protection. it is the culmination of years of collaborative efforts to achieve consensus among members of congress and all members are encouraged to vote yes. finally, this is the bill from the leader and present c.e.o. of the national credit union association. in his words, this bill includes credit union-specific provisions that provide meaningful regulatory relief, a sign that policymakers are paying close attention to the needs of the credit union members. we thank senator crapo and his colleagues for working across party lines to advance regulatory relief legislation that benefits community financial institutions and look forward to continuing to work closely with them as this legislation works through the legislative process. i look forward to taking up this important legislation. i am a strong supporter of

dodd-frank. i helped to write some of the provisions of dodd-frank. i have no problem with pulling the plug on dodd-frank. can we make changes, we can just like the affordable care act. i will yield the floor to the senator from vermont. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i have been hearing in the judiciary committee, we've been talking about what has happened, unfortunately, over and over again on shooting deaths in this country. actually, one of the charts i showed we have far more shooting deaths per capita than any other country in the world. but we heard some of the things that may get difficult to even attack the problem. for example, the congress had

put in legislation steps that cripple alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. they're asked to do a background check. they have to go to a warehouse with stacks of papers. some are just falling apart because of where they are, to do a search of papers. they're warehouses that would contain the amount of information lik you can store on iphone and it can be found in any matter of seconds. they would take months if they could find it at all. but that's something that congress has required them to do. we hear about the fact you can buy these magazines carrying 15,

20, 30 rounds, even those states like my own state of vermont, the state with probably the least gun laws in the country, does limit the rounds you can have in your semiautomatic for deer season. a lot of states do that, limit it to six rounds. we want to give the deer a chance, but we don't limit the number of rounds that might give children in a school a chance. this is the world upside down. we limit what you can buy and use to go deer hunting, but not what can be sold to people who want to shoot children. outside the capitol right now,

there are young students who brought their powerful message to those of us inside the capitol. they say thoughts and prayers are welcome but what the u.s. needs right now is action. i said this morning at the hearing, i am tired of people who say oh, this is not the time to talk about taking steps. this is time for prayer and reflection, as though that's an either/or thing. and it's getting kind of wearing to hear take refrain over and over again. this is not the time for action. tell that to the parents. tell that to the other children. tell that to their siblings who are at the funeral of somebody shot. i'm very, very proud of those students in vermont who are joining this nationwide chorus of student voices. we have vermonters -- we've had 10, 20 inches of snow in places

of vermont in the last day or so, and it's snowing heavily there now. buwe know in washington a half n inch of snow would close the place down. not in the presiding officer's state, not in my state. but these vermont students are not going to use a heavy snowstorm as an excuse they're not showing up to deliver their message. we're here in comfort in a secure building. we ought to act in solidarity with these students. the students put shoes out here on the lawn of the capitol showing just rows and rows and rows of shoes reflecting children who have died.

now, imremember about a -- now, i remember about a little over a year ago, millions of women across the nation brought to the halls of government, my own hometown of montpelier, vermont, our state's capital, it's only 8,500 people, we had 19,000 to 20,000 who showed up on the statehouse lawn for the women's march there. how brave and strong they were in speaking out. my sister was one of the ones joining them. they parked their cars at the interstate. it caused such a traffic jam just to be there. i remember hundreds and hundreds of vermonters who came here to washington, my wife marcel and i hosted the -- before the march,

coffee and donuts and we had to keep sending out for more coffee, more donuts because of the number of people there. we marched with them, with our daughter and our granddaughter. and saw people of all race, all colors, all across the economic and political spectrum marching for women's rights. they made a difference. and now our students are doing the same thing. they're acting as a catalyst to break the indonesi ini -- the i. when i was chair of the senate judiciary committee, we brought several pieces of gun legislation here. even those that got 50-plus

votes blocked from going further, there was heavy pressure from powerful lobbies. the lobby that wasn't heard, though, were the children that were facing this danger. now they're being heard. now they're being heard. the question is, does this congress have the courage to listen? the strength of our democracy is citizen engagement. at a time when it's never been more important to protect and engage our democracy. i'm deeply moved by the students who are making their voices heard today. and i think of those students in florida and elsewhere who face a horrendous thing that most of us will never see, even if we've been in combat. but they had the courage to go back to school after the

shooting. they saw this tragedy. they faced the danger. they saw their classmates and teachers killed. but they had the courage to go back to school. well, i would ask does congress have the courage to do somethi something. that's a question they're asking. and if we can't answer it positively, then we in congress have failed these students. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted . the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business parthe presiding officer. without objection. -- the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: thank you. time and again, president trump and vice president pence have made it clear they will put their ideology ahead of women's constitution. we have seen it from preventing

women from getting health care from providers they trust, from employers who will deny them to get birth control coverage we have seen it in the administration's close coordination with the hate group to undermine planned parenthood. we heard it when vice president pence made it clear that women's freedom to have safe, legal abortions could end in our time. and we have seen it in scott lloyd's inexcusably harmful and ideologically driven actions as the officer of the director of refugee settlement. this is a little known, but very important office, inside the department of health and human services. they are supposed to be helping resettle refugees fleeing violence. they resettle and reintegrate

iraqis and afghans whose lives are in danger because why? because they worked for the u.s. government. they provide refugee services to those who suffered torcher and they care for unaccompanied children who arrive at our nation's borders, children and youth who are seeking safety in our country. however, under director lloyd it has become a testing ground for the radical trump-pence agenda to interfere with women's choices. repeatedly when young women under the supervision of director lloyd's office, some of whom are survivors of sexual abuse have sought safe, legal abortions, his response has been to personally step in and put barriers to their care. he prevented women in his custody from speaking to

