[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17080-17082]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              TRANSACTION ACCOUNT GUARANTEE EXTENSION ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of S. 3637, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 3637) to temporarily extend the transaction 
     account guarantee program, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Reid amendment No. 3314, to change the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 3315 (to amendment No. 3314), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Reid motion to commit the bill to the Committee on Banking, 
     Housing, and Urban Affairs, with instructions, Reid amendment 
     No. 3316, to change the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 3317 (to (the instructions) amendment 
     No. 3316), of a perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 3318 (to amendment No. 3317), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, the pending measure, S. 3637, the 
Transaction Account Guarantee Act, exceeds the Banking Committee's 
section 302(a) allocation of new budget authority and outlays deemed by 
the Budget Control Act of 2011; therefore, I raise a point of order 
against this measure pursuant to section 302(f) of the Congressional 
Budget Act of 1974.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from South Dakota is 
recognized.
  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 
of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive all applicable 
sections of that act for purposes of the pending measure, 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. Under the previous order, the time until 12 
noon will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or 
their designees prior to a vote on the motion to waive the budget point 
of order.
  The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I support the budget point of order that 
has been raised, but let me just make a point. I had an amendment that 
would have kept this budget point of order from being a problem. The 
reason we are where we are is that both Republicans and Democrats had 
amendments to this bill, and the ones we put forth would have solved 
this budget point of order, but because my amendment has not been 
heard, the Senator from Pennsylvania has raised this budget point of 
order, and the fact is that I hope it will be sustained. But what is 
the shame of all of this is that both Democrats and Republicans had 
amendments to this bill. I think the amendment I put forth would have 
carried the day. It would have allowed the FDIC to actually charge 
enough money in the difference for these transaction accounts so we 
would not have the budget point of order that has been raised. But the 
amendment has not been heard. The leader filled the tree, and therefore 
no amendments--not Republican amendments, not Democrat amendments--
could have been heard.
  The other amendment I had that would have helped even more or added 
to this solution is we could have made this program voluntary so that 
if there are community programs around the country that wanted to 
participate in this program, they could have done so on a voluntary 
basis.
  So there are two amendments--one that would have forced the FDIC to 
actually charge enough money to make this account actuarially sound, 
and that amendment is not being heard, and an amendment to allow this 
to be voluntary so that if there are community banks that are 
struggling and feel as though they need to protect these accounts and 
still keep them in their banks, they could have paid the actuarially 
sound amount to make that occur. But neither one of those amendments 
has been heard.
  I would say to everybody in this body who is tired of this place not 
working because neither side of the aisle has the opportunity to vote 
for amendments, to have amendments heard and voted on, I say to both 
sides of the aisle that we absolutely should vote to uphold this point 
of order and hope that when we come back next year, both Republicans 
and Democrats will have the opportunity to represent their constituents 
back home by offering amendments that can actually be voted on in this 
body.
  I thank the Senator for raising the point of order. I wish we could 
have made this work for our country in an appropriate way, but what we 
are going to have today is just a simple vote.
  I will just say this--and I probably shouldn't--the only reason we 
are voting on this amendment is that my friends on the other side of 
the aisle know Dodd-Frank has hurt community bankers throughout this 
country. They are trying to throw a bone out to community bankers 
across this country, and they are trying to get us to vote against it. 
That is not the way this place should work.
  I have amendments that would have fixed this bill, made it work for 
community bankers, and we could have gone forward. The only reason we 
are doing it this way is because my friends on the other side of the 
aisle know the provisions in Dodd-Frank are hurting community bankers 
and they are trying to throw a bone.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Tennessee 
would yield to me on this very point.
  Mr. CORKER. Absolutely.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for 
making this point. I have an amendment to this bill that I would like 
to have had heard. It strikes a middle ground between the unlimited per 
account liability and the $250,000 we have traditionally had. It is a 
modest compromise as well as an alternative, and it will not be 
considered because of the very practice my friend from Tennessee has 
mentioned.
  It is not only our amendments--I just came in on the tail end of the 
Senator's remarks--but there are Democratic amendments which deserve to 
be heard on this bill. Senator Udall has an amendment--he is a member 
of the majority party--and it is a well-reasoned amendment that 
deserves to be considered and heard. The distinguished majority leader 
has chosen to fill the amendment tree and offer only his select 
amendments, and now I am deprived from the ability that I think a 
representative of several States should have; that is, to bring forth 
an idea and have it heard. I might not be able to get a majority on it 
and Senator Udall may not prevail, but we deserve to be heard.
  This has been the greatest deliberative body in the world--at least 
that is what I heard before I came over from the House of 
Representatives--but it has not turned out that way. The majority 
leader time and time again fills the amendment trees, thereby 
preventing any of the other 99 Senators from offering amendments.
  The Congressional Research Service has identified 40 instances in 
which opportunities for debating and offering amendments had already 
been limited by the Senate majority leader by filling or partially 
filling the amendment tree.
  I have one more point and then I will yield back to my friend from 
Tennessee. We are going to miss the services and the independence of 
the distinguished senior Senator from Maine, Ms. Olympia Snowe. I think 
anyone in this body would have to admit Senator Snowe has been 
evenhanded, bipartisan, and often nonpartisan. She has objected to this 
very practice by this very majority leader, and I think it is 
destructive to the overall process of the Senate.
  In the specific words of retiring Senator Olympia Snowe: First and 
foremost, the Senate should have the ability to debate more than the 
three amendments the majority leader is allowing. It is therefore 
imperative that Senate deliberations on the Defense bill be conducted 
without limitations and in a manner that allows for the

