detectors and bulletproof doors. this is a great step and it's not controversial and we ought to get it done and get it down now. as the president has said, we cannot merely take actions that make us feel like we're making a difference. we must actually make a difference. and one way we can do that is by passing fix nics. just this afternoon, a diverse community of victims rights groups, law enforcement officers, gun violence prevention groups, and prosecutors sent a letter to the minority and majority leaders asking them for a vote on a clean version of fix nics before the upcoming easter recess. they said it would improve key elements of the background check system, particularly domestic violence, criminal history, and protective order records. that's really an important point because so much of the gun violence we see in america is in the context of domestic

violence. that's people violating protective orders, people assaulting the person they're married to or living with. and -- and we need to focus on it and do something about it. this group of victims rights advocates, law enforcement officers, gun violence prevention groups and prosecutors call the fix nics bill a bipartisan, bicameral, commonsense and noncontroversial bill, so why can't we pass it? why can't we do it today? they made a point to note in their letter that the vote should be clean. in other words, not conditioned upon or attached to other controversial measures that can't pass. i think they are absolutely right, and i would hope that all of us would listen to this good advice and get this done. we tried to get an agreement a couple of weeks ago to take the bill up and vote on it. if we did it today, it would

pass this afternoon, but there was an objection to doing so, saying well, there are other things we need to do, too. well, perhaps that is true, but to condition what can pass, what does enjoy broad support, and what will save lives on things that won't pass and that aren't achievable means that we have the strategy of either everything or failure, which usually ends up with us going back home empty-handed, having nothing to show for our efforts. the people we represent deserve better. this institution should step up and listen to those who are calling upon us to do something, and doing something that will save lives while respecting the rights of all americans under the constitution. mr. president, i yield the

floor. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. ten years ago today, march 14, bear stearns was on the verge of collapse. despite its 85-year history, despite its relationship with nearly every bank on wall street, the bank suddenly found itself on the brink. on this very day, march 14, bear stearns lost $3.5 billion in market value. the bank was in the midst of a freefall. in the course of one week, bear stearns went from trading for $65 per share to being bought for $2 a share in a sweetheart deal orchestrated by the fed over the course of the weekend. nearly overnight, one of wall street's most prestigious almost 100-year-old banks fell apart.

across the country, families sat at kitchen tables, started to wonder will one of us lose our job, will we have to move, will we be able to retire, will we lose our house, will we be able to send our kids to college? on this day ten years ago, marcm cnn read job losses, the worst in five years. the story talked about how the economy was hemorrhaging jobs. the article warned that the crisis was building, quoting one analyst who said the real estate and credit crunch, quote, was whipping its way through the u.s. economy like a midwestern tornado. in hindsight, we knew things would get a lot worse before they got better. some people say nobody could have possibly seen this coming. some people say the 2008 financial crisis was like the weather. like that midwestern tornado, something out of control that you couldn't have seen. but we know better. advocates and communities, the people are actually dealing with the consequences of this crisis

are sounding the alarm. for years before the crisis, they predicted what would happen if washington didn't rein in wall street, and clearly they were right. a few people in washington like ned grimlik saw the problem for what it was. washington didn't stop the crisis after it began -- after it intensified. congress at least responded. we passed a law that created important protections for the financial system for taxpayers, for homeowners to hold banks and watchdogs accountable to prevent another crisis. but you know, mr. president, wall street wasn't even close to being ready to quit. there was no contrition. nobody went to jail. on the day that president obama signed wall street reform, what we know on the day dodd-frank was signed into law, the top financial firm lobbyists in this town said now it's half time. what would that mean? that meant they lost the first half. they lost the battle where actually people in this congress had the guts and the backbone

and sloughed off their campaign contributions and were unwilling to listen to bank lobbyists tell them what to do. they stood up to the bank lobby, stood up to wall street, and they did the right thing. but this lobby says it was half time, so the lobbyists lost the first half, but they were back at it, going to the regulators, trying to convince the regulators to weaken the rules and not implement all of that. not long ago, another bank lobbyist told us their game plan. we don't want a seat at the table. we want the whole table. this bill gives them that. the same group that warned us about the last crisis, this is what i asked my colleagues to listen to. the same group that warned us about the last crisis or that we're the regulators that tried to fix the last crisis, those same people are opposed to the bill the senate is considering today. that doesn't seem to matter to about 65 of my colleagues. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record opposition leaders -- opposition letters from a range of civil