lawyers. he personally interfered to pressure women out of their decision to have abortions. he even had his office explore the possibility of reversing an abortion once the procedure is under way, a practice that is noted as unproven and unethical. a disposition from ongoing legislation showed just how reckless and irresponsible scott lloyd has been. in e-mails he admitted he was making his decisions on an ad hoc basis. in other words, director lloyd wasn't concerned with fulfilling his duty as the head of office of refugee resettlement. he wasn't concerned with the well-being of women. he wasn't concerned with their personal decisions or their freedoms. he was only concerned with furthering an extreme ideological agenda. well, mr. president, women and men across the country are not

having it. they are standing up and standing against scott lloyd's extreme policies. many have signed a petition calling for his removal, and they are just the latest addition it a growing outcry against director lloyd's willful disregard for women's rights. many senate and house democrats have called for him to step down. i am again calling on secretary azar to fire scott lloyd as director of the office of refugee settlement because scott lloyd's action on what women can and can't do with their bodies shows a fundamental disrespect for the rights and equality of women, and setting policy that has huge implications through women's health and lives through an ad hoc process. scott lloyd's access to deny women's rights are unacceptable and cannot go unchecked.

we cannot permit bullies to try and intimidate vulnerable young women who are making health care decisions that are right for them. not president trump, not vice president pence, and not scott lloyd. i will fight for the rights of these womennd and immigrants across the country and for the rule of law that ensures those rights and i will fight against those who think they are above the law and want to roll back the clock on these freedoms. i ask that my colleagues stand with these women and the rule of law and call for scott lloyd's immediate removal from office. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: mr. president, i'm pleased to join my colleague from washington to talk about the challenge that women, both here in the united states and across the world, are facing from the excesses of this

administration. what we've seen time and again is the trump administration has exhibited a dangerous on session with rolling back women's reproductive rights here in the united states and abroad. just in the past 14 monthses in office, this administration has launched a multipronged and aggressive assault on women's rights. one of president trump's first acts in office was to reinstate and greatly expand the global gag rule, which prohibits u.s. funding for women's health organizations that so much mentioned abortion. what they did was say this is not just going to affect those organizations, but any health organization that the united states puts funding into. this action will cause a significant increase in unsafe abortions and maternal deaths across the developing world. the administration has proposed

budgets that would eliminate all federal funding for planned parenthood and go further and prohibit states that on their own would direct federal funds to planned paint hood for those same -- parenthood for those same health services, they would prohibit states from doing that. most recently the state department reportedly removed data from reproductive health care from its annual human rights report. the idea is if you don't give people data, it doesn't happen. the administration instructed career employees to remove words such as fetus, diversity, evidence-based, and science-based from their official vocabulary. well, if we're not basing decisions at the c.d.c. on evidence-based and science-based data, then what are we basing it on? as senator murray says, they're

basing it on ideology. well, that's a lousy way to make a decision about where to put our health care money. this administration has attacked women's access to birth control, issuing new rules that allow almost any company to opt out of the birth control benefit in the affordable care act. simply put, you cannot support women's empowerment unless you support women's access to family planning. recently, the united nations population funds family planning 2020 report explained why women's access to all health care services, including abortion, is so vital both to women's advancement and to their country's economic development. the report says, and i quote, every woman and girl must be able to exercise her basic human right to control her own reproductive health. access to safe, voluntary family

planning is fundamental to women's empowerment. it's also fundamental to achieving our global goals for a healthier, more prosperous, just and equitable world. the report goes on to say rights-based family planning programs have a greater ripple effect than almost any other development -- developmental assessment from saving lives, improving health, transforming societies and lifting entire countries out of the poverty. it is the surest path to the future we want. end quote. well, i couldn't agree more. study after study demonstrates that access to comprehensive health care services is closely correlated to the economic success of women and their families. by contrast, lack of access to basic health care services, including family planning counseling and all birth control

options, is a major factor in perpetuating the dangerous life-threatening cycle of poverty. now it's really ironic, i think, that those who seek to outlaw abortion do so under what they say is the pro-life banner. and i think it's ironic because we know from experience that outlawing abortion doesn't end abortion. it simply drives it into the shadows and unsafe conditions. and like many in this chamber, i remember the days before 1973 when abortion was against the law. an estimated 1.2 million women each year resorted to illegal abortions typically performed in unsanitary conditions by unlicensed practitioners and often resulting in infection, hemorrhage and even death. just about every woman of my generation has a story about a friend or an acquaintance who had to resort to this kind of

risky, dangerous abortion or who thought she had to resort to that. well, i don't think we want to go back to those days. and what we know now is that right now in the united states, we have the lowest level of abortions that we've had since 1973, and that's a success that's directly attributed to the increased access to contraception that's in the affordable care act. what we know is that, again and again studies have found that policies to limit or ban abortion outright have the unintended consequence of dramatically increasing abortion overall. and conversely, when family planning services are acceptable, the rates of unplanned pregnancies and abortion go down. and again, according to the gutmacher institute, we're

seeing success in terms of reducing the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies. now, what we've seen internationally is that the global gag rule has had especially lethal consequences. it denies access to safe abortion, and in doing so it dramatically increases abortion overall. a stanford university study of implementation of the global gag rule during the george w. bush administration found that the number of women having induced abortions more than doubled in countries that were most impacted by the policy. today in nigeria, which is the one country that we have data on to date based on the expansion of the global gag rule in the trump administration, and what we know is that health workers on the ground estimate that because of the administration's

new global gag rule, there will be an additional 660,000 abortions in nigeria from now through 2020, and that could result in nearly 10,000 additional maternal deaths. the trump administration claims that it wants a smaller government. the president ran on a platform promising to get the government out of people's lives. and yet, it's doing everything possible to inject the government and law enforcement into some of the most intimate, difficult, and personal decisions that a woman has to make. this is not only insulting but it's condescending to all women. we don't need guidance from government or an adult. we need to be able to consult those we choose to consult and make our own decisions about the health care that we need. to take away women's access to full reproductive health services, including abortion, is demeaning and unacceptable.

