floor. mr. bond: mr. president? the presiding officer: the snoer from missouri. -- the senator from missouri movement. mr. bond: madam president, i i believe that the senator from vermont has a brief statement. mr. leahy: i just want to make a -- the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i thank the senior senator from missouri. madam president, i ask umous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider en banc the following new mexico inominations, 780, 785, 769, 97,

818, 819, all nominations on the secretary's desk in the coast guard foreign service and noaa, the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table en bloc, any statements appear at the appropriate place in the record as if rerksd the president be immediately notified of the senate's, a the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. leahy: i thank the chair, the presiding officer, i thank the senator from missouri. mr. bond: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. bond: after the actions of some bad apples on wall street, there's no doubt that we need financial reform to prevent another credit crisis.

it's disappointing the bipartisan consensus on a financial reform package was not reached in committee and instead the majority chose a go-it-alone pproach. i hope this is a process that democrats truly want to be bipartisan because my constituents had some good ideas about how to enact real reform that will not stifle economic growth and activities. i've told my good friend senator doond others, that i want to work with him to ensure that the concerns of missourians are addressed. i've heard from missourians who want stop taxpayer funded bailouts and missourians who are concerned with bureaucrats with the power to pick winners an losers. they have well-founded concerns about some of the bill's unintended consequences. this is a bill that could alter

significantly the way that businesses do business, whether it be the form of a home or auto loan, financing for college, credit for family farms or much-needed financing for small businesses. in the heartland, where i'm from, we understand that wall street provides critical financing, but we want to make sure they do it right way. a bipartisan, responsible bill should ensure that failures that led to our financial collapse are proply addressed and that taxpayers are never left again footing the bill for the egregious mistakes of a few bad actors. it is time to stop taking a piecemeal ad hoc approach to addressing the crisis, burying our heads in the sand to avoid what needs to be done and simply hope that things get better by throwing more money at the failed institutions and believing they'll get better on their own is unrealistic. americans are rightfully angry and frustrated about the trillions of dollars that the government uses to rescue the

financial industry when so many struggling to find jobs, pay bills and get the loans they need for homes, cars, or loans. while many of them lost their job and their savings as a direct result of the irresponsibility of others. we need a clear path to unwinding and ending these institutions that are too large and pose systematic risk to the financial health of our market without doing so at expense of the american taxpayer. no institution should ever again be considered too big to fail. today i remind my colleagues that the government played a role in contributing to our financial and economic crisis. government policies and actions to promote homeownership to buyers who could not afford to buy were irresponsible. that's why i'm shocked that this bill does nothing to reform fannie mae and freddie mac, the government-sponsored

enterprises, that contributed to the financial meltdown by buying high-risk loans made to people who could not afford them. these irresponsible actions left the federal government with the risk and the american tax pair with a bill to bail them out. in addition to the cost to taxpayers, these irresponsible actions turned the american dream into the american nightmare for too many families who faced foreclosures and devastated entire neighborhoods and communities as property values diminished. additionally, government failure to regulate adequately the financial system, specifically the security exchange commission and other regulators allowed these institutions to take on too much risk, which was a major factor to the credit collapse. collectively these policies and actions have brought us to the economic crisis which has touched every american's life. the current proposal ignores fannie and freddie which were significant contributors to the

crisis. that is a big mistake. we need to be sure that the proposals address the needs of main street america, leaving them out would be another mistake. rather than focusing on concerns of wall street, i spend my time focusing on the concerns shared with me by my constituents back in missouri. missourians expect real reform, but demand that congress -- one specific area of concern is the creation of the so-called consumer financial protection bureau. the cfpb, this massive government bureaucracy has unprecedented authority and enforcement powers to impose duplicative mandates. we're not talking about big banks, but also your community banker, local dentist, as a result, there will be no choice but to pass these added costs on to consumers, the very bill

is -- peep -- the people the -- people this bill was designed to protect. the only way to ensure the cfpb does not unintentionally hurt well-performing institutioning that issue credit is to narrow the scope and authority with clear language outlining who this new regulator will regulate. surely my colleagues would not want to vote for a bill that creates a new government bureaucracy without knowing exactly what the bureaucracy is empowered to do. madam president, can we have some order in this body? thank you. instead of unlimited authority, this new regulator should focus on the shadow banking entities that operating outside of the regulatory framework and preying on vulnerable people. we have all heard horror stories

from our constituents about the bad operator pushing no money down or no-doc home mortgages and the reverse mortgage scam mortgages who sell too good to be true financing. there must be appropriate financing for this regulator. the last thing we need is a new government bureaucracy that under the guise of consumer protection is pushing one party's political agenda. the current business climate is overwhelmed with uncertainty and we need to ensure this bureau does not create additional uncertainty for any investor or business that operates in this country. the regulator should have a final stay on anything that would put the safety and soundness of institutions and the credit of borrowers at risk. next, missourians refuse to be on the line for another bank bailout. i share missourians frustration over the concept of an institution being too big to pay we must put an end to too-big-to-fail.

we need a -- in my recent conversation with larry summers, i expressed this concern and he agreed that the administration wants euthanasia for failed companies, not resurrection. the government should not be in the business of creating zombies. the era of bailouts must be over. it must be fair and even handed. missourians will not accept government bureaucrats picking winners an losers in creditor repayment. in addition the $592 over the counter derivative market needs stronger rules of transparency. some of the derivatives traded in this market played a significant role in the recent credit crisis through credit default swaps. these and other transactions, which i call video game transactions where there's no substance involved. they're making bets on the financial system should have

been cracked down on by the securities exchange commission. however, there is an important distinction to be made here. not all derivative contracts pose systematic risks. as a matter of fact, commercial contracts initiated, for example, by energy companies, utilities and the agriculture industry are used to manage risk associated with daily operation from cost fluctuations in materials and commodities to foreign currency used in international business. these end users, as they are called, do so in order to plan for future pricing so they can provide the least expensive good or service to their consumers possible. costly margin requirements for these end users will be directly passed on to families. this will increase the cost for americans to turn on their lights and put food on their table. my hope is that the ultimate senate bill, like the house-passed bill, will ultimately address this are

concern with a strong examination for end users from the clearing and margin requirements. these end users are not major swap participants and should not be treated as such. and the federal reserve bank's current structure for regulatory oversight ensures responsibilities and power are shared across the country. not just in washington and on wall street. regional reserve banks give all regions in the country a voice in banking, credit policy and monetary concerns, which gives a complete picture to the board of governors as they decide on federal monetary policy. this system was established over 100 years ago and should be maintained in order to protect the concerns of small and medium-sized banks. financial crises can and do occur within small, but interconnected banks, which is why the federal reserve needs to continue to take the economic temperature of the entire

country. not just of those on wall street. as hard-working americans and small businesses struggle to emerge from this meltdown and drive our economy through the recovery process, it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that we have a robust regulatory system. it's critical that our regulatory system be modern, responsive, and empowered with appropriate authority while allowing for business pros partyies we prevent future crisis. in missouri, i have been working to build a biotech corridor, an ag-biotech corridor. this has the potential to foster a new interest to create jobs and advance -- it's the best stimulus to get the high-paying skilled jobs that rural missouri and rural america needs. today i read in "the wall street journal," a disturbing report that this bill would possibly kill small business startups by delaying and limiting the

availablity of private investor seed capital. in this bill new requirements by the s.e.c. would insist investors register with the commission for a four-month review while tying up the vital venture or seed capital dollars. this harmful delay for new business in need of immediate capital would be crippling. according to "the wall street journal," no one believes angel investors pose a an investor risk. the economy needs more private job creation. and it would triple the minimum wealth of the seed capital investors who could invest in these from $1 million to over $3 million. that cuts out over three-quarters of the people who might invest in starting up these companies. it would be tef stating to rural job creation in missouri and across the country. our greatest pr potential for nw

jobs depend on the entrepreneurshipping for people willing to risk their own ideas but need seed capital to do. it these small companies could not wait 120 days in many instances. they could not find the seed capital investors. in other words, in some moving from too big to fail, this new bill, if enacted with that provision in it, would say to these innovators, these entrepreneurs, you are too small to succeed. this is not a measure that's going to protect people from wall street. this is an overreach by the federal government which would shut down the job creation that main street needs. madam president, neither political party has a monopoly on good ideas. reforming our financial system is too important to be done on a partisan basis. i urge my colleagues.

i hope they will consider the ideas i've heard from missourians. we haven't been just listening to main street -- to wall street. we've been listening to main street. and i hope that you and all of the members of this body will listen to what they're saying on main street about the need for the small -- small companies whether they be startup companies or small banks to succeed. we need to make sure we don't kill the bank bone of our american economy -- the backbone of our american economy. madam president, i thank the chair. i yield t floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer:he crk will call the roll. vote:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mrs. mccaskill: i ask that the quorum call be set aside. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. mccaskill: mr. president, i came to the floor on tuesday of this week to do something that i don't think had been done before under the rules. we had a new law that went into effect in the early part of 2007 that gave us a mechanism that was supposed to stop secret holds. and we are all waiting to see by moving all of the nominations by

unanimous consent, if, in fact, the owners of the secret holds step forward. while we wait to see if the rule that was designed and passed in law works, a bunch of us have been talking. and the folks that have been talking about this are the newest members of the senate in the democratic party. there are 21 of us that arrived in the united states senate sometime between now and january of 2007. it's a pretty big group of senators. and in discussing the secret holds with my colleagues that have been here for a fairly short period of time, we decided, well, why don't we just quit doing them? let's quit worrying about whether you're identifying yourself in six days or whether you're going to plate switcha. mr. reidswitch switch-a-roo. let's just stop it.

no more secret holds. so we now have drafted a letter to senator reid and leader mcconnell -- leader reid and leader mcconnell. and we have said, first, we will not do secret holds. we're out of the business of secret holds. we're not going to do them. and, secondly, we want the senate to pass a rule that prohibits them entirely. if you want to hold somebody, fine. but say who you are and why you're doing it. you want to vote against somebody, that's your right. but this notion that you can behind closed doors do some kind of secret motion to get something you want from the agency. and let's be honest about it. that's what a lot of this is. it's getting leverage. secretly getting leverage for something you want. well, those aren't the appropriate secrets for the public business. we have 80 secret holds right now. about 76 of those are republican secret holds. four are democratic secret

holds. and, by the way, all 80 of the ones i made the motion on all came out of committee unanimously. we even checked on the voice votes to make sure that no one said no in committee there were no no votes. completely unposed out of committee, these 80 nominees. for everything from the ambassador to syria to u.s. marshals, to u.s. attorneys. these are people who need to get to work. and they're going to pass here. they're all going to pass. so we need to get this done. we need to stop secret holds. we need to get these people confirmed. and we need to change the way we do business around here. so i am -- and i want to once again give a shout out to senator wyden and grassley who worked on this for a number of years. we're going to open this letter to all in senate.

and hopefully before we find out -- and we're all waiting to see what happens in the six days that are looming for all these secret holds, if people step up into the sunshine. if they don't, in the mean time, we hopefully will get unanimous support from the united states senators that secret holds are now out of fashion and no longer are going to be tolerated in the united states senate. and, mr. president, i would yield the floor to my colleague from colorado, senator bennet. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado is recognized. mr. bennet: i'd like to thank the senator from missouri for kickinkicking this off. i rise in strong effort from a group of strong-minded senators to get rid of this ridiculous and insane practice of anonymous holds. the american people have little patience for this political game when they're going through what they're going through.

what people should understand, at least in my view, this is less about partisanship. the senator from missouri talked about the fact of the holds that we're talking about, we're talking about people who passed unanimously out of committee. republicans and democrats supporting nominees. that somehow between the committee process and the senate floor get stuck. and they're getting stuck anonymously. i would say it's not about partisanship. i would say this is a perfect ill graition of washington, d.c., be -- illustration of washington, d.c., be completely out of touch of what's going in the country. no one else in the country invents a set of rule to make sure they don't get their work done. but that's what's going on in the united states senate. that's why it's time to get rid of the anonymous holds. i have legislation that gets rid of the anonymous holds an bans the secret holds. it would do more. it would also require that a hold be partisan or at --

bipartisan or it expires after two legislative days. if you place a hold, that's within your right. we're going to make sure it's scrutinized. we're going to make sure you can get support from somebody on the other side of the aisle for holding up the country's business. and all holds under my bill would expire after 30 days whether they're bipartisan or not. i also want to highlight that the senators who have take then strong stance against secret holds are willing to put our money with our mouth is. while washington bats around about this and other reforms, we have all pledged that we will stop the practice of secret holds ourselves. that was easy for me to do. because i've never placed a secret hold on the nation's business and i never will. this is a small, but important illustration of what's not working well in the united states senate. what is blocking progress for the american people. it's a small step, but an

important step to demonstrate that we can actually do our work differently. that we've been sent here to have an open and thoughtful debate about the issues that confront our great country. so, mr. president, i'm proud to be here today with my other colleagues, and i will yield the floor. mrs. mccaskill: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire is recognized. mrs. shaheen: thank you, mr. president. i'm really pleased, but it's unfortunate that we have to be here on the floor this afternoon to talk about so many of the nominees who we need to do the work of this country who are being held up and being held up by people who are not willing to identify themselves or say what their issue is with these nominees. so i'm pleased to join my colleagues. i'm glad we're mounting this effort. i think we need to get rid of

the secret holds. but i think it's unfortunate that we're where we are. and i understand why people are frustrated with what -- what's happening here. because people want to see things get done. they understand we have significant challenges facing the country and they want to see action on those challenges. well, it's clear that one of the areas where there's a problem is with the 80 or so people who are nominated who have been held up. some of them for months and months because somebody has an issue not with the person who's being held up, usually. but as my colleague from missouri said, but because someone wants to get the attention of a department or agency within government or because somebody wants to keep the obama administration from doing the work of the people.

and i just -- i want to point out some of the people who are on hold. and no one's identified themselves as to why they have these people on hold. but we have five u.s. attorneys. we have five marshals. we have the deputy director of national drug policy control. and they come from states all across this country from new york. from indiana. from north carolina, something, michigan -- south carolina, michigan, maine, and idaho and florida. so we have a lot of big states there. a lot of states where the people's business is not getting done because those nominees haven't been put in place. and the sad thing is the people

who have these folks on hold are trying to -- to get back at somebody in government. but the people who are suffering are the constituents in those states who are not getting their work done. and i have a very personal example that i have talked about before on the floor of the senate. that is a woman from new hampshire who has now been confirmed to head the office of violence against women. judge susan carbon, someone who was appointed first by senator judd gregg to be a judge. i then made her a full-time judge. she got through the committee, after she was nominated on a unanimous vote. i think all of us would like to see the work of the office of the violence against women done.