[[Page 17081]]

consideration of all related amendments that Senators may wish to 
offer.
  I have been aggrieved that my little amendment is not going to get 
anymore debate than these few moments right now. I know the Senator 
from Tennessee feels the same way, and undoubtedly Senator Udall would 
prefer a vote and debate on his amendment. We can fix the Senate. We 
can get back to the leadership we had under Mansfield and Mitchell of 
Maine and Lott of Mississippi and other majority leaders. We can move 
legislation along but not if we continue this abuse of the process by 
filling the amendment tree.
  I will be voting with the distinguished Senator from Tennessee and 
the Senator from Pennsylvania on the point of order because we need to 
draw a bright red line there. Perhaps we can get on this issue at some 
other point. I hope the Senate can get back to an orderly debate on 
matters of substance.
  I thank my friend, the Senator from Tennessee, for yielding on that 
point.
  I yield back.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Mississippi for 
his comments, and I will yield the floor to the Senator from 
Pennsylvania.
  I have a couple more comments, and when appropriate, I will make 
them.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for 
allowing me to make a couple points. These are very well-made points 
about having the opportunity to actually debate and try to improve a 
bill on the floor. One of the things that disturbs me is that I see a 
pattern that is playing out today, and this is not the first time. This 
is just part of why we have not had a budget resolution for 3 
consecutive years. The majority party does not want to have to come 
down and actually cast votes.
  If there is a budget resolution on the floor, there surely will be 
amendments. We all come from different places, have different ideas, 
and we want our constituents to have a chance to get their say. The 
majority party apparently does not want to have to cast votes. I think 
that is part of why there has not been a single appropriations bill on 
this floor, and that is just a shocking abdication of our 
responsibility.
  Here we are in mid-December, and while the committee has voted this 
out--if not every appropriations bill, the vast majority of them--not a 
single one has been brought to the floor. We have seen this happen on 
bill after bill. I hear the criticism that Republicans will not allow 
the body to get on the bill. The motion to proceed passed; the cloture 
motion passed. We are on the bill. Despite that, there is no 
opportunity to have a meaningful, substantive debate about ways this 
could be improved and changed. It is not possible because the 
distinguished majority leader refuses to permit it. In my view, that is 
the dysfunction of this body; it is a pattern, and it is a problem. I 
too had a couple of amendments I would like to have had an opportunity 
to discuss.
  I wish to make one other point. On the few occasions when the 
majority leader has actually permitted an open amendment process--the 
farm bill, postal reform bill, and Defense authorization come to mind--
we would start with a huge, long list of amendments. Then people say: 
There are too many. I will give up some of mine. We got to a manageable 
amount, we dealt with them, and actually all three of those bills 
passed. The process works when it is allowed to take place, but this is 
not a very good function.
  The last point I will make is to urge my colleagues to remember when 
we are running trillion-dollar deficits as it is, the last thing we 
ought to do is increase the size of those deficits with a taxpayer 
bailout of banks, and that is what this ends up amounting to.
  I urge my colleagues to sustain this point of order.
  I yield back to the Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I will be a little more brief this time. I 
thank the Senator for the point of order that he made and also his 
comments. We have some people on our side of the aisle who I know--due 
to things that have happened in this body previously--have had some 
amendments. I know some people feel as though we are harmful to banks 
which they may have supported in the past and maybe this is a way to do 
something that sort of makes it even, if you will.
  I will just say to my friends on this side of aisle that may have 
some of those feelings, we have two amendments--there are actually 
multiple amendments--that will make this bill work. One amendment would 
cause the FDIC to charge the rate necessary to take into account the 
losses that are going to occur. I think it might pass by unanimous 
consent. I cannot imagine why people in this body would not like the 
FDIC to have to charge the appropriate amount.
  Secondly, it would make this program voluntary. There are a lot of 
banks that candidly don't want to participate. They don't want to pay 
the fee. We can make this voluntary.
  To my friends on this side of the aisle, I just want to say: Look, if 
we could hear these amendments, we could make this bill work for 
everybody. I don't like these kind of guaranteed programs, generally 
speaking, but I would be willing, if my amendment is passed, to support 
this bill.
  I wish to go back to the last point. A point of order has been 