we cannot allow the trump administration to turn back the clock and put women's lives at risk. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: thank you very much, madam president, first of all, i want to commend my pacific northwest colleague, senator murray, for taking this time to talk about these exceptionally important issues. i had a chance to listen to the thoughtful remarks of our friend from new hampshire, 3,000 miles away from the pacific northwest, and she has been, as usual, extraordinarily eloquent and passionate about the cause of women's health, and it's great to be able to follow her. madam president and colleagues, you can sum up the health care policy of the trump administration in just one word.

that's discrimination. and i am here with my colleagues today to discuss a particularly alarming example of the trump agenda of health care discrimination and an example of where the administration is working overtime to make women's health care worse. and what is particularly frustrating about this is we're dealing with a bureaucracy run amok. the office of refugee resettlement, which is part of the department of health and human services, has made a critical judgment. they will put ideology over the law of the land when it comes to the medical care available to the young women in its custody. under director scott lloyd, the office has attempted to block several immigrants from

exercising their freedom of choice with respect to reproductive health. it has no legal right to do so. this issue is settled law, but this hasn't stopped the director and his agency from dragging young women into prolonged taxpayer-funded court battles. there are roughly 5,000 young people in the office of refugee resettlements custody. most of them are from central american countries. many of these young women are survivors of sexual violence, and they're on their own, and they didn't come to have somebody else's ideology dictating their medical care. in my view, this office ought to uphold its duty to provide all the care that these young women have a right to receive, and it ought to check the ideology at

the door. but that's not how the office of refugee resettlements work under mr. lloyd. according to a recent report in vice news, and i quote here, mrd sheet every week containing information on every pregnant teen in their custody. he reportedly sought to interfere in a young woman's medical procedure that was actually already underway. in another case, the report says he put a young woman at further risk by directing staff to inform her parents against her wishes that she had an abortion. last fall an h.h.s. official was asked about mr. lloyd's direction of the office, and the matter of interfering in the medical care of young women. here's what that spokesman said. he, by law, has custody of these children, just like a foster parent, he knows that there's a lot of responsibility, and he is going to make choices that he

thinks are best for both the mother and the child. madam president and colleagues, that is just rampant government paternalism, and it's all summed up in just one sentence. it ought to be no surprise given his background this is the direction the office is taking. this gentleman has made a career out of opposing the right of women to make their own judgments about their own health care choices. he's fought access to contraception and to a variety of health care services that are important to women. his views are right in line, right in line with this administration agenda of health care discrimination against women. right out of the gate, the administration and republicans in congress pushed for legislation that would have deprived hundreds of thousands of women the right to see the doctor of their choosing.

they made it harder for many of those women to obtain routine, vital medical care from providers like planned parenthood, including cancer screenings, prenatal care, preventive services, physicals and a whole host of preventive services that have absolutely nothing to do with abortion. nothing to do with abortion. then the trump administration sought to deny women guaranteed no access to contraception. when women have guaranteed access to contraception it means healthier pregnancies, healthier newborns, a lower risk of cancer, and particularly economic fairness for women of modest means. the trump administration wants to unravel that guarantee as well. then the trump team is green lighting junk insurance policies that drive up the cost of health care for women with preexisting

conditions. and they're involved in very elaborate, as my colleague knows, very elaborate discussions with the state of iowa. excuse me -- the state of idaho. and people ought to understand exactly what the trump administration is saying to idaho because they're going to say it to other people. and that is the trump administration is saying to idaho, you can discriminate. just don't be too obvious about it. that is their position with respect to these junk insurance policies. the administration is exploring ways to place lifetime limits on the care people can get from medicaid, and that's a frightful proposition for the millions of older women who count on medicaid to pick up the tab for their nursing and home-based care. so these are serious health care problems around this country.

by the way, we never heard anything in the campaign of 2016 about how we were going to turn back the clock on older women for whom medicaid is often a lifetime for long-term care. but that's what we're dealing with now. and these are serious health care challenges women face right now. on top of it, a raging epidemic of opioid misuse and abuse. the skyrocketing cost of prescription medicine. and when you're talking about the office of refugee resettlement, as my colleagues talked about so eloquently, there's also a lot to be done to fix our broken immigration system. but finally, it's important as we get into these issues to recognize how deep-seated this policy is of health care discrimination. and the example that my colleagues are talking about

here today is an example of massive ideological overreach and paternalism. it is happening at the office of refugee resettlement, but it is not the only example. this is behav -- behavior that ought to stop. i want to thank my colleague, senator murray, who has been our go-to person for years and years on women's health care, and i want her and our colleagues to know that i will be doing everything i can to be a part of their effort to push back on these policies and turn back the clock and particularly discriminate against the rights of women. madam president, i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: i have 11 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. lankford: madam president, i was in college. i remember watching a state of the union speech from president reagan where he took a 43-pound

stack of papers and set them on the podium as he was giving his state of the union address, and said this is the budget bill that has been given to me. 43 pounds of it, all stacked up, and it was a famous moment when the president said do not send this to me again. republicans and democrats alike stood and cheered and said that's a terrible way to do government, and for five of the next six years, there were no more omnibus appropriation bills. but that did not last. since 1998, there have been -- i'm sorry. since 1986, there have been 22 omnibus appropriation bills. now, people may ask what is that? well, by law, congress is to do

12 appropriation bills. each part of that has a section of the budget. you pass each one of those stand alone. they go through committees, they go through first subcommittee, then committee, then to the full floor, and then they pass. but 17 times since 1998 and 22 times since 1986, all of those bills were just looped together to make one giant document, the 43-pound document that president reagan dropped in 1988. what's going wrong? because we have another one of those omnibus bills next week. where all of the appropriation bills are all looped together to try to simplify the process but to actually provide even less transparency. why are we doing this and how did we get here? the short story is there is the budget control act of 1974.