and yet she was held up for two months, until i came to the floor and started asking questions about who had that secret hold on her. we never did find out. we never did find out why she was on hold or what the concern was. and that's the problem with all of these secret holds. you know, senator bennet said that he hadn't put any secret holds on anyone. well, neither have i. you know, if i'm going to put a hold on somebody, i want the world to know about it, because it's somebody who i have a serious issue with or someone we have concerns about the job they would do. that's not the case with any of these folks. so i would urge all of our colleagues to sign on to say they will oppose secret holds and to release those holds on the nominees who are being held up, and let's let the work of

the people in this country get done. thank you, mr. president i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado is recognized. mr. udall: thank you, mr. president. i also rise to express my appreciation to the senator from missouri, mrs. mccaskill, for her leadership on this important effort to reform the way in which this senate advises and consents. i was curious, mr. president, because i have great respect for the traditions of the senate as to why holds are a mechanism or a tool that are available to individual senators, and what i found out is basically speculative, and that is that that in the past, there's a belief that senators, you only could get back to washington by horse and buggy or by horse itself that you needed time to study a potential nominee. it was a court see. it maybe -- it was a c courtsey. but now it's modern times.

secret hold is being used to accomplish many times political or even policy goals. i have great respect for the venerable traditions of the senate but this seems like one that should be set aside, frankly. i was also curious to study some of these statistics i want to share with the entire senate, mr. president. since president obama took office -- i think it's 16 months, give or take a few days -- we voted on 49 nominations. of those 49 votes, 36% -- 36 of them, which is about 75% of the nominations, have been delayed. and on average, these nominations languish, sit on the executive calendar for over 105 days. that's on average. there's some who have waited many months more. then when you look at the nominations that finally come to the floor, mr. president, of the vote totals, 17 receive more than 90 votes, 10 received more than 80 votes, 6 received more than 70 votes. so out of the 36 nominees,

that's 33 that i think you could characterize as being approved overwhelmingly by the u.s. senate after a very long and unfortunate wait. right now on the executive calendar, there are 94 nominees awaiting senate advise and consent action. george w. bush's presidency at this time, mr. president, there were 12 nominees. 94 on the one hand; 12 on the other hand. it's time for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to stop abusing the senate's responsibility to provide advice and consent for the president's well-qualified nominees. let me just end on this note. the senator wants to place a hold, that's all good and well, but it shouldn't be a secret hold. just like the previous two speakers, i think and senator mccaskill as well, i've never used a secret hold. if i'm going to put a hold on a nominee, i'll make it in public, i'll make the case, i'll stand on the floor of the senate.

that's the way we want our debate to be. the world is the greatest deliberative body. we shouldn't be doing this in secret. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota is recognized. ms. klobuchar: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, as i listened to the senator from colorado, i was thinking about our two states. they both are beautiful states. okay, they have a few more mountains than we do. we have 10,000 lakes. but we both have open democracies, governments that work, governments that are open. there's no secrecy in our states. we have blue skies, open prairies, open land. and it's just to me no surprise that you have senators from these two states standing up and saying, this is ridiculous. i thought that senator udall did a great job of going through all of the numbers and the nominations that have been put on hold, but we all know what's really at the root of this, the procedural game that really allowallows this to happen is te secret hold.

now, i have to tell you this. when i came to the senate in 2007, my first priority was ethics reform, and i was so pleased. i really thought we had gotten rid of the secret hold. that's what we said we did. and the rules that we adopted then, as soon as unanimous consent was made regarding a specific nominee, it says that a senator placing a hold has to submit to the majority leader a written notice of intent that includes the reason for their objection. so they have to actually put in writing why they're objecting. and then it says that no later than six days after the submission, the hold is to be printed in the "congressional record" for everyone to see. so we thought this was a pretty good idea, sunshine being the best disinfeck tent. by making the hold public, we could have open debate. as i heard senator shaheen just say, you should tell the whole world why you're putting on the hold. you may have a good wh good ide. but that's not what's been

happening. instead, what's happening is senators who are playing game with the rules are following the letter but not the spirit of the reforms. it's unbelievable to me. they are actually rotating holds. it's almost like what you see in the olympics when you have a relay and they hold off and th they -- they hand off the baton from one senator to snore that they can keep this hold going. ones that for six days. then they pass it off to another one that his it for six days. so i guess if delay was an olympic sport, they would get a gold metal. gold -- a gold medal. what we have here is a group of senators from the other side of the aisle for the most part who are gaming the system. we're spending a lot of time in the last few days talking about other people that gamed the system, people on wall street, so i don't think it should be happening in this very chamber. i'm very pleased that senator mccaskill, along with senators grassley and wyden, have been working on this for so long, have been taking a lead on this. i urge my colleagues to sign

this letter to end the secret hold. there shouldn't be secrets from the public when it comes to nominations. this is a matter of some top-secret national security or some strategy that we whose we go to war. this is about nominations from the white house. this is about people who are going to be serving in public jobs. we should know who's holding them, who doesn't want them to come up for a vote and why. and then we can make a decision and the public will have the knowledge of what is going on in this place. that's the only way we're going to be able to build trust again with this democracy. thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

senator from minnesota is recognized. ms. klobuchar: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. bennett: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without

objection. it is so ordered. mr. bennett: mr. president, i rise to discuss the issue that is before the body and before the country right now with respect to control and regulation of the financial services industry. the president of the united states has given a number of speeches on this one. i understand the latest one was today, in which he attacked republicans for listening to the big banks of wall street in our concern about the details of the bill that has been offered out of the banking committee by chairman dodd. i'm a member of the banking committee. i voted against the bill in the banking committee. it came out on a straight party-line vote. and for that, i'm being castigated by the president and others for being a tool of wall street and the big banks. i want to make it very clear, mr. president, that my opposition to parts of this bill have nothing whatever to do with

wall street and the big banks. i have not about to wall street to discuss this with any executives of any of the big banks. i have been in utah, and i have been discussing this with businesses in utah, businesses that you normally would not think would have any interest whatsoever in regulation of financial services. you think of financial services as insurance companies and brokerage houses and banks. well, what i have discovered, hearing from my constituents, is that the people who are the most worried about this are small business men and women who have nothing to do with banking but who do have a program in their business to extend some degree of consumer credit. i'll give you an example. a furniture store that sells furfurniture and advertises, you buy the furniture now and payment is delayed for 90 days, as a comeon to get people to

come in. mr. president, you've seen those ads in the paper here in washington. i've seen those ads. it's the kind of thing that goes on. businesses extend credit in one way or another. it's not the core of their business. it's just a way of their trying to attract customers in and suddenly they discover that if this bill passes, they will be under the control of the consumer protection agency that is being created for this. and federal officers will have the right to show up on their premises and say, this is not a proper handling of this credit. we're going to treat you as if you were citicorp. or goldman sacks or whatever. we're going to come down with the heavy hand of the federal government to tell you how you can do your business or fine you or produce other kinds of barriers to your doing business and the fellow says, looks, i just with a topts sell -- i just

want to sell a so if a and i want to -- i just want to sell a fsofa. and i want to sell it on credit. what's wrong with that? well, the consumer protection agency will be looking down year throat. i have one small businessman or woman come up to me after another and say, what in the world are you people in washington thinking about the kinds of regulations you're going to put on me and my business, some of them are saying, we're afraid we're going to have to close our doors before we can -- rather than deal with this significant challenge. we are, in this bill%, overreacting to the seaiousnessf the crisis that has put news this recession. i have a friend who's been a washington observer for many years, and he says, whatever faced with a crisis, congress

always does one of two things: nothing or overreact. and this is a classic example is of overreacting. by creating a consumer protection agency whose sole focus is to protect the consumer, we run the risk of doing the kind of damage that i've described to small business. i say to people that your safety is the only criteria by which you're going to judge an institution, the safest institution in which no one will lose any money is the one whose doors are closed. the one that offers no risk anywhere because all business is a risk. so if you're going to say, no, we're going to protect the consumer absolutely, the way to protect the consumer absolutely tow that he will never lose a dime is not allow him to make a purchase. not allow him to ever get a loan, not alowe how him to ever receive any -- not allow him to ever get receive any credit.

and that will be, if this bill passes in the form it came out of the house banking committee, that will be the impact of this bill across the board. it will to be reduce credit. it will be to reduce opportunity. it will be to damage small businesses. again, mr. president, i haven't talked to the people on wall street. i've talked to the people on center street. i would say "main street," because every town in america has a main street. but in utah, in addition to main street, we have center street in many of these small towns, and that shows how close to the issue the people in utah really r now, there's another issue here that i feel strongly about. and that is the definition of "too big to fail." this create creates and solidife notion that some people, some institutions are twaivment--

--are too big to fail. i believe that one of the lessons that we have learned coming out of the crisis in 200 l 8 is that nobody should be deemed too big to fail. and indeed we should create a circumstance where the bankruptcy courts handle things and there is no federal bailout in the fashion of saying that you are too big to fail and the government will protect you from failing. i remember years ago when we had the first bailout was chrysler at the time. lee iaococca had a reputation for bringing chrysler out of the bailout and repaying the government with interest. and people pointed that out saying that the government kept chrysler from going out of business, it was a loan guarantee and the government didn't lose any money. and one observer said when asked about it said, i'm not worried

about whether the bailout will save chrysler. what i'm worried about long term is that it will work. there are people saying, what happens if it fails? he said i'm not worried if it fails. i'm worried if it works. and the federal government gets the appetite to step in example after example and points to the chrysler bailout and says, well, we made money on that so we can do it again. by creating that kind of moral hazard of stating that these institutions are too big to fail, we run the risk of seeing a repetition rather than an avoidance of the crisis that we had that created all of difficulties that we had in our economy today. so, mr. president, on the one hand i speak for the small businessman and business woman who says this bill will be a disaster for them and on the other side, i say let's not

create in the name of protecting the customer a circumstance where institutions are deemed as too big to fail and can be guaranteed, once again, a degree of government backing that the marketplace would not give them. i trust the marketplace. we have learned to do that as we go through the wreckage of what happened in the housing crisis. i think we need to be very, very careful with this bill. do we need financial reform? yes, we do. would i vote for a sensible bill? yes, i would. am i a supporter of the status quo? no, i'm not. but i don't believe that the bill that came out of the banking committee is an improvement. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland is recognized. mr. cardin: hank president. mr. president, i -- thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i take this time to commemorate the 40th anniversary of earth day that we celebrate today, april 22.

i think we first need to acknowledge that we've made a lot of progress since the cuyahoga river in ohio caught fire in 1969. made a lot of progress since the uncontrolled air pollution that killed 20 people and sickened 7,000 people over just a few days. that happened in denora, pennsylvania. we've come a long way since the expose on the new york love canal where toxic waste was dumped into neighborhood streams. we've made a lot of progress. i think the most important symbol of that progress of that environment is now in main street america. it's mainstream politics. it's way of life for us. and that is really good news. it has given us the political strength to pass important environmental laws. we've passed the clean air act, the clean water act, the super fund law. i'm particularly pleased about

the chesapeake bay program. i remember when we started that program over 30 years ago -- almost 30 years ago. and it was a difficult start. and people wondered whether we would have the staying power to stay with this issue so we could try to reclaim the chesapeake bay. well, we did. it's still an issue that we're working on today. we've created the environmental protection agency. an agency of the federal government whose sole purpose is to try to help us preserve the environment for future generations. i think we can take pride in what we've been able to do. we've made great progress as a nation. we should celebrate our is success in the great environmental challenges of the past. our work is not done. our environment faces new challenges today that are less visible and more incremental, but still pose great threats to our treasured natural resources and all the work we have done to protect and restore them. for example, we do not worry

that our great water bodies, like the chesapeake bay, will catch fire. but there are small amounts of pollutants running across millions of lawns that accumulate and make it very difficult for us to reclaim our national treasures. the great wave of water infrastructure that we built over 40 years ago is now past its useful life and must be replaced. water main breaks, larkin small, wastewater, destroy homes and businesses and undermine the water quality benefits that this infrastructure was meant to protect. let me give you a couple of examples that happened in the last couple of years. in bethesda, river road, a major thorough fare because a river because of a water main break. in dundoff maryland outside of baltimore, thousands of basements were flooded as a result of a water main break. in baltimore county a few weeks

ago we had had a water main break that denied residential homeowners with service for many days. this is happening all over. in the city of baltimore, 95% of their water maintenance are over 65 years old. haven't been inspected. we need to pay attention to these issues. if i hadn't mentioned the single most important challenge we say, it's in our energy policy. we understand that, the impact it has on our environment. we should also acknowledge that doing our energy policy right will be good for national security. we spend $1 billion a day on imported oil that compromises our national security. for the sake of national security we need toll develop a self-sustainable renewable policy on energy resources. we developed the technology for solar power and wind power, and, yet, we are not capitalizing on the jobs here in america.

jobs are our most important goal. a sound energy policy will allow us to create more jobs here in america. but today on earth day, i want to talk about the environment. a sound energy policy means that we can become a world leader and bring this world into some sense of what's happening on global climate change, on the indiscriminate release of greenhouse gas emissions and burning of fossil fuel. we know we can do better than that. so on this earth day, let us rededicate ourselves to develop an energy policy that will be not only good for our -- our security and our economy, but good for our environment. but addressing the failing health of our world is not just in the hands of our political leaders alone. each of us can make a difference by changing the way we live and move about the earth. our history shows us that bold and courageous action by all of us to tackle our environmental

challenges make a stronger, more vibrant an healthier nation. to me mr. president, that should be our message on this earth day. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. mr. dorgan: mr. president, i informed my colleague from louisiana, senator vitter, to ask unanimous consent on an issue that he has been holding or blocking and it's the issue of the promotion of general walsh, a distinguished american soldier who has served his country for 30 years and served in wartime. who has been approved to have a promotion to the rank of major general by the senate armed services committee and that committee approved that promotion unanimously. the committee headed by senator carl levin and john mccain, both strongly support the promotion of general walsh. that support was given and the

notice of promotion was voted on by the armed services committee in september of last year. this soldier's career has been put on hold by the hold of one senator, the senator from louisiana. i informed him that i would speak on the floor on this so i'm not -- i am not being impolite. i normally would not speak of another person solely on the floor of the senate, yet, the senator from louisiana is the one who has exhibited the hold to prevent the promotion of this soldier. i know this soldier. that's not why i'm on the floor. i've known general walsh. he commands the mississippi valley division of the corps of engineers. does a great job, in my judgment. but, again, his career has been stalled by the actions of one senator. that senator indicates that there's certain demands that he has of the corps of engineers an unless they are met he will not allow this soldier to be promoted. the point is this soldier executes. this soldier is not making

policy in the corps of engineers and he cannot do what the senator from louisiana demands he do. the corps of engineers does not have the legal authority to do what the senator from louisiana demands he do. i put in the record the two letters that the senator from louisiana has given to the corps of engineers making certain demands. i put in the record the response from the corps of engineers. i believe two days ago when we had this discussion, my colleague from louisiana had indicated that the corps missed tour -- or deadlines on 14 reports. he was not happy with the corps of engineers. i went back and found out what these were. let me say 10 of those 14 reports dealt with the louisiana coastal area. all of those were authorized in 2007. prior to initiating the study the corps was -- by other law that exists to execute a feasibility cautionary agreement with the state of louisiana to cost-share the study would result in the feasibility

report. at state of louisiana's request the corps did not execute this agreement until june of 2009. i can describe the other four as well. but to come to the floor and suggest somehow the corps of engineers is slothful for missing a deadline on reports, 10 of which they missed because of the state of louisiana requested they be delayed, i don't know, it seems to me this may not be on the level. let me make one final point. when a natural disaster hit louisiana and new orleans, i was one of those who cared a lot about reaching out to say you're not alone. and it wasn't just me. it was all of my colleagues. but chaired the subcommittee that provides the majority of the funding for this. we provide all of the funding for the corps of engineers. the fact is we have put -- listen to this $14 billion - this $14 billion -- $14 billion into new orleans and louisiana. i'm proud of having done it. it's what we ought to do as a country.

