states senate. about 95% of the nuclear weapons are owned by the united states of america and by russia. there are a lot of groups in this world that are very interested in acquiring one nuclear weapon with which to terrorize this planet. we're now operating under the strategic offensive reduction treaty known as the moscow treaty. it requires the u.s. and russia to have no more than 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons. there are many more than that. i'm talking about deployed in the field by 2012. the strategic offensive reduction treaty that we're now operating under does not restrict any nuclear delivery vehicles at all, airplanes, missiles, and so on, and it doesn't have any verification measures and it expires in 2012. so a few weeks ago in prague, the czech republic, president obama and russian president medvedev signed a new strategic

arms control treaty. it's called start. and i compliment the administration for successfully completing this treaty. i was part of a group here in the united states senate that continued to meet with and review with the negotiators the progress of their work, and their work was long and difficult, but they reached an agreement with the russians. it limits each side to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads which is 30% lower than the moscow treaty which we now are putting under. it limits each side 20800 deployed and nondeployed icbm launchers, and heavy bombers. these are all delivery vehicles equipped for nuclear armaments. it limits each side to one half of what the original start treaty allowed. and it sets a separate limit of 700 deployed icbm's and slbm's

and deployed heavy bombers that are equipped. and the treaty in addition has a verification regime which is very important. can you have a treaty with someone, but if you can't verify and inspect, then you've got a problem. this treaty with the russians has on-site inspections and exhibitions, telemetry exchanges, provisionses that facilitate the use of national technical means for treat treaty monitoring. this in my judgment is a good treaty that will strengthen this country. it will reduce by 30% the number of strategic nuclear warheads that russia could possess and target at the united states. it allows our country to determine our own force structure, gives us the flexibility to deploy and maintain our strategic nuclear forces in a way that best serves our own national security interests. the new nuclear posture review, as my colleagues know, says that the u.s. will maintain the nuclear triad of land-based

missiles, nuclear missile submarines as well as bombers. the obama administration has said as long as nuclear weapons exist, this country will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary and to protect our allies. so this new start treaty gives us an important window into russia's strategic arsenal and to ensure that russia will not be able to surprise us and try to change that balance. now, this treaty contains no limits on our ability to continue developing and fielding missile defenses. our country is doing some of that. frankly, i have some questions about some of it. the cost and the effectiveness. but nonetheless, there is no limitation on that in this treaty. as was done in the case of start, russia has made a unilateral statement regarding missile defenses. its statement is not legally binding and does not constrain us in any of our u.s. missile

defense programs. in my judgment, this treaty is very important. it's a very important first step, only a first step because much, much more needs to be done, but it's important in terms of enhancing our security and world security. this will bolster, in my judgment, the nonproliferation treaty, demonstrates that the u.s. and russia are living up to their part of the deal to begin reducing arms again. it will strengthen, i think, washington's hand in tighter nuclear nonproliferation regime, especially at the may n.p.t. conference. now, some senators have said, as would be the case, i suppose, with any treaty, they said well, we're really concerned about this because we think it weakens america's hand. we think it cuts our nuclear arsenal too deeply. i just think they are just wrong on that. they're wrong. we have plenty of nuclear weapons. not enough nuclear weapons is not among our problems. we have plenty.

so are the russians. we can blow up this planet 150 times and more. we have plenty of nuclear weapons. the question is how do we and the russians and others begin to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and most importantly how do we stop the spread of nuclear weapons? so let me just put up a chart that shows what the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said this month. -- last month, rather, a month ago. "i, the vice chairman, and the joint chiefs, as well as our combatant commanders around the world, stand solidly behind this new treaty, having had the opportunity to provide our counsel, to make our recommendations, and to help shape the final agreements." this is chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. he says he and the joint chiefs believes this represents our country's best national security interests. now, here is what some others are saying. douglas feith, not particularly unexpected. i could pretty much guess what he says about anything dealing

with security without -- if i just saw his nametag, i guess. doug feith, a former defense official under the previous administration, says -- "since the administration is so eager for the treaty, the main interests of the conservatives conservatives" -- meaning him and his friends -- will relate to modernization. republicans are interested in the u.s. nuclear posture, the political leverage they have will be the treaty. one of the hot issues will be the replacement warhead." what does he mean by that? we're going to use this treaty as leverage to force the government to develop a new nuclear warhead program called the r.r.w., the replacement warhead, reliable replacement warhead. i'm chairman of the subcommittee that funds that, and we stopped funding that warhead. that warhead was an outgrowth of the congress deciding we're not going to fund the provision before it for another nuclear warhead. do you remember the provision that was all right, now we've got a bill earth-penetrating,

bunker-buster nuclear weapons. that was the thing about five years ago. and the congress said we're not going to build earth-penetrating bunker buster nuclear weapons. there is no end to the menu of nuclear weapons that some people want. we're not going to do that. so that morphed into reliable replacement warhead r.r.w. that was to begin replacing our existing stock of warheads in a big program with the navy and air force and on, and we stopped that as well. we didn't stop it because we didn't have the money or anything like that. we stopped it because it is not necessary at this point, we have a process by which we certify that the current nuclear stockpile works, it's effective. we have a process by which we do that, and we have a lot of -- of interest by other groups who have weighed in on the science of this, saying our existing stock of nuclear weapons will

last much, much longer than some had suggested without spending hundreds of billions of dollars for replacement. and yet, some will never be satisfied. here is statements by some senators who also will want to use the start ratification of this treaty as leverage. one of the senators said -- "well, i can tell you this, that i think the senate will find it hard to support this treaty if there is not a robust modernization plan." that's the need to build new nuclear weapons. another one said -- "the success of your administration in ensuring the modernization plan is fully funded in the authorization and appropriations process could have a significant impact on the senate as it considers the start treaty." another one said -- "my vote on the start treaty will thus depend in large measure on whether i'm convinced the administration has put forward an appropriate and adequately funded plan to sustain and modernize the smaller nuclear stockpile it envisions." well, as chairman of the energy

and water subcommittee of appropriations, i can tell you that the proposed budget for nuclear weapons, which is in my subcommittee for f.y. 2011 from this administration is more than enough to maintain the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons, sufficient so that any chairman of the joint chiefs can say with confidence and any authority whose requirement it is to certify each year can do so with confidence that we have a nuclear arsenal that can be maintained as reliable and safe for the long-term future. and n.s.a., the agency that is engaged in this, would see with the president's budget a 13% or or $1.3 billion increase under this president's proposal. there are some who have argued that this budget increase and planned future increases may not be sufficient to maintain the current stockpile, but that's just not the case.

if you look at this budget request, the administration's budget request includes includes $7 billion for nuclear weapons activities. that's an increase of of $624 million in this coming year. it invests significant money in what is called life extension programs. the nuclear weapons in our arsenal are not just the old nuclear weapons. we spend money all the time on life extension programs to make sure they are reliable. i can go on and talk about the budget, but the fact is this president has sent us a budget that does what he thinks is necessary for the life extension programs and the additional funding at a time when we have significant financial problems, he is proposing additional funding in this area. now, this is a quote from linton brooks, the nhsa dismair,

nuclear security administrator, 2003-2007 under george w. bush. february of this year, he says -- "start, as i now understand it, is a good idea on its own merits, but i think for those who think it's only a good idea if you only have a strong weapons program, i think this budget ought to take care of that. coupled with the out-year projections, it takes care of the concerns about the complex and it does very good things about the stockpile and it should keep the labs healthy." that's what he said. that's important to understand that when my colleagues come to the floor of the senate and say well, i don't know that i can support arms reductions because we want to make sure that we have more money spent on nuclear weapons to build a whole class of new nuclear weapons, understand that there is nothing partisan here. the person that last headed this agency under george w. bush said this budget takes care of that, will give us the confidence we need.

a report on the lifetime extension program by the jason program office, which is a very respected group of scientists, said this -- "jason finds no he have that accumulation of changes incurred from aging and life extension programs have increased risk to the certification of toad's -- of-to-do's deployed nuclear warheads." simple." lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence, by using approaches similar to those employed in the life extension programs to date." we have got people around here who are just unbelievably anxious to get moving to begin building an entire new class of nuclear weapons, and yet we have evidence from the science of nuclear weapons that the existing stock of nuclear weapons can be maintained with life extension programs for decades. why would we do that? i want to make just a concluding point. i want to talk about the start

program because it is so important to the future of our relationship with russia, but much, much more important than that, it's important for the world. i have pulled out of my desk a wing strut from a backfire bomber, ground up copper from a russian submarine. i have taken a hinge from a missile silo in the ukraine that had an s.s.-18 with a nuclear warhead aimed at the united states. i have all those in my desk just to remind me every day there is a way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, reduce the delmarvaary vehicles without having air-to-air combat, without firing intercontinental ballistic missiles, and without detonating nuclear warheads. it is the kind of program that we have engaged in, the global threat reduction program, and it's also treaties like the start treaty. if it is not our responsibility and if it doesn't fall on our shoulders to provide the world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, who else is going to do that? who else? and if you -- if you read the

book or understand the consequences of both 9/11 and also october 11 of the same year , and the report by a c.i.a. agent code name dragon fire, that a terrorist group had stolen a 10 kiloton weapon and would detonate it in an american city. and if that doesn't send chills down cror spine for the future of this world, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your system. we have to understand that if we don't back away from this difficult spector of a new world in which terrorists are trying very hard to acquire nuclear weapons -- they don't have to acquire very much. they have to acquire the equivalent of perhaps a two-liter bottle of highly enriched uranium. think of one of those two-liter coke bottles at the gas station that sits there on the counter the next time you go past, two

liters of soft drink. think of two liters of highly enriched material, nuclear material, to produce one nuclear weapon. some of some of my colleagues, some folks made light of and some commentators on the radio made fun of the very large group of foreign leaders that were called to this town a week ago to deal with this question of how do we get our arms around and begin securing loose nuclear materials that exist around the world. that was nothing to laugh at. that was an historic opportunity by this administration, a big, big deal by this president to say you know what? that leadership, that's our responsibility. and we're going to call leaders from all around the world to talk about these lose nuclear materials that can be acquired by a terrorist organization and made into a bomb. and we're going to secure these materials. we're spending money to do that.

we're spending money in our budget to do that. this president said let's work much harder. let's rededicate ourselves. not just us. let's all of us rededicate ourselves to gather and secure the loose nuclear material and prevent access to that material by a terrorist organization. again, this responsibility falls to us. it is our responsibility to lead to help stop the spread of nuclear weapons. and it is also our responsibility, hopefully, to lead towards where the nonproliferation treaty insists we go, and that is to fewer and fewer and fewer nuclear weapons on this planet. i understand that we will not and should not disarm unilaterally. i fully understand that. but i also understand that having 25,000 nuclear weapons stored in various locations on this planet is not healthy for the long-term prospect of life on earth. and so it is our responsibility, an important step, a step only

in the direction because it is not the giant step, but an important first step is to ratify this start treaty. the russians and the americans worked very heart to construct a treaty -- worked very hard to construct a treaty that i think has great merit and provide for a safer world. following the ratification of this treaty, there is more work to do, much more work to do but this is the step along the way that is important for all of us to embrace. madam president, i yield the floor and i make a point of order that a quorum is not present. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: i ask the chair to lay before the senate a message from the house with respect to s. 1693. the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate a memg in the house. the clerk: resoferl that the bill from the senate s. 1963 entitled an act to amend title 38 united states code to provide assistance to caregivers of veterans to improve the provision of health care to veterans and for other purposes

do pass with an amendment. mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask unanimous consenat senate concur in the house amendment, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officeris there o? without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 3253, introduced he willier today. the presiding ficer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 3253, a bill to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the small business act and the small business investment act of 1958 and for other purposes. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent -- the presiding officer: without objection, senate will proceed to the measure. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 496, submitted earlier today. the presiding offerthe clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 496, designating april 23, 2010, as national adopt a library day. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate proceed to the measure. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the resolution be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 497. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 497, designating the third week of april 2010 as national shaken baby syndrome awareness week. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure.

mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. and any statements related to the roolings be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. according to drg madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider en bloc executive calendar numbers 790, 791, 792, and 793, that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table en bloc, that in further motions be in order, that any statements reemented to the nominations appear in the record as if read, that the president be note nied of the senate's action and the senate resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if

made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, let me ask if we might dish know that senator murray and senator sessions are here. i don't know in what order they would want to go. i believe about 10 minutes each or soavment but let me ask that senator sessions be recognized, followed by senator murray, and that i recognized following the presentation of senator mor rhode island. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: madam president, we're talking about financial reform and a lost attention, a lot of the members of the senate are trying to keep up with it and try to make sure that we

create a reform package that effectively deals with corporations that have so mismanaged their business that they need to be dissolved or broken up or liquidated, as is normally the case, when a company in america can't pay its bills. and it happens every day for smaller companies, it becomes a bit more complicated, sometimes a great deal more complicated wh. when the corporations get bigger and bigger and bigger. the way our corporations have been expected -- the expectation for their dissolution if they are financially insolvent and can't operate has always been bankruptcy court. there are bankruptcy judges all over america. it is the federal court system.

the bankruptcy is referred to in the united states constitution and it has worked very, very well. i guess what i'm concerned about is that some of the provisions that are in the proposed legislation that's floating about would alter that traditional idea in ways that may be unwise. senator leahy, the chairman of the judiciary committee -- i'm the ranking republican on that committee -- and i have talked about this a little bit. and its gating to a point where we need to figure out what's happening here. the matter is highlighted by a letter from the judicial conference of the united states, mr. james duff, the secretary and the chief justice of the united states is the presiding officer of the judicial conference. and chairman leahy asked them

their opinions on some of the proposals for dissolution of companies. the orderly liquidation of companies t and this is the letter that was received by senator leahy, and i do believe it raises important questions. i really do. i'm a person who spent a lot of time practicing law, both as united states attorney and private practice in federal court and have some aprex for how bankruptcy court operates. and i would just say, we ought to pay attention to what the judicial conference says to us. it's the kind of correspondence that they take seriously. they don't lightly send off letters to the senate. this was in response to a request. so this is what mr. duff replies on behalf of the judicial

conference. in a reply to senator leahy, "as you noted, title ii would create an orderly liquidation authority panel within the bankruptcy court for the district of delaware for the limited purpose of ruling on petitions from the secretary of the treasury for authorization to appoint a federal deposit insurance corporation as the receiver for a failing financial firm." close quote. then he goes on to say, quote, "this is a substantial change to the bankruptcy law because it would create a new structure within bankruptcy courts and remove a class of cases from the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy code. the legislation by signin assigo

the fdic the responsibility for the affairs of ann insolvent firm, appears to provide a substitute for a bankruptcy proceeding." now, you see, when people loan money to a corporation, people buy stock in a corporation, they buy bonds of a corporation, otherwise loan them money. they have an expectation that if that company fails to prosper and pay what they owe, that that company at least will be hauled into bankruptcy court and they'll have an opportunity to present their claims and to receive whatever fair proportion of the money is still left in the company as their payment. it may be 10 cents on the dollar. it may be 90 cents on the dlarks whatever yo-- 90 cents on the d,

whatever you get. they understand that bankruptcy judges have the authority to try to allow the company to continue to operate, to stay or stop people from filing lawsuits against the company and collecting debts, to allow the company a while to see if they can't pay off more debtors by continuing to operate and shutting them down. but if they see the company is so badly in financial crisis that it's going to collapse anyway, they come in and shut it down before they can rip off more people. that's what bankruptcy courts do every day. and so this letter indicates that by signing the fdic responsibility for resolving these affairs, it provides a substitute for bankruptcy, which is denying the lawfully -- the lawful expectations of people who loan money to or bought stock in these corporations. they go on to say, quote, "we note, however, that the

legislation will result in the transition of at least some bankruptcy cases to fdic receivership in situations where a firm is already in bankruptcy, either voluntarily or involuntarily." in other words, it appears that the legislation would allow a case to be taken out of bankruptcy that was already in the bankruptcy court. it goes on to say, "the legislation does not envision objection, participation, or input from the bankruptcy creditors, whose rights will be affected in the course of appoint the fdic as receiver. indeed, the legislation proposes to deal with this petition in a sealed manner." secret manner, apparently. "only the secretary and the affected financial firm would be noticed and given the opportunity for a hearing." that would have a major impact

on a stockholder or bondholder or creditor of the corporation. are they going to -- the fdic is going to meet with this big company, this big bank and work out a deal and not even tell the people who've loaned the corporation money in good faith and have certain legal rights -- at least they always had previously? these rights somehow would be extinguished or cut off? it goes on to say, "the financial position of affective creditors may have been changed within the context of the -- context of the firm's bankruptcy case in such a way that the creditors' rights might have changed dramatically. any resulting due process challenges would impose significant burdens on the courts to resolve novel issues for which the bill provides no guidance." close quote. they go on to say, "in addition, we note that petitions under this title involving financial

firms would be filed in a single judicial district, the judicial conference favors distribution of cases to ensure that court facilities are reasonably accessible to litigants in the judicial process." this is all just put in there. all of them will be tried in deavment might not be enough judges in delaware. they go on to say this of the judicial conference, "with respect to the limited review" -- that means, appellate rights -- "the limited review to be conducted by the panel created in section 202 of the proposed legislation, we note that the authority may exceed what is constitutionally permitted to a nonarticle 3 entity." what does that mean? that means that some of these powers are judicial powers given only to federal district courts

presided over by presidentially appointed, lifetime federal judges. you can't just give them off to somebody else to decide. it's just not constitutional. we don't have the powers in the united states congress or the president has powers to take over judicial roles. a previous statute, they go on to note, was "was held unconstitutional because it conferred on the bankruptcy courts the authority to decide matters that are reserved to article 3 courts." and it goes on to talk about that. well, let me tell you what the c.e.o.s don't like. you want to be tough on the c.e.o.'s? i'll give you some suggestions about how to do it. if they can't run their company and they can't pay their

borchedz holders, they can't pay their -- their bond holds, they can't pay their deshts, if the stock has become worthless, people invested in the companies believing they were legitimate, they do not want to be in a court where they raise their hand-- madam president, i would ask unanimous consent for two additional minutes. and i will wrap up. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: thank you so much. i appreciate it. so, they don't want to be in that position. the way the law has been thought of and is worked out to handle these cases is to have a federal judge, bankruptcy judge, preside over this process. there are bankruptcy rules about what the judge can do and can't do. each entity that has an interest in the matter can have lawyers.

the stockholders can have larks the bondholders can have larks the creditors can have lawyers, the workers can have lawyers, the employees can have lawyers, and the grise to come in under oath, they have to bring their financial statements and if they lie, they go jail. perjury. and this is a powerful thing. and a lot of these big wheels don't want to subject themselves to it. so i would just say, if you really want to be tough on these companies, don't create some fdic buddy group that's been supervising them and sees their role as to try to work with them but they have a real judge and we can create a system where we select experienced judges, create some special procedures for larger bankruptcy. i think we should consider that, but i guess my one comment before i wrap up is i think that we should listen to the judicial conference and recognize that

there is a danger to the rule of law to legitimate expectations of creditors and stockholders by this new change, this unexpected change. in the law. and we really should allow the classical procedures to work, and if we need to improve them and make some special provisions for disillusion of corporations that help bankruptcy judges do their job better, i would certainly favor that and that would allow us to function in a lawful way, a principled way and not allow people to pete in private and in secret, as we've seen happen recently, and dissolve their cases in a matter that's not open and free to the entire public, as would happen in bankruptcy court. and i would offer the letter into the record that i've been

referring to, madam chairman, from the judicial conference and yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, madam president. madam president, as we prepare here to consider legislation that includes some of the strongest reforms of wall street ever, i think it's important that we not lose sight of exactly what is on-line for the american people, that we will not allow complicated financial products and terminology to distract from the fact that this really is a debate about fairness, about family finances, and protecting against another economic collapse. that we remember for wall street lobbyists, this may be correct, but for the american people this is pretty simple. this is a debate about whether they can walk into a bank and sign up for a mortgage or apply for a credit card or start a retirement plan. are the rules on their side when they do that or are they with

the big banks on wall street? well, madam president, for far too long, the financial rules was road -- rules of the road have favored big banks and credit card companies and wall street. and for far too long, they have abused those rules. whether it was gambling with the money in our pension funds or making bets they couldn't cover or peddling mortgages to people they knew could never pay. wall street made expensive choices that came is he expense of working families. wall street used its anything-goes rules to create a situation where everybody else paid. and wall street created a system that put their own short-term profits before the long-term interests of this country. madam president, the simple truth is that it's time to end this system that wall street before main street. it's time to put families back

many control of their own fiensz. and it's time to folk -- their own finances. and it's time to protect those sitting around the dinner table, not those sitting around the boardroom table. and to do that, we have got to pass strong wall street reform that cannot be ignored. and those reforms i believe have to include three core principles: a strong, independent consumer protection agency, an end to taxpayer bailouts, and tools to ensure that americans have the financial know-how that empowers them to make smart choices about their own finances and helps them avoid making the same poor decisions that helped create this crisis. had, first and foremost -- madam president, first and foremost, wall street needs a watchdog. right now what we have is a patchwork of federal agencies, none of which are tasked with focusing solely on consumer

protection. what we have is confusion and duplication and an abdication of responsibility. and what we have, quite simply, is just not working. what we need is a single, strong, independent agency, a cop on the beat whose sole function is to protect consumers, a cop on the steet who will oppose big bank rip-offs and cush bank fees and cush out-of-control credit card and mortgage rates. we need a cop on the street that assures that when you make important financial decisions, the terms are clear, the risks are laid out on the table and the banks and the other financial companies offering them are being upfront with you. what we need is one agency with one mission looking out for one group of people and that is american families. secondly, wall street reform must spell the end to this

taxpayer-financed bailout. there is nothing that makes me or my constituents in washington state angrier than the fact that wall street ran up this huge bill and we had to pick up the tab. wall street reform has to end that once and for all. it has to be a death sentence for banks that engage in reckless practices and it must make them pay for their funeral arrangements if they do. third, reform has to address the fact that wall street is not alone in deserving the blame for this crisis and, therefore, it must not be the only target of reform. we cannot ignore the fact that millions of americans walked into sometimes predatory home loan agencies all across the country unprepared to make big, important financial decisions. we have to acknowledge that too

many americans put too little thought into signing on the dotted line, and those bad decisions had a huge impact. that's why i've been working so hard to pass a bill that i introduced called "the financial and economic literacy improvement act." that legislation would change the way we approach educating americans about managing their own finances and making good decisions about housing and employment and retirement. we add a fourth "r" to the basics of reading and writing and arithmetic, and that's resource management. it gives americans young and old the basic financial skills to heed warnings in the fine print they're signing and avoid mounting debt. and i believe if we're going to avoid many of the mistakes that led to this crisis, we need a similar component in the bill that we work on next week. madam president, we all know the old adage that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

well, of all of the reforms that i've been talking about today, we have the potential to bring a whole lot of sunlight to wall street. but as we have seen in the lead-up to this crisis and with wall street's response now to our reform effort so far, they don't like to do their work in the sunlight. they like to do it in the back rooms. and do you know what? i've heard they've had some company recently in those back rooms. i've heard that over the last several days, some of our colleagues on the other side have been huddling with wall street lobbyists to figure out how they can kill this bill that's coming to us. they want to figure out how they can preserve the status quo and what they have today. they want to talk their way out of change. they've been calling out to special interests in washington and bankers back on wall street and big-money donors. in fact, just about everyone has been invited to those meetings except, of course, the american people. and that's because the vast majority of americans, including the hard-working families in my state who were hurt by this crisis through no fault of their

own want to see the strong wall street reforms i've talked about today passed. they want to hold wall street accountable for years of irresponsibility and taxpayer-funded bailouts. and more than anything, they want to make sure we never go through this again. but you know what? there's still a widely held view on wall street, and with too many still here in d.c., that the voices of the people can somehow be drowned out with big money and even bigger fabrications. wall street still thinks that they can get away with highway robbery because for all too long, do you know what? they have. they think they can get away with telling the american people that more regulation is bad. when the absence of regulation is largely what got us into this mess. they think that people will be satisfied with watered-down rules that wall street can then just simply step side or go around or ignore. they think they can pull a fast one on main street.

