my first amendment would do.
Specifically, this amendment would require the Federal Reserve to
break up any financial institution whose total exposure is greater than
2 percent of our Nation's GDP over the next 2 years. These banks would
include JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Bank of
America, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, Capital
One, and the TD Group--financial institutions that have a combined
total exposure of more than 77 percent of our Nation's GDP. None of
these institutions would be able to receive a taxpayer bailout from the
Federal Reserve or gamble with the federally insured bank deposits of
the American people. Under this amendment, no financial institution
could have a total financial exposure above $398 billion.
Call me old-fashioned, but I believe the function of banking should
be boring. The function of banking should not be about making as much
profit as possible in gambling on derivatives and other esoteric
financial instruments. The function of banking should be to provide
affordable loans to small businesses in order to create jobs in the
productive economy. The function of banking should be to provide
affordable loans to Americans to purchase their homes and their cars.
Wall Street cannot be an island unto itself, and I hope very much that
my colleagues will support this important amendment.
Not only do we have to break up these very large banks, but we also
have to stop them from ripping off the American people by their
charging outrageous interest rates and fees, and that is exactly what
my second amendment would do.
Incredibly, since the Wall Street crash, credit card companies have
raked in over $1.2 trillion in revenue from interest and fees they
charge consumers, including over $160 billion in 2016 alone. That is
unacceptable. At a time when the American people hold a recordbreaking
$1 trillion in credit card debt and desperately need some relief on
that debt, my second amendment would establish a national usury rate of
15 percent on credit cards and other consumer loans.
In America today, incredibly, millions of our people are now paying
credit card interest rates of 20, 25, or even 30 percent. I am not just
talking about the payday lenders who are acting in a way that is
totally unbelievable in ripping off the poorest people in our country.
Let's be clear. When credit card companies charge over 20 percent in
interest on credit cards, they are not engaged in the business of
making credit available; what they are involved in is extortion and
loan sharking. That is what they are engaged in.
Interestingly enough, if you read the religious tenets of the major
religions throughout history, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, or
Islam, what you will find is a universal objection and disgust to
usury. This has existed for thousands and thousands of years. People
know that it is immoral to lend money to poor people, struggling
people, and then charge them excessive interest rates. That is in the
religious teachings of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other
religions.
In the ``Divine Comedy,'' Dante reserved a special place in the
Seventh Circle of Hell for people who charged usurious interest rates.
Today, we don't need the hellfire and the pitchforks, and we don't need
the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law that
caps interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15 percent.
Despite the fact that banks can borrow money today at less than 1.5
percent from the Fed, the average credit card interest rate today for
consumers is now 16.84 percent. Borrow money at 1.5 percent from the
Fed, and then charge consumers an average of 16.84 percent.
Further, if you get a credit card from a store like Macy's, Kohl's,
Lowe's, or Sears, interest rates are even higher. Stores like these are
charging customers an average interest rate of 26 percent, and many of
the stores rely on these high interest rate cards for more than a third
of their revenue. They are making money not just by selling clothing or
washing machines or shoes; a substantial part of their profit scheme
comes from the high interest rates they are getting on these financial
transactions. What that means is, if you buy a $500 refrigerator from
Lowe's, Home Depot, or Sears on one of their credit cards, you will
likely owe an additional $130 in interest on a $500 refrigerator. How
is that? Do you think that is an issue we might want to talk about just
for a moment? I know the consumers of this country don't pour hundreds
of millions of dollars into lobbying or billions of dollars into
campaign contributions. I understand that. But maybe, just maybe, we
might want to remember the folks back home.
Establishing a usury law is not a radical concept. Up until 1978,
about half of the States in our country had usury laws on the books
that capped credit card interest rates, but those States' interest
rates were obliterated by a 1978 Supreme Court decision, that of
Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service, which concluded that
national banks could charge whatever interest rates they wanted if they
moved to a State without a usury law. So all of these credit card
companies moved to South Dakota. They moved to Delaware, which had no
interest rate caps, and they charged people in Vermont or in Kansas--or
in every other State in the country--interest rates of 20 to 30
percent.
This has to stop. The American people are sick and tired of being
ripped off by the same financial institutions
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they bailed out 10 years ago--what a world. We bail out the crooks--
taxpayer money bails them out--and they charge the same people who
bailed them out 20 to 30 percent interest rates on loans.
This amendment simply applies the same statutory interest rate cap on
credit cards that Congress imposed on credit unions in 1980, capping
interest rates at 15 percent, except under extraordinary circumstances.
In other words, if you get a credit card through a credit union, you
are going to be paying, in almost every case, no more than 15 percent.
That is mandated by Federal law. By and large, that law has worked for
about 40 years. Unlike big banks, credit unions do not come begging the
American taxpayer for huge bailouts. Ten years ago they didn't come for
a huge bailout. Credit unions have survived and thrived on a 15-percent
cap, and the time has come to extend that cap to private banks as well.
There is nothing radical about that. It exists for the credit unions in
this country, and it should exist for the large banks.
There has even been support for this concept in the Senate. In 1991,
former Senator Al D'Amato offered an amendment to cap interest rates at
14 percent that passed on a vote of 74 to 14. It was not a radical
idea, and it passed by a huge vote in 1991.
Here is what Al D'Amato, the Republican chairman of the Senate
Banking Committee, said in 1991:
Fourteen percent is certainly a reasonable rate of interest
for banks to charge customers for credit card debt. It allows
a comfortable profit margin but keeps banks in line so that
interest rates rise and fall with the health of the economy.
That was an accurate statement in 1991. It is even more accurate
today.
Let's be clear. Credit cards are no longer used just to buy luxury
items. We all know that. All over this country, people are buying their
groceries, their food, and other basic essentials with credit cards.
Commuters are paying for the gas they put into their cars on their
credit cards. Young people are paying their college expenses with
credit cards.
According to the Federal Reserve, 44 percent of the American people
could not pay for a $400 emergency expense, like a car accident, if
they could not charge it on their credit cards or borrow money from a
payday lender, a friend, or a family member. That is the reality of
America today. It is not a reality we discuss here in the Senate, but
that is the reality, nonetheless.
Given that reality, it seems to me that if we are going to respond to
the needs of the American people, we need to deal with the issue of
usury and stop large financial institutions from ripping off the
American people.
Madam President, with that in mind, I ask unanimous consent that the
following amendments be called up and reported by number: the Sanders
amendment No. 2114 and the Sanders amendment No. 2155; further, that
the Senate vote on the Sanders amendment No. 2114 without intervening
action or debate; and that following disposition of the Sanders
amendment No. 2114, the Senate vote on the Sanders amendment No. 2155.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I am distressed, although not
surprised, by the objection. Apparently, the consumers of this country
don't have the financial support to get their concerns onto the floor.
So apparently we are not going to be discussing these items.
Madam President, I raise a point of order that the pending measure
violates section 4106 of H. Con. Res. 71, the concurrent resolution on
the budget for fiscal year 2018.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of
applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections
of that act and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of S. 2155,
and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I am asking my colleagues to waive this
budget point of order.
In order to offset the Congressional Budget Office's estimated
increase in Federal deficits due to the enactment of the Economic
Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, the bill
contains a provision that reduces the amount of discretionary surplus
the Federal Reserve may maintain from $7.5 billion to $6.825 billion.
The Federal Reserve surplus funds have been used in the past to pay
for bipartisan legislation emanating from committees that do not have
jurisdiction over the Federal Reserve. Unlike those past instances,
these funds will be used to offset costs of legislation emanating from
the Banking Committee.
In order to provide meaningful relief for consumers, community banks,
credit unions, midsized banks and regional banks, I urge my colleagues
to waive this point of order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues for support on the
point of order, not only from the deficit perspective but to tell the
Republican leadership here in Congress that we want a serious debate on
the serious financial issues facing the American people; that we want
the ability to bring forth amendments, not just my amendment--there are
a lot of good amendments on both sides--that at this particular moment,
rather than just deregulating some of the largest banks in America, we
need to protect consumers, we need to protect ordinary Americans, and
we need to have a real debate. So I would hope very much that Members
of the Senate would support my point of order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I spent 28 years in the private sector
before entering public service. In fact, in 2010 I was working at
RightNow Technologies in my hometown of Bozeman, MT. We were growing a
technology company there. We were creating good, high-paying jobs in
Montana--in fact, about 500 jobs there.
While I was working to grow jobs back home in Montana, President
Obama and a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate were
passing legislation that stifled job creation--in fact, costing our
economy billions of dollars and penalizing small local banks and credit
unions for the wrongdoings committed by bad actors on Wall Street.
I am talking about Dodd-Frank. Since Dodd-Frank's passage, the number
of federally insured credit unions in Montana fell by over 10 percent.
The number of Montana State chartered banks fell over 34 percent, from
64 to 44. This is no surprise because Dodd-Frank empowered more than 10
Federal agencies to write more than 400 new rules, imposing 27,000
mandates, many of which fell on these local banks and credit unions.
These small community businesses don't have the ability to keep up
with the onslaught of these new rules, new regulations, and guidance
constantly coming out of Washington following Dodd-Frank, and the
customers are suffering.
Small local banks and credit unions are uniquely capable of knowing
their customers and providing tailored financial services to meet their
customers' individual circumstances. Dodd-Frank stripped this customer
advantage away by making prohibitively difficult any loans that don't
comply with the cookie-cutter regulations.
It is interesting that in that debate back in 2010, many Republicans
warned our colleagues on the Democratic side about this, but virtually
every Democratic Senator then voted for Dodd-Frank. This difficulty
fell particularly hard on Montana's entrepreneurs, who are self-
employed and don't typically have wage income. Entrepreneurship runs
deep in Montana. These banks and credit unions are truly part of our
community. They know their customers, and they are able to make loans
for their needs. They can determine the risk and make sure they are
making good loans. They serve up-and-coming small business owners, moms
and dads working to keep the family business
[[Page S1709]]
afloat, and countless farmers and ranchers across Montana.
Dodd-Frank has suffocated Montana's rural banks and credit unions
and, ultimately, it is the people of Montana who use these banks and
these credit unions, and they are the ones who have been hit the
hardest.
I wasn't here in 2010 when this bill was passed. Let me just state
that had I been on this floor then, I would have voted no on Dodd-
Frank's passage. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Democratic
Senators voted yes--virtually every one of them. But I will state that
I am really happy to be here now to help undo some of the damage caused
to our rural communities and the people of Montana.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, on Friday I held a townhall in
Springfield, MA. On Saturday we had another townhall, this time in
Weymouth, MA. I met with kids at Weymouth High School who are forming a
``Never Again'' group and who want to pass some sensible gun
regulations. I met with Dreamers who want to pass DACA. I met with
people who fled the hurricanes in Puerto Rico and who want to get a
comprehensive plan for rebuilding the island. I met with people who
live along the South Shore and are deeply worried about rising oceans
and the need for building resilience into our coastline housing and
infrastructure. I met with people alarmed by the rising cost of
healthcare and about Republican efforts to roll back ObamaCare,
Medicaid, and Medicare. I met someone who wants to see us focus more on
criminal justice reform.
There is so much Congress could do. There are so many problems the
American people are asking us to solve, but not one single person at
any of my townhalls, meetings, press interviews, or picking up pizza at
Armando's asked for Congress to work on rolling back the rules on some
of the biggest banks in the country so they will have a chance to crash
the economy again, and that is what the bill on the floor of the Senate
does--really. Don't just take my word for it.
The Congressional Budget Office experts say the bill will increase
the chances that taxpayers will have to bail out the big banks again.
CBO also says the bill could allow Wall Street banks, like Citigroup
and JPMorgan Chase, to significantly reduce their capital requirements.
Professor Jeffrey Gordon, an expert in financial regulation at Columbia
Law School, says the bill ``will produce a race-to-the-bottom dynamic
that will dramatically increase the chance of another financial
crisis.'' The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg both editorialized that
the bill includes dangerous giveaways to big banks. Nobody back in
Massachusetts asked for that.
Buried down in the details of the bill are even more landmines for
American families. The bill guts protections for families who buy
traditional and mobile homes, and it undermines our ability to enforce
civil rights laws--and for what? So banks that are already making
record profits can tack on a little more to their bottom line?
If the Senate is going to spend 2 weeks dealing with the big banks,
we should be making the rules tougher, not easier. Today, I introduced
the Ending Too Big to Jail Act, which would help make sure that big
bank executives are hauled out of their corner offices in handcuffs the
next time they break the law. That would do more for America's working
families than anything in this bill, and I am going to fight to help
make it law.
What does it say about Washington Republicans and Democrats who can't
come together to support commonsense gun reforms or solutions for
working families but can come together to deregulate big banks on the
10th anniversary of the start of the 2008 financial crisis?
Here is what I think it says: Washington has become completely
disconnected from the real problems in people's lives. This place works
great for people who can hire armies of fancy lobbyists and write big
checks, but it doesn't work for anyone else.
This is personal for me. I grew up in Oklahoma on the ragged edge of
the middle class. My family struggled, and when it looked like things
were getting a little bit better, my daddy had a heart attack and he
lost his job and we nearly lost our home. I was 12 years old, and I
know what it feels like to hear your mother cry every night. I know
what it feels like to wonder if you will have to change schools or move
to another town because the bank is going to take your house away. I
know it because I lived it.
When the economy collapsed 10 years ago, I would go to bed at night
thinking about the millions of people across this country who worked
hard, who played by the rules, and then had their dignity stripped away
because somebody they never met gambled with their family's future and
lost. I wondered back then about the kids. I wondered about their
mothers. I wondered about their daddies. A foreclosure isn't just some
dry financial transaction; it is the kind of event that can tear a
family apart.
The American people aren't going to stand by while big banks and
other giant corporations run this economy and this Congress for their
own benefit. Soon--maybe not today, maybe not next week, maybe not even
in the next election, but soon they will demand a government that works
for the people.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, 10 years ago this month, we saw the first
domino fall toward the worst financial crisis since the Great
Depression. Some of our country's largest financial institutions were
facing capital and liquidity crises, and it became clear that many of
the biggest banks would need a massive injection of capital, in the
form of a taxpayer bailout, to prevent what then-Chairman Bernanke
called the ``chaotic unwinding'' of financial markets.
The near collapse of the U.S. financial system had a real and lasting
impact on the prosperity of the United States, reaching the pocketbooks
and kitchen tables of every American family and the stability of the
world's economy across all sectors. We--and I do mean we--you, me and
all tax-paying U.S. citizens footed the bill for the risky and cavalier
behavior of our country's biggest banks, allowed largely by a poorly
regulated system that brought our economy to its knees. American
taxpayer dollars propped up our financial system to prevent its
catastrophic failure, an economic collapse that would have wrought even
more damage and misery on tens of millions of American households.
The crisis clearly exposed deep flaws in our regulatory system and a
serious lack of oversight of the financial sector. It taught us that
looking the other way and trusting the system to check and right itself
will always result in a race to the bottom in terms of capitalization,
risk-taking, transparency, and, too often, casual lending practices.
Big Banks and their executives took on untold and unnecessary risks,
hid their financial well-being and, at best, misinformed their
investors and, at worst, downright lied. This behavior was supported
and left unchecked by a regulatory regime without the oversight to
identify and teeth to prevent rampant risk-taking in the name of short-
term profit.
We vowed we would never again put American taxpayers on the hook to
bail out Big Banks. To that end, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act,
the most sweeping, comprehensive reforms to our financial system since
the 1930s. These changes, including new regulations and enforcement
mechanisms, were necessary to prevent the recurrence of the systematic
profit-driven actions of bad actors throughout our financial system.
Dodd-Frank required Big Banks to meet capital requirements, pass stress
tests, and make plans for their orderly liquidation in case of failure.
All of these requirements were designed to prevent another taxpayer
bailout, and they are working. By design, these standards are difficult
to meet, but they have not prevented banks from profiting. Big Banks,
in fact, are thriving. They continue to protect American taxpayers who
are, rightly, wary of the behavior of Big Banks. Now is not the time to
roll back these protective rules for Big Banks. They don't need it. No
one except these big hanks will benefit, and it would all be at the
risk of future bailouts. Without these standards, we will again see
bank executives influenced by compensation packages that favor
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risky short-term profits over sound investments and loan quantity over
quality. If we roll back commonsense oversight of Big Banks, we should
expect banks to take advantage of their newfound flexibility and
reintroduce risky practices like failing to ensure they are adequately
capitalized and mitigating risk.
Like most sweeping reforms, some pieces of the Dodd-Frank Act had
unintended consequences. We talk a lot about banks that are too big to
fail, but not about banks too small to succeed or perhaps too small to
comply with the new regulatory regime. Authority was granted to new and
existing agencies to mandate certain regulatory requirements intended
to safeguard our financial system. Our small community banks and credit
unions have done their best to comply with these one-size-fits-all
regulations and rules, often to the great detriment to their
businesses, their bottom lines, and their relationships with their
community and customers. I have heard from community bankers who,
instead of focusing on Vermonters' needs and tailoring their financial
services in the honest and professional way that is a hallmark of doing
business in a small community, must spend much of their time crossing
Ts, dotting Is, and collecting data for fear of the consequences of
minor errors. That is not how small community bankers should be
spending their time and not how they maintain the flexibility necessary
to meet the needs of their communities.
Our community banks and credit unions did not cause the financial
crisis; yet they are still paying the price for it, and by extension,
the consumers they serve. I am glad that this bill provides some
regulatory relief for smaller and community banks. If regulatory relief
for community banks and credit unions were its own bill, we would be
lining up to support it--or even more likely, pass it by unanimous
consent.
But what started out as an effort to help small community banks has
been hijacked by Big Banks and their supporters in Congress. I am
extremely disappointed that this essential relief has been coupled with
some very significant changes to regulations on the biggest banks,
banks that took hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts.
This is the handiwork of savvy lobbyists pushing a deregulatory agenda
and hiding it behind relief for our community bankers. They know
community banks are the backbone of our communities and that they enjoy
the support of their representatives. It is frustrating that we could
not consider, debate, and pass a bill that would responsibly allow
community banks to better serve and revert to relationship lending in
their communities without revisiting these additional oversight
measures on Big Banks that our constituents demand and deserve.