but i must say it wears out the welcome a bit for someone to come to the floor to disparage the corps of engineers and the efforts of the corps of engineers that $14 billion, much of that runs through the corps of engineers and i wonder where that city and state would be without the corps of engineers to be engaged with them in these battles. so i -- let me just say to my colleague from louisiana that demands being made of the corps of engineers that the corps cannot possibly comply with because the law will not allow them to comply are demands that are never going to be met. and to hold up the career of one distinguished soldier who's served in wartime because the corps cannot meet demands required by the senator from louisiana, i think, is unfair. it is always, i think, and will always be a disservice to uniformed soldiers anywhere to hold hostage promotions of soldiers in order to get demands

they cannot be -- that cannot possibly be satisfied. so i'm going to, once again, ask unanimous consent that the nomination that has existed on this calendar -- this calendar since september of last year to promote a distinguished soldier who has a distinguished record, i'm going to ask once again that at last, at long, long last perhaps my colleague will relent and allow the promotion to proceed and to allow this soldier's career to continue. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive calendar number 526, the nomination of brigadier general michael j. walsh, that the motion be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, any statements related to the nomination appear in the appropriate place in the record as if read, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. vitter: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: mr. president, as my colleague knows, i object. let me say why i object, mr.

president. michael walsh is one of the -- the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. vitter: mr. president, may i proceed? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana is recognized. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. let me explain why i object as i've explained very openly, very clearly every step of the way. michael walsh is one of the top nine officers of the u.s. army corps of engineers. he's part of the key leadership. now, senator dorgan is a fierce, active, vocal defender of that bureaucracy. but before he continues and plunges into that fierce and vocal defense, i suggest he step back for just a minute and truly think about and understand what he's defending. before he accepts every suggestion, every argument of the corps of earning nears' --

engineer's bureaucracy, i suggest he look back and look at the history of the corps an look at the -- and look at the source that he's accepting as gospel truth. senator dorgan mentioned hurricane katrina, mentioned it was a great natural disaster. it was a great natural disaster, it was also a horrible manmade disaster. if we want to talk about the greatest damage -- not the only damage, but the greatest damage inflicted upon the country from hurricane katrina, the flooding of the city of new orleans, that was mannedmade by the corps of engineers. that was due directly to the design flaws of the outfall canals in new orleans by the corps of engineers. and the corps of engineers has admitted this and we have laid that out in congressional testimony since katrina. now, the problem is, no one in

that bureaucracy has ever been held accountable for that, and i don't want to focus on looking back. the even greater problem is looking forward. that bureaucracy has not fundamentally changed. so i challenge my distinguished colleague, senator dorgan, to spend half as much time working with me and others to change the truly broken bureaucracy of the corps of engineers, spend half as much time as he's spent defending as a fierce and active and vocal defender that have broken bureaucracy. mr. president, i'm fighting for that change and i will continue to fight for that change and i will use every tool available to me as a senator to do that. for instance, mr. president, in the last wrda bill, i worked very hard to craft language to include it in the bill and it was included for something called the louisiana water resources council, an outside

peer-review body to bring outside independent expertise and analysis to work with the corps on key projects following hurricane katrina. that was included in the 2007 water resources wrda bill. it passed into law. and, mr. president, do you know what the corps did to implement that? nothing. do you know how they acted to move that forward, an absolute clear, statutory authorization from congress? they did nothing. they said they're not going to do it. finally, i got them to change their tune, finally they're committed to beginning to move forward three years later because i had to get their attention through this scenario. now, mr. president, unfortunately that's not the only item in which they've ignored mandates from congress and ignored pressing needs all

around the country, including my part of the country. i tried to pinpoint specific items where they were not living up to their mandate or to congress's direction. i could have listed dozens. instead, i focused on nine specific items. i worked closely with the corps, had several meetings discussing those items. in an abundance of trying to work with them toward resoluti resolution. after that i focused on three of the nine rather than all nine. i laid out why they did have the authority to move forward in some positive way on all of that and i'm going to continue to do that, mr. president, until we get real, positive change at the corps and real, positive progress on these important issues. and, mr. president, the senator's main argument,

apparently spoonfed by the corps, is that the corps has no authority to do anything in these areas, no authorization language from congress. mr. president, that's just flat wrong. and again, mr. president, before the distinguished senator simply accepts every little e-mail, every little memo the corps feeds him, perhaps he should consider the source of that information. because if the corps were always right, mr. president, new orleans would have never flooded. if everything the corps said was good and true and gospel, we would never have had those billions of dollars of damage in terms of the catastrophic flooding of new orleans caused solely by breaches in canals which were design flaws of the corps of engineers. now, mr. president, let me go through a few specifics and

explain yet again -- and i've done this with the corps over and over -- the authority they do have. one of my top -- mr. dorgan: would the senator yield for a question? mr. vitter: i'll be happy to yield when i'm through. one of my top concerns, mr. president, is the critical outflow canals in the city of new orleans. it was the breaches in those canals that led to 80% of the catastrophic flooding of new orleans, and it was those breaches that were caused by design flaws of, who? the u.s. army corps of engineers. now, mr. president, all i'm asking under this category is that the corps do a risk-cost analysis of the different options they have identified in terms of fixing the outflow canals. the reason i'm concerned about the path they're moving down, which is their option one, is

that i truly believe it is much less safe and much less robust than their identified option two. but, mr. president, do you know what's interesting? it's not just me who believes that, it's the corps who admits that. because in the corps's report to congress, which he mandated, the corps itself said -- quote -- "option two" -- that's the option they're rejecting -- "option two is generally more technically advantageous and may be more effective operationally over option one because it would have greater reliability and further reduces risk of floodi flooding." in addition, chris zacardo, the corps's chief of operations in new orleans, said he's in favor of option two over option one, absolutely. now, in light of that, mr. president, all i am asking with the rest of the louisiana

delegation, with all of the affected communities in southeast louisiana, is that the corps perform a risk-cost analysis comparing these different options before they forge ahead building the option they themselves admit is less safe, less dependable. it's also very important to note, mr. president, that the corps clearly has authorization from congress to do this study. and just van antwerp in my office clearly said that they do. they have authorization, they have authority, they can do the study. they're not going to do it. why don't we compare these options, the relative risk and the relative cost, before the corps of engineers plunges ahead to build the option they themselves say is less secure and less safe?

mr. president, the second key issue i have focused on in my letters to the corps is the mandated agmac project, including the buildup of protection banks inner have millian -- vermillian parish, to give vermillian parish. they were devastated in rita again also and in significant events since then. again, mr. president, the corps has authority to do this project. this project is in the wrda bill. the corps says, well, we've busted our spending limits. we have explained to them various ways they can solve that problem by using o&m funds, exactly as they have used o&m funds for bank buildup many other project. or we've given them another route to use a quipr project in

conjunction with the wrda project. the corps' response has been pretty simple. its response has been, no, we don't want to do it. and third and finally, mr. president, the other big concern i have highlighted and the most obvious case of the corps of engineers ignore the mandate of congress -- not not having authorization, actively i guess north the man -- ignoring the mandate of congress, is the critical morganza to the gulf transportation project. mr. president, that project was initiated in 1992, 18 years ago. mr. president, senator dorgan, distinguished senator from north dakota, wants to say that the corps has no authority in this area. mr. president, this project was included in three different water resources bills. once and then twice and then a third time.

and every step of the way the corps has come up with excuses why they can't move forward. mr. president, under their present plan, they are restudying the project and that restudy is due in december 2012. they're just one little problem with that. that will be after the next water resources bill, which we hope to pass in 2011. so all the people of lafousch and tarabone parish who are going without adequate protection, who are in danger every additional hurricane season, they'll miss having missed three wrda trains because of the foot dragging of the corps. now under the corps' present plan, they will miss a fourth. now, mr. president, we want to talk about authorization from congress, is specific full construction authorization in three different wrda bills not good snuff because if that's not good enough, i don't know how to

meet the corps' criteria. but, mr. president, if those three particular concerns are not enough, we can expand the list. in an attempt to work with the corps, in an attempt to find resolution, i have narrowed the list. i have tried to compromise. i have offered to meet with th them. i'm offering to meet with them again, as i've done consistently throughout this process. but if narrowing the list is going to be held against me, well, we can expand the list. how about the final report of the louisiana coastal protection and restoration effort? it's a comprehensive analysis. it was mandated in a public law, an emergency appropriations bill after hurricane katrina. it was due in december 2007. it's not finished yet. and it's not delayed because of 9 state of louisiana -- and it's not delayed because of the state of louisiana. it's delayed because of the

corps, not finished yet. so i know senator dorgan is anxious for a promotion of the corps leadership. well, i've got to say, i'm anxious for this report, critical report, that was due in december 2007. we haven't seen it yet. is that not good enough? how about the louisiana water resources council i talked abo about? that was mandated in the 2007wrda bill. the corps hasn't produced it yet. wasn't just authorized, it was mandated. it's not up and running yet. senator dorgan is anxious for a promotion for the pristine corps leadership. well, i'm anxious for that. how about the establishment of a coastal louisiana ecosystem and protection and restoration task force? that was mandated in the 2007 wrda. we haven't seen that yet. the integration team under that task force. that was a separate team mandated in the 2007wrda, three

years ago. nowhere to be seen. that's not being held up by the state, senator dorgan. that's the corps, clear authorization, clear mandate, nowhere to be seen. how about a comprehensive plan for protecting and preserving the louisiana coast? that was due in november 2008. the that was mandated in the 2 200wrda. it's not being held up by the state but it's nowhere to be seen. senator dorgan is anxious for that promotion for the pristine corps leadership. well, i'm anxious for this important work to protect louisiana citizens. that's not the whole list. how about mississippi gulf outlet restoration plan? that was due in may of 2008. we haven't seen it, hasn't been submitted. it's a corps report, not a state of louisiana report. nowhere to be seen. how about section 707 of wrda?

that actually mandates that the state gets credits from one project and it can be transferred to another project. it's in clear language. the comp says they're not going to do it. you want clear authorization? we have it. the corps is ignoring it. how about section 7006 in the same 2007 wrda? that requires that five construction reports be submitted to congress to move forward with key projects author aasauthorized in that wrda, five critical projects that are authorized in the wrda bill that can't move forward until those construction reports are submitted by the corps. we haven't seen the first thing of any of those five reports. the state is not holding them up. we're waiting on the corps. the distinguished senator is anxious about a promotion for the pristine corps leadership. well, great.

well, i'm anxious to see that mandated report. and, mr. president, we can go on and on. the point is -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. vitter: mr. president, i'd ask unanimous consent for two additional minutes. mr. dorgan: mr. president, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator's time has expired. mr. dorgan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota is recognized. mr. dorgan: mr. president, my colleague from louisiana described me as anxious. i'll tell what you i'm anxious about. i'm anxious to have a member of the united states senate stop using a united states soldier and the promotion of a soldier as a tune meet certain demands. i'm really anxious over in see that happen again. we're talking about a soldier that served in wartime, that has served 30 years, who six months ago was supposed to have been promoted by a unanimous vote of the armed services committee, under the leadership of carl levin and john mccain. six months later, that soldier's career is on hold because of one senator. i want to say this. i think it was will rogers to

say, "it's not what he says that bothers me. it's what he says he knows for sure that just ain't so." i've just heard the most unbelievable amount of fiction on this floor. and let me describe some of it. my colleague has just gone through a tortured lesson in the most unbelievable interpretation of the authority and the law with respect to the corps of engineers. i said when i started today that we have put $14 billion into new orleans and louisiana. i've been proud to be a part of that, as chairman of the subcommittee on appropriations that actually funds these issues. $14 billion. but i would say to my colleague, my colleague is fast wearing out his welcome with me and i expect the corps of engineers with this kind of behavior. i don't normally do this personally, but i tell you what, when a soldier serves his country and then my colleague says to that soldier, i'm not going to allow you to be promoted until the corps of engineers does what i demand when in fact the corps of

engineers cannot legally do what he demands, then i say that is using a soldier's promotion as a pawn and i think that is unbelievably awful to do. and i think to say this: my colleague just described -- in fact he said i was using information the corps feeds me. he goes on -- a whole series of pieces of language suggesting that we've all just swallowed the minot somehow. let me say this. on the first item my colleague raised, he forge forgot to makee point. i demand they do this -- the canals and the pump to the river. i demand they do this, he said. well, they can't do that actually. what he's proposing, by the way, for his state and his city is to spend more money for less flood protection. the corps won't do it and i'll tell you why. he knows why but he wouldn't tell the rest of the folks here.

because we actually had a vote on that in the senate appropriations committee. the majority of the democrats and the republicans on the appropriations committee said, we don't intend to spend money -- more money for less flood control protection. we don't intend to do that. we voted "no." just one little piece of information my colleague left out on the floor of the united states senate. convenient, perhaps, but nonetheless he left it out. i'm not going to go through -- we have the majority leader on the minority leader on the floor. but i offered as courtesy to tell the senator from louisiana when i was coming to the floor today. he didn't extend the same courtesy to me when i asked thoim yield, so i could make the point about the vote. so i will not be extending that courtesy in the future. i'm going com to come to the flr again and say, let's stop having one senator use a decorated soldier as a pawn in order to make the coarntion meet demands they can't meet. my colleague seems to think the

corps of engineers san organization without merit. i would say to him this: there are plenty of things wrong with i suppose every government agency and every government organization. but i would say this: if you know much about the corps of engineers, you're not going to want knob a big flood fight without him has a partner. they've made mistakes, i tell you. but nobody has had more floods than we've had in north dakota, i expect, over a long period of time, and i want to see the corps as a partner to flood fight because they're good. they know what they're doing. yes, they've made mistakes. but when my colleague comes to the floor of the senate and he says, you know, there are 16 dish think h.-- i think he said. 14 reports, they can't meet any deadlines. but hedon tell the rest of the story. i went and checked on those 14 reports. let me describe ten of them. i won't describe the other four. but ten of the reports that the deadline wasn't met on was because the reports required to

have an execution of a feasibility cost-sharing agreement with the state of louisiana and at the state of louisiana's request the corps did not execute the agreement until 2009. my colleague crit syces the corps of engineers calling them a bunch of elitists. saying they miss all these deadlines. at least on 10 of the deadlines the state of louisiana asked them not to proceed with respect to that agreement until june of 2009. that's just fundamentally unfair. just fundamentally unfair. and with respect to morganza to the gulf and i could go through a whole list of things to demonstrate that as much as my colleague would like for core-to-have complete funding to go everything they like and for them to say, yesings whatever you like, as much as he would like that he is flat out dead wrong when he says they have the authority to do these things. i've put the demands in record.