well, you know what? they're flat-out wrong and i know that because i grew up literally on main street in botha, washington, working for my dad's five-and-ten cent store with my six brothers and sisters. and i know they're wrong, because main street is where i got my values. values, like that the product of your work is what you can actually show in the till at the end of the day. that if that money was short, you dealt with the consequences. and if it was more than you expected, you knew that more difficult days could lie ahead. values. like that a good transaction was one that was good for your business and for your customer. that personal responsibility meant owning up to your mistakes and making them right. that one business relied on all the others on the same street. and, importantly, that our

customers were prey and businesses were not predators, and that an honest business was a successful one. those are the values i learned on main street growing up. and believe me, those same values are still strong throughout our country today. they exist in small towns like the one i grew up and in big cities in every one of our states. and next week, when we put out a strong wall street reform bill on the floor, everyone in this senate is going to hear from people who still hold values like that very dear. and i'm sure they're going to tell you in no uncertain terms it is time to end wall street's excesses. it's time to bring some sanity back into the system to protect our consumers, to end bailouts and backroom deals, to restore personal responsibility and bring back accountability. i'm certainly hopeful that we all listen because there certainly is a lot on the line

for the american people and they deserve all of our support. thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? thpridinofficer: the senator from north dakota is recognized. mr. dorgan: mr. president, i ask consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan: mr. president, my colleague from the state of washington just talked about financial reform, wall street reform. it is such an important subject. and it is the case that all of us who have lived through these last several years will understand when the history books record these years that we have lived and existed and struggled through a period that is the deepest recession since the great depression.

15 to 17 million people wake up in the morning now, as i speak, jobless, get dressed, go out to look for a job. most don't find it. it's been a tough time. and, yet, those who read the newspaper and understand the difficulty of those that are losing homes, losing jobs, losing hope also read the business pages and see that one of the heads of the largest investment banks last year was paid $25 million in salary. one of the folks that was the largest income earners in this country earned $3 billion running a hedge fund. that's $3 billion, by the way. that's almost $10 million a day. and so they see record profits from the biggest financial interests in this country. many of whom pursued policies that steered us right into the ditch. and they wonder, what's the deal here? people at the tough, the ones

who caused most of the problems. the ones of which who would have gone broke in the federal government had not come in with funding to try to provide stability, they're at record profits, paid record bonuses and the folks at the bottom are struggling to find a job because they've been laid off. it often comes back to something that i described often. it seems to never change, bob also and the texas playboys in the 1930's had a verse in one of their songs, the little bee sucks the blossom, but the big bee gets the hone, the little guy picks the cotton but the big guy gets the money. and so it was and so it is but even more aggressive now. the same newspaper talks about the trouble given the workers of this country and the families of this country having steered this country into the big financial institutions, into the deepers recession since great depression. even as in the same paper they

read about the record profits an record bonuses -- and record bonuses. we're going to bring a wall street reform bill to the floor of the senate. and i want to talk about that and say we need to review for a moment the unbelievable cesspool of greed that existed. not everywhere. but at levels that steered this country into very dangerous territories. new things, new instruments that when we never heard of before. credit default swaps, naked credit default swaps. what is a credit default swap and what is a naked credit default swap? how do you get a credit default swap naked? let me take you back about a year and a half to a time when the futures market in oil was like a roman candle.

and went up to $147 a barrel barrel, $147 a day for a barrel of oil in day trading. just like a roman candle and went back down. a bunch of speculators. they didn't want to buy oil. they never hauled around a barrel or case of oil. they wanted to speculate on futures market. they broke that market. ran it way up. well, that's one symptom of financial systems that are broken and don't work. credit default swaps. we've been hearing recently about the s.e.c. decision to file a criminal complaint against a large investment bank, goldman sachs. what we have discovered with the inner workings of this -- this scheme that was created is, i think, based on my knowledge of it, the development of -- excuse me. service a civil case by the s.e.c., not a criminal case.

that's an important distinction. but nonetheless, a civil complaint against goldman sachs. and my understanding of it is there was created some billions of dollars of naked credit default swaps that had no insurancable interest of anything of value these were people betting on what might happen to the price of bonds. and bonds selected by a person that i spoke about on the floor of the senate previously over the last couple of years, a man named john paulson, who in 2008, was the highest income earner on wall street, $ $306 million, $10 million a day. how would you like to come home and the spouse says, how are you doing and he says, we're doing pretty good. $10 million every day. so my understanding of this, the s.e.c. complaint is that they setup a system where mr. paulson could short what i believe are naked credit default swaps and

others took a long position and you had rating agencies rating these things apparently with high ratings until they discovered what they really were and the ratings collapsed, mr. paulson made a bunch of money and everybody else got duped out of their money. that's a short description and probably not even a very good description. but it's close enough to understand what's been going on in this country, betting. not investing, betting on credit default swaps, naked default swaps that have no insurance in anything. no value on either side. you put together a contract that says, i'm going to bet you that this issue happens, this stock goes up, this bond goes down. you don't have to own anything. let's just have a bet. that's not an investment. that's a natureout wager. -- that's a flatout wager. if you want to do that, you can go to las vegas.

they say what goes on there stays there, you can go to atlantic city. we have places where you can do that. those places are not places where you do activities those place that's are equivalent that we have seen in the middle of some of the investment banks and financial institutions in this country. i've said this on the floor before and i will repeat this, i've said what needs to be done on the reform bill, we need to understand what happened and how unbelievably ignorant it was. now, the subprime loan scandal. everybody was involved in that. when i say everybody, i'm talking about all the biggest financial institutions, they were securitizing mortgageses and sending them upstream, all making huge bonus profits. all kinds of fees and it's starting with the broker that could place big mortgages to people who couldn't afford it and right on up the line, they were all making big money. so here's an advertisement that

we all listened to in the last decade during this unbelievable carnival of greed. this is the biggest mortgage bank in america. now bankrupt, of course. now gone. although the leader of this company left with a couple of million dollars. he got off well heeled. here is the ad on television and radio. it says, "do you have less than perfect credit? do you have late mortgage payments? you have been denied by other lenders? well, call us. we want to lend you money." unbelievable. the biggest mortgage bank in the country says, are you a bad credit risk? hey, call us. we've got money for you. zoom credit, another mortgage company. here's their advertisement, "credit approval is just seconds away. get on the fast-track at zoom credit. at the speed of light, zoom credit will preapprove you for a car loan, a home loan or a

credit card. even if your credit's in the tank. zoom credit's like money in the bank. zoom credit specializes in credit repair and debt consolidation. " greedy, it appears to me it is. millennia mortgage. "12 months, no mortgage payment. we pay it for you. our loan program may reduce your current monthly payment by as much as 50% and allow you to make no payments for the first 12 months. call us strange? it does to me. how about the mortgages that say, you don't want to pay principal? no problem. you pay nothing. no interest, no prince pam. and, by the way, if you don't want us to check on your income, that's called a no documentation loan. we'll give you a no-doc loan with no interest payments and no

principal payments. we'll put it all on the back side. you know what you should do? go ahead and do that, you can flip the house. if you can't make the payments a couple of years later when we reset your interest rate at 12%, you can sell that house and make the money because the price of that house is always going to go up. and so it went all across this country right at the bottom with teaser rates and the result was a whole lot of folks were talked into mortgages they couldn't afford. the loan folks, the brokers who were putting out these mortgages were making a lot of money, securitizing them. selling them up. there were fees paid to everyone and everyone was making a lot of money. really fat an happy by the way, it's not changed. go to the internet today. you can find on the internet today easy loan for you. get the loan you seek, fast, hassle free. our lenders will prearove your -- preapprove your loan regardless of your credit score

or history. go to the internet. see if it's stopped. bad credit personal loans. how about that? is that unbelievable? i wonder what college they teach this in, you start a company called bad credit personal loans. previous bankruptcy? no credit? previous bad credit? recent job loss? recent divorce? need a larger loan amount? well, click here now. for gosh sake, take advantage of what we're offering. if you're a bad person, we want to give you money. and, you know, speedy bad credit loans, same thing. bad credit, no problem. no credit, no problem. bankruptcy, no problem. come to us. well, is it a surprise that a lot of greedy people -- and a lot of the biggest institutions in this country whose names you recognize instantly loaded up on this nonsense. they loaded it to the gills.

why? because they were all making massive amounts of money by buying an selling and trading these securities and, yes, not just the securities, not just the securitization of loans, but credit default swaps and c.d.o.'s, you name it. it was a carnival and field day. and so that's all happened in the last 10 years and even much worse. but let me end it there to say we're now talking about, what do we do about all of this? this kind of behavior steered the country right into the ditch. we've lost $14 trillion in economic value in this country. something like $12 trillion has been lent, spent, or pledged by the federal government to prop up federal companies many of them doing just as i described. this has been a very difficult time. so the question now is: what do we do about this? do we decide, it's okay.