All told, this bill will substantially deregulate some 25 of the
largest 38 banks and will require fewer stress tests which are
effective ways to measure a bank's ability to withstand sudden or
prolonged economic downturns. I do not believe this is an appropriate
way to relieve our community banks and credit unions, and I am
concerned that instead of safeguarding our economy, this legislation
will instead open up our taxpayers to even more risk at the hands of
bank executives. For these reasons, I cannot support the Big Bank
protection act that this bill has become. I am disappointed that
instead of passing what we said we wanted--relief for small banks that
are being punished for something they did not cause--this bill will
roll back the very rules that hold Big Banks accountable and that
protect our economy and the American people.
To conclude, I ask unanimous consent that an opinion piece by Vermont
Law School Professor Jennifer Taub, which appeared online at CNN.com,
be printed in the Record. In it, she discusses the troubling flaws of
this proposed legislation. Her words would be instructive to the Senate
as we are poised to roll back some of the strongest protections we have
against another financial crisis.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From CNN, Mar. 5, 2018]
Mitch McConnell's Big Gift to the Banks
(By Jennifer Taub)
This month marks the tenth anniversary of the $29 billion
US government-backed bailout of Bear Stearns. The collapse of
this giant investment bank in March 2008, under the weight of
its bad mortgage-linked bets, marked the beginning of the
global financial crisis.
To commemorate it, the US Senate plans to deliver a big
gift to the banking sector by removing several safeguards for
American families put in place after the meltdown.
Tin is the traditional tenth wedding anniversary gift. A
bank deregulatory bill on the crisis anniversary is a fitting
present from someone with a tin ear.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced that
this week the Senate, rather than respond to the plague of
gun violence by considering gun law reforms after the
Parkland shooting, will begin debating the rollback of
financial reforms.
The bill, S. 2155, would considerably weaken the Dodd-Frank
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the law
President Barack Obama signed in 2010, which was designed to
tame Wall Street, protect consumers and make our financial
system less fragile.
Lifting the sensible limits imposed by Dodd-Frank would be
a dream come true for the banking sector, but eventually a
nightmare for the rest of us. This bill will hurt homeowners
and allow giant banks once again to take big risks with
taxpayer-backed, FDIC-insured customer deposits.
Who is calling for this bank deregulation? The pressure is
not coming from clamoring constituents. Instead, it is the
bank lobbyists, outside the public eye, who quietly
orchestrated this effort. Acknowledging this provenance, the
growing opposition has dubbed S. 2155 ``The Bank Lobbyist
Act.''
To pass it, McConnell needs 60 votes, so he will require
more than just his party's support. The bill already has 11
Democratic co-sponsors. Unless the public speaks up, he may
get those votes.
Here's why. The bill's sponsors on both sides of the aisle
are counting on our fading memories. They think we have
forgotten the terrible years after the toxic-mortgaged-backed
meltdown, when many millions of families lost their homes to
foreclosure. The bill's sponsors believe that the pain
previously inflicted upon us by the financial sector is
buried in the past. They are wagering that we have forgotten
both the 1980s Savings and Loan debacle and its repeat
performance in the more recent 2008 global financial crisis.
That is a bad bet. We remember.
We remember that banks and borrowers got into trouble with
unaffordable mortgages. Yet this bill would essentially
encourage banks with up to $10 billion in assets to once
again offer predatory mortgage loans to millions of
borrowers. This includes making mortgage loans to homeowners
based on their ability to pay just an initial ``teaser''
rate, not the fully-amortized rate. This puts borrowers at
risk of losing their homes if they cannot afford the higher
long-term payments. It also puts banks at risk when these
loans default.
As Boston College law professor Patricia McCoy detailed in
the American Banker, Dodd-Frank ``required lenders to first
determine that loan applicants are able to repay before
making them home mortgages. Lenders who fail to make this
assessment can be liable to borrowers.'' Yet the bill
``permits banks with total assets of up to $10 billion . . .
to make unaffordable mortgages, with no liability to
borrowers, so long as the banks hold the loans on their
books.'' She adds that ``if the bill becomes law, Congress
will excuse over 97% of US banks from having to verify
applicants' income, assets and debts for mortgages they keep
on their books.''
We remember that big banks got taxpayer-funded bailouts.
That is why Dodd-Frank automatically subjects bank holding
companies with more than $50 billion in assets to enhanced
supervision by the Federal Reserve. Yet, under the Bank
Lobbyist Act, that threshold would be raised to $250 billion.
This is too great a risk. As former Fed lawyer Jeremy Kress
explained in The Hill, raising the threshold to $250 billion
is ``effectively deregulating 25 of the 38 biggest banks in
the United States, accounting for nearly one-sixth of the
assets in the banking sector.'' We remember that in 2008,
several banks with under $250 billion in assets, including
Countrywide, received billions in bailouts during the 2008
crisis. And even before the bailout funding was available,
when IndyMac with just $32 billion in assets went bust, it
cost the FDIC deposit insurance fund about $9 billion.
We remember that regional and community banks can cause a
national meltdown. The bill's proponents are positioning it
as harmless regulatory relief for regional and community
banks. But we remember that during the savings and loan
crisis during the 1980s, risky practices--including poor real
estate loan standards, thin capital, risky assets, and
dependence on short-term funding--led to the collapse of
hundreds of savings banks. The resulting S&L bailout cost
taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. As George
Washington University law professor Art Wilmarth explained in
the American Banker, ``Big regional banks and the largest
money center banks have held highly correlated risk exposures
during every US banking crisis since 1980. Those correlated
exposures resulted from very similar business strategies that
many large banks pursued during the boom leading up to each
crisis.''
[[Page S1711]]
Yet this new Senate bill would allow regional and community
banks to avoid prudential supervision, and also engage in
high-risk trading with customer deposits.
We remember the bailout oath of ``never again.'' Upon
signing Dodd-Frank, President Obama vowed we would ``never
again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes,''
but that ``for these new rules to be effective, regulators
will have to be vigilant.'' Yet with President Donald Trump's
appointment of Mick Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, the deliberate gutting of consumer
protections began.
Now with the ``Bank Lobbyist Act,'' our senators have a
choice. Will they pile on with the Trump Team and pummel the
already weakened financial reform law into submission? Or
will they honor their promises made to the American people
and protect us from a future financial meltdown?
Time will tell. We will remember.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the
Senior$afe Act, which I am pleased is included in the Economic Growth,
Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. My good friend Senator
Claire McCaskill and I have been working on Senior$afe for several
years now. This bill originated with testimony offered by Maine
Securities Administrator Judith Shaw in a hearing before the Senate
Aging Committee in 2015. I am the chairman of that committee, and
Senator McCaskill was the ranking member at that time. We introduced
the bill that year, and reintroduced it in January of 2017. Today, the
bill is cosponsored by almost a third of this body, balanced nearly
evenly on both sides of the aisle.
I am disappointed to learn that my colleague Senator Warren has filed
an amendment that would seriously undermine the Senior$afe Act by
restricting its provisions just to liability that may arise under the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. If this amendment were to pass, financial
service providers that report suspected frauds against seniors could
still face liability under other laws or causes of action, which would
discourage providers from making these critical reports. I understand
that the proponent of this amendment contends that Senior$afe could
somehow shield a financial service provider from its own fraud. That is
simply not correct.
In order to receive the protections of the Senior$afe Act, financial
service providers must train their employees to spot suspicious
activity that may indicate fraud targeting seniors, and make good
faith, reasonable reports of that suspicious activity to the proper
authorities. The bill is clear that it only shields reporting a
suspected fraud; there is no protection for committing a fraud.
Combating financial abuse of seniors requires consumers, regulators,
law enforcement, and social service agencies at all levels of
government to work collaboratively with the private sector. The stakes
could not be higher. According to the GAO, financial fraud targeting
older Americans is a growing epidemic that costs seniors an estimated
$2.9 billion annually. Stopping this tsunami of fraud is one of the top
priorities of the Aging Committee. Over the years, we have held
numerous hearings exposing an endless variety of financial abuses
targeting our Nation's seniors. These range from the notorious IRS
phone scam that burst onto the scene in 2015, to the incredible ``drug
mule'' scam, where trusting seniors have been tricked by international
narcotics traffickers into unwittingly serving as drug couriers, and
then find themselves arrested and locked up in foreign jails.
Just last week, our committee heard the story of Stephen and Rita
Shiman from Saco, ME, who lost more than $1,200 in the notorious
grandparent scam. In this scam, fraudsters call a senior pretending to
be a family member, often a grandchild, and claim to be in urgent need
of money to cover an emergency, medical care, or a legal problem.
Sadly, not all scammers are strangers to their victims--in too many
cases, seniors are exploited by someone they know well. Sometimes, that
abuse is perpetrated by ``friends'' or family members who are handling
the victim's affairs informally. Other times, the abuse is committed
under the color of a fiduciary relationship, such as a power of
attorney or guardianship.
No matter the scheme, one factor is common to all: The fraudsters
gain the trust and cooperation of their victims. Without this, their
schemes would fail. The scammers also push their victims to act fast
and not to tell anyone what they are doing.
Unfortunately, due to the ruthless cunning of the scam artists, many
seniors do not see the red flags that signal fraud. Sometimes they are
too trusting or are suffering from diminished capacity, but just as
often, they miss the signs because the swindlers who prey on them are
extremely crafty and know how to sound convincing. Whatever the reason,
a warning sign that can slip by a victim might trigger a second look by
financial service representatives trained to spot common scams, who
know enough about a senior's habits to question a transaction that
doesn't look right. In our work on the Aging Committee, we have heard
of many instances where quick action by bank and credit union employees
has stopped a fraud in progress, saving seniors untold thousands of
dollars.
Let me give you an example. In 2016, an attorney in the small coastal
city of Belfast, ME, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for bilking
two elderly female clients out of nearly a half a million dollars over
the course of several years.
The lawyer's brazen theft was uncovered when a teller at a local bank
noticed that he was writing large checks to himself on his clients'
accounts.
When confronted by authorities, he offered excuses that the
prosecutor later described as ``breathtaking.'' He submitted bills for
``services,'' sometimes totaling $20,000 a month, including charging
her $250 per hour for 6 to 7 hours to check on her house, even though
his office was just a 1-minute drive down the road.
In another example, a senior citizen in Vassalboro, ME, was looking
to wire funds from his account at Maine Savings Federal Credit Union to
an out-of-State location, supposedly to bail out a relative who was in
jail. Something about this transaction did not sound right to the
credit union employee. She asked the customer, and he said he had
received a call from an ``official'' at the jail, but that official had
instructed him not to speak to anyone about this. The official, of
course, turned out to be a con artist.
Fortunately, the credit union worker recognized this as a scam, and
her quick thinking saved her customer from falling victim and losing
his savings.
These stories demonstrate the critical nexus that financial
institutions occupy between fraudsters and their victims. Their
employees, if properly trained, can be the first line of defense
protecting our seniors from these criminals. Regrettably, various
Federal laws can inadvertently impede efforts to protect seniors
because financial institutions that report suspected fraud can be
exposed to litigation. The Senior$afe Act encourages financial
institutions to train their employees and shields them from lawsuits
when they make good-faith, reasonable reports of potential fraud to the
proper authorities.
There is no doubt that financial fraud and scams targeting seniors is
a growing problem. In 2016, the Aging Committee heard testimony from
Jaye Martin, the executive director of Maine Legal Services for the
Elderly, who told the committee that her organization had seen a 24-
percent increase in reports of elder abuse in just 1 year. Many of
these cases involve financial fraud.
In a letter describing her support for the Senior$afe Act, Ms. Martin
said that:
In a landscape that includes family members who often wish
to keep exploitation from coming to light because they are
perpetrating the exploitation, the risk of facing potential
nuisance or false complaints over privacy violations is all
too real. This is a barrier that must be removed so that
financial institutions will act immediately to report to the
proper authorities upon forming a reasonable belief that
exploitation is occurring. These professionals are on the
front lines in the fight against elder financial exploitation
and are often the only ones in a position to stop
exploitation before it is too late.
I ask unanimous consent that Ms. Martin's letter be printed in the
Record following my remarks.
Our bill is based on Maine's innovative Senior$afe program, a
collaborative effort by Maine's regulators, financial institutions, and
consumer and legal organizations to educate bank
[[Page S1712]]
and credit union employees on how to identify and help stop financial
exploitation of older Mainers. This program, pioneered by Maine
Securities Administrator Judith Shaw, also serves as the template for
model legislation developed for adoption at the State level by the
North American Securities Administrators Association, or NASAA. The
Senior$afe Act and NASAA's model State legislation are complementary
efforts, and I am pleased that NASAA has endorsed our bill.
I ask unanimous consent that the letter from NASAA regarding the
Senior$afe Act of 2017 be printed in the Record following my remarks.
I am pleased that our bill has received bipartisan support in both
houses of Congress. Besides receiving broad support in Congress, our
bill has the support of a wide range of stakeholders, ranging from the
State securities administrators and insurance commissioners to
advocates for seniors, such as AARP.
The Senior$afe Act encourages financial institutions to train their
employees and shields them from lawsuits when they make good-faith,
reasonable reports of potential fraud to the proper authorities.
I am pleased the Senior$afe Act is included in the bill currently
before the Senate, and I look forward to it finally becoming law.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Legal Services for the Elderly,
Augusta, ME, December 5, 2016.
Re Senior$afe (S 2216).
Senator Susan Collins,
Chair, Senate Special Committee on Aging,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Collins: I want to thank you for inviting me
to speak with the Senate Special Committee on Aging about the
serious problem of financial exploitation of seniors by
guardians and others in a position of power. I also want to
thank you for your leadership in working to ensure there is
training of financial institution employees in reporting
elder abuse and an improvement in the timely reporting of
financial exploitation when it is suspected through passage
of the Senior$afe Act. I strongly support this legislation
that is based upon work done here in Maine.
I served for over two years on the working group that
developed Maine's Senior$afe training program for financial
institution managers and employees. It is a voluntary
training program. Through that work I came to fully
appreciate the very real concerns of the financial industry
regarding the consequences of violating, or being perceived
as violating, the broad range of state and federal privacy
laws that apply to their industry. I also came to appreciate
that absent broad immunity for reporting of suspected
financial exploitation, privacy regulations would continue to
be a barrier to good faith reporting of suspected financial
exploitation. In a landscape that includes family members who
often wish to keep exploitation from coming to light because
they are perpetrating the exploitation, the risk of facing
potential nuisance or false complaints over privacy
violations is all too real.
This is a barrier that must be removed so that financial
institution employees will act immediately to make a report
to the proper authorities upon forming a reasonable belief
that exploitation is occurring. These professionals are on
the front lines in the fight against elder financial
exploitation and are often the only ones in a position to
stop exploitation before it is too late.
I want to add that tying the grant of immunity to required
training for not just supervisors, compliance officers, and
legal advisors, but to all who come in contact with seniors
as a part of their regular duties, will have the direct
result of bringing more cases of exploitation to the timely
attention of the proper authorities because it will
significantly increase the knowledge and awareness in the
industry of the red flags for elder abuse. In Maine, where
our training program is entirely voluntary and carries no
legal status or benefit, we have already seen what a
difference training can make.
Senior$afe is a much needed step in the fight against
financial exploitation of seniors and there is no doubt it
will make our nation's seniors safer. I thank you again for
your leadership in this important area.
Sincerely,
Jaye L. Martin,
Executive Director.
____
North American Securities
Administrators Association, Inc.,
Washington, DC, January 24, 2017.
Re The Senior$afe Act of 2017.
Senator Susan Collins,
Chair, U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, Washington,
DC.
Dear Senator Collins: On behalf of the North American
Securities Administrators Association (``NASAA''), I am
writing to express strong support for your work to better
protect vulnerable adults from financial exploitation through
the introduction of the Senior$afe Act of 2017. Your
legislation will better protect persons aged 65 and older
from financial exploitation by increasing the likelihood it
will be identified by financial services professionals, and
by removing barriers to reporting it, so that together we as
state securities regulators and other appropriate
governmental authorities can help stop it.
Senior financial exploitation is a growing problem across
the country. Many in our elderly population are vulnerable
due to social isolation and distance from family, caregiver,
and other support networks. Indeed, evidence suggests that as
many as one out of every five citizens over the age of 65 has
been victimized by a financial fraud. To be successful in
combating senior financial exploitation, state and federal
policymakers must come together to weave a new safety net for
our elderly, breaking down barriers for those who are best
positioned to identify red flags early on and to encourage
reporting and referrals to appropriate local, county, state,
and federal agencies, including law enforcement.
The Senior$afe Act consists of several essential features.
First, to promote and encourage reporting of suspected
elderly financial exploitation by financial services
professionals, who are positioned to identify and report
``red flags'' of potential exploitation, the bill would
incentivize financial services employees to report any
suspected exploitation by making them immune from any civil
or administrative liability arising from such a report,
provided that they exercised due care, and that they make
these reports in good faith. Second, in order to better
assure that financial services employees have the knowledge
and training they require to identify ``red flags''
associated with financial exploitation, the bill would
require that, as a condition of receiving immunity, financial
institutions undertake to train certain personnel regarding
the identification and reporting of senior financial
exploitation.
The Senior$afe Act's objectives and benefits are far-
reaching. Older Americans stand to benefit directly from such
reporting, because early detection and reporting will
minimize their financial losses from exploitation, and
because improved protection of their finances ultimately
helps preserve their financial independence and their
personal autonomy. Financial institutions stand to benefit,
as well, through preservation of their reputation, increased
community recognition, increased employee satisfaction, and
decreased uninsured losses.
In conclusion, state securities regulators strongly support
passage of the Senior$afe Act of 2017. Please do not hesitate
to contact me, or Michael Canning, NASAA Director of Policy,
if we may be of any additional assistance.
Sincerely,
Mike Rothman,
NASAA President and Minnesota
Commissioner of Commerce.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I wish to speak on the importance of
helping our community banks and credit unions. These institutions are
on the ground daily helping our families and small businesses. They
deserve recognition. They also deserve our careful consideration of
regulatory adjustments that will help them continue their work.