it was created right after watergate in a fight between congress and president nixon over the fact that president nixon was told by congress to be able to spend certain amounts of money in certain areas, and president nixon basically didn't want to spend it, and so congress pushed back and put additional requirements on him to actually do what congress was compelling them to do. the 1974 budget act tried to create more transparency and provide greater leadership for congress. out of that was born this budget act but was also born the house and senate budget committees and also the congressional budget office. all those things were to create more input and they create a system where each year the president would create a budget and would submit that budget to congress, and then that budget would lead to authorizing bills from the different committees and then from the authorizing, it would lead to appropriation bills and final passage. well, how is that working for us? it's not.

it created a process so complicated and so slow, although it makes sense on paper, in legislative language, it doesn't actually work here, and it pushes us into what's called continuing resolutions or as commonly thrown around here, c.r.'s. every year since 1995, congress has had at least one c.r., one continuing resolution. that is taking last year's appropriation bills, just changing the date on it and moving it over. no strategic planning, nothing. that's a problem for us. the budget process itself has broken down and has fallen into omnibus spending bills with 12 bills all combined. we failed to be able to get budget bills done, some years at all. the authorizing process that's supposed to go between the budget and the appropriations process has completely collapsed for us. in fact, in the 2017

appropriations, it happens there were 256 expired authorizations in the final appropriation bills. about $310 billion of what was appropriated was not authorized even last year. some of those things hadn't been authorized for more than a decade. finally, we've only passed all appropriations bills four times in the last 44 years. we have a major problem with the way we do budgeting. and year after year people visit me or people bring it up to me in town hall meetings or just time it the grocery store or taco bell. people will catch me and say what is going on with the budget process? if it sounds like you say that every year, it's because you've said that every year now for a couple of decades. how do we get out of this? well, there was a bipartisan, bicameral committee that was put together.

they met for the first time last week. there are 16 total of us; eight democrats, eight republicans. eight from the senate, eight from the house. and our mission is to be able to revise the way we do budgeting. probably a lot of americans won't watch this process, but it will be extremely important that we actually fix it. i'm convinced we're not going to get a better budget product until we get a better budget process. now, this committee itself is designed in such a way to be able to take out the partisanship not just from equal numbers from both sides. the agreement is if we don't have a majority of democrats and majority of republicans signed off on the final proposal, we won't bring it to the floor. but if we do, we hope to be able to fix the budget process itself. the budget process is set up to create gimmicks in the budgeting rather than fix them. we have a ten year budget window and there are all these gimmicks created to try to move spending

outside the ten year budget window to make it look like things will balance when they won't. 20 states budget every two years. it gives budget certainty for 24 months. we should get that. that helps our economy. that helps our businesses. that helps our agencies. that helps in contracting. that helps us avoid these continuing resolutions if we can actually do budgeting in two-year cycles. i'd like us to get out of the perpetual focus on government shutdowns and the countdown clocks that. i proposed a bill five years ago called the government shutdown prevention act to be able to get us to a spot where we actually put the pressure on congress to be able to get the job done but hold agencies and hold the american people harmless while we work through the process. i think, quite frankly, the president's budget is a meaningless document. it's never been passed by any president of any party. i don't mind the president releasing their budget

priorities, ways that we can save money, duplication that they see, key aspects. that's entirely appropriate. but the president's budget every year becomes a big fight. and when it's late it throws the process off even more and gives congress one more reason to say they're not getting their job done because someone else was late in theirs. we should be able to reform that. we should be able to reform the way we do debt limits. we're the only country in the world that does this. we've had some kind of debt limits since the 1920's actually, but originally when it went into the form that it's in now in the late 1930's, it was established as a way to be able to protect us from adding more debt, and it did work for decades. it has not for decades. it's just been another fiscal cliff out there that's not actually resolved anything. we've got to either fix that so it does what it's accomplished to do or take it away. but we can't destabilize international economies because we can't get our job done here. we've got to be able to have

some sort of focus on both revenue and spending. we should deal with real consequences when we don't get things done on time here. we've got to build internal processes here that actually get things done. and we've got to pay attention to $20 trillion and growing in national debt. these are things that we can get done, but they won't get done if we don't actually fix the process, because there's no moment to actually get the big things and the hard things done. my hope and my commitment is with this body and with this group of 16 of us that have grouped together from the house and the senate, republicans and democrats, is to bring a proposal to us that's a fair, nonpartisan proposal, that's not focused on what party is in power at that moment but looks at the fiscal health of the nation, how we can plan for the future and how we can actually get off of this endless cycle of nonaction and get back to a

process of predictable budget and appropriations. we'll bring some of those solutions in the days ahead. right now we're meeting and talking. i invite any member of body that wants to be able to contribute to that to catch any one of us in this group. we're not saying the 16 of us are exclusive to solving it. i also say the same thing to the american people. anyone in my state or anyone around the country that wants to contribute good ideas to it, bring it. let's add these good ideas together. let's fix the process. let's get back to actually talking about how we solve the budget issues rather than how we solve our internal processes in the house and senate. that's the last thing that we should be arguing about and the first thing that we should fix. with that, i yield back. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: madam president, according to the latest gallup poll, 81% of the american people disapprove of the way congress is doing its job.