we're not going to do anything about this? i mentioned naked credit default swaps. i don't know the number in this country, but in england they estimate of their credit default swaps, 80% of them are so-called naked. that is, they have no insurable interest on any side of the action. it is simply making a wager. and when you have bank making wagers as if they are using a roulette wheel or craps table, they mace well put that in the lobby. it is fundamentally antithetical to everything that we know about sound, thoughtful finance in this country to allow this to have happened. we did allow it. and now continue to allow it to happen. so i want to take you back 10 years to the floor of the united states senate and because i've been through this before in something called financial modernization. it was 11 years ago actually. financial modernization. this isn't the first time we've

had substantial legislation on the floor of the united states senate to address the issue of finances and the financial system. we had something called financial modernization on the floor of the senate. and it was the piece of legislation -- big piece of legislation that poold everything together -- pooled everything together. said you can create ones big huge holding company and bring everything in together. the investment banks, the commercial banks, fdic insured banks, securities trading. bring them all together. one big happy family. one big pyramid. it will be fine because it will make us more competitive with the european financial institutions and it will be great i said, i think that's nuts. what are we doing? let me just use some quotes from 1999 on the floor of this senate. november 4, i said fusing together the idea of banking, which requires not just safety and soundness to be successful,

but just the perception of safety and soundness, with other inherently risky speculative is unwise. i said that we will in 10 years time look back and say we shouldn't have done that, we real glass-steagall because we forgot the lessonsf the past. in 1999 this bill will in my judgment raise the likelihood of future massive taxpayer bailouts. it will fuel the consolidation and mergers and the banking of financial services industry at the expense of customers, foreign businesses and others. i said we have another doctrine at the federal reserve board. it's called too big to fail. remember that term: too big to fail. they cannot be allowed to fail because the consequences for the economy is catastrophic, and,

therefore, these banks are too big to fail. that is no-fault capitalism. too big to fail, does anybody care about that? does the fed, federal reserve board? apparently not. that's what i said 11 years ago on the floor of the senate. i said i say to the people who own banks, if you want to gamble, go to las vegas. up the to trade in derivatives, god bless you, do it with your own money. don't do it through guaranteed e american people with deposit insurance. i said during that debate i bet one day somebody is going to look back and say how on earth could we have thought it made sense to allow the banking industry to concentrate through merger and acquisition to become bigger and bigger and bigger, far more firms in the category of too big to fail. how did we think it was going to help our country? those are quotes i made 11 years ago on the floor of this united states senate. i didn't know within a decade, within ten years we would see huge taxpayer bailouts, but i

thought this was fundamentally unsound public policy. i was one of only eight u.s. senators to vote "no." the whole town stampeded. in fact, as you know, this financial modernization act was gramm, bliley, three convince. but -- three republicans. got to do this, got to compete with the rest of the world. it was katy bar the door. we're going to allow these big companies to get bigger and it is going to be just great for our country. so it wasn't so great for the country. what i want to show is what happened as a result of that piece of legislation. this graphhows from 1999 forward the growth of total assets in the largest financial institutions. look at this graph. bigger and bigger. not just a bit bigger.

way, way, way up. the growth in assets of those six largest financial institutions. this chart shows the four banks, total deposits in trillions of dollars. and you see what's happened there. liabilities in the six largest institutions, deposits in the four largest banking institutions. this chart shows the aggregate assets of the top six commercial and investment banks and what has happened in ten years. now, it doesn't take a genius and it doesn't take somebody with higher mathematics or having taken an advance course in statistics to understand what this picture shows. we have seen a dramatic amount of concentration, some of it, by the way, aided and abetted by the federal government. because as we ran into this

problem, this very deep recession, the deepest since the great depression, our government arranged the marriages of some of the biggest companies. and so the big became much, much, much bigger. now, i've said all of that simply to say that's where we've been. and now the question is: where are we going? what kind of legislation are we going to take up here on the floor of the senate? already there's been a big dust-up. the minority leader came to the floor of the senate and said what was done in the banking committee would be a big bailout of banks. of course that wasn't the case at all. but, you know, this is a fact-free zone at least with respect to some debates. i don't think there's anybody in this chamber that believes that we don't have a responsibility now to address these issues and address them in the right way. let me be quick to say a couple things. number one, there are some awfully good financial institutions in this country run

by some good people who have done a good job. and we need them. you can't have production without the ability to finance production. we need commercial banks. we need all the other financial industries and institutions. but we need to make sure the excesses and the greed and the unbelievable things that were done by some in the last decade cannot repeat, cannot happen again. the piece of legislation that's going to come to the floor of the senate from the senate banking committee is a good piece of legislation. i commend senator dodd. he's done, i think, an excellent job. by the way, those who have said in the senate that somehow this is just partisan, he didn't reach out to others, that is just not the case and everybody knows it. chris dodd reached out to republicans week after week and month after month to try to get some cooperation, and finally they just walked away and said we're all going to vote no no matter what. so it is not the case that this was designed to be some sort of

partisan bill. and i still hope that there will be republicans and democrats who together understand what needs to be done to fix the problems that exist in our financial services industry. in addition to senator dodd bringing a bill from the banking committee, let me say senator blanche lincoln under her leadership in the agriculture committee has brought a piece of legislation on banking derivatives that i think is a good piece of legislation that needs to be a part of the banking reform bill. what i want to talk about ever so briefly is two other things. there are a number of people that have bills that i'm going to be supportive of, that i think have great merit, that are necessary, i think, necessary to fix the real problems that exist. the issue of repairing what was done to glass-steagall. senator cantwell, senator mccain have a bill on that. there are others that have a bill on proprietary trading. and there are others as well.

but i want to talk about two things very briefly. number one, i'm preparing an amendment that deals with i want to call naked credit default swaps. i don't think that's investing. that's simply betting. if there is no insurable interest on either side of credit default swaps, that's not investing. and i think there ought to be a requirement that there be an insurable interest on at least one side in order for it to be a legitimate function. it seems to me that if we don't ban naked credit default swaps, we will have missed the opportunity to do something that is necessary to fix part of what happened in the last decade, number one. number two is the issue of too big to fail. it has not been described, it seems to me, by either the banking committee or by amendments that have been suggested, it has not been described that we should take

seriously too big to fail by deciding if you are too big to fail, you are too big. this country has on occasion, where you have a systemic risk that is unacceptable, when you have a moral imperative to do something about something like this, this country has decided we will break standard oil into 23 oils. -l the 23 parts turned out to be much more valuable in their sum than the value of the whole. having said all that, i believe there needs to be an amendment that deals with the issue of too big to fail, very simply, saying if there is something by the financial stability oversight council, if they develop an approach that says, all right, this is an institution that is just too big to fail, the moral hazard for our country and systemic for our country is too great. therefore, we judge it too big to fail. i believe really what ought to happen over a period of time, perhaps five years, is a

systemmate divestiture sufficient so the institution remains an institution that is not then too big to fail. and that ought to be something that we consider as we develop our approach to these financial reform measures. i don't think big is always bad and i don't think small is always beautiful. i want us to be big enough to compete. i want us to have the resources to be able to make big investments and big projects. i understand all of that. i can point to some really terrific financial companies in this country run by first-rate executives. so understand what i'm talking about are the abuses and the unbelievable cesspool of greed that we have seen in a decade by some. but by some from institutions that were big enough and strong enough to run this country into very serious trouble. and that's why i think we have a responsibility at this point to address all of those issues that are in front of us as we deal with the banking reform.

i know this is going to be a long and a difficult task, but one of my hopes would be that republicans and democrats can all agree on one thing. what we've experienced in the last tacked cannot be be a -- in the last decade cannot be allowed to continue. cannot be allowed to continue. no one, i believe, would want our financial institutions to continue to bet rather than invest, to continue to invest in naked credit default swaps where there's no insurable interest. nobody, i would hope, would believe that represents the kind of productive financing that we need to produce in this country again. i want the financing to be available from good, strong financial institutions to good, strong companies that need to expand to produce american goods that say "made in america" again. that's what i want for our country. and that kind of economic health can only come if you have a strong system of financial institutions that are engaged in the things that originally made this a great country. not trading naked credit default

swaps, but really making good investments in the productive sector of this country. i believe we can do that again, and i believe we will. and i don't approach this banking reform debate with trepidation. i think ultimately cooler heads will prevail and all of us will understand the need and when we meet that need, this country will be much, much better off. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. casey: mr. president, thank you. i rise today to speak about an issue that was the subject of a foreign relations committee hearing today, of course chaired by our chairman john kerry and the ranking member senator dick lugar. today in america -- or i should say today worldwide, every five seconds a child dies from starvation. every five seconds across the world. every five seconds every day.

that is a reality that stares us in the face. and while the united states has historically played a critically important role in addressing hunger internationally, the simple fact -- this simple fact should serve as a galvanizing call to action on this issue. the 2008 global food crisis brought attention to the fact that emergency food assistance was not enough. as generous as our country is and as important as that strategy is to confronting the problem, emergency food assistance that year was not enough, and donors and recipient countries that need to work together to address this systemic problem need to do so even more so today. the obama administration has rightly prioritized food security and the political support in the senate is growing

every day. for the lugar-casey global food security act. and i want to commend senator lugar for his work on these issues for many, many years. and of course i want to commend and thank the work that our chairman, senator john kerry, is doing on this issue with us every day as well. creating an environment where local farmers can produce for themselves and their communities as well as easily trade and get their goods to market is the key to fundamentally changing this ongoing crisis. with the host of competing priorities for united states attention, i believe there are at least two reasons why food security matters even in the midst of some of the challenges we're facing here domestically. first, this is a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions that we go go a long way towards solving. i think when we talk about this issue, no matter who we are, no matter what our station in life

is, this is an issue that we come to, i think, summoned by our conscience. and i think that's true here in the united states senate as well. as one of the richest countries in the world, i believe we have a moral obligation to do all we can and to help. this crisis is solvable with a combination of assistance and emphasis on providing small farmers around the world with the know-how, the technology, and the means to provide for themselves. the second reason, in addition to this being a humanitarian crisis why this is important, the second reason is global hunger is indeed a national security issue. instability arising from conflict across the world over access to food is a documented problem. the 2008 food crisis, unfortunately, brought this into

sharp, acute focus. we saw it in somalia where struggles to gain access to food have enveloped public option centers in -- population centers in violence. we've seen it in egypt as citizens rioted for access to bread. we've seen it in haiti where hospital beds filled in 2008 with those injured during food riots. increased instability in any of these countries has had a direct impact on u.s. national security interests. the root causes of this perfect storm of crisis are well-known by now and are worth recounting. in 2008, food demand wag driven higher due to expanding populations and rising incomes. more cereals were needed to feed livestock for the production of dairy products and meat and to fill increasing des manned for biofuels across the world. higher oil prices combined with

rising global demand creates a scramble for resources. wheat prices more than doubled and rice prices more than tripled between january and may of 2008. 28 countries imposed export bans on their crops, driving up commodity prices and limiting supply. this led to political unrest across the globe. it concentrated among developing countries with large food-insecure, poor urban populations. while this was indeed a perfect storm of events, the underlying issues that created this crisis continue. in sub-sahara africa,% to 90% -- 80% to 90% of all cereal prices remain 25% higher than they were before the crisis began. in many asian, latin american and caribbean countries prices are still more than 25% than in

the previous -- than in the pre-crisis period of time. in the wake of the economic crisis, the world food programme began receiving requests for assistance even from countries that previously were able to provide for themselves. the peripheral effects of food insecurity are considerable. higher rates f hunger are shown to be linked to gender i inequality, especially in terms of education and literacy, which also negatively facts the rate of child malnutrition. this number is stunning. it's estimated that 60% of the world's chronically hungry are women and girls -- 60%. 20% of which are children you ur the age of five. almost incalculable. those numbers are staggering and should do more than just bother us and should do more than just inform our conscience. they should also motivate us to

do something about this crisis. i cite these figures and too obvious in washington we're guilty of doing just that -- citing figures -- but they have real impact and meaning. i've had the privilege of personally working with some very special women in pennsylvania who took it among themselves -- took it upon themselves, should i say, to really highlight some of these issues. the witnesses to hunger is a project that started in philadelphia, pennsylvania. these women were given cameras to photograph their own lives, to tell us the truth of their experiences and to raise awareness on many critical issues, including and specifically hunger. last year i had the honor, das my wife -- as did my wife, of bringing their exhibit to washington and in november we launched a tour across pennsylvania to highlight this issue. i can't begin to describe how moved i was and so many others

who saw this exhibit to see the photographs taken by these women and to hear their stories of hunger and hear their stories of poverty. their bravery and rare courage in sharing the struggles they face provide -- to provide a safe, nurturing home for their children will always stay with me. these mothers who brought witnesses to hunger to life are constant reminder that the programs we in congress advocate for and the new initiatives we can develop can have a profound impact on people's lives, whether it is in our towns and communities in pennsylvania or any other state or around the world. because this is a problem our world and our country faces. hunger in a country like pakistan is both -- poses both a humanitarian and security issue. last year over 77 million people in that country, in pakistan, were considered food-insecure by the world food programme. that's nearly half of their