two letters from my colleague. they have read -- and i won't do it now because my completion are here waiting to seek recognition -- mr. reid: will the senator yield for a unanimous consent request. mr. dorgan: without losing my right to the floor. mr. reid: this one i will have to acknowledge is a little egregious. one of our finest military people to be held up for this. there are ways we can move around this. we will do it as quickly as we can with cloture. mr. president, i appreciate my friend yielding. the presiding officer: without objection, the majority leader is recognized. mr. vitter: i ask unanimous consent for 30 additional seconds. mr. reid: we have got to do to get this done. i ask that at 3:00 p.m. monday, april 26, the senate proceed to calendar number 349, s. 3217, a bill to promote the financial stability of the united states by improving accountability a understand transparency.

the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. mcconnell: mr. president, reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: reserving the right to object, and i will object, here we go again. the majority leader has once again moving to a bill even while bipartisan discussions on the content of the bill are still under way. just about an hour ago the majority leader said -- quote -- "i'm not is going to waste anymore time of the american people until they come up with some agreement. requests "well, mr. president, i don't think bipartisanship is a waste of time. i don't think a bill with the legitimacy of a bipartisan agreement is a waste of time. is it a waste of time to ensure that taxpayers never again bail out wall street firms? is it a waste of time to ensure that the bill before us does not drive jobs overseas or drive lending to small businesses? is it too much to ask should an agreement be reached that we take the time to make sure every member of the senate and our

constituents can actually read the bill and understand the details? this bill potentially affects every small bank and lending institution in our country. it has serious implications for jobs and the availability of credit to spur economic growth. iit has important consequences for the taxpayers if done correctly. i think americans expect more of us. i think they expect us to take the time to do it right. i would add, my impression was that serious discussions were going on. i think they should continue. therefore, mr. president, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the majority leader. mr. reid: thank you, mr. president. here we go again. this is a bill that has been out here for a month, weeks. i think people even reading slow would have a hard time to work their way through it in a month.

this kabuki dance we have been involved in, my friend -- and he is my friend, the distinguished senior senator from alabama -- he worked with the chairman of the committee for weeks and weeks, weeks going into months. trying to come up with a deal that we could move forward on. that fell -- that was no longer possible. no goings wen negotiations went. my friend from alabama said, that's enough. then we get the senator from tennessee coming in to spend weeks with my friend, senator dodd. that fell through. we're moving to this bill was we need transparency, accountability, we need someone to resonde respond to wall stret because they have not responded to us. now, mr. president, this game is apparent to the american people. my friends on the other side of the aisle are betting on failure again, as they did with health

care, as they have done everything this year. they didn't get -- health care was not obama's waterloo. maybe they want this to be his water lou. but it is not going to be. we're going to move forward on this piece of legislation balls the american people demand it. and i have said publicly on many owe educations, we need to get on this bill. remember, mr. president, we're not finalizing the bill. we're asking the simple task that we are to do easily, move to the bill. i'm only asking permission to get on the bill, to get on the bill. then start offering amendments. i'm not asking everybody approve the bill as written. i'm asking we move to the bill. now, if there is an agreement reached between the ranking member and the chairman of the committee, its eight easy to take care of that. there would be a substitute amendment. they would agree to it and probably it would be accepted pretty easily.

so to think that this is some way to bail out wall street firms is an absolute joke. read the bill. so, in light of the objection, i now move to proceed -- i'm moving to proceed. it takes me two days -- takes the senate two days for this to ripen. we're going to have a vote monday. we should be on the bill today. offering amendments, having opening statements on the bill. those that think it's good, say something good about t those who think it immediates to be improved, improve t but, no, we're going to waste the next four days getting on the bill. so in light of the objection, i now move to proceed to s. 349, and i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions

of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar 349, s. 3217, the restoring america's financial stability act of 2010, sign by 18 smores as follows: reid of nevada, dodd, dorgan, inouye, brown, casey, begich, leahy, udall of new mexico, murray, harkin, durbin, lautenberg, cardin, nelson of florida and reed of rhode island. mr. reid: just society american public knows this also, mr. president, if there is an agreement reached between dodd and shelby and anyone objected to that agreement, i'd have to start all over with the bill because it would be a new bill and we would have the same games being played. so if they can come to an agreement, more power to them. they'll work this out as an amendment to the bill or a

substitute. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed occur at 5:00 p.m. on monday. i will drag the vote, if some people wanted it earlier, some later. we won't close the vote until at least 5:45. so that would be on monday, april 26, at 5:00 p.m. and with a mandatory quorum being waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. mcconnell: i would only add briefly that senator dodd and senator shelby are on the floor. i would encourage them to continue to do what they've been doing, which is to try to reach an agreement. the only place where i would disagree with my good friend s, the jocialtion is i think it does make a difference which bill we turn to. hopefully it will not be a bill that came out of committee on a party-line vote but, rather, a bill goashted on a bipartisan -- negotiated on a bipartisan basis by those to know the most about the subject, senator dodd,

senator shelby and the members of their committee. it is still my hope that we will be able to go forward on a bipartisan basis and i look forward to hearing from chairman dodd and ranking member shelby about the progress they maifnlgt i yield the floor. mr. dorgan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota has the floor. mr. dorgan: mr. president, let me -- the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota is recognized. mr. dorgan: i am tempted to ask the minority leader while he is on the floor whether he might help us to proceed to overcome the objections of senator vitter and achieve the promotion that was offered six mofntses ago but has since been blocked for a distinguished soldier. i guess i'll withhold on that and wait for another moment. but let me just indicate quickly -- i'll be happy to respond to a question then -- the outfall canals and pump to the river which my colleague is so significantly criticizing the corps of engineers for, let me read specifically the corps will conduct a supplemental risk

reduction analysis as part of the detailed engining feasibility study including the nepa compliance for aquifers 2 and 2-a if congress appropriates the funds for the study." congress has actually voted on these funds through the appropriations committee and said, no, we won't do that. holding up the promotion of a soldier is not going to achieve his ends. the appropriations committee has already voted. mr. warner: mr. president, i appreciate the -- the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: mr. president, i appreciate the comefntses of the senator from north dakota. and i agree with his comments. i have to say -- and i know some of my colleagues were here earlier. before i came to this body, i spent a career as a c.e.o. in business and a c.e.o. of a state. while i have great respect for this body and the rules and traditions of this body, something seems a little strange when 15 months into a new

administration, this president can't get his nominees up for a straight up-or-down vote. put the management team in place. if there is a challenge and a problem with the qualifications of the gentleman that the president has proposed to be head of the corps of engineers, we ought to debate that, vote him up or down, but not be held in this kind of gray secret hold or area of abeyance. it is why i think and i know a number of my colleagues have spoken to this already. all of the new freshmen and sophomore democratic members and i'm sure we welcome our republican colleagues to do the same, to say that this process of putting people on hold, particularly secret holds that have no relationship to their qualifications for the job. i don't know how to answer this when people around virginia ask me why can't you get stuff done and why can't these things be moved forward? a number of us, we may be new to the body but just because of the very action that is being debated right now we'll continue to press this issue.

i commend my friend, the senator from north dakota. again, are you aware of any substantive reasons why this man who served our country for so long in our military should not be confirmed as the head of the army corps of engineers? mr. dorgan: i would say to the senator from virginia there are no reasons with respect to this person's military service. i have not heard any reasons from the senator from louisiana. he is not holding up his promotion because he thinks the man is unfit or didn't earn the promotion. he is holding up the promotion because he is demanding other things of the corps of engineers. despite meirtation here, let me say i don't dislike my colleague from louisiana. i intensely dislike what he is doing. i expect most informed soldiers in this country should dislike what he is doing because i believe it puts a soldier in the position of being a pawn as between the demands of a u.s. senator and some agency. i have -- i will go through at some point. the senator i know is leaving this afternoon. that's why i as a matter of

courtesy told him when i would come to the floor, but at some point later when others aren't waiting, i will go through and describe the issues, responses to the issues because the rest of the story is much more compelling than the half story given us by the senator from louisiana. the ochita river levees. the authorization for that ochita river and tributary project specifies that levee maintenance work is a nonfederal responsibility. congress has not acted a general provision law that would supplant this responsibility and allow the court to connect levee damage not associated with a flood event. as much as a person doesn't like the answer, that is the answer. again, my colleague is saying -- if you strip away all the bark here, my colleague is saying i demand we spend more money on something that will give us less flood control. well, look, the senate appropriations committee has been confronted with that and the senate appropriations committee said no way, we're not going to do it.

one final point, and then i will come back at some later point and the senator from louisiana will respond and i will respond to him. hopefully someday he will decide there are other ways for him to achieve a means to the end rather than use the promotion of this dedicated soldier as a pawn in this effort he is making. this congress has appropriated appropriated $14 billion to help the people of new orleans and louisiana. how do i know that? because i chair the appropriations subcommittee that funds these things, i chair that subcommittee. i have been willing and anxious to help the people of louisiana and new orleans. i have been willing to do that because i saw what they were hit with, an unbelievable tragedy. i saw that. but i think it's pretty byzantine to come to the floor and hear the relentless criticism of the corps of engineers that has stood with the people of louisiana and new

orleans, and even today is helping build with that that $14 billion, and i think there is a time when you wear out the welcome of certainly this senator and others who have been so quick and so anxious to help and you wear out the welcome of agencies like the corps of engineers when you suggest somehow they are a bunch of slothful bureaucrats that can't do anything right. i have seen people wear out their welcome here, and i tell you what, this exercise in using a soldier's promotion as a pawn in this little game reeked -- trying to misread the law and the authorities of the corps of engineers to demand that they do what they can't do in order to satisfy one senator. it is the wrong way to do business in this united states senate. now, i have not convinced my colleague to release his hold and allow after six months this soldier's career to be put on hold. this is one. there are a hundred of them on the calendar, this is one, but it's one that is unusual.

it's one that's unusual because one soldier's career that has been recommended for promotion by the republicans and democrats alike is being held up by only one person. i have not heard one other person in this chamber come to this chamber and say i think it's a good idea to use a soldier's promotion as pa pawn to -- as a pawn to try to get what i want. not one other person has done that, and i don't think there is another senator that would do it. if there is, let's hear it. i will come later. i know my colleague wants to speak. had he wanted me to yield, i certainly would have yielded even though he wouldn't yield to me. there are certain things we should do around here. but again i say i don't dislike him, i sure do dislike what he is doing because i think it's so fundamentally wrong and undermines the kind of circumstances in which we have always evaluated the merit of promotions for soldiers who have served this country. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. well, mr. president, i'm

disappointed. i'm disappointed my distinguished colleague is continuing to simply blindly, in my opinion, be a fierce defender of a bureaucracies which is -- of a bureaucracy which is truly broken. not a pawn of anything. a member of the leadership, one of the top nine officers of the leadership of this bureaucracy. for my part, i will continue to fight to change, to fundamentally change that bureaucracy, and for starters to have them follow the law, to have them follow their mandates, their authorizations in the bill and the legislation i have outlined. i have outlined the authorization clearly to the core. i will outline it again. i have outlined these significant studies that are overdue, have never been produced, not because of the fault of anyone else, not because of the state of louisiana. i'll meet with them next week.

i'll continue to work on that. i would invite the senator to work on that sort of fundamental change, not just fiercely defending this, in my opinion, truly broken bureaucracy. and i would also note as the majority leader noted, one senator cannot kill this nomination. one senator cannot stop this promotion. the senate can move on it. i invite the senate and the majority leader to do that. and it is completely within the majority leader, his party's power to move on that, to proceed with this nomination, and certainly one senator cannot stop that. but this one senator will continue to fight to hold the corps' feet to the fire, to make them live by their mandates to move forward on these critical, critical protection issues for louisiana. thank you, mr. president. mr. dorgan: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: let me just quickly say i intend to work with everybody in this chamber who comes here to work in good faith to solve problems. i -- but, in my judgment, it -- it is an unbelievable mistake to use the promotion of soldiers as a pawn in these circumstances. and i would say that as chairman of the subcommittee that funds all of these projects and all of these issues, i have been pleased to send all that money, money, $14 billion down to louisiana, but, as i said, my friend is fast wearing out his welcome. i think my friend might want to learn the words thank you. thank you to this chamber, thanks to the rest of the american people who said there are some people who were hit with an unbelievable tragedy, you're not alone, you're not alone. this country cares about you and is going to invest in your future. but i also think thank you to the corps of engineers. it's quite clear they have probably made some mistakes, probably in all of our states.