Let me be clear: There are parts of S. 2155 I disagree with, as do
many of my colleagues, but what I think that we can all agree on is the
good works that our local credit unions and banks do for our
communities.
Community banks and credit unions anchor our towns, helping our
workers and businesses. These institutions provide more than just
savings and checking services. Many provide credit counseling and
financial management. They help individuals save for education or for a
financially secure retirement. They provide the mortgage loans that
make homeownership a realistic goal for many families. They get to know
our small businesses and provide them with much-needed financial
support. Most importantly, they do so in a way that is tailored to
their communities.
I would like to emphasize the role that community banks and credit
unions play with respect to small businesses especially. We talk a lot
about Main Street businesses in this body. As the ranking member of the
Small Business Committee, I am keenly aware of the need to provide our
small businesses with adequate resources and support, including through
access to capital. This is especially the case for underserved
communities, where the bigger banks simply don't have a presence.
There are provisions in this bill that will help. For example, for
credit unions, the bill changes the designation of certain real estate
loans which have previously been classified as business loans. This
will free up capital for small business lending. It is through changes
like these that we can carefully tailor regulations, address regulatory
unfairness or duplication, and help our local lenders.
[[Page S1713]]
In Maryland, we are fortunate to still have a good number of these
local institutions. We have almost 90 credit unions in Maryland who
have about 1.9 million members. These credit unions serve many of the
Federal workers that we in Congress work with every day. They provide
services and support for our Department of Defense employees, our
Library of Congress employees, our National Institutes of Health
employees, and our State and county workers who keep our communities
going. Because of their close ties with their membership, these credit
unions and others like them are able to offer special services that big
banks may not have the incentive to provide.
Similarly, our community banks remain strong. There are 54 community
banks chartered in the State. Our community banking sector employs over
35,000 Marylanders. These banks have withstood the Great Recession and
even the Great Depression. For instance, Eastern Savings Bank in
Baltimore was established in 1905, pulled through the chaos of the
Depression in 1929, and still operates four service branches throughout
Maryland today, with a customer base of primarily local residents. All
of our Maryland community banks are essential to our urban, suburban,
and rural communities. They are critical to economic growth in my
hometown of Baltimore. They provide nearly half of the industry's small
business loans, despite making up less than 20 percent of the banking
industry's assets.
It would be naive to ignore the fact that the number of these
institutions is shrinking. They have a difficult market to navigate.
One-size-fits-all regulations can exacerbate this trend. This doesn't
mean that we should not provide oversight of this sector of our
economy; however, I think carefully considering ``tailoring'' our
approach to regulating is more than appropriate here. I think we can
all agree on this principle. Many of the credit union and community
bank provisions we are considering, standing alone, have broad
bipartisan support. If those provisions stood alone, my vote on such a
bill would be a yes.
S. 2155, of course, contains more than community bank and credit
union provisions, and I share some of the concerns voiced by my
colleagues on this bill, especially regarding consumer protections in
certain industries. At the same time, I cannot stress enough how
important it is to strengthen our credit unions and community banks. I
look forward to continuing to work on these issues, especially on small
business lending, with my colleagues going forward.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today I wish to discuss the Economic
Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.
While I would welcome regulatory reform for the small banks and
credit unions in Minnesota that didn't cause the financial crisis, I'm
concerned that this bill is a missed opportunity to improve consumer
protection and that it reduces the regulatory oversight of larger
banks, which could increase systemic risk in the financial system and
put taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts.
I have long believed that Minnesota's community banks and credit
unions play a vital role in our communities and are deserving of
regulatory relief. I was one of the first Democrats to support
legislative action in past Congresses and helped develop and champion
numerous proposals for reform for the community banks and credit
unions.
Unfortunately, title IV of the bill, especially section 401, which
raises the asset threshold for enhanced supervision from $50 billion
all the way to $250 billion, goes too far and threatens to increase
systemic risk. The community banks and credit unions in Minnesota with
which I have spoken in recent weeks have acknowledged they would have
preferred a bill that was limited to regulation that directly affected
them, and I would have welcomed the opportunity to cast a vote in favor
of such a bill, but I will not vote in favor of this bill.
Thank you.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, today I wish to speak about some specific
provisions S. 2155.
I was proud to be one of the original drafters of Dodd-Frank
legislation. We didn't get everything right in that bill. With the
benefit of 8 years of hindsight, we have been able to see what has
worked and what hasn't.
Most of what hasn't worked well has been the excessive burdens put on
community banks. The bill the Senate considered today, one that I am a
proud cosponsor of, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and
Consumer Protection Act, does a lot of good for community banks and
many regional banks by reducing some of the compliance costs these
banks face, so that they may better compete and end the phenomenon of
``too small to survive.''
Since the crisis, however, what has worked best is increased capital
requirements and an updated capital planning regime for medium and
large-sized banks. Put simply, no amount of prudential regulation on
products or business lines can substitute for requiring banks to keep
robust capital cushions. Ensuring that banks hold significant loss
absorbing, capital is the best protection we have against the failure
of banks during a crisis. It is also the best tool we have to make sure
that even in an economic downturn, banks still have the ability to lend
to creditworthy borrowers, so that we can rebound quickly from a
downturn.
Critically, S. 2155 makes no changes to the risk-based capital regime
for regional and large banks that has been the centerpiece of the
Federal Reserve's post-crisis work.
The international Basel III capital accord was agreed by banking
regulators in 2010 to 2011. As implemented in the US, Basel III
requires a minimum Common Equity Tier 1, CET1, ratio of 4.5 percent, up
from 2 percent in Basel II. Minimum tier 1 capital increased from 4
percent in Basel II to 6 percent in Basel III, which includes
additional 1.5 percent on top of the required CET1 ratio. The U.S. has
finalized rules to implement two additional capital buffers on top of
this 6 percent baseline tier 1 capital requirement: a mandatory capital
conservation buffer, as adjusted by a risk-weighted capital surcharge
on U.S. G-SIBs, and a discretionary countercyclical buffer, which the
Fed can use to require additional capital during periods of high credit
growth.
These risk-based capital requirements, as implemented by the U.S.
banking regulators, have formed a core part of the U.S. bank regulatory
response to the financial crisis. S. 2155 changes none of these
requirements for regional and large banks.
An important complement to risk-based capital requirements is
supervisory stress testing. Stress tests help make sure that banks have
adequate capital to absorb losses and more still to lend even in a
serious recession so that they will be able to continue to lend to
households and businesses. S. 2155 did not modify the requirement that
banks larger than $250 billion must continue to undergo annual
supervisory stress tests. Regional banks between $100 billion and $250
billion must also continue to undergo what Chair Powell called before
the Banking Committee meaningful, strong, and frequent stress tests.
Let me make clear: S. 2155 uses the same language as Dodd-Frank to
describe the stress test that should apply to banks between $100
billion and $250 billion because we believe the stress tests applied to
those banks should continue to be meaningful assessments of the capital
adequacy of those institutions under severely adverse conditions. The
requirement in section 401 to conduct stress tests of those banks would
be satisfied by continuing to apply the section 165 supervisory stress
tests to those banks. We have chosen to single out stress tests for
banks between $100 billion and $250 billion because we believe it is
the most important enhanced prudential standard in section 165 of Dodd-
Frank.
We believe it is prudent for the Federal Reserve to have discretion
to apply the other enumerated enhanced prudential standards in section
165 to those or a subset of those banks as part of the strong and
tailored regime that should apply to those banks going forward. Indeed,
under the bill, the Fed can apply an enhanced prudential standard to
those banks for financial stability reasons or simply to ``promote the
safety and soundness'' of a bank, which is a low standard. Although the
Fed is the entity that is best positioned to make the determination for
many enhanced prudential
[[Page S1714]]
standards, Congress believes that meaningful, strong and frequent
stress tests are non-negotiable.
Supervisory stress tests alone, however, do not set any capital
ratios or limit any capital actions by the banks. The Federal Reserve's
Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review, CCAR, framework, however,
integrates supervisory stress testing with risk-based capital
requirements to assess the overall capital adequacy of banks, making it
the most important supervisory tool the Federal Reserve has for larger
banks. Specifically, CCAR requires evaluations of whether each bank's
capital provides an adequate buffer for the losses that would be
incurred during the stress scenarios, whether its risk management and
capital planning processes are appropriately well-developed and
governed and how its dividend or buyback plans could affect its ability
to remain viable in stressed conditions. The Federal Reserve may
object--and has objected--to a capital plan based on quantitative or
qualitative concerns. If it does, the bank is not permitted to make any
capital distribution without Fed authorization.
The Federal Reserve, without direction from Congress, has taken
actions under both former Chair Yellen and Chair Powell to refine the
CCAR process to reduce regulatory burdens. For example, in 2016, the
Fed announced that smaller banks subject to CCAR would not need to be
subject to the same qualitative requirements as larger, more complex
banks. That was a sensible change.
Congress has shown it knows how to exercise its article I prerogative
in many places in S. 2155 to adjust, tailor, and modify thresholds for
applicability for rules that apply to banks that have $50 billion or
more in assets, but Congress has not made any changes to CCAR in S.
2155. The omission of CCAR and the capital plan rule from the changes
that S. 2155 has made to section 165 and some regulations affecting
some banks is intentional and reflects the continued importance this
Congress places upon the continued existence of a robust CCAR process
and the premise that the Fed will continue to use this most important
supervisory tool appropriately.
That covers risk-based capital, but let me reiterate a point I made
in my prior floor speech on this bill, about the importance of the
leverage ratio. Basel III requires 3 percent tier 1 capital divided by
the bank's average total consolidated assets. The U.S. implementation
goes further and requires a minimum leverage ratio of 6 percent for
SIFI banks and 5 percent for their bank holding companies. That is
generally a good thing. One of the many lessons of the financial crisis
was that regulators and bankers alike should approach risk modeling
with a degree of humility. A strong leverage ratio is an important
backstop to risk-based requirements that depend on banks and
regulators' abilities to predict the future.
Current and former Federal Reserve officials from Governor Tarullo,
to former Chair Volcker, and former Chair Yellen, to Chair Powell have
said that the leverage ratio should in general not be the binding
capital constraint for banks, as it tends to be for the custody banks
today. The leverage ratio is meant to be, in the words of Jay Powell,
``an important backstop to the risk-based capital framework,'' but
noted that ``it is important to get the relative calibrations of the
leverage ratio and the risk-based capital requirements right'' because
``doing so is critical to mitigating any perverse incentives and
preventing distortions in money markets and other safe asset markets.''
Let's be clear. Section 402 provides relief to only three banks: Bank
of New York Mellon, State Street, and Northern Trust. I have seen some
raise the concern that the language in section 402 could be read to
provide relief to a broader set of banks. That is not a credible
reading of the statutory language or our legislative intent. Section
402 says that, in order to receive relief, a ``custody bank'' must be
``predominantly engaged in custody, safekeeping, and asset servicing
activities'' to gain the benefit of this provision. This provision does
not mean that, if a bank has a large custodial business, it should get
relief, nor is this an invitation to exclude other assets from the
calculation of total assets for purposes of the leverage ratio. This is
a targeted fix for a narrow problem.
So what is the net result of all this technical capital planning and
stress testing work that the Federal Reserve and other banking
regulators have developed since 2008? Today, U.S. G-SIBs are have two
times the amount of capital than they had precrisis. Even if we went
through an economic downturn worse than the financial crisis, banks
would have 50 percent more capital after absorbing losses than they did
in 2008. The substantial increase in capital extends to banks that are
smaller than the G-SIBs. The common equity capital ratio of the 34 bank
holding companies in the 2017 CCAR has more than doubled from 5.5
percent in the first quarter of 2009 to 12.5 percent in the first
quarter of 2017. This reflects an increase of more than $750 billion in
common equity capital to a total of $1.25 trillion by the first quarter
of 2017.
That is exactly where we should be.
I am proud to have contributed significantly to both Dodd-Frank and
the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. S.
2155 is in many ways as notable for what it doesn't do, particularly
with respect to capital requirements, as much as what it does do.
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, today I want to make a few remarks on S.
2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection
Act.
Section 213 of S. 2155, making online banking initiation legal and
easy--the intent of this provision, which I introduced as an amendment
during Committee consideration of S. 2155, is to facilitate the ability
of financial institutions to reach new and potentially underserved
consumers by making it possible to offer products and services to
consumers through online and mobile applications. I would like to
clarify that, with respect to references in this provision to
``copies,'' ``scans,'' or other reproductions of a consumer's
government-issued identification, this is, intended to apply to all
methods of obtaining information from an identification card, including
color and black-and-white copies.
Section 215 of S. 2155, reducing identity fraud--with respect to
section 215 of the bill, ``reducing identity fraud,'' the intent is to
provide options for permitted entities to crosscheck consumer
information with the Social Security Administration, SSA, in such a way
that is efficient for those entities, as well as the SSA. In
particular, the intent of this provision is to allow a service provider
or other permitted entity to contact the SSA's Consent Based Social
Security Number Verification database pursuant to appropriate consent
provided to a permitted entity--such as a creditor--and to then provide
the ``yes/no'' response from SSA to permitted entities who request such
information in the future. In this way, creditors can receive the
important validation of a name, date of birth, and Social Security
number as part of the consumer report they receive when underwriting a
credit application. This would result in fewer inquiries made to and
received by the SSA. Furthermore, as mentioned, this provision would
require consumer consent as part of the normal credit application
process, similar to how creditors request consumer consent to obtain
consumer credit reports in connection with an application. Under
section 215, consumer consent can now be given via electronic signature
obtained by the creditor or other permitted entities. Nothing in this
provision would require consumers to fill out extra forms, provide
extra signatures, or do anything that would significantly alter their
expectations for a seamless application experience. The goal is to
inform consumers of the possible inquiry to the SSA and allow them to
provide consent via the chosen method by the creditor, which now
includes electronic signature.
The second point I would like to clarify regarding section 215 is the
importance of ensuring the SSA will implement this section with all
deliberate speed, with no unreasonable delay to the process. As the
author of this provision, it is my expectation that the SSA will have
the database described in this section operational within 1 year of the
bill's enactment, assuming the appropriate reserve of user fees. Every
day that goes by without the
[[Page S1715]]
SSA implementing the changes called for in section 215 will lead to
more children unknowingly becoming victims of synthetic identity theft
and having their credit ruined.
Section 310 of S. 2155, credit score competition--the word
``competition'' in the title of section 310, ``credit score
competition,'' is the heart of the intent of this part of the bill.
When enacted into law, Section 310 will put in place a mechanism by
which credit score model developers may submit their models to Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac for validation for use by the enterprises, if the
models meet validation criteria that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have
established. Lenders will be able to choose the model that they wish to
use. The end result of enactment of section 310 of S. 2155 will be a
competitive market between the developers of empirically derived,
demonstrably predictive, and statistically sound credit scoring models,
with appropriate regulatory oversight from the Federal Housing Finance
Agency under which both consumers and lenders would benefit. A lack of
such a market thus far in the mortgage finance arena has stifled
innovation in credit scoring.
Section 310 allows for more than one credit score model provider to
have a validated model for use by the enterprises. The Director of the
FHFA is given the responsibility to see that the validation process is
undertaken in a timely manner for all applicants and that the
methodology and results behind each validation decision is released to
the public.
Unlike the request for input the FHFA issued in December 2017 on this
subject, section 310 does not make specific reference to any credit
score model provider. That is deliberate. Section 310 opens the
enterprises up to use any model that is able to pass the validation
process.
Some critics have raised the specter that providing mortgage lenders
the opportunity to choose among credit scoring models validated and
approved by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might trigger ``a race to the
bottom.'' That is prohibited under section 310, as validated models are
first deemed to not threaten the safety and soundness of the
enterprises in order to be used.
Ms. WARREN. 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. HASSAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Climate Change
Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the devastating impacts
of climate change in my home State of New Hampshire and across our
country. I want to start by commending our colleague Senator
Whitehouse, who has been a fierce advocate for this issue and, as of
yesterday, had taken to the floor 200 times to call on Congress to wake
up and protect our environment.
I am proud to represent a State whose beautiful natural resources
strengthen our economy, create jobs, and support our high quality of
life, but we are already seeing the real impacts of climate change in
New Hampshire--impacts with major consequences.
Last year, the ``National Climate Assessment'' report reinforced what
has long been clear: Human activity is the driving force behind our
changing climate, and the United States is experiencing more extreme
weather events, including dangerous heat, heavier rainfall and more
flooding, and larger wildfires as a result, threatening both our long-
term economic growth and the well-being of our citizens.
Many people in New Hampshire, particularly on our sea coast, are
concerned about what these stronger and more frequent storms will mean
for their families, their homes, and their businesses. Rising sea
levels and greater precipitation have heightened the risk of flooding
on our coasts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association
estimates that New Hampshire sea levels are expected to rise between
six-tenths of a foot and 2 feet by 2050 and between 1.6 feet and 6.6
feet by 2100. In just the last 2 weeks, our State has been hit by three
nor'easters. This is not normal.
You can see here, the flooding that impacted streets and homes in
Portsmouth, NH, during one of these storms. This chart depicts a photo.
We have to help our people adapt to these changes, these direct threats
they face. This starts with focusing on efforts like coastal resiliency
to help vulnerable communities prepare, improving our infrastructure,
and developing resilience strategies to help plan ahead of storms and
extreme weather events. At the local level, people on New Hampshire's
seacoasts are already doing great work to be proactive and address
these challenges head-on, so we must support their efforts.
We must also keep working to mitigate climate change, which is why I
am continuing to push to cut carbon emissions, conserve and protect our
natural resources, and build a stronger clean energy future.
Unfortunately, President Trump has been focused on an agenda that is
based on climate change denial and has stacked his administration with
climate change skeptics who have placed the priorities on big oil
companies over the protection of our natural resources.
According to a recent Politico report, President Trump has chosen at
least 20 people to serve as agency leaders and advisers who have
publicly disagreed with the settled science on climate change. He has
left key positions vacant, including a science adviser at the Office of
Science and Technology Policy--an unprecedented move over the last
several decades in which the office has existed. This clear disdain for
science and failure to acknowledge the reality of the dangers of
climate change are seen throughout the administration's policies.