population. as their military conducts its continued operations against extremist forces, their numbers could increase. hunger and competition for food can lead to further instability and potentially undermine the pakistani government's leadership at a very critical time. the global food crisis is still a serious problem. and despite the efforts of the administration, we still have a lot of catching up to do in order to respond properly. according to the center for strategic and international studies, the united states commitment to agricultural development has declined in recent years, though food -- emergency food assistance continues at robust levels. worldwide, the share of agriculture n. and development -- in development assistance has fallen from a high of 13% in 1985 to 4% between 2002 & 2007. the united states development assistance to africa -- african agriculture fell from its peak

of about 500 million in 1988 to less than 100 million in 2006. we can do a lot better than that. the united states usaid has been hardest hit during this period. the usaid once considered the agricultural expertise -- once considered agricultural expertise to be a corps strength but today operates under diminished capacity. that's an understatement. here's what i mean by that. in 1990, usaid employed 181 agricultural specialists. in 2009, just 22, from 181 to 22 in just those years, less than 20 years. and that number has gone up from 22 recently with the new administration, but it's still far too few to work on this problem. in 1970's, the united states

government sponsored 20,000 annual scholarships for future leadership in agriculture, engining, and related fields p today that number has fallen to less than 900. so we're not developing the workforce and the expertise that we need. we simply don't currently have adequate infrastructure in our government to respond to this crisis. the administration is making progress, though. the administration's global hunger and food security initiative, known by the acronym ghfsi, is a comprehensive approach to food security based on country and community-led planning and collaboration. i welcome this opportunity to hear directly from the administration about this effort. while i know that the obama administration has worked assiduously to coordinate an iran agency process and selection criteria for country participation around the world, questions remain in terms of overall leadership of the

initiative as well as its plans to develop internal expertise and capacity that is sustainable over the long term. in the senate, we've also worked to bring attention to the world's hungry. senator lugar, as i mentioned before, a respected leader in this field for decades, and i have joined together to introduce the global food security act. let me highlight three provisions before i conclude. -- of that afnlg act. first it would provide enhanced coordination within the united states government so that usaid, the department of agriculture, and other agencies are working together and not aat cross purposes. second, it would -- this bill would expand u.s. investment in the agricultural productivity of developing nations so that other nations facing escalating food prices can rely less on emergency food assistance and instead take steps to expand their own crop production. every dollar invested in

agricultural research and development generates $9 -- for every $1, $9 worth of food in the developing world. third, this bill, the global food security act, will modernize our system of emergency food assistance so it's more flexible and can provide aid on short notice. we do that by authorizing a new $500 million fund for u.s. emergency food assistance. this is one of those rare occasions, unfortunately too rare, where a serious crisis was greeted with substantial response by an administration -- in this case the obama administration -- as well as bipartisan collaboration in the senate and the house. i'm encouraged that there's been positive movement towards fundamentally changing how we look at food security issues. such support, however, is not permanent and we should enact this multiyear authorization bill to ensure that such congressional support exists in

the future, many, many years from now. wreck not wait for another -- we cannot wait for another massive food crisis before taking action on this legislation. this is the right thing to do and will ultimately enhance the security of the united states and our allies. so, mr. president, this isn't just a matter of being summoned by our conscience. that, we know, is part of the reason we're doing this. this is also a grave and a national security issue for us and for our allies, and nor that reason and so many others, we need to pass the global food security act and support the administration's effort on the global hunger and food security initiative. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. casey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. case i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without

objection it is so ordered. mr. casey: thank you. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h. con. res. 255, which was received from the house. e pridingfficer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h. con. res. 255, commemorating the 40th anniversary of earth day and honoring the founder of earth day, the late-senator gaylord nelson of wisconsin. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. case kay i ask unanimous consent the concurrenting agreed to, that a coburn substitute amendment to the preamble be agreed to, the preamble, as amended, be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the measure placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. casey: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of

s. res. 499, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. had 499, supporting the goals and ideals of world malaria month and so forth. the esidg ofcer:ithout objection. without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. casey: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the resolution be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. so ordered. the chair submits to the senate for printing and the senate journal and in the "congressional record" the amended replication of the house of representatives. the answer of judge g. thomas porteous jr., the articles of impeachment against judge porteous pursuant to s. res.

457, the 111th congress, second session, which replication was received by the secretary of the senate on april 22, 2010. mr. casey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 2:00 p.m. monday, april 26, that following the prayer, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and there be a period of morning business until 3:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, that following morning business, the senate resume the motion to proceed to s.3217, wall street reform. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. casey: mr. president, at 5:00 p.m. monday, the senate will proceed to a roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the wall street reform legislation. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask

that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate will stand adjourned until 2:00 p.m. monday, april 26.

>> i think there's a huge lack of knowledge about how the town works, how congress works. when you're doing actual research work you have to do that yourself. >> this week in award-winning historian douglas brinkley will talk about their work, their books and the profession and revisit their first appearances on our network. q. and a sunday night on c-span. next a senate hearing on efforts to police the u.s.-mexico border. we will hear about the so-called virtual fence program which uses detection technology to catch illegal immigrants. joe lieberman of connecticut chairs the homeland security committee. this runs 50 minutes. >> i would ask the witnesses on the second panel to come to the

table, please, and we will go forward with the hearing. we really honored to have your, and i know it seems at some distance, the three participants, audible dennis burke, u.s. attorney for the district of arizona. the honorable octavio garcia-von borstel, mayor of the city of nogales. did i get that? >> you did, senator. >> more or less correct, thank you, good to see again. and sheriff larry dever, great to see you again share. i appreciate your patience as we went to vote. we will now begin with the u.s. attorney burke. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i have my lengthy comment i would like you said that for the record at i would like to focus my oral comments on what we're doing today and how it differs from the past. senator mccain, you reference a few times already that in the

district of sector of tucson we can't is get over 1.3 million pounds of marijuana. >> can i interrupt you a second? interposiin your position as u.s. attorney maybe you can give us a few words as to your assessment of the situation, and then what you're doing. would you do that? >> sure. >> i would appreciate that. >> the assessment of the situation is from the hearing of the test of commissioner and the questions are here, i think the committee is right on point, that the individuals who are involved in trafficking drugs and individuals involved in human smuggling are more violent than we have seen in the past. we deal with more firearms cases that we have in the past. we do with more smugglers carrying firearms, being willing to use those firearms, has an impact on the agents who work in the sectors in arizona and has an impact on our prosecution. we have seen an increase

interest in smuggling weapons from arizona to mexico. we have numerous ongoing investigations working with atf and local law enforcement with regards to gun trafficking headed to mexico. we have seen an increase in bulk cash smuggling. we've increased our cases with regard to focusing on that. so you have got the drugs and the humans heading north, and we're focusing on that. but at the same time, we have to focus on the money and the guns heading south. and we have seen an increase in all of those particular areas. my district, once had a 500-pound threshold for marijuana trafficking. if you in the district of arizona had 400 pounds, those cases were being declined. why? because the federal prosecutor, my office were so overloaded with cases they were little and were not able to get to those type of cases. that threshold is now gone.

ranks to supplemental funding from congress. we now have over 160 federal prosecutors working for me. that is a 50% increase in prosecutors just over the last three years. a concept d.o.j. funding, i have just finished hiring six additional border security prosecutors brought my tucson office, very seasoned attorneys, and i am going to be receiving a story from the justice department in the near future to hire additional border security prosecutors. so the prosecutors are there. there on the ground. they are experienced and working incredibly focused and diligently on these cases. so when it comes to resources, the department has been backing the district that they do so because we produce and we are making a difference. we filed over 3200 felony and aggression cases in fy 2009.

filed 22000 misdemeanor cases in the immigration area. we increased our drug prosecution by over 100% from fiscal year 2008 the fiscal year 2009. and these prosecutions statistics and the district of arizona are also consistent with recent trend across the entire southwest border. from 2007 to 2009, five south was border districts increase their felony caseload by 42%. indeed, the south was border district filed 41% of all the federal felony cases in the entire nation. i speak weekly with my counterparts in the other southwest border districts. we are constantly sharing intelligence. prosecution tips, and trends. indeed, two of the border security prosecutors that are mentioned are here are hiring from our texas district and they are two of the best in the country.

aside from the reactive border related caseload, we handle on a daily basis, we are also very involved in a significant number of complex long-term investigations involving international -- transnational organized criminal activity, including as i mentioned earlier drug and firearm trafficking, human smuggling in currency exportation. this reflects the department of justice's cartel targeted strategy. and as i said as much as we need to stop the drugs in humans heading, we're focusing more and more than would have in the past on stopping the guns and the money heading south. it was reflected in commissioner person's testimony, there's more attention in our district devoted to southbound smuggling than there has ever been before. our investigative tools are more advanced than just a few years back. we are doing 50% more wiretap cases than we did a year ago.

this is in conjunction with bea is state of the art why room as part of their multiagency strikeforce. i mentioned our bulk cash commitment, and are working with atf and also would like to mention that just last week in the district we unveiled the indictment of operation in plain sight that it was investigation two years in the making. 49 rs, research words were executed, 50 vehicles were seized. we targeted a cross-border human smuggling organization. we removed their entire infrastructure of the network. we had ice, fbi, dea, arsenal service, atf, arizona department of public safety was involved. phoenix and tucson police department at the pima county sheriff office all worked in conjunction on that investigation. i think the case also highlights the strengthening ties that we've been building with mexican

federal law enforcement agencies. the ssp, mexican federal government arrested one of the main targets in that case. and executed search and arrest warrants simultaneously with our operation in arizona. this level of cooperation and coordination with mexico is unprecedented. and we are, in fact, for the first time ever, we refer port of entry drug trafficking cases back to mexico for prosecution. so we have drug traffickers that are being prosecuted in their own country under their own laws, and the sentences are severe. 10 years each in the cases with so far referred. let me finally mentioned with regards to our contacts and relationships in cooperation with mexico. a few weeks back attorney general holder back attorney general holder convened a meeting in arizona with his counterparts, the mexican attorney general chavez and attorney general include

southwest for u.s. attorneys and other u.s. attorneys with drug trafficking organizations in connection with their districts to work on joint cross-border prosecution strategies. we are making more and more advances than we have ever in the past with mexico. the work of president calderon is great effort is being reflected in his prosecuted and his develop relationships and work that we have not ever had in the past. in fact, indeed mexico has been assisting us at the federal level with our efforts to track the horrendous murder of rob krenz in the cochise county area. so mr. chairman, thank you for the opportunity to give a general overview of my comments. and i appreciate the opportunity to be here today. >> thanks, mr. burkett a good beginning and giving the committee a sense of the impact of this home in secret crisis on the ground in arizona. mayor, thanks for coming again.