rights, labor, consumer advocacy groups. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. people who cleaned up the last crisis are warning us not to pass this bill. experts from both parties are warning us. the authors of wall street reform, bearn frank said he would vote no if he were in the senate. chris dodd in an op-ed today said the bill chips away at effective oversight. people are saying this isn't a major scaleback of dodd-frank, but senator dodd and congressman frank say vote no because they recognize it's damaging to the work that we all did. experts like paul volcker, head of the federal reserve, sheila bair, head of fdic, republican appointment by president bush, used to be chief of staff for senator bob dole. dan turillo, read of regulation for the federal reserve wants us to vote no. sarah bloom raskin at the federal reserve and secretary of

treasury. tom honig, a republican who said fdic, earlier was a fed president. antonio weiss at the treasury department. paul tucker, international regulator. phil angelides, former california state treasurer who ran the commission that examined what happened in the bank crisis, all wrote to the senate, all outlined a combined 28 pages worth of concerns about this bill, and my colleagues just say oh, this is just helping the small community banks and some of the regional banks a little bit. well, not exactly. that's what happens here. we start off wanting to help the small banks. we start off helping some of the mid-sized regional banks that generally do a good job, banks like runnington and fifth third and key bank, but then wall street gets involved and wall street drives a bigger and bigger hole in this bill and gets more and more help and more and more breaks, and look where

we are. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record letters from all these financial experts. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. so the question is why do we ignore these pleas? recap the problems with this legislation. first the bill puts american taxpayers at risk of another bank bailout. it weakens stress tests for all large banks in spite of what my colleagues say, everybody that's commented on this bill -- so many experts that have commented on this bill understand this is not just about community banks, it's not just about the regional mid-sized that go up to $250 billion. it weakens stress tests for all large banks. j.p. morgan chase, $2.5 trillion, 2.5000 billion dollars in assets. wells fargo, $1.9 trillion, as if they haven't done enough, made enough mistakes, violated the public trust enough times.

citigroup, $1.9 trillion. these banks, these one, two, three, four banks, j.p. morgan, bank of america, wells fargo, citigroup, these banks hold 51%, more than half of all industry assets, $8.6 trillion. these banks have had a really good run since the crisis, since the bailout. remember, people didn't go to jail even though people in my zip code, in my community, in my state, in pennsylvania, all over the country, people lost savings, people lost their homes, people lost their jobs. these companies, these banks which are more profitable than they have ever been in the last couple of years, they got a huge tax break just last december, now we're doing them a favor by weakening the stress test. all the country's biggest banks took about $239 billion in taxpayer bailouts. without rigorous annual stress tests, taxpayers could once again be on the hook if too big to fail banks collapse and we don't have the right tools in place to see it coming. second, this bill opens the door

to weaker oversight of foreign megabanks operating in the u.s. the same banks that repeatedly violated u.s. law. these are banks like deutsche bank in germany, the trump business organization's personal bank, santander in spain, barkley's in britain, credit suisse and u.b.s. in switzerland. these are banks that repossessed cars from american service men and women who were serving overseas. these were banks that were fined by the federal government. we are doing these foreign banks a favor in this bill. third, with a change of just one word, this bill forces the fed to weaken the rules, even for the largest banks with more than $250 billion in assets. former cftc chair gary ginsler wrote to the senate this month, said this change may subject the government to additional lobbying and possible litigation from individual banks seeking specialty tailored rules. we know, mr. president, that all of these regulators put in place

by the trump administration, most of them with ties to wall street, and we know the white house now looks like an executive retreat -- a retreat for wall street executives. these, these regulators you know are going to bend over backwards for the big banks, and if they don't, they are going to be sued by the foreign banks and by other big banks to open those loopholes up even more. senator dodd, one of the authors of the original bill, identified this $250 billion threshold is the number one reason he can't support the bill. it rates as the danger he said of a cascading economic effect. fourth, this bill makes another change to allow big banks to borrow more money than they can afford with -- which once again puts taxpayers and our economy at risk. "the new york times" described this provision as weakening rules aimed at keeping banks from being able to take big risks without properly preparing for disaster. "the washington post" reported that j.p. morgan chase and citigroup may get a combined