Last year, President Trump recklessly withdrew the United States from
the Paris climate agreement--failing to listen to the voices of
environmental and business leaders who supported this agreement. The
United States of America now has the distinction of being the only
country in the world that is not supporting it.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is working to repeal the Clean Power
Plan, which is critical to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and
helping our citizens, our businesses, and our economy thrive. We have
seen several clean air and clean water protections rolled back.
In addition to reversing environmental protections, the
administration is taking further steps that can carry extreme risk for
our environment. This includes the irresponsible plan to open up 90
percent of our Nation's coastal waters--including New Hampshire's
seacoast--to the dangers of offshore drilling.
We are clearly seeing the impacts of climate change. Our citizens are
calling on us to act, but the lack of leadership from this
administration and the actions they have taken that exacerbate our
climate and environmental challenges are--to put it mildly--
irresponsible.
We need to take proactive steps to protect our environment, not roll
back key protections. We need to help communities threatened by a
changing climate, not put the profits of Big Oil first. We need to
stand up for science, not deny it.
I will keep working to address climate change and to achieve a
cleaner environment and stronger energy future that will help our
citizens, our economy, and our businesses thrive. I urge my colleagues
to do the same.
Recognizing Spaulding High School
Mr. President, I am proud to recognize not just an individual but the
entire Spaulding High School community as our Granite Stater of the
Month for the compassion and commitment to helping others that they
displayed following the horrific shooting in Parkland, FL.
In the wake of the senseless violence in Parkland, Spaulding music
staff and students met to discuss how they could help survivors and
memorialize the 17 lives which were taken at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School.
During this dark time, the Spaulding students wanted to focus on
expressing their love and how to best send comfort to their peers in
Florida. This led Spaulding students, teachers, and faculty to start an
initiative--with the members of the band, the color guard, and the
Junior ROTC playing a leading role--to collect money to support the
Stoneman Douglas community.
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In the days that followed, students passed around buckets to collect
donations, with each student giving what he or she could. In an
enthusiastic show of support, the Spaulding community raised $3,271 in
just 2 days.
Students wanted to do more, so they also presented the Spaulding High
School Music Department Glass Eagle Leadership Award to the Stoneman
Douglas Music Department, as that is also the mascot of their school.
The Junior ROTC group also sent one of its Challenge Coins to
acknowledge the Parkland students' bravery and resolve.
Two of the school's music teachers--Joanne Houston and Cheryl
Richardson--recently flew to Florida to present the gifts to Stoneman
Douglas's principal and vice principal.
The selfless support for Stoneman Douglas by the Spaulding High
School community exemplifies the compassion of the Granite State.
In New Hampshire and throughout our country today, school communities
are engaging in walkouts and demanding action to prevent future acts of
gun violence. I know members of the Spaulding student body are planning
a walkout, too, and I am profoundly grateful to see our young people
speaking out and being powerful forces for change.
I am incredibly proud of these young leaders. We, as a country, must
meet them in this moment.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Economy
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, this week we are debating an important
piece of legislation that is going to streamline and simplify
government regulations. We are going to make it easier and cheaper for
families to get access to loans from their local banks. This
legislation is good for communities, and it is good for the American
economy.
This is just the latest action we have taken in Congress over the
past year to help give the American economy a boost. The economy is
responding, and the American people are doing better because of it.
Here is a headline from the New York Times on Friday: ``The Economy
is Looking Awfully Strong.'' That is the headline in the New York
Times--``The Economy is Looking Awfully Strong.'' This article was
about the jobs report that came out last week. It said that the report
``can be summed up in four words: The economy is humming.''
The U.S. economy has already created over 552,000 new jobs in just
the first 2 months of this year--over half a million new jobs in the
first 2 months of this year. There are half a million more people
working today compared to when Republicans passed this tax relief law.
If we want to go back a little, there are more than 3 million new jobs
since President Trump was elected in November of 2016. That is a real
number to look at. That is the moment when people said they had enough
of slow-growth policies from the Democrats in Washington and elected
Donald Trump President. That is the moment when businesses realized
things were going to be different with Republicans in charge.
More people are working now. And do you know what else? They are
being paid more. According to the Commerce Department, the take-home
pay of working people in America increased by $40 billion in January.
They say it is directly because of the tax relief law that Republicans
passed last December.
More than 4 million workers are also getting a bonus or a pay
increase. Four hundred companies have said that is because taxes went
down. They are sharing the savings with their workers. These are people
who work at Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, Starbucks, and other
businesses that have familiar names all across America. They are also
people who work in smaller businesses, like the Jonah Bank in Wyoming,
at branches in Casper and in Cheyenne. It is not a nationally known
bank, but it is very important in our State and in our communities.
Some people who are getting bonuses work at places like Taco John's.
That is another business that is important to the people of Wyoming.
When I was in the State senate, Taco John's was a place I went
regularly to eat lunch. It is one of many Taco John's facilities around
the State of Wyoming and around the West. Republicans cut taxes, and
working Americans are seeing more money in their paychecks as a result.
This is what we see in terms of confidence. This new survey came out
recently where they talked with the heads of midsized companies all
around America, and this is what they say: 89 percent of the business
leaders are confident in the U.S. economy and the economy's prospects
for the year. U.S. economic confidence soars--in 2016, 39 percent; in
2017, 80 percent; and in 2018, now 89 percent. The American people
realize we have now beaten back 8 years of bad policies from Democrats
in Washington. As soon as President Trump took office, we saw
confidence soar, and I don't know that it has ever been higher.
Americans are feeling better about the U.S. economy. They are also
feeling better about their own personal situations. That is the key--
people's own personal situations. That is certainly the case in my home
State of Wyoming.
The polling company Gallup looked at overall economic confidence
State by State. They found that Wyoming is the most confident State in
the country when it comes to America's economy. Attitudes about the
economy turned positive immediately after Donald Trump was elected
President in 2016. You could feel it. You could feel the confidence.
You could feel the optimism. You could feel the positiveness in the
people of Wyoming. People living in 43 out of the 50 States now have a
positive view of the economy, and Wyoming, of course, is No. 1.
People I talk to at home--I was in Cody, WY, this past weekend, as
well as in Sheridan and Riverton and Casper and around the State
talking to people in various communities. The people I talked to about
the economy will tell you it is because businesses are hiring again.
People are doing better. They see their take-home pay going up. They
see their taxes going down. They see that Republican policies are
making their lives better. They see that Republican policies are also
making the economy stronger. They see that Republican policies are
making it easier for people to achieve their dreams and to enjoy their
lives. It comes from tax relief. It comes from cutting regulations, as
we are doing this week.
What are the Democrats offering? Well, last week, the Democratic
leader came to the floor and said he wants to raise taxes by $1
trillion. That is what the leader of the Democratic Party said on the
floor of the Senate last week. He wants to raise taxes by $1 trillion.
Is he serious? A trillion dollars? Raising taxes? Taking away from
people the tax cuts they have just started to enjoy?
More people have jobs. The economy is humming. The New York Times
says the economy is humming. Ninety percent of working Americans have
increases in their take-home pay. That is because of the tax cuts this
body passed. Democrats want to reverse it all. That is what we hear on
the floor of the Senate. They want to take back the money. They want to
roll back the progress we have made. That is their plan--raise taxes.
That is what we hear from the Democrats.
Senator Schumer came to the floor of the Senate, and he said: ``There
are much better uses for the money.'' That is what he said on the floor
of the Senate. That is what the Washington Democrats always say. They
have better uses for the money than the American people do. They have a
better idea, they always say, about how to use somebody else's money.
They want higher taxes. They want more Washington spending because they
think they know best. They don't think the money should go to pay
increases or bonuses for working Americans. Really? They think it
should go to Washington? I think American families know how to spend
their paychecks better than any Washington Democrat ever will.
Democrats say they want to use this $1 trillion in new taxes to pay
for infrastructure. We all know that America's infrastructure--our
roads, our bridges,
[[Page S1717]]
our dams, our waterways--are in desperate need of attention, but as
chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I can tell you
that I am committed to improving this situation by working with the
President and working on both sides of the aisle. If Democrats want to
talk about a robust and fiscally responsible infrastructure plan that
is going to help the American economy, then I am ready to have that
conversation, but if all they want to do is talk about raising taxes on
American families, they are wasting their breath.
There is a very big difference between Republicans and Democrats in
Congress: Republicans want the American people to keep more of their
hard-earned money. Democrats want Washington to take more of people's
money. Republicans want new policies that grow the economy, create
jobs, and inspire confidence in a brighter future. Democrats want the
same old tax-and-spend policies that have failed for years. Their
policies have led to slow growth, stagnant wages, and a terrible lack
of confidence in our economy.
Republicans promised that our ideas will do better, and the results
from the tax cuts and the tax relief speak for themselves. The economy
is strong. Confidence is off the charts.
The American people deserve this chance to have a brighter future.
That is what Republicans are offering, and that is also what
Republicans are delivering.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with the
comments of the esteemed Senator from Wyoming. I think he described
very well the extremely positive impact that tax relief is having on
our country, on economic growth, on job creation, and on higher wages
and incomes for hard-working Americans.
I rise today, however, to talk about the Economic Growth, Regulatory
Relief, and Consumer Protection Act and the important reforms we are
making to spur economic development, facilitate more lending, and
reduce burdensome regulations on our community banks and credit unions.
The Dodd-Frank Act was enacted in 2010 following the financial crisis
in an attempt to reduce systemic risks the financial sector posed to
the economy. This far-reaching law touched every aspect of the
financial system, including many small community banks and credit
unions around the country and in my home State of North Dakota and
across this Nation, in North Carolina and in every State in the Union.
These community banks and credit unions are not what pose the systemic
risks that Dodd-Frank was passed to address.
At almost 850 pages long, Dodd-Frank required more than 10 regulatory
agencies to write almost 400 new rules, which added more than 27,000
new Federal restrictions on American businesses. Think about that
regulatory burden--more than 27,000 new Federal restrictions on
American businesses.
Compliance costs to implement these Dodd-Frank rules have exceeded
$36 billion--I repeat, $36 billion--which is ultimately passed on to
consumers. It required nearly 73 million paperwork hours. In fact,
agencies were still writing Dodd-Frank regulations after the law was
passed. These costs hit small banks and credit unions especially hard,
harming the driving forces of economic growth in rural areas and in our
underserved areas. These financial institutions provide critical
funding for credit for families and small businesses, especially in
rural areas and in underserved areas. Rural States particularly feel
that impact, like my home State of North Dakota.
Because of their small size, community banks and credit unions have a
more difficult time complying with excessively complex reporting and
paperwork requirements. Compliance costs have hastened bank closures in
small towns, leading to a growing number of places with no bank
branches--meaning, not having financial services for consumers.
Nationwide, more than one in five U.S. banks have disappeared; that
is more than 1,700 institutions--or more than one small bank or
financial institution every business day--that have shut down since
Dodd-Frank was enacted. That means less access to financial services
for consumers across this country, particularly those who don't live in
our large urban areas.
Since Dodd-Frank was signed into law, North Dakota has lost over one-
fifth of its credit unions, with the number of credit unions in North
Dakota declining from 47 in 2010 to 35 today. The number of community
banks in North Dakota similarly dropped from 90 in 2010 to 74 today.
These institutions have been forced to merge and consolidate due to the
overly burdensome regulatory compliance costs associated with Dodd-
Frank.
The ultimate loser, of course, from these increased regulations,
compliance costs, and the subsequent consolidation ends up being the
very consumer that Dodd-Frank was intended to protect. Whether you are
shopping for a loan to fund an innovative startup business, operating
capital for your family farm, or seeking a mortgage to purchase your
first home, fewer banks and fewer credit unions means fewer options for
consumers.
In North Dakota and in rural communities Nationwide, our community
banks and credit unions serve just that--the communities. They serve
their local communities. They are not only savings and lending
institutions for hard-working neighbors, local businesses, farmers,
ranchers, and community members, but they are willing to work with
borrowers facing circumstances unique to their rural community. They
know their customer. They know their community. They know their service
area.
Rural community banks and credit unions typically make loans that
don't fit the standard mortgage mold. Properties that are not cookie-
cutter residential properties are very common in rural markets. Rural
lenders tend to use their knowledge of the market and the customer to
structure loans that work for both the borrower and the bank. In other
words, they make a loan fit the customer, rather than trying to make
the customer fit a one-size-fits-all loan program with too much
regulation. That might require using multiple pieces of property as
collateral for the loan or utilizing a short-term loan to assist with a
renovation that is paid off with the sale of a crop.
Documenting assets and cash to close a loan may look very different.
For example, livestock in a feedlot waiting for sale or crops ready for
harvest or in storage silos may substitute for cash in the bank that
would typically get a borrower to qualify for a loan under the
standardized approach where one size is supposed to fit everyone.
The fundamental purpose of community banks and credit unions is to
serve their local communities. In North Dakota, they do this by forging
personal relationships with the small businesses, farmers and ranchers,
and individuals in their communities. By knowing their customers, they
are able to offer products tailored to each individual who comes into
the bank.
Dodd-Frank undermines this fundamental purpose by forcing banks and
credit unions to fit their customers into a one-size-fits-all mortgage
lending product called ``qualified mortgages.'' While this may work for
urban and suburban lenders who sell their mortgages to the largest Wall
Street banks, we have seen that it does not work in our rural States
and our rural areas.
The bill we are now considering provides relief to rural customers by
deeming certain mortgages held by lenders with less than $10 billion in
assets as qualified mortgages, allowing community banks and credit
unions to expand the types of mortgages they offer while maintaining
critical consumer protections--meaning more choice and more opportunity
for financing for consumers across the country. This means that our
community banks and credit unions in our State and across the Nation
will be able to offer a wider range of credit products and better serve
the small businesses, farmers and ranchers, and hard-working
individuals in our communities.
Another important issue facing our rural communities is a critical
shortage of appraisers. The appraisal is a key component of the home-
buying process and is important to both borrowers and lenders. The bank
wants to know that the home financing they provide can be supported by
the collateral, and the borrower wants to make
[[Page S1718]]
sure they are not paying more than the home is worth.
In rural areas, including my State and many others, conducting
appraisals can be more complex than in suburban and urban areas because
there are fewer sales and fewer comparable properties. This makes it
vitally important that there are local appraisers who are familiar with
the area they are working in. However, we are seeing a dramatic
shortage of appraisers right now in our State and I know in other
States as well. For example, of the 53 counties in our State, 29 have
no resident appraisers. This means that all properties sold in those
counties are appraised by appraisers from outside the county, sometimes
from across the State. This can lead to significant wait times for an
appraisal to be completed, as well as the potential for inaccurate
appraisals.
This bill provides relief for home buyers in rural areas by exempting
rural mortgage portfolio loans of less than $400,000 from being
required to have a certified appraisal if the lender is unable to find
a State-certified or licensed appraiser to perform that certified
appraisal within 5 days. This will help reduce the cost to consumers
and streamline the already time-consuming home-buying process.
Additionally, this bill helps further protect consumers from identity
theft and other predatory practices by requiring credit bureaus to
provide consumers with one free freeze alert and one free unfreeze
alert per year. These tools will empower consumers to take more control
over their credit and better protect themselves from potential fraud.
This legislation also includes a provision I cosponsored that would
provide protections for bank employees who disclose the suspected
exploitation of a senior citizen to a regulatory or law enforcement
agency. This will encourage whistleblowers to come forward and protect
senior citizens from financial exploitation.
Additionally, I have filed an amendment, which I am urging my
colleagues to support, that would help our farmers weather the low
commodity prices and economic downturns in farm country. I have heard
from many farmers and bankers across the country that the current Farm
Service Agency, or FSA, loan program levels are outdated and do not
reflect the current ag economy.
My amendment would increase the maximum direct loan amount for the
Farm Operating and Farm Ownership Programs to $600,000 from the current
level of $300,000. It would also increase the maximum guaranteed loan
amount for these programs from $1.39 million to $2.5 million. This
would allow new and beginning farmers to purchase land and equipment or
provide necessary operating capital to help farmers endure through the
downturn in commodity prices. I will continue to work with my
colleagues on that amendment.
In conclusion, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer
Protection Act provides real regulatory relief to our community banks
and credit unions. I believe this will benefit consumers across this
country. It empowers lenders to sell products tailored to their
customers, assists rural communities impacted by the shortage of
certified appraisers, and provides enhanced consumer protections from
identity theft, fraud, and predatory practices.
It is past time that we provide regulatory relief to the community
banks and credit unions across this Nation. Passing this bill will
further economic development, increase lending in rural communities,
and alleviate the onerous requirements placed on our small community
financial institutions by Dodd-Frank. I urge my colleagues to support
this bill.
I yield the floor to the distinguished senior Senator from the great
State of Alabama.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I rise today, as my colleague from North
Dakota has just done, to speak in support of Senate bill S. 2155, the
Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.
In response to the 2008 financial crisis, many individuals
overreacted to the role that smaller institutions played. In the rush
to react, these institutions became overregulated. But since the
drafting and enactment of Dodd-Frank nearly 10 years ago, Congress has
looked for ways to lessen the damaging effects it has had on our
financial system in America. As a result of the Dodd-Frank Act,
thousands of pages of Federal mandates were imposed upon even the
smallest of financial institutions.
Community banks all across the country are the key source of lending
and other financial services on Main Street throughout this Nation. I
believe we should not, and must not, continue to require them to comply
with the same regulations as our largest financial institutions that
are, perhaps, subject to systemic risk.
This bill before us today fixes that by offering a commonsense
approach to ensure that our small and medium-sized financial
institutions are no longer subject to excessive regulation that has
choked the life from them in the country.
Senate bill S. 2155 is a result of almost 10 years of negotiations
among Members of both parties. This legislation was negotiated in good
faith between Republicans and Democrats to find common ground. In a
time when partisan politics have derailed many efforts, the bill before
us moved through regular order out of the Banking Committee, where a
lengthy and robust amendment debate occurred. Many of us in this body,
including the Presiding Officer, have spent hours upon hours
negotiating since the enactment of Dodd-Frank to get to this point
today. This is a bipartisan bill. This is a good product.