it's good to see. your testimony was very important to us last year. we look forward to hearing from you now. >> by well well. thank you, chairman lieberman. good morning, chairman again. i'm the proud mayor of the city of nogales arizona. before us to with the key issues today, i will raise with you on want to thank, i want to thank you for this rare occurrence, an opportunity to produce that in the scene. with that being said, allow me to get to the heart of the matter. gentlemen, nogales need your help. nogales is a community that is extremely dependent on the border of our neighbors to the south. the ability to cross the border effectively, efficiently, and in a secure and safe environment is vital. since attending 112001 we of all recognize that our world is different. we now must look at security at the same time that was a get

commerce, trade and tourism. but that is also the key point that i would like to make today. that we must not lose sight, that we are working to secure the homeland so that we can conduct our normal lives your we have all seen or expect an increase of violence on the border communities. i was deeply saddened recently when i heard the news of the death of a very own people, americans of the u.s. embassy of ciudad juarez who became victims of the drug cartel violence. in fact, i was just at that embassy last week. met with the subcontinent and discuss the horror of the situation affecting american citizens. the assassination of the local rancher in cochise county is evident that the files is, in fact, spilling over to the united states. perhaps part of the solution we

identified is to involve all of government, local, state and federal. although i respect and understand it is a federal issue, the local government have to be able to form part of the strategy because after all, we are the ones were directly impacted most. i for one would like a mitigation in order to better support and address the violent and borders initiatives. to give you an idea come our community has three ports of entry. protection, a pedestrian private vehicle, train and bus crossing, and mariposa which is a commercial crossing. but we are also, also cross pedestrians in private vehicles. are few border stations currently process in excess of 15 million people over 300,000 trucks and well over 3 million cars, each year in the northbound direction. two-way traffic is approximately

30 million people, 600,000 trucks, and over 6 million cars. i want to thank the congressional delegation in particular, senator mccain, that is with us today. and senators jon kyl as well for the active and continued support on the issues that we face in nogales. and yes, we are making great headway on some very important border issues. for instance, the port of entry is curly undergoing major reconfiguration, a project funding -- funded to the tune of $200 million under the america, american recovery act. this project will double and triple, for inspection of both commercial and noncommercial traffic at mariposa. this project which start in september of last year should be completed by 2013. we're curly working with arizona department of transportation and the federal highway

administration to improve the kind of port in turkey to the federal highway system. additionally, we are working with our mexican counterparts to ensure that necessary improvements are made for the mexican side of mariposa. in recent years we have seen a clear focus at securing the border between the ports of entry, but there has been little attention to ports of entry themselves. i truly believe that in to have a safe and efficient border, you must have an effective border. customs and border protection's have identified some five to $6 billion worth of projects on the u.s.-mexican border. yet, however, yet the budget proposed for fiscal year 2011 shows only 93,000,041 project that are ports of entry are a national asset. however, the budget does not reflect that. the violence between drug cartels have certainly created a

paranoid across both countries and had a trek impact to border communities. service going south to north and north to south have lost confidence and are now afraid for their safety when traveling through nogales. they continue to see human trafficking and drug trafficking, i believe, as result of lack of resources for border communities. our current wait time in the cost are well in excess of an hour can easily during peak hours every day. due to long waits we've seen dramatic transitions from the people crossing the border in their cars to crossing on foot. we are not ready for this transition. and the increase of pedestrian traffic means that there are wait times across on foot in excess of an hour. the copy of a recent article those in our local newspapers shows the long predicted by at the border, and i believe you do have a picture of that, mr.

chairman. >> yes. will enter that in the record. >> thank you, sir. at the same time, secretary napolitano recently issued a press release commemorating the first anniversary of the southwest border initiative. and the great results from enforcement perspective. yes, the program has seen me -- sees many weapons and stop millions of dollars are being slaughtered and sent back to mexico. but it will cost the cost and other border communities. the dhs initiative in conducting inspections of trains, trucks, vehicles leaving the u.s. the unintended consequence and one of the key points that i want to make before you today, gentlemen, was not a consideration when this initiative was planned and deploy. none of the ports of entry at nogales are equipped to handle southbound inspections. they lay down a few cones on the

road, and simply stops every vehicle departing from u.s. to mexico. and know that everyone talks about the customs, has notified us that they are inspecting every truck leaving the u.s. from the ports that -- skidding, to the port of entry. the traffic backs up on southbound basis reach well over an hour and more drink peak hours. the end result, i anticipated consequence is that people are now crossing less frequently and have to wait one or two hours coming in and out from our ports of entry. specs you before interrupting. to the extent that you can come if you could summarize the rest of your statement. >> there will. i will move over to perhaps respectfully the recommendations that i would present.

>> good. >> thank you. first of all, i would respectfully recommend to staff reports of a tree to the capacity that it is required. secondly, provide additional funding and expect to and confirm that it to our ports of entry. thirdly, dhs need to come up with a plan to address the congestion, safety and other unintended consequences of the stuff that inspection program. no surprise to everyone. fourthly, find ways to deploy trusted traveler programs to southbound traffic. for instance, programs that is working so well for northbound travelers be considered for southbound traffic as well. finally, there needs to be better coordination sharing of information and intelligence with mexico to help reduce the effort, to ensure that we

maximize the return of investment. include all governments, local, state and federal in these efforts to increase the success of tackling the drug was at the border. mr. chairman, senators, senator mccain, again let me thank you for the opportunity to be here to kick it out issues and needs. please be assured that for me at nogales security, it is our top priorities. and that is essentially in our livelihood. i thank you for your attention and i look forward to your questions and comments the. >> thanks, me. does an excellent statement and we ever should do recommendations. also, less person on the panel, sheriff deaver. thanks for making the trip. we remember your testimony very well from last year. and we love forward to and update this morning. and obey say we would be particular interested in, though it's an open investigation of what you can tell us about the murder of rob krenz. >> thank you, senator lieberman.

senator mccain. it's a privilege and pleasure to be here, sort of a pleasure. we did meet a year ago, to discuss border violent. in phoenix, arizona. and, you know, i've hurt a lot of numbers here today. and i have a hard time wrapping my time under my to read all those that i can tell you added up all together came up with a great big fat zero for robert krenz. it comes up with a big fat joe for people living on the eastern part of treachery right now who suffer daily, burglaries, theft and home invasions. a couple was tied up in their home and left forever. had it not been fortunate enough for someone to come by. all of their stuff still that the guy who gave aid to a couple of illegals was tied up in duct tape in his own home. managed to get his tongue free from the duck tape around his mouth and dialed 911 on his cell phone with his tongue.

i can tell you stories about people who live out there for three or four years. what has been burglarized 18 times. and it is a fast, large area. the murder of robert krenz was particularly senseless. my lead detective on the case has seen gruesome, and while this was a necessary gruesome, just a circumstances, as she has dealt with all kinds of horrible things. brought her to tears. just because the senseless nature of the whole thing. so i can't tell you a lot specifically about the investigation, although we have made great progress beyond what i initially hoped we would. we -- i can tell you that with a surety, i have been challenged on his, how do you know he was an illegal alien or drug smuggler. mr. chairman, mr. mccain, it's a 35,000-acre remote cattle ranch. there's jackrabbits,

rattlesnakes, a few cattle grazing on that parent has to. illegal aliens and drug smugglers out there, and that's it. this would be someone walking into wal-mart to go shop at something. so with that said, we do know come have reason to believe this man was a scout for a drug smuggling organization, and that's about the extent i can talk to you about what we know about for this individual is. it was said earlier, it was the word, term just about people feeling across the board. there was a time that was the case. today the people who are crossing the border illegally are led and they led by the ruthless, armed and well a quick individuals who are prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect their financial interests in that smuggling operation. a a few years ago, we would jump loads of dope on defense, people would just give it up and run.

the people to enter the country illegally are coming on and on and looking for rides. today everything is much will organize, much more dangerous. and much more dire. i mentioned the scouts. the scouts sit on mountain tops, high places with recommendations. and there aren't and they set up camps and they simply relay via radio the location of the border patrol or i.c.e. or sheriff deputies are working in the area, and that's how they compete. the law enforcement presence, and they are very good at it. and speaking of communication, they are better equipped than we are, certainly, in many cases, using encrypted radio transmission. september 11, all the language that came out in grant funding and is talked about the need to partner with state and local agencies, the federal governments need to border in order to better protect our

homeland, included language of the need for interoperability, referring to radio capability, harder than 19 indications that our pursuit of the shooter of rob krenz, we had state department correction, dr. king teens, i.c.e. ages, sheriffs deputy, to border patrol sector, represented who couldn't talk to each other. and none of us could talk with each other. it's inexcusable. until that problem is resolved all of our law enforcement efforts, no matter how will coordinator will have a soft underbelly and the bad guys are going to continue to win. senator mccain mentioned 17%, people captured across the border are criminal aliens, previously committed crimes in this country. that number comes from the douglas station of tucson border patrol and confirmed that before i came here. that means that of all those millions of people, hundreds of thousands of people who enter

here, the bad guys keep coming. no matter whether the apprehension rates rise or fall, the numbers of criminal aliens rise. and that, sir, gentlemen, is the threat to our homeland security in this country. catastrophic events are of great concern, and are crossing because and people with intent, and any crossing of criminal minds of writing and commuters throughout this country, throughout this entire nation is our real threat to our peace and our harmony come and there's a thousand other things i would like to talk about. my time is up. i will yield to questions expect thanks very much, she. you know, thanks for trying to describe you know, the impact of this crisis on people who live in the area. because i don't think as i said

earlier, i don't think people around the rest of the country appreciate it. but people in your property, people burglarizing, and worse. and what you describe is, as a change, a significant, which is it's not largely what it has been before it, as you see it. which is movement of illegal immigrants. this is now movement which is being led by armed individuals who are protecting a business basically and human smuggling. let me ask each of you, whether i'm correct in saying or concluding that, let's take a year ago when it happened to be in arizona on a hearing, that the situation along the border and spillover of violence is worse today than it was a year ago. would you agree with that,

sheriff? >> absolutely. and there's referenced after incident of the case to verify and approve it. we can talk about them all day. i would like to emphasize it is worse and it is getting worse, and i hope you understand, i hope congress can wrap their minds around the idea, the concept and the president and his ministers if we don't get this right this time, when are we? and how will we? you know, 1997 was my first testimony before congress about border files. 10 years prior to that, tucson chief of the border patrol was quoted as saying congress has mandated we get control of our borders. and what illegal aliens, narcotics, terrorists, whatever. that's a we are going to do. so here we are, 23 years later, and you know, how many chances,

how much -- when are you going to gather again, what event will it take to cause us to finally take action and bring this to a stop? >> well, those words should tackle in our minds, it does whatever we done sadly is not working. the problem, which you live with every day, is continuing. mayor, is it worse today than a year ago? >> would serve at the vicious comments and i would confirm that, yes or. as senator mccain mentioned, there's been 23,000 killings in mexico. it is a full-blown war, and we need to make sure that we do all the diligence we can. to make sure that we prevent that violence from continuing to spill over the border. >> mr. byrd? >> i would agree, although i would also add, in some respects some of the steps that have been taken on the poor have led to

increased violence. these are organizations, criminal organizations over turf mraps and so forth. and as the shares mentioned in the past, it might have been a flow. they would come back and forth across the border. now those rats are much more limited and they are controlled by particular organizations and their much are violent organizations that they are taking it out on each other. can also take the opportunity, because of the tidy in certain spots, to actually steal other people, and other organizations drugs or humans. but we see a lot in the phoenix area of drug rip off your human response were an organization, instead of having a connection in mexico to bring up drugs or humans, we'll just get a sense of some other organizations having a drop house of drugs in humans come and go do a violent rip off of that, of the other organization. that's a new phenomenon in the last couple of years. you didn't see that five to 10

years ago. now have an epidemic of that in the phoenix area. >> let me ask you this question, from a law-enforcement point of view. obviously, we all admire president calderon of mexico for taking on the drug cartels. and from your answer that part of what's happened now is the cartels, the files in mexico is pushing the cartel's turning on people in government, local or regional or higher. but also the cartels fighting each other because the turf has been constricted by the government. is that -- does that continue to be a really? >> i believe that's correct, mr. chairman. we have seen that in arizona with regards to how the cartel battle over the routes. it's evident in her conversations with pgr. the pgr is the attorney general

of mexico. reflected in our conversations with them as to what they are dealing with. what i will say i'm as i said with respect to president calderon, the pgr, the people were doing with our courageous for their taking on. >> i agree. you just made a point against i want to emphasize. part of the way in which the violence does can over the border from mexico is with the cartels competing for the path north, greg? >> correct. >> just a state for the record, an earlier hearing what a representative from the fbi, and he told the committee that mexican drug cartels are the number one organized crime threat in america today. obviously, not just at the border, but, you know, cities from anchorage, alaska, to hartford, connecticut. and pretty much anywhere in between. again from a law-enforcement view, you think at some point,

as the government in mexico is steadfast and really courageous and continuing this battle, not to yield control of much of the country to criminal elements, that we would turn a corner. and the violence would begin to recede. but that hasn't happened yet. so i may ask you and the sheriff about this for law enforcement. can hope for such a turning point, mr. berg? that the good guys will win your? >> i don't know at this stage, this juncture, mr. chairman. i can say that the steps were taken and cooperation, part a trip partnership we have with mexico is good. the best we've ever had. i think concerned by a lot in law enforcement is a window of opportunity that really have with president calderon.