it's also clear it would be a pretty difficult circumstance for any state or people of any state to fight these battles without the experience and the knowledge and the capability of the corps of engineers. i just think from time to time constructive criticism is in order. i think also from time to time a thank you is in order. and i also think in every case, in each and every case the truth is in order. i will go through in every single circumstance, describe where the senator from louisiana has said the corps of engineers has the authority and has the funding, and i will show him that he is dead wrong, and i think he knows it. but, you know, if this impasse continues, my colleague senator reid, the majority leader, does have the capability to take two days of the senate's time to file a cloture petition. and my expectation will be that the vote will be 99-1 because i don't know of one other member of the united states senate that wants to hold up the promotion of soldiers in order to meet the demands that a specific federal agency cannot possibly comply with. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana.mr. vittt to close, i have said thank you many times certainly to the american people, to these bodies here in washington representing the american people. the senator is certainly right about that generosity and about a lot of the work of the corps. i do disagree with the senator in sort of lightly tripping over as a minor mistake design flaws that caused 80% of the catastrophic flooding of the city of new orleans. i don't think that's a minor mistake to trip over. but i will continue to work with the corps to resolve these issues and will go through every one of those additional 11 items i outlined because we're waiting on that critical work and on those critical reports, and that's not only authorized but it's mandated in the 2007 bill and other bills, and we need

thato move forward now. thank you, mr. president. the presing officer: th senator from connecticut is recognized. mr. dodd: mr. president, i note the presence of my colleague from north dakota. i will be very brief. you heard the proposal by the majority leader, the objection by the minority leader, and the announcement that there will be a filing of a cloture motion which will mature i think by monday around 5:00 or so at which time a vote will occur. let me briefly say, first of all, my thanks to richard shelby, my colleague from alabama. for many, many months, going back more than a year, actually -- we have been working together now on this committee for some time, but over the last 38 or 39 months that i have been privileged to be chairman of the committee, we have sat next to each other and there are some 42 legislative proposals that have come out of the banking committee in the last 38 months. i think 37 of them are now the law of the land, on a wide range of issues, including things like flood control but also dealing

with issues dealing with our port securities, with risk insurance, with housing issues, credit cards, all sorts of issues that our banking committee has wrestled with in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression. so before another word is said, before another amendment is filed or another motion made, let me say thank you to richard shelby and my other members of the committee for the cooperation and the work we have done together on that committee. very few votes have occurred that have been negative votes. a few of them happened. that's understandable from time to time, but by and large we have worked together. i want my colleagues to know but i also think most of us want the american public to know that despite political differences, the fact that we come from different parts of the country doesn't celebrate our common determination, mr. president. to see to it that we put ourselves on a much more solid footing than obviously we were at the time this crisis emerged. we want to never again see our nation be placed in economic

peril as it was over the last several years with many jobs and homes lost, health care disappearing because of job loss, all of the problems, small businesses collapsing, credit shutting down, capital not available for new starts and new ideas. and so we put together a bill -- granted, it was not a bipartisan vote in the committee, but as i'm sure my colleague from alabama will recognize, much of what is in this bill today is different than what i offered in november. i'm not going to suggest that my friend from alabama or others love every dotted i or crossed t, but i believe he will acknowledge there is a lot of cooperation represented in this bill. trying to come to some common territory that we can say to the american public never again will you be asked to spend a nickel of your money to bail out a major financial institution. the presumption is failure and bankruptcy. we want to wind you down in a way that doesn't jeopardize other solvent companies in our country. we want to make sure that

consumers get protected. again, that they have a place to go. when a product of theirs they buy fails, there is a place you can go. we saw recently an automobile company where the accelerator jammed and people were put at risk. there was a recall on that product because it placed people at risk. nothing exists today that calls for a recall. our bill tries to do that. we also try to create an early warning system here so that we can pick up economic problems before they metastasize into the major issues that put us all at risk. there are other pieces of the legislation as well. my point today is not to go through all of that but to say we're working to come to a common understanding on how best to achieve those goals and those results. my hope would be, because of the magnitude of this bill, that we can get to a debate and a discussion. my experience over 30 years in this chamber, mr. president, is that we never get to resolution of issues until we have to. as long as it's just sort of a

discussion group going on in various rooms of the capitol and various meetings we have, that's all helpful and can help us understand issues better. but in the final analysis, the only way you get to resolution of conflicting ideas is to be on this floor of this chamber, where members bring their ideas and we work on them together. the good ones, we try to accept to, modify if we have to, to make them fit into the overall structure. the ones that are bad ideas, we try and reject if we can. but you have to be here to have that happen. senator shelby and i, as hard as we worked, we know that we don't represent 98 other people in this chamber. other members who are not members of our committee or are members of our committee certainly have every right to be heard on this bill and to express their ideas as to how we can do a better job of achieving exactly what the two of us are trying to achieve. but we need to get there. if we don't have the chance to

get there to try to start this process, you can't ask the two of us to resolve this for everyone. it's too much. we can come close, try to reflect the views of our respective caucuses and the american people, but don't expect the two of us to sit there and write a complete bill to deal with a near meltdown of the financial sector of our nation. we can help the economy get there. we think we've got good ideas on how to achieve it. but we need this body to function and it can't function if we're debating whether or not on whether to get to the bill. we spent over a year, senator shelby and i, over a month ago we completed our work in the committee, made the determination we could get out of the committee -- it wasn't a bipartisan vote to our regret but we moved forward. now we have a chance for this body to have a chance to act on this product. and where we can get agreement and some changes, we'll have a managers amendment or substitute

or however, the procedural vehicle necessary to try to accommodate those reflecting the ideas of our colleagues. but then as well, others can bring their ideas to that debate. and we need to have them. but they can't occur until we're actually here doing it. i urge my colleagues, i urge those -- and i know when i say principally on the minority side but not exclusively so, i think there are those on the majority side as well. everybody can play hold-up, i suppose, saying if i don't get my way and you do what i want, then i'm going to object to getting into the bill. if that's the case, who wins in this matter? certainly not the american people who expect a little bit more thousand chamber -- more out of this chamber. this is not an executive body. we're a legislative body. we're all coequals here, even in the leadership. we're all dough equals. -- we're all coequals.

we have a right to be heard. the agriculture committee marked up a bill the other day dealing with derivatives and other matters, as they should, the jurisdiction of that matter in their committee. we did the same in our bill. we have to harmonize on these subject matters. we're working on that, mr. president, as i'm talking to you this afternoon. so i would hope that on monday afternoon, senator shelby and i will continue working with each other. our staffs will be today and tomorrow and over the weekend to try and come to some understanding on some of these matters. but i'm not going to tell you today to count on the two of us to solve all of our problems here. we can't. but i now ask everybody to let's get to the debate. the american people cannot tolerate doing nothing. and that is waiting around to see if another crisis comes and whether or not we can respond to it. that is unacceptable, mr. president. so on monday about 5:00, we need to have the votes to go forward.

and then the two of us will sit in these respective chairs, we'll present our ideas, we'll talk and discuss how these ideas can emerge, we'll invite our colleagues to come to the floor and debate and discuss and offer their ideas, and we'll try to make this even a better bill if we can. we think we've got a pretty good one. we also know that anyone who suggests to you they've written a perfect piece of legislation, be wary of them. i've never seen one in 30 years that has come close to perfection. maybe a mother's day resolution, but aside from that don't count on perfection. it's anything but perfect. i hope we'll get to that in a moment. we've had our discussions over this last week, be and i'll continue talking about the substance of our bill. but we cannot turn into just sort of a petulant organization here that screams at each other. we need to now get about the business that the american people sent us here to achieve. with the relationship i've had with my friend from alabama, i feel and remain optimistic,

mr. president, that we'll get the job done. the legislative processes are not the most beautiful things to watch when you go through them, but it's what our founders designed. it's what those who come before us have been able to use to achieve some of the great successes of our nation on so many different matters. we're now confronted with another great channeling in this body as to whether -- great challenge in this body as to whether we can avoid the kind of issues that would avoid the kind of catastrophe we almost witnessed in our nation. that's our job collectively here. we're here as american citizens chosen by our respective states to represent not only their interests but our fellow countrymen's interests as well. with that in mind, i look forward to the vote on monday. i might even vote we might not have to have it, that we just proceed to the bill and let senator shelby and the other members this have body do the work we were elected to do and shape a good bill. mr. shelby: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from alabama is recognized. mr. shelby: mr. president, first of all, i'd like to just thank senator dodd for his leadership on the banking committee. i've worked with him, as he said, day in, day out. this is in the fourth year of his chairmanship. we have achieved a lot together in a bipartisan way. both sides of the aisle working together for a common goal. we share a lot of these goals. and what are some of these goals? end bailouts. senator dodd and i both believe that nothing should be too big to fail, financial institutions. and i believe manufacturing, anything else. nothing should be too big to fail. we're working toward that end. protect consumers -- we're all consumers. we're very interested in a consumer agency. we want to balance that. and while protecting the deposit insurance fund and so forth. regulating derivatives. let's be honest, derivatives

played a big role, a lot of them, in the closet, unknown and so forth in our financial debacle. but derivatives every day are used legitimately by so many of our businesses not only in america but all over the world. we need to regulate derivatives while protecting jobs and our economic growth that we're all very interested in; a common desire. details matter here. details of anything. and the presiding officer understands that. senator dodd understands it very well. and as we're moving down the road in the process here, we're continuing to negotiate and we're continuing to negotiate in good faith, trying to reach a common goal. who knows what will happen between now and monday or next tuesday or wednesday or thursday. i hope it's a bipartisan bill that we can gather a lot of people on both sides of the aisle. i think that's one of our goals. but what is the main goal?

to do it right. don't just do it, but to do it right. will it be perfect? nothing's perfect, i guess, as senator dodd talks about. if we work in good faith as we're doing while this process is going forward, i think we can make some progress, real progress toward a common goal, to have a strong financial system that's well regulated, to have derivatives that are brought out of the closet to work, and have a consumer agency that will work with balanced fallouts. there are many other things, but that's my goals, and i share it with senator dodd. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado is recognized. mr. udall: thank you, mr. president. i just listened to the colloquy between members of the banking committee as they outlined the importance of true wall street accountability and the wall

street reforms that we'll consider hopefully in the near future. and i rise to speak about a particular opportunity i think we have as we consider this important and far-reaching reform legislation, and that is to discuss a piece of legislation i've introduced today called the fair act to credit scores act of 2010. we're joined with eight of our colleagues to introduce this bill that would put consumers back in control of their finances. this bill takes a commonsense yet significant step in that direction, mr. president, by offering americans annual access to their credit score when they access their annual free credit report. making that distinction, mr. president, when your score and your report -- a report tells consumers what outstanding credit cats they have open like student loans or credit cards, maybe a car or even a home loan.

unfortunately, it tells americans little else. often they already motions to reconsider they hopely should know that information that's in their credit report. in contrast, mr. president, your credit score which our legislation would make available is what banks and lenders and increasingly even employers have access to. it's critical information each one of us needs to know. but today you and i, mr. president, we'd have to jump through hope after hope and pay to have access to our own credit score while banks and lenders can get ahold of this information much more easily. mr. president, i know your history. that's simply not fair. i know you've been a strong advocate for fairness in america, in whatever walk of life. in 2003 congress enacted legislation that required the three major consumer credit reporting agencies provide a free annual report to each one of us on a yearly basis th-fplt law was known as the fact act,

and it was an important step in ensuring that financial records of american consumers are accurate, so you could crosscheck as a consumer what was in your report. now, many of us, many of my constituents in colorado have seen the frequent television commercials and internet advertisers, and they're led to believe that the annual credit report required under law includes this credit score that i'm discussing. unfortunately, we're all disappointed -- i have been personally -- to find out that you only have access to your credit report. and that's not critical information that helps you judge your credit worthiness. you actually have to purchase your score or subscribe to a credit monitoring service that can cost you up to $200 a year to receive it. there's some troubling cases that even go a step further, mr. president, where consumers believe they're signing up for a

free credit score only to find out later they have actually signed up for costly monthly monitoring services instead. this is simply, it's not fair. it's why the consumer federation of america and the consumers union both support this legislation. your score, your credit score is a critical piece of information that affects your interest rates, your monthly payments on home loans. and it could be the difference between whether one of your children can afford college or not. even more concerning, as i alluded to earlier, mr. president, this information is increasingly being used to decide whether or not you'll be offered a job. you apply for a job, your potential employer has access to that information. you don't even know what it is. this is personal information. and the consumers themselves seem to be the only people that don't have access, easy access to it. mr. president, we're talking about empowering american

consumers when we pass -- and i know we will -- wall street accountability legislation. we want to empower consumers to be able to shape their own financial futures and, thereby, the country's financial future. and to do that, we have to have transparency. when you have free access to your credit score -- although that's a small part of the larger reforms we need -- it addresses one of the fundamental inequities that pervades our current financial system. put simply, mr. president, the the one-sided marketplace today is rigged to benefit financial institutions at the expense of hard-working americans struggling to support their families and safe for retirement. consumers continually find themselves on the losing end this have bargain. so with so much at stake, this legislation that we filed today is a small step to help restore balance and put americans back in charge of their financial health. my hope is that as this chamber

considers the wall street accountability bill, we will consider adding this legislation as an amendment to restore an even greater dose of fairness to consumers in colorado to the presiding officer's constituents in minnesota and all over the rest of our nation.let me just g the group of senators who have joined me, senator lugar, senator scott brown, hagan, levin, klobuchar, menendez, shaheen and tom udall have joined me with putting consumers first by cosponsoring this commonsense, pro-consumer legislation smed i would ask each one of my colleagues to join me in supporting its passage. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. bingaman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

senator new mexico. mr. bingaman: mr. president, last month our country lost a great american with the passing of stewart udall, who was -- who, among his many achievements, is probably best remembered for his accomplishments as secretary of interior during the presidency of president kennedy and president johnson. his lifetime of work to protect our public lands and his efforts to improve the quality of our environment are unequaled. stewart udall was instrumental in the passage of virtually all of our nation's landmark environmental laws, including the clean air act of 1963, the wilderness act of 1964, the federal water pollution control act of 1965, the endangered species act of 1966, the national historic preservation act of 1966, the national trail system act of 1968, and the wild and scenic rivers act of 1968.

nearly half a century later, these laws remain the key protections for our nation's land and air and water. in addition, he oversaw significant additions to the national park system and the national wildlife refuge system. many years after he left office, he was a driving force behind the enactment of the radiation exposure compensation act of 1990. in the 161-year history of the department of interior, there have been many exceptional individuals who have served as secretary of interior, and stewart udall certainly ranks among the best of those. in recognition of his lifetime of work pursuing the common good and protecting our nation's public lands and waters and in particular his achievements as the secretary of interior, i'm today introducing legislation to designate the department of

interior building here in washington, d.c., as the stewart lee udall department of interior building. i'm pleased to have mark udall, senator mark udall, senator john mccain, and senator harry reid, our majority leader, as cosponsors of this bill. dedication of the department of interior's headquarters here in washington will be a small but fitting tribute to stewart udall's legendary accomplishments, many of which took place in that very building. and at this time, i would send that -- a bill to the desk and ask that it be appropriate lid referred. -- appropriately referred. the presiding officer: the bill will be received and appropriately referred. mr. bingaman: i know my colleague, senator mark udall, is here to also speak in support of this legislation. let me defer to him and then

i'll ask recognition again on a somewhat separate matter. the presidin mr. udall: does the senator from new mexico yield? mr. bingaman: i do. mr. udall: i thank the senator from new mexico for his courtesy and i rise in support of this legislation. i intend at some later date to spend some additional time on the floor talking about my uncle stewart, who was a wonderful man, an uncle to me but, more than that, he was a mentor. he was a leader and in the last 12 years of his life, after my father died, really served as a second father to me and, therefore, i feel like i've lost a second father recently. i want to thank the senator for -- on behalf of after least my side of the family -- i know my cousin tom will in the right time, in the right way, express his thanks as well. but my uncle was many things but

he was at his heart a student of the west. he was a son of the west. he looked always for the lessons that the landscapes and the people of the west could provide all of us. i know the senator -- the senator from new mexico knows it -- he wrote over 160 books. a book called "the founding founding fathers and mothers of the west," he pointed out in that book that people came to the west to find a new life, and he continued in that vein by talking about the great western director of western movies, john ford, and he once asked john ford if his movies portrayed the west as it was the and ford's answer was, "no, they portrayed the west as it shooive been,

doggone it." my uncle's point was that the west wasn't settled by the gunfighters. the west was settled by those who came looking to create communities rand to work together and it was the people standing on the wooden sidewalks watching the gun fights that in the end settled the west, established what we know as the west today. my uncle in particular had great affection for and respect for the native populations in the west, and that led him to also have great passion and even outrage about the way native americans had been treated. and in his later years, the presiding officer knows, he went to battle in the courts through his words advocating for justice and for fair treatment for our native american brothers and sisters. in our family, we characterized him as being outraged without being outrageous.