Time and again, I have advocated for conducting thorough cost-benefit
analysis on financial regulations. I believe it is Congress's role,
when tasked with oversight authority, to ensure that the costs of rules
from Washington do not outweigh the benefits for consumers. However,
even a simple examination of the activities of small and medium-sized
banks shows that their practices provide no systemic risk to our
financial system.
Many Dodd-Frank regulations are inappropriate for these institutions
in the country. This has become abundantly clear to most of us. As
regulatory overreach progressed, community banks and, in turn, local
economies began to fall on hard times.
In the 115th Congress, I believe the dynamics have shifted. Beginning
with our work to reform our Nation's tax system, the economy has been
performing well. Unemployment has dropped; the total number of
individuals returning to the workforce has increased. In the Senate, we
now have a unique opportunity to unlock the chains of stagnation that
have halted the growth of a lot of our small business.
Community financial institutions provide more than 60 percent of
small business loans in this country. Too often, it is easy to forget
that the personalized touch of community banks has been what started
the process for success of some of the most accomplished businesses in
the United States of America. I believe we must pass this bill if we
want that to continue--if we want to keep creating jobs in this country
and opportunities for our people.
In response to my friends from the other side of the aisle who oppose
our efforts here, I have one simple message: The Economic Growth,
Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act--the bill we have before
the Senate now--is a thoughtful, bipartisan effort to correct and
rightsize regulations that were hastily prepared. This product is
designed to help Main Street, not Wall Street.
This is a good bill. I hope my colleagues will join me and others in
support of it.
I yield the floor.
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. TOOMEY. 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. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I want to address two issues today. One,
briefly, is the issue of guns about which many of our Democratic
colleagues have come down to speak. Then I want to speak about the
financial services regulatory reform bill we will be voting on later
today.
[[Page S1719]]
Gun Legislation
Mr. President, first, on the former topic, a number of our Democratic
colleagues have been down here, and we have heard a real passion and
concern about the victims of gun violence in our country. I certainly
understand and respect their passion. I have spent a lot of time
working to find sensible measures that will help address this in ways
that do not infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding
citizens. It does feel like we are at a somewhat different moment here,
so I hope we can choose to get something done--something constructive--
and stop talking past each other and find where there is common ground.
I suggest four steps by which we ought to be able to find reasonable
consensus in the Senate, ought to be able to get to 60 votes, and be
able to at least modestly make some progress in this space.
One is a bill that has been introduced by Senators Cornyn and Murphy,
a bipartisan bill that is called Fix NICS. The fact is, our background
check system is only as good as the data that is in the system, and we
have an inconsistent quality of data. The data is provided, generally,
by the States. Some States provide excellent, comprehensive, up-to-date
data--other States, not so much. The Cornyn-Murphy bill would encourage
better compliance and better data from the States. Better data means we
would have a better NICS system.
A second piece of legislation is a bill I have introduced with
Senator Coons, and the sort of nickname for this legislation is ``Lie
and Try.'' Our legislation would make it possible for more States to
prosecute people who commit felonies when they attempt to purchase
firearms; that is to say, it is those people who knowingly lie about
their own criminal backgrounds--who deny their criminal histories--in
the hope that they will be able to somehow circumvent the NICS system
and buy firearms. It actually happens every day in America that
convicted felons, who obviously know they are convicted felons, deny
that and attempt to buy firearms they are not entitled to.
Our legislation would simply require the FBI, when it discovers that
someone has committed this sort of felony, to inform the law
enforcement in the State from which that person comes so the State
would be able to prosecute, if it would choose to. It is only about
enforcing the laws on the books. I often hear from my friends who are
Second Amendment supporters, as I am, that we ought to do a better job
of enforcing the laws on the books. This is an opportunity to do
exactly that.
A third opportunity for us is to recognize that the people whom we
deem to be so dangerous that we will not allow them to fly on planes--
the people on a terrorist watch list who could show up at airports with
valid IDs and boarding passes, and we will not let them get on a plane
as we think they are that dangerous--should also not be allowed to walk
into gun stores and buy firearms. Senator Collins and Senator Heitkamp
have introduced legislation. I am a cosponsor of it. It states that if
someone is so dangerous that we believe them to be a terrorist and we
won't let them fly, then we also will preclude them from legally buying
a firearm.
Lastly, Manchin-Toomey is legislation that Senator Manchin and I
introduced some years ago, and the idea behind this legislation is
simply to require a background check on commercial gun sales. Whether
they occur at a gun show or over the internet, these commercial-scale
transactions ought to be subject to a background check so that we can
determine whether the prospective buyer is somebody who we all agree
shouldn't have a firearm--a dangerously mentally ill person, someone
who has committed a violent criminal act, someone who is otherwise
simply disqualified from having a firearm. The only way we can actually
achieve that is if we have some mechanism to determine whether a person
is disqualified in this fashion. So Senator Manchin and I have
legislation that will do that without infringing on the absolutely
essential constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.
These four items would be very constructive--fix NICS, ``Lie and
Try'' legislation, a ``No Fly, No Buy'' bill, and the Manchin-Toomey
legislation. I hope we are going to make some progress in this space,
and those would be candidates for doing so.
Mr. President, let me shift to S. 2155, the legislation we will be
voting on later today. This legislation is long overdue.
Let me be very clear about this. The financial crisis we experienced
is a decade behind us now. The Dodd-Frank financial services regulatory
bill--a massive construct that wildly overregulates financial
services--was signed into law 8 years ago, and we have done nothing
really meaningful to roll that back over these last 8 years.
This bill is the result of years of bipartisan work, an untold number
of hearings, and an extraordinary amount of testimony, and now we have
a product that we are going to, I hope, pass later today to begin to
roll back some of this excessive regulation.
I thank all the Democratic and Republican Members who worked to get
this product to where it is today. Senator Shelby, when he was chairman
of the Banking Committee, laid much of the groundwork for this.
Chairman Hensarling in the House, the chairman of the House Financial
Services Committee, has done great work in this space. Of course,
Chairman Crapo, as chairman, has done an outstanding job.
We are at a point where we are very close to finally making some
progress on this overregulation.
I will disclose up front that I have my own personal experience and
bias in this space, having worked with a great group of men and women
in eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey. We launched a community
bank back in 2005, and it was an amazing experience, a great
experience. It was a very successful bank.
Back in 2005 when we launched, I was shocked to learn how heavily
regulated a small, tiny, startup, brandnew community bank was. It
seemed to me that we needed permission from the regulators to change
the color of the drapes in the lobby of the bank, and this was all
before Dodd-Frank was passed. Dodd-Frank came along several years later
and made things much, much worse--way too prescriptive, way too much
discretion of power in the hands of regulators, a terrible trickle-down
effect whereby extensive regulations that were purportedly meant to
constrain large financial institutions also imposed huge costs on small
banks. We have gotten to the point where, arguably, small banks are now
too small to succeed.
Thirty years ago we had 14,000 banks in America, and today we have
fewer than 5,000. The trend toward consolidation in banking was
underway before Dodd-Frank, but Dodd-Frank dramatically worsened it.
One data point makes it very clear. Before the financial crisis, before
Dodd-Frank came along, we used to routinely launch, on average, over
100 banks per year across America. It was an ordinary thing for a group
of business folks to come together and decide they were going to launch
a bank to serve their community. It is a great thing when people do
that because it introduces new competition, new choices for consumers,
and new access to capital. There were over 100 per year routinely for
decades. From the time that Dodd-Frank was passed up through to this
year, we have had five new banks start up in America. We have
completely destroyed the entire de novo banking industry, and there is
a price for that. There is a price to communities, there is a higher
cost of credit, there is less available capital, and that doesn't serve
anyone well.
Our legislation, this bill we are going to vote on later today, is
going to improve the overall regulatory environment. At the same time,
it is going to make improvements for consumers. Let me touch on a few
of the features.
One is designed to improve access to mortgage credit. Section 101 of
the bill provides regulatory relief for financial institutions if they
originate a mortgage and keep that mortgage on their portfolio.
When a financial institution originates a mortgage and sells it,
which is a very common practice, there is this sense that the financial
institution doesn't care about the borrower's ability to repay. It
happens not to be true, but there are very, very extensive regulations
that are very onerous, and they make it more difficult for borrowers to
meet the criteria that are acceptable. Well, if the bank is keeping the
loan on
[[Page S1720]]
its own books, then it should be obvious to everyone that the bank has
every incentive to make sure the loan is made to someone who can repay
it. So this section provides some relief and some more flexibility so
that the bank can actually make a loan that works for that consumer
rather than one that works for whatever bureaucrats have decided.
Section 107 allows relief from some of the regulations in the
manufactured housing space. It is based on legislation that I
introduced with Senator Donnelly. This will help consumers who are
using manufactured housing, which is one of the most affordable ways of
having a home.
There are consumer protections like section 301, which protects
consumers' credit by giving consumers greater control over their credit
reports.
There is section 302, which protects veterans' credit by helping
prevent medical debt from improperly harming a veteran's credit report.
There is help for community banks--the very small banks that are not
systemically important to their neighborhood, much less the entire
economy. They are wildly overregulated. This diminishes that burden
modestly. It simplifies, for instance, their capital requirements.
Section 202 exempts very small community banks from the Volcker rule.
Why would we need to exempt them from it? Not so they can engage in the
proprietary trading or the kinds of investments that the Volcker rule
precludes, but it recognizes that community banks don't do that anyway.
They have never done that. They end up, instead, having to spend a
whole lot of money proving that they don't do that which they have
never done. It doesn't make any sense. This regulation relieves them of
some of that burden.
Section 210 will allow very small banks to have a little bit more
time between the onerous exams they are subject to periodically. It is
still very onerous, but at least there is some relief here.
There is a change in how we treat bank holding companies. We have,
unfortunately, as a result of Dodd-Frank, this concept of too big to
fail. We have enshrined it in law by creating what we call SIFIs, or
systemically important financial institutions. These are officially
designated ``too big to fail.''
Frankly, no institution should be too big to fail, but it happens
under Dodd-Frank automatically when a bank hits $50 billion. That is a
ridiculously low threshold, so this bill takes that automatic SIFI
designation up to $250 billion. Frankly, it shouldn't be automatically
based on the size of the institution; it should be driven by the
conduct of the institution, the kind of business they do. But at least
we are raising the threshold from $50 billion to $250 billion.
By the way, this is problematic, actually, for banks that are a
little larger than $250 billion. They still have this onerous, complex,
expensive regime that they have to comply with, while their
competitors, which might be just a few billion dollars smaller, are
relieved of this burden. So there is an unfairness in this. I intend to
work with regulators to basically have this SIFI designation reflect
the activity of the institution rather than just the size.
There is another provision, section 402, which deals with the
supplementary leverage ratio, which goes by the acronym SLR. The SLR is
basically a minimum capital ratio. It takes a look at the entire
balance sheet of a bank and says: Regardless of what those assets
consist of, we are going to have a minimum capital requirement. That,
of course, is in addition to all the specific capital requirements that
are associated with the various category of assets. That whole
regulatory regime remains in place, so we have both simultaneously.
This legislation has a very, very narrow exception for this secondary
SLR capital requirement. It simply holds that for those handful--there
are really only three custody banks, banks that have as their principal
activity the custody of securities for other financial institutions.
When they take custody-related cash and they put it on deposit with the
Fed or another central bank, that is a risk-free transaction. There is
no risk to an American bank having a dollar-denominated deposit with
the Fed; therefore, this legislation recognizes that you should not
have to be hit with an additional capital requirement for such a
transaction. That is a constructive feature.
Some have mischaracterized this and suggested that, oh my goodness,
we could have deposits with the Turkish central bank or the Greek
central bank. That is clearly factually wrong. The criteria for
eligibility is very, very narrow, and it is only at the most secure
central banks in the world, and by the way, mostly it is the Fed.
A quick additional word about this too-big-to-fail doctrine. I feel
very strongly that no institution should be too big to fail, and no
institution should get a taxpayer bailout. Some of my colleagues seem
to agree with that and have been very critical of a bailout that would
occur for a financial institution.
I would suggest that the best way to avoid taxpayers having to bail
out a financial institution is not to attempt to prescribe every
conceivable activity through massive regulation but, rather, have a
bankruptcy code that allows the failure to be resolved in bankruptcy.
The people who should be wiped out in the event of a failure of a
financial institution are the shareholders and unsecured creditors, not
taxpayers.
So for those of my colleagues who have come down here and expressed
great concern about potential bailouts, join me in my legislation,
which adds a chapter to the Bankruptcy Code so that we can successfully
resolve even a very large and complex financial institution where we
should, which is in bankruptcy, and not pose a risk to American
taxpayers. Senator Cornyn and I have legislation that would do that. It
really, over time, can completely end the debacle of too big to fail,
and that would be a very constructive development as well.
Let me conclude by saying that this bill, S. 2155, which is called
the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, is
very aptly named. The goals expressed in the title are actually
achieved in this legislation. I am confident we will make progress on
all of these fronts if and when--and I think we will--we pass this
legislation later today.
I certainly urge my colleagues to support this, but my last plea is
that this not be the last word on financial regulatory reform. This is
a constructive step in the right direction, but it is a modest step
forward. Much more needs to be done if we are going to have a safe but
robust competitive financial system that is capable of fueling the
economic growth that our economy is capable of.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.
Gun Safety
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, most people cannot remember what happened
in the first grade--I have vague memories of being a first grader--but
there are certain things that may happen even at a young stage in your
life that will be remembered.
My 6-year-old granddaughter, who attends first grade in Brooklyn, NY,
a few weeks ago was told by her teacher what to do if a shooter, if a
gunman came into the first grade classroom. My little granddaughter was
told: Don't stand by the window; you could get shot. If they enter the
classroom with a gun, get down on the floor.
Is there any sane person in America who believes that is what the
Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment to
the Bill of Rights--the right to bear arms--that we would have reached
a point in America where the prospects of gun violence in the first
grade classrooms and all the way through school, through high school,
and college would become a reality in America? I can't imagine anyone
in their wildest dreams would have imagined that possibility.
Today is March 14. On February 14, a gunman went into a high school
in Parkland, FL, and killed 17 people--14 students and 3 members of the
faculty. It is not the first, by any means. Ten years before it, at
Northern Illinois University, a gunman killed five there and injured
many others. The list goes on and on and on.
This gunman who went into Parkland, FL, wasn't carrying a handgun. He
was carrying an AR-15. It is a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to
embellish with a high-capacity magazine that could kill 30 people at a
time.
[[Page S1721]]
Why? Why on Earth would that man, 19 years of age, be allowed to buy
a weapon that was created to be used by the military--a military
assault weapon, a weapon that sometimes our police may need, but hardly
ever an individual American could need or want to buy for a legitimate
sporting or hunting purpose?
But he did, and 17 were dead after that rampage.
There has been a lot of reaction to that--more than I expected, I
will be honest with you, because mass killings have become way too
common in America. Something happened there--something we saw across
America today. High school students in that high school came out and
said: Enough, we are fed up with the laws of this land and the
politicians who refuse to change them. We are fed up with the fear that
comes with just going to school in America. We are fed up with those
who say the Second Amendment requires us to live in fear.
They have marched in towns across America today. They have marched on
Washington. They have come to my office and visited with me. I believe
they have become a major force in the national debate. I commend them.
I encourage them. I hope they will continue.
What can we do? You know, politics is tough. It ain't beanbag, as
they used to say. There are forces like the National Rifle Association
and the gun lobby that threaten the political existence of Members of
Congress if they vote the wrong way. I know they came after me when I
was a Member of the House. They almost got me. It was a tough election
year. I managed to survive it, but they poured money in and tried to
beat me. I have never had their support since, and that is OK with me.
But for a lot of Members of Congress, they are just not willing to risk
it, not willing to anger the National Rifle Association.
Do you remember when President Trump had the meeting 2 weeks ago? He
called in the students and parents and others. He let the cameras roll,
and they continued the meeting so America could witness it. He
admonished the Members of Congress there: Don't be scared of the
National Rifle Association. Don't be petrified by the NRA. We have to
do something.
President Trump came out for universal background checks. In a way,
it is not a very bold and courageous position because 97 percent of the
American people agree with it. Even gun owners agree with the premise
that we should do everything in our power to have a background check to
keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons and mentally unstable
people. The President came out for that 2 weeks ago, and he also said:
Why in the world do we let someone 19 years of age buy a military
assault weapon? We don't need these assault weapons.
I thought to myself: What a break; here is a Republican President who
is finally standing up to the gun lobby and supporting positions that
are overwhelmingly supported by the American people.
My fellow Senator who is now presiding over the Senate has shown that
on a bipartisan fashion we can move forward on universal background
checks. He came together with Senator Manchin of West Virginia on a
measure that I supported and one that I think we should revisit. I felt
so encouraged 2 weeks ago.
Well, what has happened since? That group left the White House and a
couple of days later, the National Rifle Association came in for lunch
and the President reversed his position. It is nothing new. I saw him
do exactly the same thing on DACA and Dreamers. He reversed his
position and now, instead of universal background checks that will keep
guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them, they are
supporting a bill that is good but is not all we need, called Fix NICS,
which fills some of the information in the background checks for
purchasing firearms.
The 17 lives in that high school in Parkland, FL, are worth more than
this weak response by President Trump and by some in Congress. We must
do better.
Let me tell you that the issue here is more than just the safety of
high schools. A few weeks ago--in fact, a day before the shooting in
Parkland, FL--an amazing member of the Chicago Police Department,
Commander Paul Bauer, was downtown for a training session and heard on
his radio an alert that there was a fugitive escaping. Being a man of
duty, he responded to join in the pursuit and was cornered in a
stairwell by a man who pulled out a gun with a high-capacity magazine,
shot him six times, and killed him right in that stairwell. This was an
amazing police officer with a great wife and daughter, from Bridgeport,
in the city of Chicago. Our whole city was in grief over that loss.