>> sheriff, what would you say? >> well, there's so many unknowns. what we do know is that the population in mexico is going -- growing favorite rabid and, therefore, the financial pressures, temptations, increased in conjunction with that. and all of that produces a future threat to this country as well. i don't know if we can't get our arms wrapped around the violence in our own country why we would expect mexico should be able to do it before we do. so i think it needs, we do need to continue to work together. mr. burke is correct. cooperation is better than ever before. still lacking in some areas but improvement is always on the horizon. >> thanks to my time is up its senator mccain? >> following up on the chairman's line of questioning. do you believe we can secure the borders because absolutely, sir. it can be done. the minute men were in our

county, cochise county in 2005. they were there for 30 days if there were a bunch of guys, gray-haired and mostly old fat guys like me spirit nothing wrong with greater. [laughter] >> and on this section of the border, they were there 24/7, not a single crossing occurred. it can be done. it takes a political will and it takes the proper strategy and proper mix that has been discussed here today of people and technology to include some serious aerial assets to bring it under control. >> yes, sir. , i do believe so. it is a tough challenge. i think as the chairman said, not a simple problem. is not going to be a simple solution. and we have seen were tight in certain areas where there's been an effective fencing.

they've gone to other steps that you made reference earlier to the ultralight. that is a new method that they're using to bring drugs over. were never seen that before. with seen any merchants of tunneling. so they're only limitation is their own creativity. they are sophisticated criminal organizations, and it's going to continue to operate as long as they can make money doing this. >> mayor, what% of the city of nogales, arizona, is hispanic? >> 98%. >> how do the citizens of nogales, arizona, deal about this issue? >> senator mccain, i think we all recognize there is a desperate need to secure the border. it's been very frustrating, and to be quite frank with you, it's been very scary to live on the border. we need your support, and we

need -- legislate on the table. we are willing to do our part and work diligently with our federal and state government to make sure that that border is secure. and build confidence back to our constituents and arcturus. >> operations streamlined scenes have had a beneficial effect. for the record, that is people op apprehended are incarcerated for 15 to 60 to 90 days. how important do you think that methodology is in discouraging illegal immigration? >> senator, i think it's an effective program. in our tucson office, we do about 70 individuals a day. and, you know, we do about 40 according to cbp, the records on recidivism are good. are effective with regard to

streamline. that said, for all the programs and all activity that goes on, one small element of the overall program. on any given day, 702-1100 people are arrested in the tucson sector by the border patrol. and streamlined, process 70 of them. so it still just a small percentage of the overall amount of people that are prosecuted. but it has been effective. >> how do you decide? >> is a geographical determination by made by the border patrol. they target a particular geographic area. and then those individuals are brought in by that, and they are given priority for people with records, and that's a determination made every day by border patrol and working with our prosecutors. >> my understand from a letter from the judge is would like to see an additional magistrate,

and also an increase that could handle an increase in the number of people who would be subject to incarceration, is that correct? >> i'm not aware of his letter. i am aware of judge rules concerned about his capacities, infrastructure capacity, to take out a larger streamlined program. that is a major concern of his. i do know that in the tucson district court, the increase magistrate has helped considerably with regard to our ability to call i can prosecute cases. i was struck, by you mentioned the previous rules were that anything, 500 pounds of marijuana was not prosecuted? >> that's correct. >> under 500 pounds? >> that's correct. >> yeah. [laughter]

>> sheriff dever, you have been shipped since 1996? >> yes, sir. >> maybe you could give us a little perspective. we all know about the terrible tragedy of the rob krenz family. what are people being subjected to that, frankly, citizens and the rest of the country are not, number one? and number two is has deteriorated over time, and clearly, the united states government has an obligation to protect people's lives and property. is that obligation being fulfilled down in cochise county? >> from a criminal activity step, i think most of the disturbing, it has been the number of home invasions versus a burglary. when people are actually at home

watching television or in bed, or whatever. and somebody breaks into their home, which obviously predictably will lead ultimately to some kind of conflict because physical confrontation, and one side loses in the those. those have been increasing very, very rapidly. the burglary problem, there's a flow. most of the home burglaries we have in the eastern part of the county actually are southbound traffic. smugglers who have halted their cargo, contraband out, dropped it off to the transportation and they are headed back south and steal guns and jewelry and cash, and then just hop back across the border. so you get a picture in your mind. is a people have successfully crossed the border carrying backpacks, defeated these force the effort, halted many, many, many, miles north and are going back south and committing additional crimes.

so i said for a long time that, today, the situation at the border today is if you want to cross the border you will ultimately succeed. and until that changes then we're going to continue to face the kinds of conflict and complications and death and carnage that comes with it. >> and is the recently less a crackdown on coordination of different enforcement agencies so transportation network, where people were, illegals were invented being transported up to phoenix, and from phoenix to all parts of the country. can you tell us the extent of that network and how far reaching were they and how many people were they transporting, and how sophisticated an operation it was? >> senator, they were transporting thousands of individuals.

and what would happen is that the crossers would go past a port of entry somewhere on the arizona mexico border, and have information that they received from mexico, which is part of a criminal organization to either go to a spot in nogales, or to work their way up to tucson. where they would be picked up by shuttle vans that were part of the criminal organization and transported up to phoenix area. which serves as a hub for the network, for the entire country. so this spread out into the east. we had investigations led us to north carolina, tennessee, illinois, throughout the count country. and the reference in my testimony, we ended up arresting 49 individuals who involved in this organization, sees over 50 of their vehicles.

and had tremendous cooperation from mexico with regard to targeting and arresting the individuals involved in mexico. they would assist been individual in getting them lined up as to where do we go to arizona to find their shuttles. >> where they transporting drugs as well as? >> know, there was no evidence of that. let me -- based on that question, senator, let me indicate also the plaza's, the area of just northernmost part of mexico on the arizona border, referred to as plaza, those are controlled by the drug trafficker and organization. they determined who can come back and forth through that area. and so when human smuggling operations that are distinct from the drug trafficking come through there, their use of being some kind of tax to the drug traffickers? so these organizations, human smuggling organizations, they were not drug trafficking. but at some point or another

they have some connection because they have to pay a tax to come in. >> it seems that we have a lot of work to do. and i just find ask your opinion, do we need the guard on the border? >> as commissioner bersin said in the past, i know are your he said i know the administration is he by waiting that. as at that time when those decisions were made by no they were pretty complex and involved a lot of input from the department of defense and customs and border protection with regard to defining the missions and so forth so i know that it is under evaluation. i know there is a lot of success on the operation jumpstart and all i saw the impact -- sprick you would agree we need more personnel. >> always support more personnel on the borders, senter.

>> bug guard has been on my top of my list for a long, long time, back to 1998 when this first took off and i asked the guard at i ask our current governor to deploy the garden she did not and the governor at the time asked governor napolitano and she did not. just a year ago and had a meeting face-to-face with secretary napalitano and asked her deploying on the border still on dhs table and i was informed that was and it was a matter of deciding how specific mission and number of resources that was a year ago. >> and the fact is you have informed made a person in uniform on the border has a strong psychological impact on the criminal element in mexico,

is that correct? >> that's true of much of latin america. i live for two years in central america and the local law enforcement has varied little affect if it exists. the people have a very deep respect and often eighth year of military in those countries and so the military presence creates a whole new spectrum of deterrent, the level of deterrent just by being visible in the culture and the mindset of the people coming north. >> mayor. >> yes, sir, senator i would favor the guard at the border however i would ask for them not to disturb the quality of life of our community but probably even more so i would support allocating more funds to cbp to have more agents of the facilities as well for them to be more efficient with legal

crossings. >> i think the witnesses and i thank you mr. chairman for your patience and holding this hearing and coming to arizona as you did a year ago and your commitment and concern for the people who of my state, but also the people of this nation as dennis burke noted job there was a network that reaches all over america they were recently involved in cracking down on so this isn't just an arizona issue. i think it's a national and homeland security issue and i appreciate your involvement and commitment on the issue, thank you. >> thanks, senator mccain. how to motivate the committee but it is our responsibility. this is a homeland security problem and it's as critical as any we've got this moment in terms of a day to day lives. we are going to stay involved in

this and we will do periodic hearings as have their productive. they make sense of but i don't want to come back again a year from now and have witnesses i really respect and trust tell me things have gotten worse. that's what i think the request for the guard my two colleagues from arizona have made it makes sense. just to try it to. i think it's common sense that the more people who have the less likely is going to be that this kind of bad behavior, unacceptable societally destructive sometimes deadly behavior is going to go on. a very small point but we focus on whenever interim hearings on what we can do with southbound traffic inspections and we increased the advocacy of this committee and the appropriators increased the number of cbp

personnel at the ports of entry southbound. for some reason the fiscal year 2011 budget submission proposes cutting funding for 50 positions that are now being involved in the southbound and inspections and i want to ensure the committee is going to be communicating with both the administration and appropriations committees so that would be a very serious mistake, but listen, my thanks to you for coming up here. you make it real. thank you for doing everything it can to uphold the rule of law really am trying to prove -- provide a decent environment in which the people of the state income in the sea and the county can live which is no more than anybody in the rest of the country wants so with that we

will leave the record as a hearing open for 15 days for additional statements or questions. i'm very grateful for what you have done. i pray for your success as you go back home and again i think nator mccain for his persistent leadership on this critical issue. the hearing is adjourned. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

next monday senators have a -- year is senator dorgan is speaking about the subject on the floor of. >> mr. president, my colleague talked about the financial reform and the wall street reform care is such an important subject and it is the case that all of us who have lived through these last several years will understand when the history books record news that we have lived in existence and struggled through a time that is the deepest recession since the great depression feared 15 to 17 million make up now as i speak jobless. they get dressed and go out to look for a job, most don't find it, a tough time. and yet to those who read the

newspaper and understand the difficulty of those who are losing homes, losing jobs, losing hope, also read the business pages and see that one of the heads of the largest investment banks last year was paid $25 million in salary, one of the folks that was the largest income earners in this country earned $3 billion running a hedge fund, that's 3 billion, that's almost $10 million a day. and so they see record profits from the biggest financial interests in this country many of whom pursued policies that steered us right into the ditch and they wonder was the deal here? people at the top, the ones that cause most of the problem and many of which would have gone broke had the federal government not come in with some funding to try to provide some stability. they are now at record profits paying record bonuses? and the folks at the bottom are out struggling to find a job because they've been laid off.