81%. i suspect the other 19% are not really paying attention. if you want to know why the american people have so much anger and contempt for what goes on in congress, it is because time after time what we are seeing right now is congress under republican leadership doing exactly the opposite of what the american people want. this week -- this week could mark a new low for the republican leadership in the senate in terms of ignoring what the american people want and doing what they don't want. today marks the one-month anniversary of the tragic mass shooting at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida. i just had the opportunity to be

outside in front of the capitol with thousands of beautiful, beautiful young people from all over. and i think all over the country. the young people are saying to the congress do something about the gun violence. everybody knows this is not an easy solution, easy problem to solve. we've got hundreds of millions of guns out there in this country. you've got five million assault weapons out there. but the young people are saying do something. have the courage to take on the n.r.a. the american people overwhelmingly want to expand and improve background checks. they want to do p away with the gun show loophole. they want to do away with the straw man provision. more and more people think we should be banning military-style assault weapons. whatever. the american people want us to do something. i don't see anything happening here. i don't see anything happening here. the american people want it. it's not happening.

the american people want us to deal with the high cost of prescription drugs. in the state of vermont elderly people cutting their pills in half. i don't see any legislation coming down here to deal with the high cost of prescription drugs and have the courage to take on the pharmaceutical industry. the american people overwhelmingly, democrat, republican, independent, want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. i don't see anything happening on that issue. on issue after issue the american people want action and they're not getting it. but what they are getting is exactly what they don't want, but powerful special interests do want. this month, madam president, marks the tenth anniversary of the collapse of bear stearns, one of the largest investment banks in america, whose greed,

recklessness and illegal behavior triggered the worst economic crisis since the great depression ten years ago. and what is the response of the united states senate to that? well, are we talking about breaking up the large banks which have become much larger? is that what we're talking about? are we talking about protecting consumers who are paying 20%, 25% interest rates on products that they buy at a department store? are we talking about taking on the payday lenders who are squeezing the lifeblood out of poor people who in debt -- in desperation have to borrow money from them? no, that's not what we are talking about. we're not talking about the need to guarantee health care to all people. we're not talking about the

affordable housing crisis. we're not talking about the fact that millions of moms and dads in this country can't afford child care. we're not talking about the global crisis of climate change. we're not talking about our crumbling infrastructure, our rigged trailed deals -- rigged trade deals that resulted in the destabilization of america. that's not what we are talking about. what we are talking about at this particular moment right here in the united states senate is the deregulation of some of the largest banks in america, some of the very same banks that nearly drove the economy off of a cliff in 2008. that's what we are talking about. just last week the congressional budget office told us that the legislation on the floor right now will, quote, increase the likelihood that a large

financial firm with assets of between $100 billion and $250 billion would fail. end of quote. so we're not talking about protecting consumers. we are not talking about breaking up large banks. we're not talking about taking on the power of wall street. what we are talking about is deregulating some of the very same banks that drove this economy into the worst economic downturn since the great depression. in other words, this legislation will make it more likely that we will see another financial crisis, another taxpayer bailout and massive dislocation of our economy. what c.b.o. tells us is that this legislation will increase the deficit by more than $450 million over the next decade. $450 million. this bill that benefits some of

the largest banks in america will cost us over $450 million. now who's going to pay for that? big banks? no. it will be the american taxpayers who will be picking up this tab. so the question that we have to ask ourselves, which we don't very often, although the american people, i think, understand this emotionally in their guts, how does it happen that a bill like this gets to the floor while we're not dealing with the issues that the american people are concerned about, whether it's gun safety, whether it's daca and protecting the 1.8 million young people who are eligible for that program or the high cost of prescription drugs? how does this particular bill get to the floor of the senate? and the answer is pretty obvious. follow the money. since the 1990's, the financial sector has given more than $3.2 billion in campaign

contributions. let me repeat. since the 1990's the financial sector, wall street and other parts of the financial sector, have given over $3.2 billion in campaign contributions. and last year alone the financial sector spent over $200 million on lobbying. that is why congress is spending day after day after day trying to make life easier for large financial institutions while continuing to ignore the needs of working families. mr. president, instead of listening to lobbyists in washington, maybe just maybe -- i know it's a very radical idea but maybe just maybe we might want to listen to the american people. and the american people believe, as i do, that we should strengthen, not weaken, wall street regulations. mr. president -- madam president, now is not the time to be talking about

deregulating large financial institutions. now is the time to take on the greed and power of wall street, break up the large financial institutions in this country, and stop big banks from ripping off the american people by charging outrageous and usurious levels of interest rates. and that is why i have introduced two amendments to this bill that i would like the senate to vote on this afternoon. the first amendment would break up large financial institutions so that the taxpayers of this country will never have to bail them out again. the second amendment would establish a 15% cap on the interest rates private banks charge their customers on credit cards and other consumer loans. madam president, before i talk about these amendments, let us

be clear. fraud is the business model of wall street. it is not the exception to the rule. it is the rule. since 2009, major banks in this country have been fined more than $200 billion for reckless, unfair, and deceptive activities. and by the way, those fines take place within a very weak regulatory climate, but here are just a few examples of the kind of activities that large banks have engaged in. in august, 2014, bank of america paid $16 billion to settle charges that it lied to investors about the riskiness of the mortgage-backed securities it sold during the runup to the financial crisis. in november, 2013, j.p. morgan chase settled for $13 billion

for lying to fannie mae and freddie mac about the quality of mortgage-backed securities it sold them. settlement documents revealed how every large bank in the u.s. committed mortgage fraud. april, 2016, goldman sachs reached a $5 billion settlement for marketing and settling fraudulent mortgage-backed securities that were the foundation of the housing crisis. in july of 2014, citigroup reached a $7 billion settlement for mortgage fraud. then-attorney general eric holder said citigroup's, quote, activities contributed mightily to the financial crisis that devastated our economy in 2008. madam president, if you are thinking that the illegal behavior of wall street executives was limited to the housing crisis, that it was a one-time thing, guess again. let me give you some more

examples. in may of 2015, five banks, including j.p. morgan chase and citigroup paid $5.4 billion in fines after pleading guilty to a, quote, brazen display of collusion and foreign exchange rate market manipulation quote, he according to then-attorney general loretta lynch. in march, 2014, the fdic accused 16 large banks, including bank of america, citigroup, j.p. morgan chase, of fraud and conspiracy in an epic plot to manipulate bank-to-bank interest rates that underpin at least $350 trillion in global financial transactions. in april of 2011, wachovia was fined for laundering billions of dollars in illegal drug money. federal prosecutors said, quote, wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a