They tried to figure out where the gun came from? Where did that
criminal get that gun? It was purchased legally outside Madison, WI. It
was then sold, without a background check, to another person who, in
turn, sold it on the internet with no background check to a person with
a record of felony arrests and convictions. It completely defied the
system and made the argument again, sadly, of why universal background
checks--not just at Federal licensed dealers but also at gun shows and
on the internet--are absolutely essential. The Fix NICS bill does not
solve that problem. We must solve that problem.
Secondly, on the military assault weapons, today at the Senate
Judiciary Committee, we talked about the impact of an assault weapon
and a bullet that is fired. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who has
followed this terrible incident in Parkland and has spoken out so
eloquently, reminded us that firing a bullet in a handgun may mean that
that bullet passes through your body and injures an organ. Firing a
long gun, a rifle, or a semiautomatic weapon like the AR-15 does
dramatically more damage. The bullet may enter your body in a small
way, but it comes out on the other side with a wound the size of an
orange and, in the process, tumbles through your body, ripping through
tissue, ripping through arteries, ripping through organs, and creating
a situation that is difficult and sometimes impossible to repair.
Why would anyone need a weapon like that? You sure don't need it to
go hunting. If you need an AR-15 to go shoot a deer, for goodness
sakes, you ought to stick to fishing. You obviously don't have the
skill necessary. To own it just to own it? Some do. They are
collectors, I imagine. But opening those sales to 18-, 19-, or 20-year-
olds makes no sense whatsoever, and that is what the students from
Parkland and around the country are saying today. I couldn't agree with
them more.
As for high-capacity magazines, why do you need 30 rounds? Why do you
need 60 rounds? What is that all about? It is being used in weapons
that are designed to kill other human beings--not just a few, but many.
As for bump stocks, I never heard of a bump stock until a few months
ago, when the Las Vegas mass shooting occurred, killing innocent people
at a country and western concert. We have banned machine guns in
America for decades. Well, leave it to the firearm manufacturers. They
found a way to create a mechanism that takes a semiautomatic weapon--
meaning that you have to pull the trigger each time for each round--and
turns it essentially into an automatic weapon, where you can hold the
trigger and use the recoil and it just sprays the bullets until you
empty the magazine, with something called a bump stock.
I can't imagine why we haven't just flat out passed a bill to ban
bump stocks after what happened in Las Vegas, but this Congress, this
Senate is frozen by the gun lobby.
All across America today, young people are stepping up. I asked a
teacher, Ms. Posada, who testified before the Senate Judiciary
Committee today: What is it about the students in your school? Why have
they become such national leaders, outspoken on this issue and
inspirational on this issue to me?
She said: That is the way we trained them, to be part of an America
where they can participate and be a leader, and they are.
I encourage them to continue to put the pressure on all of us,
starting with President Trump, who may switch his position again. He
went from all for gun safety to the gun lobby position in a matter of
days. Maybe he will come back again to some more reasonable position.
Put the pressure on Congress too. We have run out of excuses, haven't
we?
[[Page S1722]]
More and more innocent Americans have been killed, and the best we can
come up with is that over 200 years ago, when some men sat down to
write our Bill of Rights, that Second Amendment gave the authority to
individuals to buy any and everything they want to buy in the name of
the right to bear arms. I don't think that is what they had in mind at
all.
We cannot continue to let the NRA and the gun lobby have veto power
over gun policy in America. We are facing an epidemic of violence with
hundreds of Americans shot every day--from Commander Bauer in Chicago;
to the kids in Parkland, FL; to Las Vegas; to DeKalb, IL. The list goes
on and on and on. We have to put the safety of our kids and our
neighborhoods ahead of the gun lobby's agenda, which is just to sell
more guns.
We have to have the courage as a Senate to bring a bill to the floor
and to open it to amendments. We don't do that anymore in the Senate.
There was a time when the Senate was a great deliberative body, and now
the Senate is not. The silence of the Senate, when it comes to this gun
safety issue, is deafening. Americans know it well, and the question
now is whether we will do everything within our power to reduce the
number of shootings, to keep our communities safe, and to spare more 6-
year-old first graders that horrible lesson they may remember forever--
to hit the floor when the shooter comes in the classroom.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). The Senator from Texas.
Fix NICS Bill
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have listened to the remarks of our
distinguished colleague from Illinois who is the Democratic whip. I
agree with a number of things he says and disagree with some others,
but I do think we need to keep this in the appropriate context. We are,
in fact, talking about a provision of the Bill of Rights, the Second
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and I hope we would never treat any
of those essential guarantees of American rights that precede the
creation of our government casually. It is important that we protect
all of our rights. The right to worship according to the dictates of
our conscience, the right to petition our government for the redress of
just grievances, the freedom of association, and the freedom of the
press are also part of the Bill of Rights, just like the Second
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
There are a number of things that we can agree on, and I have been
talking about one of them for some time now--the so-called Fix NICS
bill. It is probably not very well-labeled or branded because ``NICS''
is short for the National Instant Criminal Background Check
System. Basically, what it does is fix the broken background check
system to make sure that convicted felons, people who have been
dishonorably discharged from the military, people who have been
adjudicated mentally ill, people who have committed acts of domestic
violence--and a number of other categories--cannot legally purchase
firearms. Why? Because current law prohibits it.
We have already passed those laws, but as we saw in Sutherland
Springs, TX, one Sunday morning not long ago, 26 people lost their
lives and 20 additional lives were forever changed when they were shot
by a gunman who had lied and obtained firearms when he was disqualified
under the law from purchasing them.
The FBI maintains the background check system, and it wasn't their
fault because the background check system is only as good as the
information that is uploaded into the background check system. When
somebody goes into a store and tries to purchase a firearm and lies,
the background check system catches them and they are denied that
purchase. That is how it is supposed to work.
Recently, the attitude among some here in Washington seems to be that
this bill somehow doesn't go far enough. There are other ideas I am
more than willing to debate and vote on, some of which I actually agree
with, but none have the bipartisan consensus and support that this
particular Fix NICS bill has.
I was just told that now we are up to 70 bipartisan cosponsors. In
other words, 70 out of 100 Senators, on a bipartisan basis, support
this fix to our broken background check system because they know that
if it had been working the way Congress had intended, 26 people would
still be alive in Sutherland Springs, TX, and 20 more who were shot and
wounded would not have had to suffer those grievous injuries and the
painful recovery.
For example, as the Democratic leader--as well as some others--has
said: ``If we only pass Fix NICS, we'll be right back here after the
next shooting, in nearly the same place.'' He said that ``we won't have
done our job.''
Well, as I said, if there are other things that enjoy broad
bipartisan consensus, let's get them done. But if the attitude is that
we will not even vote on what we agree on because we want to do more,
we will never get anything done around here. Why not vote on what we
have agreed on, what people are supporting, and then, in addition, we
can work on other ideas.
As I said, at least 36 Senate Democrats have already cosponsored the
Fix NICS bill. That is 75 percent of the Democratic caucus, and the
numbers have been steadily rising. I hope they will go even higher.
I am grateful to the Democratic leader from New York. He, himself, is
a cosponsor of the bill, as is the Senate majority leader, Mr.
McConnell. I have never seen a piece of legislation involving a
controversial subject like gun rights get such broad bipartisan
support. It is truly unique. We ought to be grateful we have found a
place where we have such broad bipartisan agreement and, more important
than that, a provision that will save lives in the future.
If the shooter at Sutherland Springs had gone into the gun store to
purchase a gun and he lied, had the background check system worked as
it was supposed to work, he would not have been able to legally
purchase a gun because it would have revealed the fact that he was
disqualified from doing so.
Each of these tragedies involves different circumstances. The
shooters are always different. They obtain firearms in particular ways
and use them to perpetrate their crimes according to different plans
and in different settings.
I have already talked about the shooter in Sutherland Springs, who
actually was convicted of a felony after choking and kicking his wife
and cracking his stepson's skull. He was discharged dishonorably from
the military. He was detained in a mental health facility because he
was mentally ill. Yet he was able to lie his way into possession of
these firearms, forever changing the world of innumerable families in
Sutherland Springs, TX.
Under Federal law, he should have been prevented from purchasing
these firearms. Were it not for the breakdown in our background check
system, he wouldn't have obtained them. He would have been caught lying
when trying to buy these firearms and possibly prosecuted, and 26
people would still be living their lives, and the people who were
worshipping that Sunday morning at the First Baptist Church in
Sutherland Springs would still be doing so in that same location. It
has now been turned into a memorial for those who lost their lives that
day.
This is preventable loss of life. That is more than enough reason to
pass Fix NICS. I disagree with those who say that it doesn't do much.
If it saves lives, it does plenty. If our system had worked properly--
and ensuring it does in the future is what my bill aims to do--
Annabelle Pomeroy, the 14-year-old daughter of the pastor at First
Baptist, would still be here, and Ryland Ward, a 6-year-old boy who
survived, would not have been shot five times.
It is simply incorrect to characterize this bill as a pittance. It is
inaccurate to suggest that it really wouldn't do anything, that it
somehow is just window dressing or maybe a political fig leaf. That is
demonstrably false. Tell that to the families who lost loved ones that
day. They wish our background check system had stopped the gunman. Each
of them suffered a terrible trauma because it didn't.
It is also not true to say that Washington has been feckless or
absent in the wake of not only Sutherland Springs but Las Vegas,
Parkland, and all the rest.
On the issue of bump stocks, I agree with the Democratic whip, the
Senator from Illinois. These attachments to a semiautomatic rifle
turned it into an
[[Page S1723]]
automatic rifle. I have never heard of such a thing before, but if
automatic weapons are already illegal, why in the world would we want
to allow an appliance attached to a gun to turn a semiautomatic weapon
into an automatic weapon? I am glad the President has said that those
should be regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and
be unavailable.
We know that a lot of people lost their lives in Las Vegas; 58
concertgoers in Las Vegas lost their lives because of a man in a hotel
room, shooting down into a country music concert. There were 851 people
injured. The scope of the carnage was unbelievable.
We have also learned that mental health problems are some of the
reasons people do these sorts of things. We passed a law, most notably
last December, called the 21st Century Cures Act, which provides new
authority for families, when their loved ones are becoming a danger to
themselves or others, to apply to a court to get assisted outpatient
treatment to make sure they follow their doctors' orders and take their
medications. Then we train law enforcement on how to save lives in the
event of an active shooter incident.
We know the problem at Sutherland Springs was that the Federal
Government hadn't uploaded the information into the background check
system, which would have prevented the purchase of the firearm. But we
know the problem is present, as well, in the States.
In Ohio, we learned that there have been failures to upload
conviction records from at least 90 municipal courts--one that may have
allowed those barred from owning weapons to purchase them in violation
of the law.
Since the shooting in Texas, the Department of Defense has
retroactively uploaded 4,000 additional records of those dishonorably
discharged from the military into the background check system. Under
current law, these are people already prohibited from purchasing
firearms, but, of course, if the military didn't upload them, no one
would ever know, and they would be able to lie and purchase firearms.
One news account stated that since 2015, the number of people barred
from owning firearms because they were dishonorably discharged has
hovered at around 11,000 people, according to FBI statistics. Now it
stands at over 15,000. It is clear evidence that the background check
system isn't working the way it is supposed to. We need to make sure
that Federal agencies are uploading these records in real time, as they
are required to do.
We are taking action in other ways. I am also cosponsor of a
bipartisan bill called the NICS Denial Notification Act. It is
sponsored by a bipartisan pair of Senators--the Senators from
Pennsylvania and Delaware. This bill will alert State law enforcement
about people who lie and try to buy guns. If people go in and lie, the
background check system catches them, and then they are turned away.
Under current practice, that is never reported to the law enforcement
agencies, but it would be if that legislation were passed. When people
do this, their actions may be indicative of criminal behavior. That is
why the bill would insist that Federal authorities notify State police
within 24 hours if it is determined a person has lied in an attempt to
buy a gun.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General has announced that U.S. attorneys
will be instructed to more aggressively enforce laws that criminalize
gun buyers who lie on their background checks. I think all of this will
help be a deterrent, and, yes, I do think it will contribute to the
saving of lives.
The Justice Department will also increase the presence of law
enforcement officers at schools and review the way they respond to
public tip-offs with regard to safety threats.
We know the shooting in Parkland, FL, was a catastrophic failure at
almost every level--from the public education system, to local law
enforcement, to the FBI, to mental health providers. Looking back at
this shooter, local law enforcement actually intervened with him about
40 times. This was a blinking red light. People should have paid
attention and done something about it. We are now trying to make sure
they have the resources and the training necessary to intervene when
people are obviously a danger to themselves and others.
One way we are going to do that is with the bill offered by the
senior Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch--the STOP School Violence Act. This
bill would authorize $50 million annually for safety improvements,
including teacher training and training students on how to prevent
violence and developing anonymous reporting systems for threats of
school violence. It would give schools money for physical improvements,
such as metal detectors or bulletproof windows or doors. This is a
great step. It is not controversial, and we ought to get it done and
get it done now.
As the President has said: ``We cannot merely take actions that make
us feel like we are making a difference. We must actually make a
difference.'' One way we can do that is by passing Fix NICS.
Just this afternoon, a diverse community of victims' rights groups,
law enforcement officers, gun violence prevention groups, and
prosecutors sent a letter to the minority and majority leaders, asking
them for a vote on a clean version of Fix NICS before the upcoming
Easter recess. They said it would ``improve key elements of the
background system, particularly domestic violence criminal history and
protective order records.'' That is really an important point because
so much of the gun violence we see in America is in the context of
domestic violence--people violating protective orders, people
assaulting the person they are married to or living with. We need to
focus on this and do something about it.
This group of victims' rights advocates, law enforcement officers,
gun violence prevention groups, and prosecutors call the Fix NICS bill
a bipartisan, bicameral, commonsense, and noncontroversial bill. So why
can't we pass it? Why can't we do it today?
They made a point to note in their letter that the vote should be
clean; in other words, not conditioned upon or attached to other
controversial measures we can't pass. I think they are absolutely
right. I hope all of us will listen to this good advice and get this
done.
We tried to get an agreement a couple of weeks ago to take up the
bill and vote on it. If we did it today, it would pass this afternoon,
but there was an objection to doing so, saying, well, there are other
things we need to do too. Perhaps that is true, but to condition what
can pass--what does enjoy broad bipartisan support and what will save
lives--on things that will not pass and that aren't achievable means we
have a strategy of either everything or failure. That usually ends up
with us going back home emptyhanded, having nothing to show for our
efforts.
The people we represent deserve better. This institution should step
up and listen to those who are calling upon us to do something, and
doing something that will save lives, while respecting the rights of
all Americans under the Constitution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, 10 years ago today, March 14, Bear Stearns
was on the verge of collapse. Despite its 85-year history, despite its
relationship with nearly every bank on Wall Street, the bank suddenly
found itself on the brink. On this very day, March 14, Bear Stearns
lost $3.5 billion in market value. The bank was in the midst of a free
fall. In the course of one week, Bear Stearns went from trading for $65
per share to being bought for $2 a share in a sweetheart deal
orchestrated by the Fed over the course of a weekend. Nearly overnight,
one of Wall Street's most prestigious, almost 100-year-old banks fell
apart.
Across the country, families sat at their kitchen tables and started
to wonder: Will one of us lose our job? Will we have to move? Will we
be able to retire? Will we lose our house? Will we be able to send our
kids to college? On this day 10 years ago--March 14, 2008--a headline
from CNN read: ``Job Losses: The Worst in Five Years.'' The story
talked about how the economy was hemorrhaging jobs. The article warned
that the crisis was building, quoting one analyst who said the real
estate and credit crunch ``was whipping its way through the U.S.
economy like a Midwestern tornado.''
In hindsight, we know that things would get a lot worse before they
got better.
[[Page S1724]]
Some people say nobody could have possibly seen this coming. Some
people say the 2008 financial crisis was like the weather--like that
Midwestern tornado--something out of control that we wouldn't have
seen, but we know better.
Advocates in communities--the people who are actually dealing with
the consequences of this crisis--were sounding the alarm. For years
before the crisis, they predicted what would happen if Washington
didn't rein in Wall Street, and clearly they were right.
A few people in Washington, like Ned Gramlich, saw the problem for
what it was; that Washington didn't stop the crisis, after it began,
after it intensified--Congress at least responded. We passed a law that
created important protections for the financial system, for taxpayers,
for homeowners to hold banks and watchdogs accountable to prevent
another crisis, but Wall Street wasn't even close to being ready to
quit. There was no contrition. Nobody went to jail. In fact, on the day
that President Obama signed Wall Street reform--what we know as Dodd-
Frank--on the day that bill was signed into law, the top financial
service lobbyists in this town said: Now it is half time.
Now, what would that mean: Now it is half time? It meant they lost
the first half. They lost the battle where people in this Congress
actually had the guts and the backbone and sloughed off their campaign
contributions and were unwilling to listen to bank lobbyists tell them
what to do. They stood up to the bank lobbyists and stood up to Wall
Street and they did the right thing, but this lobbyist said it was half
time. So the lobbyists lost the first half, but they were back at it,
going to the regulators, trying to convince the regulators to weaken
the rules and not implement the bill.
Not long ago, another bank lobbyist told us their game plan: ``We
don't want a seat at the table, we want the whole table.'' This bill
gives them that. The same group that warned us about the last crisis--
this is what I ask my colleagues to listen to. The same group that
warned us about the last crisis or that were the regulators who tried
to fix the last crisis--those same people are opposed to the bill the
Senate is considering today. That doesn't seem to matter to about 65 of
my colleagues.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the list of the range of civil rights, labor, and consumer advocacy
groups that oppose S. 2155.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
List of Current and Former Regulatory Officials and Experts Opposed to
S. 2155
Former Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee
Chairman Christopher Dodd,
Former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker,
Former Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo,
Former Federal Reserve Governor and Deputy Secretary of the
Department of the Treasury Sarah Bloom Raskin,
Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair,
Former Department of the Treasury Assistant Secretary for
Financial Institutions Michael Barr,
Former Special Advisor for Regulatory Policy to the
Department of the Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic
Finance Saule Omarova,
Former Counselor to Secretary of the Department of the
Treasury Antonio Weiss,
Former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England Paul Tucker
on behalf of the Systemic Risk Council,
FDIC Vice Chair Thomas Hoenig,
Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Gary
Gensler,
Former Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Phil Angelides.