we're going to obviously miss him. i'm going to miss his wise counsel, and i am going to do everything i can to live by the credo he carried forward, which was -- he believed deeply, we didn't inherit the earth from our parents. we're borrowing it from our children. i think that's the fundamental lesson that my uncle left us w and your wonderful, inspiring step to name the interior building after my uncle will help us keep that firmly in our view and keep committed firmly to that purpose in our time on this earth. so i thank you for your leadership. i thank you for your graciousness, and i look forward to this becoming the law of the land. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. bingaman: yes, mr. president, let me thank my colleague, senator udall, for his very eloquent statement there. and, obviously, the udal udall y

has a great deal to be proud of. his father's great public srvetion his uncle's great public service and he's carrying on with that tradition, as is tom udall, my colleague from new mexico. we're very fortunate to have the udall family working hard to make this a best place, and i hope this legislation that we've introduced today can become law soon, and we will have that additional recognition for stewart udall and his contribution to the country. mr. president, let me also speak just for a moment about earth day. this is the 40th anniversary of earth day, the 40th earth day, in fact, 292nd of april. -- the 22nd of april. and i am speaking now because of mire great admiration for the work of senator gaylord nelson

in establishing this earth day. i was reminded of it in two respects in the last week. one was getting to visit with his widow, carrie lee nelson, who is a great personage herself, made a great contribution to his career in public service and continues today to advocate for the same issues that he advocated for, particularly as they relate to the environment. and then also earlier this week don ritchie, our senate historian, who speaks to us on tuesdays at our -- at the democratic lunch each week when we get together, gave what i thought was a fitting tribute to gaylord nelson that i wanted to share with people.

and i ask permission to do that and don ritchie agreed that that was something that was acceptable. so i would like to read through this. it'll take two or three minutes. he, as the senate historian, he recounted the facts as follows. he says, "this past weekend, the mini page, a syndicated children's supplement that appears in 500 newspapers across the country, paid special tribute to a former u.s. senator, gaylord nelson, for launch the first earth day on april 22, 1970. five years after his death, senator nelson remains an icon of the environmental movement. senator nelson used to say that he came to environmentalism by osmosis, having grown up in clear lake, wisconsin. he promoted conservation as governor of which is wills and after he was elected to the senate in 1962, he used his

maiden speech to call for a comprehensive nationwide program to save the natural resources of america. he went on to compile an impressive list of legislative accomplishments which included preserving the appalachian traicialtion banning d.d.t., promoting clean aired and clean water act, but it was earth day that gave him international prominence and served as his lasting legacy. senator nelson worried that the united states lacked a unity of purpose to respond to the increasing threats against the environment. the problem, in his words, was how to get a nation to wake up and pay attention to the most important challenge the human spheesh faces on the planet -- the human species faces on the planet. then a number of instance instas merged to help him. a major oil spill across the coast of santa barbara covered the beach with tar, senator

nelson toured the area in august of that year. he was outraged by the damage the oil spill had caused but was also impressed by the main knee rally to clean up the mess. flying back, he read an article about the anti-vietnam war teach-ins that were taking place on college campuses. this inspired him to apply the same model to the environment. in september of 1969, the senator charged his staff with figuring out how to sponsor environmental teach-ins on college campuses nationwide to be held on the same day the following spring. and rather than organize this effort from the top down, they believed that earth day would better -- would work better as a grass-roots movement. they raised funds to set up an office staffed by college students, with a law student, dennis hayes, serving as the

national coordinator. they identified the week of april 19 as the ideal time for college schedules and the possibility of good spring weather. calculating that more cliewnts students were on campus wednesday made wednesday, april 22, the first earth day. critics of the movement pointed out that april 22 happened to be vladimir lenin's birthday. senator nelson rebutted that, that it was also athe birthday of the first environmentalist, st. frances of asierra leone. an astonishing corks the first earth day in 1970 was celebrated by some 20 million americans on 2,000 college campuses at 10,000 primary and secondary schools. and in hundreds of communities. and 40 years later it's commemorated this week -- its commemoration this week is expected to attract 500 million people in 175 countries.

mr. president, i would also -- i and i will at some later point talk about the environmental legacy of within of our own senators from new mexico, senator clinton anderson, who was one of the prime sponsors and promoters of the wilderness act and worked with gaylord nelson on many of these same environmental issues and of course with senator kennedy and stewart udall and with president johnson. there are many -- many people who deserve great credit for the legacy we have in this country and focus on environment al issues and earth day is an appropriate time to acknowledge their contributions, and i would ask consent that this summary of the founding of earth day that don ritchie prepared be included in the record in full.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator in illinois. mr. durbin: speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, i want to commend the senator from new mexico for drawing our attention to earth day. it has certainly become a national, if not global, observance, that calls to mind the relationship that we have with this earth we live on and our responsibilities. we're considering now legislation involving carbon and the impact of carbon on the environment and on this planet. there are some differences of opinion on the floor of the united states senate about whether this is a challenge and if it is how to address it. early next week three of our

completion are going to step forward with a proposal. senator john kerry has spearheaded an effort working with senator barbara boxer and senator bingaman to come forward with an idea on clean energy. he will be joined by senator joseph lieberman and senator lindsey graham. it's a bipartisan effort. and what they are seeking to do in this bill i think is certainly consistent with the goals of earth day and our national goals. first, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, to encourage domestic energy sources that are renewable and sustainable, that we can build on for our future. second, to create jobs, which is our highest priority in this congress with the recession that we face. we understand the reality that countries like china see a great potential for building solar panels and wind su turbines anda variety of different forms of

technology to promote energy efficiency and to promote the kind of clean energy approach that we should have as part of our future. and a third thing, of course, is that we wanted to do something about pollution, carbon emissions, the impact that they have on our lungs and on our atmosphere. this is, i think, a noble agenda. it's an ambitious agenda because it engages the entire american economy. we want to be sure that we do the right thing, the responsible thing when it comes to clean energy and our future but not at the cost of economic growth and development. i happen to believe the case can be made that absent our effort, we are going to fall behind in the development of industries that have great potential. there was a time that the two-word silicon valley sent a message to not only america but to the world that we were leading in the information technology development arena. i cannot even guess at the number of jobs, businesses, and wealth created by that

information technology leadership in the united states. and now we need to seize that leadership again. it is frustrating, if not infuriating, to think that 50 years ago, bell labs in the united states developed solar panels and now of the ten largest solar panel producers in the world, not one is in the united states. that has to change. it's something of a cliche but i can tell you, people when i say it in my speeches, it resonates. i'd like to go into more stores in america and find "made in america" stamped on the product. and when it comes to this type of technology, solar panels, wind turbines, you know, there's no reason why we can't build these in the united states so that we are achieving many goals at once. clean energy alternatives, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, creating good-paying jobs in industries with a future, and in the

process doing the right thing for mother earth. earth day is a time to reflect on that. i've often spent my earth day back in illinois downstate with farmers. i can't think of any people in america closer to mother nature every single day of their lives. and most of them are not all that comfortable with these so-called environmentalists. they just feel like they're too theoretical and not grounded in the reality that farmers face in their lives. but i've tried to draw them together in conversation and almost inevitably they come up with some common approaches, whether we're talking about soil and water conservation, the reduction of the use of chemicals on the land, all of these things are consistent with both environmental goals and profitable farming. so i look at our stewards of the agricultural scene in america as part of our environmental community that could play a critical role in charting our course and making policies for

the future. mr. president, soon we'll be moving to -- i hope soon we'll be moving to financial regulatory reform. it's a washington term known as wall street reform or basically trying to clean up the mess that was created by this last recession. but this is a bill that is controversial. it's been worked on by many committees. senator blanche lincoln in the agriculture committee took on a big part of it. most people are surprised to think about wall street and the ak committee at the same time but those of -- and the ag committee at the same time, but those of us in chicago are not. we have a futures market which has been in place for almost a century, starting with the chicago board of trade, and it really deals in futures, derivatives, if you will, that are based on agricultural commodities and currency and interest rates and certain index. and that operation in chicago is governed and regulated by the commodity future trading commission.

the jurisdiction of that as it started with agricultural products has been relegated to the agriculture committee. senator lincoln met this week and did an outstanding job of reporting a bill on that section of the bill related to derivatives and futures regulated by the commodity futures trading commission. she was successful in reporting the bill from her committee with the support of senator grassley of iowa, making it a bipartisan effort. another republican senator had expressed an interest in helping her as well. so i give her high praise in the charged political atmosphere that we work in in this body, it says a lot for her that she can put together this kind of bipartisan coalition. at the same time, senator dodd and the banking committee has been working on a bill as well, trying to bring it to the floor so that we can bring the two dispoag have a -- two together and have a joint effort to deal with this issue. why are we doing this? well, we're doing this for very obvious reasons.

we know that leading into this recession, wall street and the big banks in america got away with murder. and at the end of the day, the taxpayers of this country were called on to rescue these financial institutions from their own perfity. when you look at what they did in the name of profits, it turned out to be senseless greed. and at the end of the day, many people suffered. as a result of this recession, $17 trillion was extracted from the american economy. $17 trillion in losses. now, $17 trillion is more than the annual gross national product of the of america. so if you took the value, the sum total value of all the goods and services produced in our country in one year, we lost that much value in this recession. it was the hardest hit the american economy has taken since the great depression in 1929. and, of course, a lot of it had to do with bad decisions.

some individual families and businesses made bad decisions. they borrowed money when they shouldn't have. they got in too deep. they bought homes that were too expensive. they might have been lured into it but they made bad decisions. the government made some bad decisions. we thought that as a general rule, general principle, that encouraging homeownership was great for our country. the more people who own a home, the more likely that they will make that home a good investment for themselves, the more likely they'll be engaged in their neighborhood and their children, in their community and the stronger we'll be as a nation. that was the starting point. and so we really opened up opportunities for homeownership reaching down to levels that had not been tried before. and, unfortunately, that went too far. the private sector was to blame. when we look at so many people who were lured into mortgages and borrowing far beyond their means, we see that there was also a lot of deception going

on. people were told that they could get a mortgage, make an easy monthly payment and they weren't told that that mortgage would explode right in front of them, a subprime mortgage that in a matter of months or years would have a monthly payment far beyond their means. they weren't told there was a provision in that mortgage which had a prepayment penalty which stopped them from refinancing, that they were stuck with the high interest rates and couldn't escape. they weren't told that just making a -- an oral representation about their income was not nearly enough, that they needed to produce documentation about their real net worth. these so-called no-doc closings, which became rampant in some areas, really led to terrible decisions, encouraged by greedy speculators in the financial industries. and so the net result of it was the bottom fell out of the real estate market and $17 trillion in valley was lost in the american economy. most of us felt it in our

401(k)'s, our savings accounts and our retirement plans. we saw it with businesses that lost their leases and lost their businesses and had to lay off their employees. and the president came in facing in the first month he was president 800,000 americans unemployed. that's an enormous sum of -- number of people. the total today is about 8 million actively unemployed, 6 million long-term unemployed. it's huge. and it affects every single state n. my state, over 11% -- and it affects every single state. in my state accident over 11%. rockford, illinois, 20%. danville, illinois, about the same. i visited those cities. i can see the pain and the sacrifices that are being made by people who've lost their jobs. and so the president came in and asked us to pass a stimulus bill, which we did. it was some $787 billion injected into the economy in an effort to get it moving again, providing tax breaks for 95% of working dispeamgz middle-income families -- families and

middle-income families across america, a safety net for those who lost their jobs, not only unemployment benefits but also cobra or health insurance benefits. and finally investment in projects like highway construction that would create good-paying american jobs right now and produce something that would have value to economic growth in the years to comemen comement -- come. at the same time, though, as we go through this painful process of coming out of this recession, we have to make the changes in wall street and the financial institutions to guarantee that we won't face this again, and that means taking an honest look at some of the practices that are taking place today, that are legal today. we got into this thinking, and i was part of it -- most of us were -- that if we had an expanding financial sector in the united states, it would expand jobs and opportunities and business growth and global competition. unfortunately, it went overboard and many of the financial institutions which are now being

called on the carpet took the authority given them by the federal government to an extre extreme. that's what we're trying to change. we want to make sure that there is some accountability on wall street and with the big banks so that we understand what they're doing so that their investments don't end up being gambled that people would lose their -- gambles that people would lose their life savings or investments over. we want to make sure as well that we empower consumers in the united states. this bill that's going to come before us has the strongest consumer financial protection ever enacted into law in the united states. we are going to create an agency which is going to protect and empower consumers. protect them from the tricks and traps and shadowy agreements and fine print stuck in mortgages and credit card statements and student loans, retirement plans, all of the things that people engage in daily in their lives where some one sentence stuck in a legal document could end up

being your downfall. we want to protect consumers from that and empower consumers to make the right decisions. so there will be clarity in these legal documents that really can bring a person's financial empire to ruin. that kind of clarity in plain english is going to be guaranteed by a federal group that is going to keep an eye on the financial industries. some of these large banks are fighting us. they don't want to see this happen. they don't believe that there should be this kind of consumer financial protection. but we're going to fight to make that happen so that consumers across america have a fighting chance when they enter into agreements so that they'll have a legal document they can understand and one that they can work with and they'll have an agency to back them up. currently, we have only had one republican senator vote for this kind of reform. senator grassley of iowa voted for agriculture committee version that came out of senator lincoln's committee. but in the bank committee banki,

not a single republican would vote for it. i hope they would have a change of heart. i understand there are negotiations underway, but i would hope that the negotiations don't water down the basic agreement in this bill. we need a strong bill. we need a bill that meets the test of what we have been through as a nation. after all of the suffering that has taken place, the businesses lost, the savings lost, the jobs lost, for goodnesssation, let's not come up with some -- goodness sakes, let's not come up with some half hearted effort. let's stand up to the wall street lobbyists who are going to try to water this bill down and tell them no. we're going to vote on a bill that has some teeth it in. something that will guarantee we will never go through this type of recession ever again in our economy. i think we owe that to the american people. and i hope that next week, come monday afternoon at 5:00, when this senate convenes for a vote, i hope that we have a strong bipartisan vote to move forward on this whole idea of watt -- wall street reform. i believe that's in the best

interest of our country. i commend senator dodd and senator lincoln. i urge them to come together, bring their two bills together and to come up with an agreement that can lead us into this kind of a -- of happy day where we have this kind of legislation. so, mr. president, i thank you for allowing me to speak in morning business. and if there's no one seeking recognition, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the calling of the quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. last month, my state was hit by the worst non-hurricane floods in the history of the state, at least the last two centuries, 200 years. our governor has preliminarily assessed the damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which is a significant figure for the smallest state in the union. this disaster comes at the worst moment possible. rhode island is struggling with an economic collapse that has left it with a 12.7%

unemployment rate, decimated state and local financial resources. indeed, many of the homeowners and businesses that were hit hardest by the floods were among those already struggling to make ends meet. i toured the state along with sheldon whitehouse and met with constituents from the north to the south as they worked to clean their homes and businesses, and you could see their turmoil, emotional as well as physical strain and stress. they're tired, they're frustrated and they're asking for our help. i admire the spirit of people who are willing to pitch in and help their neighbors, and that was evident throughout the crisis. but this was sort of a significant blow on top of the economic blows we've already suffered. a flood like this is difficult in good times. it is truly trying in bad times like we're seeing today in rhode