virtual carte blanche to finance their operations, end of quote. that's from the federal prosecutor. the fine was less than 2% of the bank's $12.3 billion profit. and on and on it goes. mortgage fraud, money laundering, currency manipulation, bribery, conspiracy, rate tampering, collusion. these are the routine practices of wall street. they're not the exception. this is their business model. madam president, our country can no longer afford to tolerate the culture, the culture of fraud and corruption on wall street. let us never, ever forget -- although i fear many people have already here in the congress, and that is during the financial crisis of 2008, the american people were told that they needed to bail out huge

financial institutions because those institutions were too big to fail. people remember that. they were just too big to fail. they went down, the whole economy goes with them. yet today, today, the four largest financial institutions in this country, j.p. morgan chase, citigroup, bank of america, and wells fargo, are on average 80% larger than they were before we bailed them out. today they are 80% larger than they were before we bailed them out because they were too big to fail. it does not make sense to anybody. but left alone, that is not even an issue that will be talked about here on the floor of the senate. incredibly, since the financial crisis, j.p. morgan chase has increased its assets by more than $1 trillion. bank of america has seen its

assets grow by more than $800 billion. citigroup by over $547 billion. wells fargo after acquiring wachovia nearly tripled its size. madam president, no single financial institution should be so large that its failure would cause catastrophic risk to millions of americans or to our nation's economic well-being. no single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure would send the world's economy into crisis. if an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist, and we should break them up. let me be very clear. we should not just be concerned about the danger of -- the dangers these institutions pose

to taxpayers. the enormous concentration of ownership within the financial sector is harming the middle class and damaging the economy by limiting choices and raising prices for consumers and small businesses. today -- and it's important that people understand this, and unfortunately it is not an issue that is discussed at all, not here in congress, not much in the media. the six largest banks in america have over $10 trillion in assets , equivalent to 54% of the g.d.p. in america. when we talk about the united states moving in the direction of oligarchy, when we talk about a handful of institutions and billionaires controlling the economic and political life of this country, this is what we are talking about. let me repeat. the six largest banks in america have over $10 trillion in assets

equivalent to 54% of our g.d.p. the top six banks hold more than half of all credit card debt, control over 90% of all bank derivatives, underwrite about one-third of all mortgages, and control over 40% of all bank deposits. if teddy roosevelt were alive today, i have a sense about what he would be saying, and he would say break them up. break them up. and he would be right. that is exactly, madam president, what my first amendment would do. specifically, this amendment would require the federal reserve to break up any financial institution whose total exposure is greater than 2% of our nation's g.d.p. over the next two years, and these banks would include j.p. morgan chase, citigroup, wells fargo, goldman sachs, bank of america, morgan stanley, u.s. bankorp,

capital one and the t.d. group. financial institutions that have a combined total exposure of more than 77% of our nation's g.d.p. none of these institutions would be able to receive a taxpayer bailout from the federal reserve nor could they gamble with the federally insured bank deposits of the american people. under this amendment, no financial institution can have a total financial exposure above $398 billion. madam chairman, call me old-fashioned, but i believe the function of banking should be boring. the function of banking should not be about making as much profit as possible, gambling on derivatives and other esoteric financial instruments. the function of banking should be to provide affordable loans to small businesses, to create jobs in the productive economy. the function of banking should be to provide affordable loans to americans to purchase their

homes and their cars. wall street cannot be an island unto itself, and i hope very much that my colleagues will support this important amendment. but, madam president, not only do we have to break up these very, very large banks, but we also have got to stop them from ripping off the american people by charging outrageous interest rates and fees, and that is exactly what my second amendment would do. incredibly, madam president, since the wall street crash, credit card companies have raked in over $1.2 trillion in revenue from interest and fees they charge consumers, including over $160 billion in 2016 alone. that is unacceptable. at a time when the american people hold a record-breaking

$1 trillion in credit card debt and desperately need some relief on that debt, my second amendment would establish a national usury rate of 15% on credit cards and other consumer loans. in america today, incredibly, millions of our people are now paying credit card interest rates of 20%, 25%, or even 30%. but i'm not just talking about the payday lenders who are acting in a way that is totally unbelievable in ripping off the poorest people in our country. madam president, let us be clear, when credit card companies charge over 20% interest on credit cards, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available. what they are involved in is extortion and loan sharking. that is what they are engaged in.

madam president, interestingly enough, if you read the religious tenets of the major religions throughout history, whether it is christianity, judaism, or islam, what you will find is a universal objection and disgust to usury. this has existed for thousands and thousands of years. people know that it is immoral to lend money to poor people, struggling people, and then charge them excessive interest rates. that's in the religious teachings, christianity, judaism, islam, and other religions. in the divine comedy, dante reserved a special place in the seventh circle of health for people who charged usurious interest rates. today, madam president, we don't need the hellfire and the pitch forks. we don't need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a

national usury law that caps interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15%. madam president, despite the fact that banks can borrow money today at less than 1.5% from the fed, the average credit card interest rate today for consumers is now 16.84%. borrow money at 1.5% from the fed, and they charge consumers an average of 16.8%. further, madam president, if you got a credit card from a store like macy's, kohl's, lowe's or sears, interest rates are even higher. stores like these are charging customers an average interest rate of 26%. 26%. and many of the stores rely on these high interest rate cards for more than a third of their revenue. they are making money, not just by selling clothing or washing machines or shoes. they are making money, a