List of Labor, Consumer, and Civil Rights Organizations Opposed to S.
2155
AFL-CIO;
AFSCME;
Americans for Financial Reform;
Better Markets, Part I and Part II;
Center for American Progress;
Center for Popular Democracy;
Center for Responsible Lending;
Consumer Federation of America;
Consumers Union;
CWA;
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights;
Mortgage Coalition (Center for Responsible Lending,
National Community Reinvestment Coalition, National Consumer
Law Center);
NAACP;
National Association of Consumer Advocates;
National Community Reinvestment Coalition;
Prosperity Now;
Public Citizen;
UAW;
Unidos;
Urban League;
US PIRG.
Mr. BROWN. People who cleaned up the last crisis are warning us not
to pass this bill. Experts from both parties are warning us, the
authors of Wall Street reform. Barney Frank said he would vote no if he
were in the Senate. Chris Dodd, in an op-ed today, writes that the
bill's changes amount to ``chipping away at the ability to conduct
comprehensive and effective oversight.''
Now, people are saying this isn't a major scale-back of Dodd-Frank,
but Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank both say they would vote no
because they recognize it as damaging to the work we all did.
Experts like Paul Volcker, head of the Federal Reserve; Sheila Bair,
head of FDIC, Republican appointment by President Bush, used to be
chief of staff for Senator Bob Dole; Dan Tarullo, who was effectively
the head of supervision of regulation for the Federal Reserve, wants us
to vote no. Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was at the Federal Reserve and then
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury; Gary Gensler, who is head of the
Commodities Future Trading Commission; Tom Hoenig, a Republican who is
at FDIC and earlier was the Fed president; Antonia Weiss at the
Treasury Department; Paul Tucker, international banker from England--
international regulator; Phil Angelides, a former California State
Treasurer who ran the Commission that examined what happened in the
bank crisis--they all wrote to the Senate. They all outlined a combined
28 pages' worth of concerns about this bill, and my colleagues just
say: Oh, this is just helping the small community banks and some of the
regional banks a little bit.
Well, not exactly. That is what happens here. We start off wanting to
help the small banks; we start off helping some of the midsized
regional banks that generally do a good job--banks like Huntington and
Fifth Third and Key Bank--but then Wall Street gets involved, and Wall
Street drives a bigger and bigger hole in this bill and gets more and
more help and more and more breaks and look where we are.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
letters from two of these financial experts.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The Volcker Alliance,
Working for Effective Government,
February 21, 2018.
Dear Senator Brown: I appreciate your letter seeking my
views on the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer
Protection Act, S. 2155. I am pleased that the Senate Banking
Committee has forged ahead with meaningful, bipartisan
financial reform to ease the unnecessary regulatory strain on
small banks, helping them flourish as an engine of economic
prosperity. I appreciate your leadership and dedication, and
that of Senator Crapo, to this bill over the last two years
and congratulate the bipartisan coalition of senators on the
Committee who have worked diligently to advance this
legislation.
Your letter sought my views on three sections of the bill.
Specifically: (1) Section 401, which would exempt some
important banks from stringent prudential standards, such as
those for capital, leverage, stress testing, and resolution
planning; (2) Section 402, which would relax leverage
limitations on custodial banks; and (3) Section 203, which
would exempt small banks from the Volcker Rule ban on
proprietary trading. I offer the following observations and
possible alternatives for your consideration.
First, section 401 would raise from $50 billion to $250
billion the asset threshold at which banks begin to face
increasingly tougher prudential standards. Eight years
following the passage of Dodd-Frank, it is appropriate to
reexamine whether the $50 billion asset threshold is set too
low. Indeed, there may be an opportunity to raise it without
endangering financial stability. However, an increase to $250
billion would go too far. It would have the effect of
substantially reducing the regulation of 25 of the 38 largest
banks to which these standards now apply, notably including
the operating subsidiaries of several large foreign banks.
Clearly the distress or failure of some of these banks
could trigger reactions spreading broadly to the financial
system. To take specific examples, Countrywide, National
City, and GMAC, standing well below the $250 billion mark, in
fact, required billions of dollars in official capital
assistance and debt guarantees either for themselves or their
acquiring institutions. Failure of the large U.S. operating
subsidiaries of foreign banks could pose similar risk. I urge
consideration
[[Page S1725]]
of raising the threshold to, say, $100 billion but building
in additional flexibility for regulators to implement the
standards below that.
Second, section 402 is a highly technical provision that
relates to so-called custodial banks, institutions that
specialize in safeguarding assets of their clients, including
mutual funds, pension funds, asset managers, and other
institutions. Given their size and importance to the
financial system, some such banks, of which the sizable BNY
Mellon and State Street stand out, are required to maintain a
minimum supplementary leverage ratio (``SLR''), a measure of
equity capital to total exposure.
Section 402 would mandate bank regulators to amend their
regulations to allow ``custodial banks'' to exclude deposits
they hold at the Federal Reserve and certain other central
banks when calculating their SLR. While there may be reasons
to adjust the SLR calculation for custodial banks, including
during a crisis to facilitate the banks' ability to serve as
a safe-haven for deposits, regulators already have broad
authority to make those adjustments. They also are best
positioned to decide how and when to exercise that
discretion.
Section 402 does so preemptively, reducing leverage capital
requirements for at least two of the most systemically
important custodial banks by as much as 30 percent at a time
when they should be building their capital cushion. It also
would put Congress under pressure to expand the exclusion.
Claims will be sure to arise that other banks in competition
with the big custodial banks should have similar capital
relief: that temptation should be resisted.
Finally, section 203 would exempt from the Volcker Rule
banks with assets of less than $10 billion and whose trading
assets and liabilities are no more than five percent of total
assets. I'm in strong agreement with the aim of reducing
unnecessary regulatory burdens on traditional community
banks, not just from the Volcker Rule, but also more broadly.
Community banks play a vital role in serving the needs of
small businesses and do not require the full panoply of
regulation or frequent full-scale examination.
An alternative to section 203 would be to simply relieve
small banks from demonstrating compliance with the rule,
while, at the same time tasking the bank regulators in their
normal supervisory roles to detect persistent violations and
demand remediation. This would have the advantage of
preventing a small bank or a group of small banks protected
by the Federal bank ``safety net'' from benefitting from
risky proprietary trading activity. I know from my long
experience in banking and savings and loan regulation that
plausibly small loopholes can be ``gamed'' and exploited with
unfortunate consequences.
I thank you for the opportunity to comment on this
important piece of legislation and look forward to its swift
passage.
Sincerely,
Paul A. Volcker.
____
Harvard Law School,
Cambridge, MA, March 5, 2018.
Hon. Michael Crapo,
Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Hon. Sherrod Brown,
Ranking Member, Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban
Affairs, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Crapo and Senator Brown: As we approach the
tenth anniversary of the height of the financial crisis, it
is critical that we not lose sight of the core concerns that
rightly motivated members of both parties to seek regulatory
mechanisms to guard against systemic risk and to promote
financial stability. With the pending consideration of S.
2155 by the full Senate, I wanted to take this opportunity to
reiterate some of the points about the regulatory structure
we have discussed in the past, especially as they apply to
this bill.
While S. 2155 begins from the sound premise that some
refinements are desirable in the way various statutory
requirements have been tailored, I have a number of
disagreements with specifics of the bill. Rather than
rehearse all of those, I want to focus on the three features
that raise particular concerns about financial stability, in
hopes that they could be omitted or at least clarified. As I
will explain in more detail below, I would urge the following
changes:
1. Clarification that banking organizations with assets
between $100 and $250 billion will continue to be subject to
the annual stress test and CCAR process of the Federal
Reserve;
2. Clarification that the higher section 165 threshold
established by the bill applies to the worldwide assets of
foreign banking organizations; and
3. Deletion of Section 402 of the bill, which would make
certain changes to leverage ratio requirements.
With respect to the first two of these changes, while there
is widespread--though by no means universal--agreement that
the $50 billion level is too low a threshold for many of the
section 165 requirements, there is considerable disagreement
over how much it should be raised. There is a case to be made
for the $250 billion level chosen in S. 2155, though
personally I think that is too high. In considering how to
raise the threshold, the most important consideration is to
align enhanced prudential standards with the risks to safety
and soundness and financial stability actually associated
with various groups of banks.
As you know, I have for several years advocated a limited
number of changes to the statutory thresholds established in
the Dodd-Frank Act for certain additional regulatory
requirements. My reason for suggesting these changes was my
conclusion, both from my own analysis and from discussions
with supervisory staff when I was still a member of the Board
of Governors of the Federal Reserve, that the benefits of
some of the important prudential requirements added by Dodd-
Frank were considerably less significant for the smaller
banks within the range established by the different
thresholds. In these instances, it seems better policy to
allocate more of the risk management and compliance resources
of banks, and of the supervisory resources of the banking
agencies, to the important risks actually faced by banks of a
certain size and activity mix. For instance, the expense
incurred by small banks with minimal trading assets and
liabilities just to ensure that they are complying with
Volcker Rule regulatory exemptions seems quite
disproportionate to any safety and soundness benefits.
When it comes to the threshold for the more stringent
prudential standards mandated by Section 165 of Dodd-Frank,
this same calculation should apply. That is, which of these
requirements deliver significant safety and soundness
benefits for particular sizes of banks? The answer, I
concluded after several years of experience, is that the 165
requirements deliver relatively small benefits for the safety
and soundness of banks that currently have between $50 and
$100 billion in assets, and many deliver only moderate
benefits for banks somewhat above that size. For example,
special liquidity requirements (on top of normal supervisory
assessments of liquidity management) seemed of limited
prudential utility for medium-sized commercial banks engaged
in the conventional business of taking deposits and making
loans.
But S. 2155 calls into question the post-crisis prudential
measure that is essential for the safety and soundness of
these banks, and for the stability of the financial system in
the face of major asset shocks. Section 401(e) of the bill as
reported out of Committee instructs the Federal Reserve to
conduct supervisory stress tests of banks with between $100
and $250 billion ``on a periodic basis.'' This provision is
obviously meant to indicate that these banks are not exempted
from the stress testing requirements created by Section 165.
Yet the provision is quite vague, with little indication of
what kind of test is contemplated for these banks. This
language might be interpreted benignly, simply to indicate
that this set of banks will remain in the stress testing
program even though they will have been removed from other
section 165 requirements. Of more concern is an
interpretation that these banks not be in the stress test
every year, though the results of the test--whenever it is
conducted--could still be used as the analytic basis for the
general authority of federal banking agencies to set capital
requirements on a bank specific basis. And then there is a
very troublesome interpretation that these banks not be in
the current Federal Reserve stress testing process, including
the Comprehensive Capital Annual Review (CCAR). Instead, they
would be in some different, ill-defined kind of stress
testing program.
Although liquidity and concentration limits beyond those
applicable under pre-existing statutory requirements for
insured depository institutions are only obliquely related to
the risks faced by banks currently in this size range,
capital shortfalls are a risk. Loans gone bad, with the
resulting impairment of capital positions, are the principal
risk associated with the traditional lending that dominates
the activities of most of these banks.
A number of banks of this size received TARP funds in late
2008 in order to buttress their capital positions. While
other, smaller banks also received TARP funds, the difference
is precisely in the aggregate size of this group of banks.
Together, just the domestically owned firms falling in this
range hold $1.5 trillion in assets (compared to less than
$300 billion in assets for those between $50 and $100
billion). There is good reason to believe that these regional
lending institutions share the risks associated with shocks
to commercial real estate prices, residential real estate
prices, and the financial situation of consumers. Thus there
could also be systemic implications of stress among this
group of banks. The current CCAR program of the Federal
Reserve helps build the resiliency of banks to these serious
problems, thereby decreasing the chances of systemic stress
or the unavailability of lending to even creditworthy
businesses and households that results when the capital
positions of banks are compromised.
To remove this protective measure would be to undermine a
key achievement of the post-crisis period. Accordingly, as
the first feature of the bill that should be changed, I urge
the Senate, should it proceed with this legislation, to
remove any ambiguity as to whether these banks will remain in
the quantitative side of the CCAR program on an annual basis.
The Federal Reserve has already exempted these banks from the
qualitative part of the CCAR and has taken steps to simplify
some of the procedural and reporting requirements associated
with it. I suspect the Board of Governors would be amenable
to doing more along these lines. But we should not risk the
improvement in
[[Page S1726]]
the resiliency of the U.S. financial system that the stress
testing program has brought about by ensuring that regulatory
capital requirements take into account the changing economic
and financial risks faced by sizeable banks that together
provide credit to large proportions of American households
and businesses.
The second feature of the bill that raises concerns of a
systemic nature is also related to the $250 billion
threshold, as it applies to foreign banking organizations
operating in the United States. As you know, since the
financial crisis the Board of Governors has required certain
foreign banking organizations with more than $50 billion in
assets other than branch assets to establish intermediate
holding companies in the United States. (Some foreign banking
organizations already had such holding companies.) In raising
the $50 billion threshold to $250 billion, the bill may raise
the question as to whether foreign banking organizations with
less than $250 billion must now be excluded from the
application of section 165 requirements.
I should say first that I do not think this is the best
reading of the wording of S. 2155. That is, I think the best
reading is that worldwide assets of large foreign banks are
be the basis for determining if they are covered by section
165, with the Board of Governors having continuing authority
to determine what level of U.S. assets of these large global
banks is the appropriate threshold for section 165 regulatory
measures promulgated in its regulations. I understand that
Chairman Powell indicated something along these lines in his
Senate testimony last week. However, it does appear that
there are other interpretations being advanced, including by
Secretary Mnuchin, whose testimony before the Senate Banking
Committee in January seemed to suggest that foreign banking
organizations with between $50 and $250 billion in assets in
the United States would be exempted from Section 165
prudential measures by S. 2155.
This result would be a grave regulatory mistake, one that
is almost incomprehensible in light of experience during the
financial crisis and the profile of many large foreign
banking organizations in the United States today. As I
explained above, many of the special section 165 requirements
are not especially relevant to nearly all the U.S. banks
currently holding less than $250 billion in assets. But that
is precisely because they are traditional commercial banks,
taking deposits and making loans. The U.S. operations of many
foreign banking organizations, on the other hand, contain
substantial proportions of assets in broker dealers and other
non-traditional-banking operations, where funding runs,
cross-activity counterparty exposures, and resolution
challenges are very significant risks. Indeed, the broker-
dealer operations of many of these banks are more significant
in the United States than in their home countries. They are
also susceptible to having their parents seek dollars from
them in order to meet obligations of parts of the foreign
banking organizations outside the United States.
Moreover, in sheer dollar terms, the group of foreign
banking organizations with between $100 and $250 billion is a
very important part of the U.S. financial system, holding
about $1.4 trillion in assets. Some of the foreign banking
organizations falling in this category are among those that
were most affected by the financial crisis; some have
encountered significant problems since then. U.S. regulators
do not have a window into the global liquidity positions, or
authority over the global risk management practices, of these
firms.
Again, like Chairman Powell I believe the best reading of
S. 2155 is that it does not affect the authority of the
Federal Reserve to apply section 165 standards, as
appropriate, on foreign banking organizations with over $250
billion in worldwide assets--the change from current law
being that it would not be required to do so for foreign
banking organizations with between $50 and $250 billion in
worldwide assets. But, given the enormous gap in the
regulation of systemically important foreign banking
operations in the United States that would result from a
different interpretation by a regulator or court in the
future, it is very important that this ambiguity be
clarified. In an environment in which judicial deference to
the interpretation of a possibly ambiguous statute by the
administering agency is no longer so predictable, it is
incumbent on Congress to eliminate such ambiguity wherever
possible.
The third feature of the bill that raises potentially
systemic concerns is section 402, which contains an oddly
and, I think, inappropriately targeted change in the leverage
ratio applied by the banking agencies. Removing funds
deposited with central banks from the denominator of the
leverage ratio only for banks ``predominantly engaged'' in
the custody business is troublesome for at least two reasons.
First, removing any assets from the denominator risks
sliding down the slippery slope of removing others. While
central bankers may argue their interests in not having
monetary policy affected at all, treasuries and finance
ministries may then argue their interests in not having
sovereign debt included. And, as we have already seen in the
Treasury Department's report in June 2017, some will go even
further, such as by arguing that margins posted in central
clearing facilities should be excluded, presumably to
encourage more central clearing. While these proposed
exclusions may be justified on the ground that the assets in
question are utterly risk-free (a clearly incorrect
proposition for central clearing margin), that argument
misconstrues the rationale of a leverage ratio, which is
precisely to serve as a backup mode of capital regulation by
measuring and controlling total leverage, not riskiness.
Going down this path of excluding assets from the denominator
would, in addition to being ill-advised legislative policy,
threaten the post-crisis improvement in the leverage of major
U.S. banks.
Second, it is hard to see the rationale for excluding a
particular type of asset from the denominator of the leverage
ratio only by reference to a bank's dominant form of activity
in ``custody, safekeeping, and asset servicing.'' Banks other
than custody banks engage in this activity. Taking this kind
of approach is very much out of keeping with the
traditional--and wise--practice of Congress in avoiding
legislating the details of capital requirements. It will
invite lobbying efforts for changing other details and,
thereby, risk both the coherence and the integrity of
regulatory capital requirements.
As I think you know, I am sympathetic to the situation of
State Street and Bank of New York. But, as I have suggested
previously, there is a much sounder way to address that
situation. Their difficulties stem from the fact that the 2%
enhanced supplemental leverage ratio add-on is applicable to
all eight systemically important U.S. banks, whereas the
risk-weighted capital surcharge varies based on the systemic
importance of each bank. Thus State Street and Bank of New
York have, in effect, higher leverage ratio ``surcharges''
than they do risk-weighted surcharges. This reverses what
should be, and has been, the traditional role of the leverage
ratio as a back-up to guard against excessive leverage build
up in good economic times that can come to grief in bad ones
(though the crisis revealed the pre-crisis leverage ratio
requirement, like risk-weighted capital requirements, to be
insufficiently robust). Modifying the enhanced supplemental
leverage ratio requirement by stipulating that it would not
exceed the risk-weighted surcharge, or by making it
proportional to that surcharge would be a much more
defensible policy approach.