island. i want to, however, commend fema and all the professionals -- rhode island emergency management also -- for their help, for their coverage. they're doing a marvelous job, really specific. the speed of the response, including secretary napolitano -- she was up there on good friday looking at the damage. the fema teams were on the ground. deputy fema administrative rich cerino was there. he was visiting. he was walking with me. this was emblematic of the entire commitment of the fema task force t.'s not just fema. it's also the small business administration, the regional e.p.a. director was there, the regional small business administrator was there. we had representatives from the army corps of engineers, the district engineer. the most, i think, emblematic story was told to me in washington by a rhode islander

who was visiting. in fact, she was a visiting nurse. she said her sister was at home on easter, had had some flood damage. the doorbell rang and it was fema. they said we work seven days a week. here's the estimate of your damages and we'll be able to help you in this way. and that impressed them tremendously. even with this dramatic response and effective response, the damage was widespread. it covers every corner of the statement this was the first -- every corner of the state. this was the first time we've seen in my lifetime, and going back a long time, not just surface water coming over the banks of a river. there are areas that perennially flood like any area of the water. this was ground water. we had been so saturated with rain for weeks and weeks, the final deluge, there was no place to hold the water. it came up there cellars, such

pumps, everybody. there were very few parts of the state, very few homes protected. in some cases very major water damage to their home. the story of a pa tuck subject -- patuxent river is an example of what transpired. let me also say in my course of traveling around, i was reeducated in the development of northern industrial communities. and i'm looking at the senator from new hampshire. it started with a mill on a stream for water power, and then they built mill cottages around that. those mills are still there, and those cottages are generally occupied today by relatively low- or moderate-income people. the mill owner, i recall now always put his house on the top of the hill, not around the mill. that's rhode island, that's new hampshire, that's connecticut,

that's. new hampshire. this is the first time we saw this incredible ground water as well as surface water. and we are a community of rivers and mill villages. the blackstone river, where the american industrial revolution began. the pa tax sent river -- patuxent river, they all were above flood stage. the patuxent river, on march 15, the river crested at a record high of 15 feet. remarkable. neighbors along the bank were flooded as businesses and homes were evacuated. i toured those neighborhoods later in the week and saw the damage. again, along with senator whitehouse, we worked to support a major disaster declaration which was promptly granted. the people of rhode island appreciate the president, president obama, signing very quickly a declaration of a

presidential disaster not only for the individuals, but also for the public entities, the cities and towns. this is something that he did with great speed and great efficiency, and i thank him personally. actually there was an initial flooding around march 12 or march 13. then we got the second. it was a two-stage event. as the rains were falling, one woman profiled on local television looked in exhaustion as the new furnace she purchased was moved in anticipation of the flood. furnaces were shored up on equipment or factory floors. the rapidity of the rain and the extent of the rain was such that the flood was there before many people trekked or could react to it -- many people recognized it or could react to it.

let me try to give you a sense of the damage. this horizontal axis is south, north, an overpass. this is route 95, the principal interstate highway running along the east coast. it was shut down totally for several days because of flooding. the road was completely obliterated by the water. completely covered. then the next picture, this is the city of war ricks, a waste water plant, totally engulfed in water. to that, the city of warrick is also home to our airport. for two days when you got off a plane you saw a sign that asked you to use the restroom someplace else or the port-a-john because the airport

could not use their toilet. the whole city asked residents to suspend flushing for two days. this impact is something we never witnessed before. the next photograph, this is the warrick mall, one of the major shopping centers in the state of rhode island. it is totally engulfed in water. flooding is inside. these are stores and retail establishments. they're still trying to open it. but this facility employs several hundred, if not 1,000 people. they're still out of work. and when you have a 12.7 unemployment rate and 1,000 people can't work because, you know, they have been flooded out, that is just adding excruciating pain to something which is already difficult. i must commend the owner of the mall, aram garabino.

a ram is indefatigable. nothing is going to defeat him. immediately they're cleaning up, on the road to recovery and return, but this has been a blow economically to the state. as i said, in rhode island, because of our small size and community, there are five or six principal malls. so essentially 20% of our mall sector is out of business. the next photograph -- this is typical of the property damage. this is in my hometown of cranston. if you notice the sign "give this land back to the river." the river decided for a moment at least to reclaim it. this is the result of the surface flooding and the subsurface water coming up. this looks like the entire inside of the home has been destroyed and removed. here's a hot water heater, a toilet. so although the house is

standing, what's inside is basically a shell. this is a homeowner that now has to be ahead and -- has to go ahead and rebuild their house essentially. replace water heaters, replace toilets. one of the issues, one of the problems we have here is that in some of these areas, in many of them because of subsurface flooding, they're not in a flood zone. unless they recently borrowed money, there's probably little requirement for them to have flood insurance. typically in these communities, the houses have been occupied for 20, 30, 40 years by one family. they've either paid off the mortgage or they don't require flood insurance. so many people, frankly, don't have flood insurance. then, of course, there is going to be a wrangle with the insurance company because in some cases where it's just subsurface water, that doesn't

fit their definition of a flood. depending on your policy, your coverage, if you have it, the bottom line is there are thousands of homes in rhode island that are not fit for habitation, and the owner has no resources to rebuild unless he gets some assistance. again, fema has been very good for the temporary assistance, but we have to look longer term. finally, this isopkington, rhode island, which is part of our rural area in the west. this is just the scope of the flooding there. these houses are totally surrounded by water, totally engulfed. i was in other parts of the area, another community nearby -- charles town -- there was a bridge that was closed. but as you walked across the bridge, on the other side because of the water moving under the ground, it looked as

if someone had dropped a 500-pound bomb. there is a huge crater. now the town has to rebuild the bridge, and of course they don't have the money to do that. so all of this is indicative of the situation here in rhode island. a further point, this was taken a week after the flooding. you notice it's sunny. this is a week after the flooding. these owners couldn't even get to their house after a week. this could have been worse in this particular locale because further upstream there is a dam, the alton dam. the water is flush, going over it. there was so much concern there was an emergency evacuation order for the town of wesley, which is a sizable community to the south on the coast. they were afraid the dam would give and a major, in rhode island terms, metropolitan area city would be engulfed with water. luckily the dam held. the damage was significant but

restricted to flooding a along the river. several factories were knocked out. bradford printing has already let go all of its people. they did so in the storm. they were under water. they're still trying to literally get back to work. it's been closed for clean up. again, 200 workers are on the street not because they don't have demand for their product. it's because they can't get to their machines which are flooded. another company in northern rhode island, the blackstone river, hope global -- an extraordinary c.e.o., cheryl merchant, they were flooded in 2005. i was there. you had to take a boat in to the factory. this time, in anticipation, they literally lifted up the equipment. and this is a major producer of o.e.m. for the water industry,

webbing and belts, seat belts, et cetera. they pushed all that heavy equipment up. the water came in but didn't reach the equipment. they're back in production, but the cleanup is about $1 million. it is hard for the manager of the plant to explain to the board of directors where they're going to spend $1 million every five years just to keep the equipment dry. we have to do something in terms of mitigation. even in the best times, fema was necessary, would have been necessary. but we're in a very difficult situation. the state is, as we speak, trying to fill a $220 million shortfall in this year's budget. again, this is a state where $220 million is a significant part of the budget. it's not a rounding in rhode island. they are already participating a $400 million shortfall next year. the bond rating has been lowered once in the last several weeks, and may be lowered again if this

economic distress and this hurricane damage can't be in some way mitigated and supported in terms of cleanup and reconstruction. and, frankly, my constituents have no, and we all know because we've seen similar scenes. we've seen similar pictures from the midwest of flooding, from the southwest, from the central part of america, and every time -- at least in my recollection -- this senate has stood up and provided support for those communities. i've supported without exception emergency expenditures for flooding in most every part of the country except really up in rhode island because we've never had this experience before of this nature, of this size, of this scope. and they, frankly, don't begrudge the aid, because as i sensed and my colleagues and constituents sensed, some day we might be in that position and

we're going to have to ask for help. well, we're in that position right now. and so for everyone who has been here -- and it's a significant number, and asked on behalf of their constituents for help because of a devastating flood, i am joining those ranks. we will hope to provide additional assistance to the state of rhode island to my constituents, to deal with this situation, both economic distress and the physical damage from this flooding. and so, madam president, i would yield the floor and, again, thank you for an opportunity here to talk about what happened, and i will be back again because, as i have responded and my colleagues have responded to needs in the other parts of the country, we ask that we be given the same treatment. and i yield the floor.

madam president, i believe that i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mrs. feinstein: madam president, are we in morning business at this time? the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. mrs. feinstein: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you. i ask that i be permitted to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much. mr. president, earlier today my staff brought to me an tosh to my attention -- to my attention an article that had just come out on reuters, and i read it d felt an outrage. today an investigative story published by reuters details how wellpoint, a medical insurance industry, the nation's largest insurance company, with 33.7

million policyholders, used a special computer program to systematically identify women with breast cancer and target their health policies for termination. in other words, an effort to specifically target women with breast cancer and then drop their health insurance. i'd like to ask every american to read this jaw-dropping story. instead of providing the health care for which these seriously ill women had paid, wellpoint subjected these paying customers to investigations that ended with wellpoint's administrative bureaucrats canceling their insurance policies at their time of greatest need. under attack by both cancer and wellpoint, these women were left ailing, disabled, and broke. let me give you a few examples.

jenny sue, a woman from los angeles, was kicked off of her insurance policy after a breast cancer diagnosis because wellpoint said she failed to disclose that she had been exposed to hepatitis-b as a child. now, that has nothing to do with breast cancer, but it didn't stop wellpoint from terminating her coverage. in texas, a woman named robin beaten was forced to delay lifesaving surgely because wel wellpoint decided to investigate whether she had a h. failed to disclose a serious illness. the serious illness in question was a case of acne. wellpoint delayed her surgery for five months, causing the size of the cancerous mass in her breast to triple. by the time they finally dropped they are investigation, she needed a radical double mastectomy. another loyal, well-paying -- excuse me, a loyal paying

wellpoint customer who faced this situation was patricia relling of louisville, kentucky. ms. relling was an interior designer and art gallery owner who never missed a payment. but that didn't stop wellpoint from canceling her insurance in the middle of her fight with breast cancer. wellpoint abandoned her at her weakest moment, forcing her to pay enormous medical bills on her own. this woman, who was once a mily successful business owner, is now subsisting on social security and food stamps. meanwhile, wellpoint made a profit of $128 million by stripping seriously ill americans of their insurance coverage in this manner, according to the house energy and commerce committee. and this is likely a low estimate because wellpoint refuses to provide the total

number of rescissions across the company's subsidiaries. wellpoint earn add $4.7 billion profit in 2009. $4.7 billion profit in one year. angela braley, the c.e.o. of wellpoint, received $13.1 million in total compensation in 2009. this was a 51% increase in her salary over the prior year. wellpoint is not alone in doing this to people. but they are an egregious offender. according to the house energy and commerce committee -- and i quote -- "wellpoint and two of the nation's other largest insurance companies, united health group inc. and ashiewrnts health, part of ashiewrnts inc. -- made at least $300 million by improperly rescinding more than

19,000 policyholders over one five-year period. according to health care for america now, these large companies, the big for-profit american medical insurance companies, have seen their profits jump 428% from 2000 to 2007. all during this period, they have doubled premium costs. so, they have made huge profits in seven years, and they doubled premium costs. time and time again, for-profit insurance corporations have demonstrated that their hunger for profit trumps any moral obligation to their customers. this latest story is just the latest example of the kind of outrageous behavior we have come to expect from certain medical

health insurance companies. the health insurance reform law passed by congress and signed by president obama will end the practice of unfair rescission and discrimination because of preexisting conditions. but we must clearly be vigilant in order to assure that the law has teeth and is heavily enforced. we can't turn our backs for one minute because, left to their own devices, i truly believe these companies will look for ways to throw paying customers to the sharks for the sake of profit. these are strong words, and i am not known for these strong words. but the more i look into the large for-profit medical insurance industry of the united states, the more i am embarrassed by it. a situation unfolding in my own state now is further proof of this. on may 1, that's nine days from

now, it's one week from saturday, more than 800,000 californians who hold insurance policies issued by wellpoint's anthem blue cross subsidiary will face rate hikes of up to 39%. now, i've received personal, deeply personal letters from literally hundreds, if not thousands, of californians whose lives are going to be devastated by these rate increases. you know, we've got 12.7% unemployment. we have over 2.3 million people unemployed. we're very high in house foreclosures. people can't find jobs. and at the same time the insurance premiums are being jacked up. now, this is just terrible, because many of these people had a premium increase almost as large as the top 39% that's

going to happen on may 9 last year, and then they know they mace it again the next year. -- they face it again the next year. i can't say that all of this is responsible to these premium increases. but in my state alone, 2 million people in the last two years have gone off of health insurance. that's a million people a year who find they can't afford health insurance so they've gone off of it, more on medicaid, and many have no coverage whatsoever. and this is at a time when this same company is reaping in billions of dollars of profit. so what do i conclude? there's no moral compass. there's no ethical conduct. these are families children, they're students, they're the elderly. one woman had been a client of

anthem for 30 years. she had never been sick and she got sick. cancer survivors, small business owners, they are about to be crushed. now, wellpoint will tell you that these premium rate hikes cannot be avoided. they will tell you that others are to blame. hospital charges, prescription drug prices, the rising cost of medical care. they blame the government, they blame the economy. but the fact of the matter is, they are making money and billions of dollars of money. if there is any doubt about whether corporate greed has anything to do with wellpoint's plan to jack up rates on customers, i think today's story about reuters answers the question definitively. in order to prevent these kinds of unfair premium rate hikes on americans, i have introduced a

bill that would establish a health insurance rate authority. it would give the secretary of health the mandate to see that rates are reasonable. two days ago, the health committee held a hearing on this bill. the chairman of the committee, senator harkin, made some very strong statements in favor of it, as did other democrats. the republicans that spoke, of course, opposed it because they are in a mode they oppose virtually everything right now. but they opposed it. here's what my bill would do. we'd give the secretary of health the authority to block premium or other rate increases that are unreasonable. in many states, insurance commissioners, as you know, madam president, already have this authority. they would not be affected. where commissioners have the authority in some states, in some insurance markets they have

it and in others they do not. and in about 20 states, including my own, california, coops companies are not required to receive approval for rate increases before they take affect. so my legislation would create a fallback, a fail-safe, allowing the secretary to conduct reviews of potentially unreasonable rates in states where the insurance commissioner does not already have the authority or the capability to do so. the secretary would review potentially unreasonable premium increases and take corrective action. this could include blocking an increase or providing rebates to consumers. under this proposal, the secretary would work with the national association of insurance commissioners to implement this rate review process and identify states that