substantial part of their profit scheme comes from the high interest rates they are getting on these financial transactions. what that means is if you buy a $500 refrigerator from lowe's or sears on one of their credit card, you will likely owe another $130 in interest on a $500 refrigerator. how is that? do you think that's an issue we might want to talk about just for a moment? i know the consumers in this country don't pour hundreds of millions of dollars into lobbying or billions of dollars into campaign contributions. i understand that. but maybe, just maybe we might want to remember the folks back home. madam president, establishing a usury law is not a radical concept. up until 1978, about half the states in our country had usury laws on the books, capping credit card interest rates, but those state interest rates were obliterated by a 1978 supreme

court decision, market national bank -- marquette national bank versus first of omaha service, which concluded that national banks could charge whatever interest rate they wanted if they moved to a state without a usury law. so all of these credit card companies moved to south dakota. they moved to delaware with no interest rate caps. and they charged people in vermont or kansas, every state in the country, interest rates of 20% to 30%. madam president, this has got to stop. the american people are sick and tired of being ripped off by the same financial institutions that they bailed out ten years ago. what a world. we bail out the crooks, taxpayer money bails them out. then they charge the same people who bailed them out 20% or 30% interest rates on loans. madam president, this amendment simply applies the same statutory interest rate cap on credit cards that congress

imposed on credit unions in 1980, capping interest rates at 15% except under extraordinary circumstances. in other words, if you get a credit card through a credit union, you are going to be paying in almost every case no more than 15%. that is mandated by federal law. by and large, that law has worked for about 40 years. unlike the banks, credit unions do not come begging the american taxpayer for a huge bailout. for nearly 40 years, credit unions have survived and thrived on a 15% cap, and the time has come to extend that cap to private banks as well. nothing radical about it. it exists for the credit unions of this country and should exist for the large banks. madam president, there's even been support for this concept in the united states senate.

1991, former senator al demat toe, republican from new york, offered an amendment to cut credit card interest rates at 14%. that amendment passed the senate by a vote of 74-19. not a radical idea, passed by a huge vote in the senate back in 1991. here's what al damato said in 1991, a republican, quote, 14% is certainly a reasonable rate of interest for banks to charge customers for credit card debt. it allows a comfortable profit margin but keeps banks in line so that interest rates rise and fall with the health of the economy. end of quote. republican ald al damato. it was an accurate statement in 1991 and is even more today. credit cards are no longer used just to buy luxury items. we all know that. all over this country people are buying their groceries, their

groceries, the food, other basic essentials with credit cards. commuters are paying for the gas they're putting in their cars. young people are paying their college expenses with credit cards. according to the federal reserve, 44% of the american people could not pay for a $400 emergency expense like a car accident if they could not charge it on their credit cards or borrow money from a payday lender, a friend, or a family member. that is the reality of america today. not reality we discuss here in the senate but that is the reality nonetheless. given that reality, it seems to me that if we are going to respond to the needs of the american people, we need to deal with the issue of usury and strap large financial institutions from ripping off the american people. so, madam president, with that

in mind, i ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up and reported by number. the sanders amendment number 2114 and the sanders amendment number 2155 and further, that the senate vote on the santders amendment number 2114 without intervening action or debate, and that following disposition of the sanders amendment 2114, the senate vote on the sanders amendment number 2155. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: madam president, i object. the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. the objection is heard. mr. sanders: madam president, i am distressed though not surprised by the objection. apparently the consumers of this country don't have the financial support to get their concerns on to the floor. and so apparently we're not going to be discussing these

items. madam president, i rise -- i raise a point of order that the pending measure violates section 4106 of h. con resolution 71, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: pursuant to section 904 of the congressional budget act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, i move to waive all politiapplicable sections of tht and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of s. 2155 and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. mr. crapo: mr. president? the presiding officer: the yeas and nays are ordered. crepe i'm asking my colleagues to raise this budget poinldz of order. the estimated increase in federal deficits due to the

enactment of the economic growth regulatory relief and consumer protection act, the bill contains a provision that reduces the amount of discretionary surplus of the federal reserve -- that the federal reserve may maintain from 7.-- $7.5 billion to $6.285 billion. the federal reserve surplus funds have been used in the past to pay for bipartisan legislation emanating from committees that do not have jurisdiction over the federal reserve. unlike those past instances, these funds will be used to offset costs of legislation emanating from the banking committee. in order to provide meaningful relief for consumers, community banks, credit unions, mid-size banks, and regional banks, i urge my colleagues to waive this point of order. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: i would ask my colleagues to support this point of order, not only from a deficit perspective but to tell the republican leadership here in congress that we want a

serious debate on the serious financial issues facing the american people, that we want the ability to bring forth amendments, not just my amendments, a lot of good amendments on both sides, that at this particular moment rather than just deregulating some of the largest banks in america, we need to protect consumers. we need to protect ordinary americans. we need to have a real debate. so i would hope very much that people -- members of the senate support my resolution.

mr. daines: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: mr. president, i spent 28 years in the private sector before entering public service. in fact, in 2010, i was working

at right now technologies in my hometown of boseman, montana. we were growing a technology company there. we are creating good high-paying jobs in montana. in fact, about 500 jobs there. while i was working to grow jobs back home in montana, president obama and the democratic majority in the house and the senate were passing legislation that stifled job creation, in fact costing our economy billions of dollars, penalizing small local banks and credit unions for the wrong doings committed by bad actors on wall street. i'm talking about dodd-frank. since dodd-frank's passage, the number of federally insured credit unions in montana fell by over 10%, and the number of montana state chartered banks fell over 34% from 64 to 44.