My understanding, based on public statements from Federal
Reserve officials, is that the banking agencies are planning
to make changes to the leverage ratio. I anticipate that
those changes will relieve the State Street and Bank of New
York situations, though I hope without going so far as to
erode the value of the leverage ratio more generally by
encouraging the untrammeled growth of repo and other short-
term, runnable funding back closer to pre-crisis levels. In
any case, this anticipated action by the regulatory agencies
should address the situation of the clearings banks without
the damage to the framework for capital regulation which that
Section 402 would entail.
To recapitulate: In the interests of protecting financial
stability and guarding against systemic risk, I would urge
the Senate to:
1. Make clear that banks with between $100 and $250 billion
in assets will continue to subject to CCAR stress testing and
resulting capital distribution constraints;
2. Make clear that foreign banking organizations with $250
billion or more in worldwide assets are subject to more
stringent prudential restraints within the discretion of the
Board of Governors; and
3. Remove Section 402.
Thank you for your consideration of these admittedly
lengthy comments on S. 2155. As always, please let me know if
I can be of any further assistance.
Sincerely,
Daniel K. K. Tarullo.
Mr. BROWN. So the question is, Why do we ignore these pleas? Let's
recap the problems with this legislation.
First, the bill puts American taxpayers at risk of another bank
bailout. It weakens stress tests for all large banks. In spite of what
my colleagues say, everybody that has commented on this bill--so many
experts that have commented on this bill understand that this is not
just about community banks; it is not just about the regional midsized
that go up to $250 billion. We can stress test for all large banks;
JPMorgan Chase, $2.5 trillion in assets; Bank of America, $2.3
trillion; Wells Fargo, $1.9 trillion. As if they haven't had enough--
done enough, made enough mistakes, violated the public trust enough
times. Citigroup, $1.9 trillion. These four banks--JPMorgan, Bank of
America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup--hold 51 percent, more than half of
all industry assets, $8.6 trillion.
These banks have had a really good run since the crisis, since the
bailout. Remember, people didn't go to jail even though people in my
ZIP Code, in my community, in my State and in Pennsylvania and all over
the country--people lost savings, their homes, and their jobs. These
banks, which are more profitable than they have ever been in the last
couple of years, got a huge tax break just last December, and now we
are doing them a favor by weakening the stress test. All the country's
biggest banks took about
[[Page S1727]]
$239 billion in taxpayer bailouts. Without rigorous annual stress
tests, taxpayers can once again be on the hook if too-big-to-fail banks
collapse and we don't have the right tools in place to see it coming.
Second, this bill opens the door to weaker oversight of foreign
megabanks operating in the United States, the same banks that
repeatedly violated U.S. law. These are banks like Deutsche Bank in
Germany, the Trump business organization's personal bank; Santander in
Spain, Barclays in Britain, Credit Suisse, and UBS in Switzerland.
These are banks that violated Iran sanctions. They are banks that
repossessed cars from American service men and women who were serving
overseas. These are banks that were fined by the Federal Government,
and we are doing these foreign banks a favor in this bill.
Third, with the change of just one word, this bill forces the Fed to
weaken the rules even for the largest banks with more than $250 billion
in assets. Former CFTC Chair Gary Gensler wrote to the Senate this
month and said this change ``may subject the government to additional
lobbying and possible litigation from individual banks seeking
specially tailored rules.''
We know all of these regulators put in place by the Trump
administration--most of them with ties to Wall Street, and we know the
White House now looks like an executive retreat for Wall Street
executives--we know these regulators are going to bend over backward
for the big banks, and if they don't, they are going to be sued by the
foreign banks and by other big banks to open up those loopholes even
more.
Senator Dodd, one of the authors of the original bill, identified
this $250 billion threshold as the No. 1 reason he can't support the
bill. He said: ``It raises the danger of a cascading economic effect.''
Fourth, this bill makes another change to allow big banks to borrow
more money than they can afford, which, once again, puts taxpayers and
our economy at risk. The New York Times described this provision as
weakening rules ``aimed at keeping banks from being able to take big
risks without properly preparing for disaster.''
The Washington Post reported that JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup may
get a combined $30 billion windfall--$30 billion windfall--if this
provision passes. I am not making this up. This is what analysts are
saying this bill will do.
Fifth, this bill chips away at key mortgage rules put in place after
the last crisis. It includes provisions that weaken transparency,
inclusiveness, and fairness in mortgage lending. The bill makes it
easier for lenders to mislead families into mortgages they can't
afford, and takes away those families' right to take the bank to court.
It strips away key data used to monitor trends in mortgage lending and
spot discrimination against communities of color.
There was an amendment to fix that from Senator Cortez Masto that the
Republicans will not allow us to offer.
We know that in too many places across the country, people of color
are far more likely to be turned down for a loan for no good reason.
Without this data, we will not know when that redlining is happening.
Sixth--and this may be the most awful of all. For reasons I can't
even pretend to understand, this bill helps Equifax. It is the same
Equifax that let hackers steal 148 million Americans' personal data.
More than half the adults in this country had their personal data
breached because of Equifax--their birth dates, Social Security
numbers, and addresses--the same Equifax whose former executive was
just today charged with insider trading for dumping his stocks just
before the company announced its data breach failure.
In exchange for a small provision helping servicemembers watch their
credit, this bill forces them to give up their right to take Equifax to
court the next time the company's recklessness exposes sensitive
financial data.
If that weren't bad enough, the bill also gives Equifax a big new
business opportunity. This will give a company that put half the
American population at risk of identify theft the power to decide who
can get a mortgage.
What do the American people get in exchange for these goodies to big
banks and to Equifax? They get to pick up the check. The Congressional
Budget Office confirmed that this bill would increase the probability
of a big bank failure and a financial crisis adding to the deficit.
Even after the addition of language offsetting some of the costs of
this bill, the legislation would increase the deficit by $455 million.
Let me repeat that. The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office found
that this bill will increase the probability of a big bank failure and
a financial crisis. So don't tell me this bill doesn't roll back Dodd-
Frank for the biggest banks.
In this town, no one seems to be able to find a single dollar when we
need to solve our pension crisis or invest in infrastructure or remove
toxic lead from kids' homes, but when the Big Bank lobbyists come
calling, the Senate waives its budget rules to do Wall Street's
bidding.
Let me also remind my colleagues how hard it was to enact the reforms
we passed after the last crisis.
Do you remember that lobbyist said that it was only halftime after
one of the few times in this body's recent history that Wall Street
actually lost, when we did the right thing 10 years ago?
In the move up to that bill, the Senate considered 14 separate
Republican amendments, where there were votes taken, to Dodd-Frank and
another 12 from Democrats. Of those 26 amendments, 5 of them were
adopted, 5 Republican amendments, 10 Democratic amendments. They were
voted on in a Senate where the Democrats were in the majority and gave
both parties the opportunity to amend the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. During the conference committee, televised live on C-SPAN
for 48 hours, 17 Senate Republican amendments were accepted and 22
amendments from Senate Democrats. Contrast that with today: No
subsequent amendments were adopted. I credit Chairman Crapo for at
least allowing amendments, but that is as far as it went. On the Senate
floor, it has been worse. Democrats and Republicans alike were
completely shut down, not able to offer a single amendment.
We know how this place has worked the last year. All decisions are
made down the hall in the majority leader's office. The tax bill was
written there. The healthcare bill was written there. This bill was
written in a way that there are no amendments allowed on the floor, no
debate, no deliberation, no changes.
Lastly, fundamentally, the problem with this bill is that we are
entrusting the profiteers from the last crisis, the deniers of the last
crisis, with implementing big-bank giveaways. I am not willing to put
blind trust in the people who failed us before. Regulators Quarles,
Mulvaney, Otting, and Mnuchin are the people we are expecting to
regulate and save us from another bailout, save us from another
financial crisis, and save us from another implosion in our economy.
These are the people who failed us so spectacularly in the past, with
such grave consequences, and we are expecting them to protect us the
next time. Nothing in their public record has earned them this trust.
This is the collective amnesia crowd--the crowd who forgets what I
talked about at the beginning of the speech about what happened 10
years ago--but Ohio families haven't forgotten. People across this
country still struggle. People who have lost savings haven't been able
to entirely rebuild them. People who lost jobs are often in lower
paying jobs as a result. People who lost their homes--in my part of
Cleveland, I still see the devastation caused by this financial crisis,
the tens of thousands of homes in Greater Cleveland that were
foreclosed on. These are the people we are sent here to serve. What
this bill does for them and the issues facing their lives is impossible
to see.
I urge my colleagues to reject this bill. I urge my colleagues to
fundamentally ask themselves whose side they
[[Page S1728]]
are on. Are you going to vote yes on this and side with special
interests and Wall Street, or are you going to vote no and side with
taxpayers and homeowners and students and workers?
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, the time to vote has come, and we are a few
minutes over. This is one of those times when the Senate is on a very
tight timeline, so I will have the majority of my speech put into the
Record. I just wanted to respond in one quick way to some of the
comments my colleague from Ohio has just made.
A lot of attacks on this floor have been made saying that this bill
rolls back the regulatory authority of the Federal Reserve and exposes
all of our large banks to much greater risk or much less supervision
than they would have had before and on and on. We knew these attacks
were coming. They came in the Banking Committee when we had the markup
on this bill.
Basically, I want to read a series of questions and answers I had
with the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve about these types of
allegations being made about the bill--a bill which is designed to deal
with credit unions and community banks and the smaller sector of our
economy, not the big banks--all these attacks about rolling back the
protections against big banks.
I asked Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell whether it was accurate,
if this bill were passed, that the Federal Reserve would still be
required to conduct supervisory stress tests for any bank with total
assets between $150 billion and $250 billion to ensure that it has
enough capital to weather economic downturns.
He answered: Yes, it is.
I asked, if this bill were passed, whether it was accurate that the
Federal Reserve would still have sufficient authority to apply any
prudential standard--let me repeat that--any prudential standard to a
bank with between $100 billion and $250 billion in total assets if the
Fed determined that was appropriate.
He answered: Yes, that is true.
I asked whether it was accurate that this bill does not weaken
oversight of the largest globally systemic banks.
He answered, correctly, that yes, that was correct.
Then I asked whether it was accurate that the Federal Reserve applies
enhanced standards to international banks based on their global total
consolidated assets--meaning that our bill would not exempt banks like
Deutsche Bank and Santander from section 165 of Dodd-Frank.
He answered: That is correct.
I want to repeat this, because this keeps coming up. The Chairman of
the Federal Reserve said that this bill does not exempt G-SIB foreign
banks, such as Deutsche Bank and Santander, and that we do not
eliminate the ability of our Federal Reserve to correctly and properly
supervise our banks.
We are going to go back and forth over this, but this bill is
designed to protect community banks and credit unions. That is why we
have such bipartisan support for it.
Mr. President, we have been able to highlight the benefits of the
Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act on the
Senate Floor over the last week, and I am glad we have the opportunity
to continue that discussion this week.
I have been very encouraged by my colleagues' support for this
critical piece of legislation. I thank each of those Senators,
including many members of the Banking Committee, for their support,
interest, and involvement in the many discussions, hearings, and
personal conversations we have had to improve this bill. I also thank
all those who voted on the motion to invoke cloture on substitute
amendment No. 2151, as modified, to S. 2155.
Since the bill passed out of the Banking Committee, supporters have
worked in good faith to include provisions that different Members have
offered, including those who do not support the bill.
The substitute amendment we offered last week reflects the additional
provisions that the bill's supporters were able to agree on,
collectively.
To ensure that everyone understands what the substitute amendment
does, let me take a few minutes to explain the changes from the bill
that passed out of committee.
This amendment makes both technical and substantive changes to
further improve economic growth, regulatory relief, and consumer
protections.
This substitute makes changes to the appraisal provision in our bill
to add definitions and provide detail on criteria for efforts to
document and contact appraisers.
It also strengthens the HMDA provision by adding a ``bad actor''
prohibition, limiting the universe of lenders who can take advantage of
the relief to those that do not have ratings of ``need to improve'' on
their last two CRA exams or one rating of ``substantial non-
compliance'' on their last CRA exam.
It adds further consumer protections on who can take advantage of
transitional licenses and adds liability protections for government
officials who carry out their official duties.
It modifies a provision by raising the threshold from $15 billion to
$20 billion for those Federal savings associations that wish to take
advantage of charter conversions.
It modifies the existing provision dealing with applying the
Expedited Funds Availability Act, which governs bank deposit holds, to
add Guam to the list of American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands which would receive the benefit.
It clarifies the current international insurance provision so that
the Treasury, Fed, and Federal Insurance Office report to Congress on
studies regarding consumer and market impact of international insurance
capital standards is only required with respect to final standards.
It also changes the date at which point Treasury and Fed reporting
requirements on international insurance regulatory and supervisory
forums terminate from December 31, 2022, to December 31, 2024--this
aligns with the International Association of Insurance Supervisors'
planned timeframe for implementing its insurance capital standard.
It promotes construction and development on Main Street by ensuring
that the Federal Reserve appropriately treats certain commercial real
estate loans in its rules.
It helps reduce identity fraud by directing the Social Security
Administration to accept electronic signatures as consumer consent for
financial institutions trying to verify customer ID and root out
synthetic ID fraud.
It uses part of the Fed's discretionary surplus as a pay-for.
It expands the existing credit freeze provisions by increasing the
circumstances where Americans can get a free credit freeze, and
clarifies that an incapacitated person receives the same protections as
a minor under the age of 16.
It also adds a provision that gives free and ongoing credit
monitoring to Active Duty servicemembers who are serving and
sacrificing for our country.
It adds a provision which helps protect veterans from predatory
lending by requiring VA lenders to demonstrate a material benefit to
consumers when refinancing their mortgages.
It adds a section requiring Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to establish a
process for validating and approving credit score models, and requires
FHFA to establish standards and criteria for such processes.
The language requires that any credit score model must meet a series
of criteria related to predictiveness, accuracy, safety and soundness,
and other metrics in order to be approved, to ensure that this will not
undermine the quality of underwriting at Fannie and Freddie.
The substitute adds important reports: a GAO report on Puerto Rico
foreclosures; and a report on children's lead-based paint hazard
prevention and abatement, which is a serious issue in many of our
States.
It also makes permanent certain protections for members of uniformed
services under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.
It also makes further clarifications to the section about enhanced
supervision and prudential standards for certain banks, by lowering the
asset threshold above which banks have to pay assessments and requiring
the Fed
[[Page S1729]]
to adjust such charges to reflect the fact that the cost of supervision
and regulation of certain institutions will be reduced as a result of
this legislation.
It also clarifies that this bill does not affect the legal effect of
the Federal Reserve's final rule on foreign banking organizations, and
the bill does not limit the Federal Reserve's legal authority to
require intermediate holding companies, apply enhanced prudential
standards, or tailor regulations for certain foreign banking
organizations.
The amendment also adds a new Encouraging Capital Formation title,
which includes five capital formation and securities bills that passed
the Senate by unanimous consent last year, as well as a bill to help
companies take advantage of further ways to raise capital and ease
burdens on certain publicly traded investment companies.
Lastly, the bill provides additional protections for borrowers and
cosigners of private student loans, and requires the Treasury
Department to study and promulgate best practices for higher education
financial literacy.
All of these additions improve the bill and strengthen the core
themes of the existing provisions; namely, improving economic growth,
regulatory relief, and consumer protections.
I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this amendment.
Amendment No. 2152 Withdrawn
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. Chairman, before I yield, I withdraw my amendment No.
2152.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
The amendment is withdrawn.
Vote on Amendment No. 2151, as Modified
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to
amendment No. 2151, as modified.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 67, nays 31, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 51 Leg.]
YEAS--67
Alexander
Barrasso
Bennet
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Capito
Carper
Cassidy
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Flake
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hassan
Hatch
Heitkamp
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Jones
Kaine
Kennedy
King
Lankford
Lee
Manchin
McCaskill
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Nelson
Paul
Perdue
Peters
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott
Shaheen
Shelby
Stabenow
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Warner
Wicker
Young
NAYS--31
Baldwin
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Casey
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Harris
Hirono
Klobuchar
Leahy
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Smith
Udall
Van Hollen
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--2
Heinrich
McCain
The amendment (No. 2151), as modified, was agreed to.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No.
287, S. 2155, a bill to promote economic growth, provide
tailored regulatory relief, and enhance consumer protections,
and for other purposes.
Mitch McConnell, Tom Cotton, Bob Corker, Ron Johnson,
John Barrasso, Cory Gardner, Steve Daines, Mike Crapo,
Deb Fischer, Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Rounds, Jeff
Flake, John Kennedy, Johnny Isakson, James Lankford,
Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on S.
2155, a bill to promote economic growth, provide tailored regulatory
relief, and enhance consumer protections, and for other purposes, as
amended, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
Mr. DURBIN I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich)
is necessarily absent.
The PRESDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senator in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 67, nays 31, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 52 Leg.]
YEAS---67
Alexander
Barrasso
Bennet
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Capito
Carper
Cassidy
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Flake
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hassan
Hatch
Heitkamp
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Jones
Kaine
Kennedy
King
Lankford
Lee
Manchin
McCaskill
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Nelson
Paul
Perdue
Peters
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott
Shaheen
Shelby
Stabenow
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Warner
Wicker
Young
NAYS--31
Baldwin
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Casey
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Harris
Hirono
Klobuchar
Leahy
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Smith
Udall
Van Hollen
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--2
Heinrich
McCain
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 67, the nays are
31.
The motion is agreed to.
The Senator from Idaho.
Order of Procedure
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
stand in recess until 5:45 p.m. today; that when the Senate reconvenes,
all postcloture time be considered expired and the Senate vote on the
motion to waive; and that following the vote on the motion to waive,
the bill be read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the
bill, as amended.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________