raised. The way this bill is now constructed, it violates the Budget 
Control Act. This body has voted to uphold budget points of order on 
some pretty tough issues.
  I think the point the Senator from Pennsylvania is making is we are 
going to violate a budget point of order to create a bailout for banks. 
I don't know. In my opinion, that is not exactly what we need to be 
doing. We can fix this if we could hear our amendments to make it so it 
is not a bailout for the banks by just making it actuarially sound and 
know they are covering their costs themselves, but the majority leader 
will not let us do that.
  Candidly, I hope my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle would 
vote to uphold this budget point of order, knowing that if we could 
consider all the amendments today, we could actually make this sound. I 
hope we would unify the body and say to the majority leader: Enough 
with filling the tree and not allowing the Senate to operate. Let's get 
beyond that.
  Again, I hope we will support the budget point of order.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the way we arrived at this point is the 
Congressional Budget Office, our chosen authority on budget matters, 
has concluded that the legislation violates the budget, and they 
submitted analysis to that effect that has been provided to the 
chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Conrad, an honorable chairman 
of the committee. He and his staff have examined it, and they concluded 
that it does. They have advised the Parliamentarian.
  Senator Toomey has now raised the budget point of order, and based on 
the report from the chairman of the Budget Committee, the 
Parliamentarian will rule that this legislation spends more than we 
agreed to spend under the Budget Control Act limitations and will 
therefore sustain it. The people who are promoting the legislation will 
seek to waive the budget, ignore the fact that it violates our spending 
limits, and pass the bill anyway. I think that is bad.
  We have had a series of these votes. It is time for the people who 
advance legislation in the body to be careful, and when they submit 
legislation that it stays within the budget. When they block this 
legislation, it violates it.
  In August a year ago, Congress agreed to certain spending 
limitations. It was not enough in my view, but there were some 
noticeable limitations. We would still spend more every year but limit 
the growth. Regardless, it was limited. There was a limit on how much 
we could spend. Whether it is up or down, it limited it, and this would 
be in violation of it.
  I wish we could get to a point of where the legislation was fixed 
before it got to the floor and was in compliance with the budget.
  I say to my colleagues, as ranking Republican on the Budget 
Committee, we can get the score. CBO will give us the score. There is 
plenty of opportunity to have this information before

[[Page 17082]]

the vote and before the bill comes before the floor.
  I thank the Chair and 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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, the question is on agreeing to the motion 
to waive the budget point of order.
  The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer), 
the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. 
Lautenberg), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) are necessarily 
absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Dakota (Mr. Hoeven), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), 
the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. 
McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 50, nays 42, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 227 Leg.]

                                YEAS--50

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blumenthal
     Brown (OH)
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coons
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hutchison
     Johnson (SD)
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--42

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Brown (MA)
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Kyl
     Lee
     Lugar
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Boxer
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Kirk
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     McCain
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 
42. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.
  The point of order is sustained. Under the previous order, the motion 
to invoke cloture on S. 3637 is withdrawn.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that today, 
Thursday, December 13, at 1:45, the Senate proceed to executive session 
to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 830, 832; that 
there be 30 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form; that 
upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate proceed to vote 
without intervening action or debate on Calendar Nos. 830 and 832, in 
that order, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further 
motions be in order; that any statements related to this matter be 
printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of 
the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________