this is no surprise because dodd-frank empowered more than 10 federal agencies to write more than 400 new rules, imposing 27,000 mandates, many of which fell on those local banks and credit unions. these small community business businesses, they don't have the ability to keep up with the onslaught of these new rules, these ?u regulations and -- new regulations and guidance constantly coming out of washington following dodd-frank. and the customers are suffering. small local banks and credit unions are uniquely capable of knowing their customers and providing tailored financial services to meet their custome customers' individual circumstances. dodd-frank stripped this customer advantage away by

making prohibitively difficult any loans that don't comply with the cookie qatar regulations. you -- cutter regulations. you know, back in 2010, many of our colleagues warned our colleagues on the democratic side about this. but virtually every democratic senator then voted for dodd-frank. this difficulty fell particularly hard on montana's entrepreneurs who are self-employed and don't typically have wage income. and entrepreneurship runs deep in montana. these banks, these credit unions are truly part of our community. they know their customers and they're able to make loans for their needs. they can determine the risk and make sure they're making good loans.

they serve up and coming small business owners, moms and dads working to keep the family business afloat and countless farmers and ranchers across montana. dodd-frank has suffocated montana's rural banks and credit unions and ultimately it's the people of montana who use these banks and use these credit unions, and they're the ones who have been hit the hardest. i wasn't here in 2010 when this bill was passed. let me tell you something. had i been here on this floor then, i would have voted no on dodd-frank's passage, but unfortunately, the vast majority of democratic senators voted yes, virtually every one of them. but i'll tell you what. i'm really happy to be here now to help undo some of the damage caused to rural communities and the people of montana.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. ms. warren: good. thank you, mr. president. mr. president, on friday, i held a town hall in springfield, massachusetts, and on saturday we had another town hall this time in weymouth, mass. i met with kids at weymouth high who are forming a never again group who want us to pass some sensible gun regulations. and dreamers who want us to pass daca. i met with people who fled the hurricanes in puerto rico and want to see a comprehensive plan for rebuilding the island. i met with people who live along the south shore and who are

deeply worried about rising oceans and the need for building resilience into our coastline housing and infrastructure. i met people alarmed by the rising cost of health care and about republican efforts to roll back obamacare and medicaid and medicare. i met someone who wants to see us focus more on criminal justice reform. there is so much that congress could do. there are so many problems the american people are asking us to solve. but not one single person at any of my town halls or meetings or press interviews or picking up pizza at ormando's asked for done work on rolling back the rules on some of the biggest banks in the country so they'll have a chance to crash the economy again. and that's what the bill on the floor of the senate does, really. don't just take my word for it. the congressional budget office

experts say the bill will increase the chances that taxpayers will have to bail out the big banks again. c.b.o. also says the bill could allow wall street banks like citigroup and j.p. morgan chase to significantly reduce their capital requirements. an expert in financial regulations at colombia law school says, the bill will produce a race to the bottom dynamic that will dramatically increase the chance of another financial crisis. and the "wall street journal" and bloomberg both editorialized that the bill includes dangerous giveaways to big banks. nobody back in massachusetts asked thor that. but buried down in the details of the bill are even more land mines for american families. the bill guts protections for families that buy traditional and mobile homes and it

undermines our ability to enforce civil rights laws. and for what? so that banks that are already making record profits can tack on a little more to their bottom line? if the senate is going to spend two weeks dealing with the big banks, we should be making the rules tougher, not easier. today i introduce the ending too big to jail act, which would help make sure big bank executives are hauled out of their corner offices in handcuffs the next time they break the law. that would do more for america's working families than anything in this bill, and i'm going to fight to help make it law. what does it say about washington republicans and democrats that can't come together to support commonsense gun reforms or solutions for working families but can come together to deregulate big banks

on the 10th anniversary of the start of the 2008 financial crisis? here's what i think it says. washington has become completely disconnected from the real problems in people's lives. this place works great for people who can hire armies of fancy lobbyists and write big checks, but it doesn't work for anyone else. this is personal for me. i grew up in oklahoma on the ragged edge of the middle class. my family struggled, and when it looked like things were just getting a little bit better, my daddy had a heart attack, and he lost his job and we nearly lost our home. i was 12 years old, and i know what it feels like to hear your mother cry every night. i know what it feels like to wonder if you'll have to change schools or move to another town because the bank is going to take your house away. i know it because i lived it.

and when the economy collapsed 10 years ago, i would go to bed at night thinking about the millions of people across this country who worked hard, who played by the rules, and then had their dignity stripped away because somebody they never met gambled with their family's future and lost. i wondered -- i wondered back then about the kids. i wondered about their mothers. i wondered about their daddies. a foreclosure isn't just some dry financial transaction of it is the kind of event that can tear a family apart. the american people aren't going to stand by while the big banks and other giant corporations run this economy and this congress for their own benefit. and soon, maybe not today, maybe not next week, maybe not even in the next election, but soon they

will demand a government that works for the people. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor, and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. senator thank you, mr. president. i rise -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. ms. hassan: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: without objection. ms. hassan: i rise to discuss the devastating effects of climate change in my home state and across the country. i want to commend our colleague, senator whitehouse, who has been a fierce advocate for this issue. and as of yesterday he had taken to the floor 200 times to call on congress to wake up and protect our environment. mr. president, i am proud to represent a state whose beautiful natural resources strengthen our economy, create jobs, and support our high quality of life. but we are already seeing the real impacts of climate change in new hampshire, impacts with major consequences. last year the national climate assessment report reinforced what has long been clear -- human activity is the driving force behind our changing climate, and the united states is experiencing more extreme

weather events, including dangerous heat, heavier rainfall and more flooding, and larger wildfires as a result, threatening both our long-term economic growth and the well-being of our citizens. many people in new hampshire, particularly on our seacoast, are concerned about what these stronger and more frequent storms will mean for their families, their homes, and their businesses. rising sea levels and greater pre-acceptation -- precipitation have increase the sea level on our coasts. it is estimated that nuclear's sea levels are expected to rise between .6 of a foot and two feet by 2050 and between .6 feet and 6.6 feet by 23100. and in just the last two weeks, our state has been hit by three nor easters. mr. president, this is not