have the authority and capability to review rates now. states doing this work obviously should continue. this legislation would not interrupt or affect them. however, consumers in states like california and illinois and others -- we think about 20-some-odd states -- would deserve protection -- or would get protection from unfair rate hikes. the proposal would create a rate authority, a seven-member advisory board to assist the secretary. a wide range of interests would be represented: consumers, the insurance industry, medical practitioners, and other experts. i think the proposal strikes the right balance. as you know, we had worked with the administration in drafting it. we worked with the finance committee. we worked with the secretary of health. we tried to get it into the finance committee's health reform bill, were not able to do

so. the president took this bill, put it in the reconciliation bill. unfortunately, the parliamentarian found that its policy implications overcame its budgetary savings and, therefore, a point of order would rest against it so it was dropped at that time. so we are trying again. and it's necessary. nine days from now, 800,000 californians get up to a 39% increase in their premium rate. it is greed, pure and simple. so the legislation i've introduced provides federal protection for consumers who are currently at the mercy of these large for-profit medical insurance companies whose top priority is their bottom line. and the bottom line is for us, we have a duty to protect the

american people from this kind of greed and this kind of lack of any moral compass. you know, if these companies were having a hard time, i would say, look, it can't be helped. but they're not. they have enjoyed something no other american business has and that is an antitrust exemption. only major league baseball has an antitrust exemption and so they are able to go all over the country and merge and acquire insurance companies in order to control market share. and once they control market share, they then begin to boost rates. and, therefore, they have developed over the past seven years of doing this a 428% increase in their bottom line,

which is their profits. if a c.e.o. thinks it's okay to deprive women of their health coverage when they become seriously ill with breast cancer, we can't trust them to do the right thing, period. this ought to be convincing to every member of this body, whether it's on this side of the aisle or the other side of the aisle, that we need to move to see that there is a reasonable, prudent system where people don't have to endure when they have breast cancer and they go in, that they are going to lose their medical insurance. and this reuters story points it out chapter and verse today, and i have indicated several stories. so, in my view, it is time for congress to step in and fix this rate hike loophole in the health insurance reform law. we've got to put patients before

profits. we've got to protect the american people from this kind of a lack of moral compass and, candidly, unchecked greed. i hate to say that but that's the way i see it. madam president, i will likely attempt to put this as an amendment on the regulatory reform bill. as i say, the matter has had a committee hearing, and in lieu -- in view of the fact that 800,000 people face these rate increases a week from saturday, i think we need to take some action. i would implore anthem to understand and to not raise these rates. they have postponed this rate increase once again. they certainly can do it again. i thank the chair. i yield the floor.

mr. corker: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: i rise to speak today to address the financial regulation proposal that has been -- is before us right now actually, and i wanted to talk about some of the conversations that are taking place about our status. number one, i think everybody in this body knows that people on both sides of the aisle would like for us to come to an agreement that makes our country's financial system stronger, protects consumers, and tries to ensure us against the kind of things that we've all witnessed over the last couple of years. i think on both sides of the aisle, there's tremendous, tremendous desire to see that happen. there's also been some discussions, though, about the process leading up to this. i know that the senator from nevada has talked a little bit about the fact, for instance, that -- that they negotiated for -- with senator corker for 30 days. madam president, this bill is 1,400 pages long and, you know,

i think by all accounts, most people felt like we were almost completed. the analogy that's been used is we were on the five-yard line and the lights went out. and somehow or another taking 30 days to try to discuss a 1,400-page bill and get it right has been discussed as taking a long time. i don't consider that a long time at all. as a matter of fact, i think it was remarkable the kind of progress we made when we actually sat down as two parties trying to reach a compromise on something that is important to the american people. so i just want to say that i -- you know, there are a lot of us over here on this side of the aisle that have dealt in good faith, that have actually gone out on a limb to deal in good faith, as a matter of fact, have broken protocol in some cases to try to deal in good faith. and when statements are made as if, if you try to negotiate and you get to the five-yard line

but for some reason the white house and people on the other side of the aisle to go on -- decide to go on because they're losing some democrats -- which, by the way, madam president, i would assume in a bipartisan negotiation, you'd lose some republicans, you'd lose some democrats because you'd reach a middle-of-the-road piece of legislation. so to categorize that as making that much progress and then, well, we're losing a few democrats so we have to stop and go our own way, which has been publicly stated by my friends on the other side of the aisle as to what happened, to talk about that as if that's a problem on our side of the aisle creates a little bad faith, just to be candid. i mean, for the next person who comes along and tries to work something out with my friends on the other side of the aisle and this happens, this happens, i think it's going to discourage that from happening in the future. 10 i hope we will tone down those kind of -- so i hope we will tone down those kind of things.

and then to talk about the fact that we went through a committee with this bill. madam president, we had a -- again, at the time, it was only a 1,336-page bill, it's expanded since that time, but we voted this bill out of committee in 21 minutes with no amendments. this was not a real vote. and the understanding that we all had was -- the understanding we all had was that, that the makeup of the banking committee was such that it would be difficult to get to a bipartisan agreement there, that we might harden ourselves against each other by offering amendments. i filed 60 amendments myself, none of which were -- none of which were messaging amendments. they were all technical amendments and others to try to fix this bill. but for some reason, the rules changed and we weren't going to be able to do that in committee and we didn't want to harden ourselves against each oh, and we were going to fix it before it -- each other, and we were going to fix it before it came to the floor. and now we file a motion to

proceed to the bill without it being fixed before it comes to the floor. it just seems like there's this little shell game where we keep moving the goal post to such a post where -- where, again, we're going to end up with a situation where a bill comes to the floor, there's been no bipartisan consensus. now, i will say this, i do think chairman dodd has tried to do some bipartisan things, and i know that i personally have had an affect on this bill and i thank him for that, and i thank the work that senator -- i thank senator warner for the work that we've been able to do together and senator reed and senator gregg and others. but the fact is that we haven't reached a bipartisan agreement. so i just hope that some of the statements that are being made about where we are and how we got here and the revisionist history that's being created to sort of make one side of the aisle look worse than the other side of the aisle will cease. it doesn't do any good. i mean, the fact is there are

people on both sides of the aisle that want to see financial regulation take place. one of the things that i thin think -- you know, this whole notion that if you're against this bill as written, you're for wall street. and if you're for this bill as written, you're against wall street. that is an unbelievably silly argument. the fact is that i think everybody in this country knows that when major regulation takes place, the big guys always do bettebest. they have the resources to deal with compliance and all those kind of things. as a matter of fact, i doubt there are many people on either side of the aisle that are hearing much from wall street right now.who they're hearing from is -- right now. when they're hearing from is their community bankers who are concerned about a consumer protection agency that has no bounds, has no veto, has no -- has no bounds. all of a sudden it's used potentially as a social justice mechanism in this country.

they're concerned about that. they're probably hearing from manufacturers who actually make things and buy hedges or derivatives to make sure their material prices down the road can be hedged again so they don't lose money fulfilling a contract. that's probably who they're hearing from. so, madam president, when we talk about either you're for this bill and against wall street, that's just a low-level argument. it has nothing to do with the facts. the fact is, to me, from where i sit, we've got a lot of people in this body who want a good bill. and it seems to me the best way -- the best way to get to a good bill is to at least get the template of the bill agreed to in advance. to get the bill agreed to as it relates to orderly liquidation. i think everybody in this body wants to make sure if a large organization or any organization

in this country fails, it fails. but certainly these highly complex bank holding companies, we want to see that happens. making sure that we deal with derivatives in such a way that most of the trades go through a clearing house so at the end of the day people who are money bad make it money good so we don't have an a.i.g.-type of situation again. and we have an appropriate end-user exclusion for manufacturers and other folks using derivatives to actually make their businesses safer. and then we want to make sure we have appropriate consumer protection. we want to make sure that's done and balanced. that a consumer protection agency doesn't undermine the safety and soundness piece. that those people oversee making sure our banks, our financial institutions are sound, that people do business with them, know they're going to be sound. that we don't have a consumer protection agency undermning that by tying to, again, use -- use financial mechanisms as a

way of creating social justice in this country. this is -- those are three big titles. and it seems to me that if we could reach agreement there before the bill comes to the floor, then it seems to me that we could then do all kinds of amendments here on the floor. there are a lot of good ideas that my friends on the other side of the aisle have, i think. i think there's a lot of good ideas that would come from this side of the aisle. and it seems to me that the best way to have a great debate is to start with a template that is bipartisan and then let people in this body change it in ways that we see fit. we can vote on those. that, to me is the best way to go. i would hope that instead of the tremendous interference that i think is taking place at the white house. i have never seen such involvement in what appears to me the actual drafting of legislation, sending it straight to a committee and it being

voted out. i've never seen such involvement. i hope that we can tone that down. we can tone our rhetoric down as far as trying to blame the other sides for how we ended up being in this position when there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who exercised good faith in trying to get here. all that does is push people apart when these realignments of history discussions take place when that's not what happened. that's not what happened. and let's give chairman dodd and ranking member shelby some time to work through these issues. i means that what needs to happen. they and their staffs need to finish working through these issues with input from other members and then let's have a great debate. madam president, i know we've got a weekend coming up. the floor's going to shut down in the next 24 hours or so. i hope that -- that -- i hope

that the staffs and these two members will continue to work through the weekend and try to get this bill right. i hope that we will quit throwing accusations back and forth. i hope we'll cool down the rhetoric and i hope that we have an opportunity to begin again with a bipartisan template that we can amend and have some great legislation for this country. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: madam president, let me ask consent. are we in morning business, madam president? the presiding officer: we are not. we're on the motion to proceed. -- to s. 3217. mr. dorgan: madam president, let me speak as if in morning business for as much time as i may consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, i've come to the floor to speak about the start treaty, strategic arms reduction treaty, with the russians. and i want to talk about that in

some amount of detail. a week and a half ago, i and some colleagues, were in russia at a site near moscow looking at the cooperative threat reduction program that we and the united states are funding to try to make this a safer world to safeguard nuclear materials an nuclear warheads in the soviet union and i want to talk about this program as it relates to the treaty. some of my colleagues expressed concern and determined that they're not necessarily supportive of the start arms reduction treaty unless other things are done. i want to talk about that just a bit. first i want to describe the unbelievable success of something we've been doing for some while now. it is the nunn-lugar program. we talk a lot about what doesn't work and what fails. we don't talk a lot about what does work. let me talk about that for a moment. if i might by consent talk about

three things i had in my desk at the senate. this is a wing strut from a soviet -- yes, a soviet backfire bomber. this is a bomber that would have carried nuclear weapons that would have threatened this country as a nuclear adversary. this airplane, this backfire bomber doesn't exist anymore. we didn't shoot it down. i have the wing strut because we sawed up in reducing delivery vehicles. this bomber doesn't exist. it doesn't carry nuclear weapons that would threaten this country because the nunn-lugar program helped to dismantle this bomber that we have with the soviet union and now with russia. madam president, this is a photograph of a typhoon class missle blis -- ballistic missle submarine. and this is a missle tube from

that submarine. the missile tubes don't exist in the submarine. they are scrap metal. this is copper wire that comes from the soviet submarine that used to prowl the seas. this groundup copper wire from that submarine was ground up not because we -- not because we ground up the submarine, but because we and the soviets and now the russians have agreed to systematic reduction of weapons an delivery vehicles. madam president, this is a silo, a missle silo in the ukraine. this is an ss-18 missle silo. it was shown up under the nunn-lugar cooperative threat program. this is what is left. by the way, i have a hinge -- a hinge from this particular site in the ukraine that housed a

missle that had a nuclear warhead aimed at our country. instead of a missile being on this ground in the ukraine, there is now a field of sunflowers. a field of sunflowers is now planted where a missile that carried a nuclear warhead once existed. this is unbelievable suck sincere, in my judgment, and -- success, in my judgment, and something that we ought to celebrate. the nunn-lug ar program that we have -- nunn-lugar program that we have funded has now accomplished weapons-free ukraine, kazakhstan and belarus. albania, chemical weapons free. nuclear warheads deactivated, 7,500. 32 ballistic missle submarines

gone. 1,419 long-range nuclear missles gone. 906 nuclear air-to-surface missles gone. 155 nuclear bombers gone. we didn't shoot them down. we didn't destroy them in air-to-air combat or air-to-sea war. we sawed the wings off bombers and grind up the metal in submarines and take out missle silos in the ukraine are warheads aimed at our country and, therefore, it's a safer world. the question is: how much saimp and what more -- safer and how much more do we need to do? i have read a portion of something in the congressional read. the let me do it again. october 11, 2001 -- not many americans know this -- one month after the 9/11 attack -- one month after the attack on 9/11, george tenet, the director of

the c.i.a. informed the that code name dragonfire that al qaeda terrorist possess add 10-kiloton nuclear bomb. according to the agent, this nuclear bomb was on soil in new york city. that is one month after 9/11. the c.i.a. had no independent confirmation of this report. but neither did it have basis on which to dismiss it. did russia's arsenal include 10-kiloton weapons? yes. could the -- could russia account for all of the nuclear weapons? could al qaeda have acquired one of those weapons? it could have. if a terrorist had acquired it, could they have detonated it? perhaps. could they have smuggled it into an american city? likely. in the hours that followed this

report on october 11, 2001, one month after 9/11, national security adviser conne rice, une the cold war when the soviet union new that there would be a retaliatory strike in greater measure. al qaeda terrorist organization with no return address had no such fear of reprisal. even if the president were prepared to negotiate, there was no phone number to call. this comes from a book published by graham allison, who is a diplomat. it was described first to me in a little piece in "time" magazine march 11, 2002. and the book that describes the detail of it is pretty harrowing and is a pretty frightening

prospect. i won't read more of it. i've read a fair amount of it. but after some while it was determined that this was not a credible intelligence piece of information. but for a month or so it was great, great concern about the prospect of a terrorist group having stolen a nuclear weapon, smuggled it into an american city and being able to detonate it. then we're not talking about 9/11. then we're talking about a catastrophe in which hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people are killed and life on earth will never be the same. when and if ever a nuclear weapon is detonated in the middle of a major city on this planet, life will change as we know it. that brings me to this question of nuclear reduction treaties and the work that's gone on. madam president, we have about 25,000 nuclear warheads on this

planet. i've just described the ra rap e because one c.i.a. agent had credible evidence or a rumor that one terrorist group had stolen one small 10-kiloton nuclear weapon. think of the angst that caused that most americans don't know about for about a month. but that was one weapon. there are 25,000 on this earth. 25,000 weapons it's estimated, nuclear weapons. russia probably around 15,000. by the way, this is not classified. this is by the union of concerned scientists. united states 9,400. china 240. france 300. britain, 200. the loss of one, the detonation

of that nuclear warhead in a major city will change life as we know it on planet earth. the question is: what do we do about that? one, prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to others who don't have it. to prevent terrorists from acquiring it and working very hard to reduce systematic reduction of nuclear weapons, particularly among those who have the most nuclear weapons. and it is -- we understand -- and it is, we understand, very, very difficult to reach those agreements. and when reached, very difficult to get them agreed to. get