so it always comes back to something i've described often and it seems two never changed and is even more aggressive now, bob wills and the texas playboys of the '30's had a person one of their songs: the little be sucks the blossom but the bigbie gets the honey. the little guy picks seconde but the big guy gets the money. so it is and always been number but even more aggressive now the same newspaper talks about the trouble given the workers of this country and the families of this country having steer this country into the big financial institutions and the deepest recession since the great depression. even as in the same paper they read about the largess of the record profits and bonuses and so the question is what do we do about that. we're going to bring the financial reform bill wall street reform bill to the senate and i want to talk about that and say we need to review just for a moment the unbelievable

cesspool of parade that exists not everywhere but in some places and at levels that steer this country into very dangerous territory. yes, new things and new instruments that we've never heard of before, credit defaults swaps, naked credit defaults swaps, some might say what is a credit defaults what and for god's sake what is a naked credit defaults what? how do get a credit defaults walked naked? well, let me take you not just defiled swaps, let me take you back about a. a half one more -- into a time when the futures market in oil was like a roman candle and one of two 1/2 $247 a barrel, for a barrel of oil in a trading just like a roman candle. and then went back down. that market was broken. a bunch of speculators, they didn't want to buy any well, they've never hold a round in a

barrel of oil and they just want to speculate on futures markets so they ran the market way up and that's one symptom of financial systems that are broken into work. credit the fault swaps, we've been hearing about the sec decision to file criminal complaint. against a large investment bank. goldman sachs. but we have discovered it with the interworking some of this scheme and that was created is i think based on my knowledge of it meant developments -- excuse me, it was a civil case by the sec and that's in a distinction, but nonetheless a civil complaint against goldman sachs and my understanding is there was created some billions of dollars of naked but it the fault swaps that had no insurable interest in anything

of value. people that were just betting on what might happen to the price of bonds. bonds selected by a person i spoke about on the floor of the senate previously over the last couple years, john paulson, who in 2008 was the highest income earner earning three plan 6 billion, that's 300 million a month or 10 million a day. how would you like to come home and the spouse says how're we doing and he says we're doing pretty good, 10 million every day. so my understanding of this is the sec complaint is they've set up a system where mr. paulson could short what i believe our naked credit defaults swaps and you have rating agencies reading these apparently with high ratings until they discovered what they really were in the ratings collapse and mr. paulson made money and everybody else got duped.

that's just a short description and probably not even very good description, but is close enough to understand why it's been going on in this country. betting, not investing, betting on credit defaults swaps that have no and treble interest in anything. no value on either side. he put together a contract and say i will bet you that this issue happens, the stock goes up, this bond goes down. we don't have to own anything, let's just have a bet. that's not an investment, that's just a flat out wager. we have places where you should do that, if you want to do than go to las vegas and they say what goes on their stays there. who knows? you can go to atlantic city, we have places where you can do that but those places are not places where you do activities that are equivalent to what we now see having been done in the middle of some of the investment banks and financial institutions of this country.

i've spoken on the floor about this and i'm going to repeat just because as i talk about what needs to be done in a couple cases we need to understand what happened and how unbelievably ignorant it was. the subprime loan scandal. everybody was involved, all the biggest financial institutions because they were securitized mortgages and selling upstream to hedge funds and you name it all making huge bonus profits to all kinds of fees and starting with the broker they could place big mortgages to people who couldn't afford. here's an advertisement we all listen to in the last decade during this unbelievable furnivall of greed -- this was the biggest mortgage company in our company. now bankrupt of course, and gone home although the leader of this company left with a couple hundred million i'm told so he got out pretty well now under

investigation but here is there and on television and radio that says to you have less than perfect credit? do you have late mortgage payments? have you been denied by other lenders? call us. we want to lend you money. unbelievable. the biggest mortgage bank in the country says are you a bad credit risk? call us, we've got money for you. zoom a credit, another mortgage company, here's their advertisements. credit approval and seconds away, and get on the fast track. will preapproved for a current loan, credit card. even if your credit is in the tank. is too much credit is like money in the bank. specializing in credit repair and debt consolidation. bankruptcy, slow credits, no credits, who cares? come to us and we will give you a loan. ignorant, sounds like it to me. greek, appears to me it is.

millennium mortgage. twelve months have no mortgage payments, will give the money to make you're first 12 payments if you call in the next seven days. once we pay it for you, our loan payments and may reduce by 50 percent and allowed no payments for the first of months. you don't have to make any payments for a year. this sounds strange? if they say you want to pay principal no problem. you pay nothing, no interest, now principal and by the way if you don't want us to check on your in, that's called a no documentation loan, a real giving no document loan which no interest payments and put it on the backside and you should go ahead and do that because you can flip that house if you can make the payments a couple years later when we will reset your interest rate of 12% to a ridiculous amount, you can sell that and make the money because

the price is always going to go up. so it went across this country right at the bottom with teaser rates and the result was a whole lot of folks were talked into mortgages they couldn't afford. villone folks and the brokers putting out these were making a lot of money and securitized in, selling them, their fees paid to everyone and every day making a lot of money really happy. it's not change. go to the internet today. you can find on the internet easy loans, hassle free, lenders will preapproved alone a regardless of your credit score or history. go to the internet and see if it stopped. here's an internet solicitation, bad credit personal loans. is that unbelievable? i wonder what college they teach this in paris start a company called bad credit personal

loans. previous bankruptcy, no credit, a previous bad credits, a recent job loss, recent divorce, needed a larger loan amount? well, click here now. gosh sake, take advantage of what we're offering. if you're a bad person we want to give me money. speedy bad credit loans, bankruptcy no problem, come to us. is it a surprise been a lot of repeople and the biggest institutions in this country whose names you recognize instantly loaded up on this nonsense. they loaded to the gills and because they were all making massive amounts of money by buying and selling and trading the securities and not just securities and securitization of loans but credit defaults swaps and cbo's and you name it. as a carnival and a field day.

if so that's all happened in the last 10 years. even months to worse but levee and there to say we are now talking about what to do about this? and this kind of behavior steer the country right into the ditch. we've l something like $12 trillion has been lent, spent or pledged by the government to prop up private companies many that are doing exactly i've described. this is been a difficult time so the question is what we do about this? to we decide not to do anything about this? i mentioned making credit defaults swaps. in england they estimate their credit defaults swaps 80 percent are so-called naked, that is the have no and chervil interest on

any side of the transaction and simply making a wager. when you have banks that make wagers just as if using a roulette wheel or blackjack table or craps table they just will put that in the lobby except my feeling is that it's fundamentally antithetical to everything we know about sound thoughtful finance in this country to allow this to have happened, we did allow it and now continue to allow it to happen. i want to take you back 10 years to the floor of the u.s. senate because i've been through this before in something called financial modernization. was 11 years ago actually, financial modernization. this isn't the first time we've had substantial legislation on the floor of the senate to address the issue of finances in the financial system. we have something called financial modernization on the floor and it was the piece of legislation, a big piece that

pulled everything together and said you can create one a big huge holding company and bring everything in together. the investment banks, the commercial banks, fdic insured banks, securities trading, bring them together one big happy family. one big pyramid in will be fine because will make us more competitive with the european financial institutions and will be great. i said i think that's nuts, what are we doing? let me use some quotes from 1999 on the floor of the senate. november 4th, using together the idea of pegging which requires not just a few soundness but the perception of safety and soundness with other risky speculative activity is in my judgment on wise. i said we will in 10 years' time look back and say we should've

done that because we forgot the lessons of the past. i said during debate in 1999 this bill will in my judgment raise the likelihood of future massive taxpayer bailouts rick. it will fuel the consolidation of a murderous banking financial services industry at the expense of our businesses and others. i said we have another direction of the federal reserve board. it's called too big to fail, remember that term, too big to fail. it cannot be allowed to fail because the consequences for the economy is catastrophic and therefore these are too big to fail and that's no-fault capitalism. too big to fail -- does anybody care? does the federal reserve board, apparently not and that's what i said the 11 years ago on the floor of the senate. i said i'd say to the people who own banks if you want to gamble go to las vegas, you want to

trade in derivatives do with urwn money, don't do as to the deposits guaranteed by the american people with deposit insurance. i said during that debate at all but one day somebody's going to look back and they're going to say how on earth could we have thought it made sense to allow the banking industry to concentrate to become bigger and bigger firm or firms in the category of too big to fail? how could we think that was going to help our country? well, those are quotes that i made 11 years ago on the floor of this u.s. senate. i didn't know then within a decade within 10 years we will see huge taxpayer bailouts but i thought this was fundamentally unsound. public policy. i was one of only eight u.s. senators to vote no. the whole town stampeded and, in fact, this was three republicans but this was fervently embraced

by the clinton administration and by the then secretary of treasury and others bipartisan, got to do this, got to compete with rest of the world and it was allowing the companies to get bigger and going to be great for our company -- country. so it wasn't so great for the country. when i went to shows what happened as a result of that piece of legislation. this graph shows from 1999 forward the growth of total assets in the largest financial institutions. look at this graph. bigger and bigger, not just a bit bigger, way up. the growth in assets of those six largest financial institutions. this chart shows the four banks

told deposits in trillions of dollars in d.c. what's happened there. liabilities in the institutions, deposits in the foreign largest banking institutions, this chart shows the aggregate assets of the top banks and what has happened in 10 years? it doesn't take a genius and somebody with higher mathematics or having taken in vance courts -- course to understand what this shows. we have seen a dramatic concentration, some by the way it aided and abetted by the federal government because as we ran into this problem this a very deep recession deepened since the great depression our government arranged the marriage is of some of the biggest companies and so the big became much much bigger. now, i have said all of that

simply to say that's where we've been and now the question is where are we going? with kind of legislation are going to take up in the floor of the senate? already there's been a big dustup the minority leader came and said what was done in the banking committee would be a big bailout of banks, of course, that wasn't the case at all, but this is a factory zone with respect to some debates and i don't think there's anybody in this chamber that believes that we don't have a responsibility now to address these issues and address and the right way. the bb quick to say a couple things -- number one, they're awfully good financial institutions in this country run by good people who've done a good job and we need them here you can't have production without ability to finance for action. many commercial banks here and we need all the other financial industries and institutions, but we need to make sure the

excesses' and the greed and the unbelievable things that were done by some in the last decade cannot repeat and happen again. the piece of legislation that's going to come to the floor from the senate banking committee is a good piece of legislation. i commend this before, he's done an excellent job and by the way those who said in the seventh the somehow this is partisan and didn't reach out, that's just not the case and everybody knows it. he reached out to republicans week after week and month after month to get cooperation and finally they walked away and said we're going to vote no matter what so it's not the case that this was designed to be some sort of partisan bill and i still hope there will be republicans and democrats together understanding what needs to be done to fix the problems that exist in our financial services industry. in addition to senator dodd bringing the bill levees say

senator blanche lincoln under her leadership in the agriculture committee brought legislation on derivatives i think is a good piece of legislation that needs to be a part of a the banking reform bill. when i want to talk about ever so briefly is two other things, number of people who have bills that i'm going to be supportive of and i think have great merit and are necessary i think necessary to fix the problems that exist. the issue of repairing what was done to glass stiegel, there's a bill on that and others that have a bill on proprietary trading and others as well but i want to talk about two things briefly -- i am preparing an amendment that deals with what are called naked credit defaults swaps. i don't think that's investing. that's simply bedding. if there