$30 billion windfall. $30 billion windfall if this provision is enacted. i'm not making this up. this is what analysts are saying this bill will do. fifth, this bill chips away at key mortgage rules put in place after the last crisis. it includes provisions that weaken transparency, inclusiveness and fairness in mortgage lending. the bill makes it easier, makes it easier for lenders to mislead families into mortgages they can't afford and take away those families' right to take the bank to court. it strips away key data used to monitor trends in mortgage lending and spot discrimination against communities of color. there was an amendment to fix that from senator cortez masto that the republicans won't allow us to offer. we know that in too many places across the country, people of color are far more likely to be turned down for a loan for no good reason. without this data, we won't know what that -- we won't know when that redlining is happening. and sixth -- and this may be tht awful of all.

for reasons i can't even pretend to understand, this bill helps equifax. it's the same equifax that let hackers steal 148 million americans' personal data. more than half the adults in this country had their personal data breached because of qesks. their -- of equifax. their birth dates, social security numbers and addresses. the same equifax whose former executive just today was charged with insider trading for dumping his stocks just before the company announced its data breach failure. in exchange for a small provision helping service members watch their credit, this bill forces them to give up their right to take equifax to court the next time the company's recklessness exposes sensitive data. if that weren't enough, mr. president, the bill also gives equifax a big new business opportunity. this will put half the -- the company that put half the american population at risk of identity theft the power to

decide a mortgage. what do the american people get in exchange to these goodies to big banks and equifax? they get to pick up the check. the congressional budget office confirmed this bill would increase the probability of a big bank failure and a financial crisis adding to the deficit. even after the addition of language offsetting some of the cost of this bill, the legislature -- the legislation would increase the deficit by $455 million. let me repeat that. the bipartisan congressional budget office found this bill will increase the probability of a big bank failure in a financial crisis, so don't tell me this bill doesn't roll back dodd-frank for the biggest banks. in this town, no one seems to be able to find a single dlor. we need to solve our pension crisis or invest in infrastructure or remove toxic lead from kids' homes. but when the big bank lobbyists come calling, the senate waives its budget rules to do wall street's bidding. let me also remind last, mr. president, how hard it was to enact the reforms we passed after the last crisis.

remember that lobbyist said it's only half time, after for one of the few times in this body's recent history wall street actually lost when we did the right thing ten years ago? well, the senate in that -- in the move up to that bill, the senate considered 14 separate republican amendments where there were votes taken to dodd-frank, another 12 from democrats. of the 26 amendments, five were adopted, ten democratic amendments. they were voted on in a senate where the democrats were in the majority, gave both parties the opportunity to amend this bill. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. brown: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent for an additional five minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. brown: thanks, mr. president, televised live on c-span for 48 hours, 17 republican amendments accepted, 22 from senate democrats, contrast to today. no substantive amendments were adopted in the committee. i credit chairman crapo for at

least allowing amendments but that's as far as it went. democrats and republicans alike were completely shut down, not able to offer a single amendment. we know how this place has worked the last year. all decisions are made down the hall in the majority leader's office. the tax bill was written there. the health care bill was written there. this bill was written in a way that there are no amendments allowed on the floor, no debate, no deliberation, no changes. mr. president, last, we were entrusting fundamentally the problem with this bill, we're entrusting the profit tears from the last crisis, the deniers of the last crisis with implementing these big bank giveaways. i'm not willing to put blind trust in the people who have failed us before. regulators quarles in ma unusual chin, mulvaney, these are the people we're expecting to regulate and save us from another bailout, save us from another financial crisis. save us from another implosion in our economy, these are the people who have failed us so

spectacularly in the past with such grave consequences, we're expecting them to protect us the next time? nothing in their public record has earned them this trust. this is the collective amnesia crowd. they're the crowd that forgets what i talked about at the beginning of this speech, about what happened ten years ago, but, mr. president, ohio families haven't forgotten. people across this country still struggle. people who have lost savings haven't been able entirely to rebuild them back. people who lost jobs often are in lower-paying jobs as a result. people who lost their homes, i see that in my part of clevela cleveland, the devastation still because of this financial crisis, because of the tens of thousands of homes in greater cleveland that were foreclosed on. these are the people we were sent here to serve. what this bill does for them and the issues facing their lives is just impossible to see. i urge my colleagues to reject this bill. i urge my colleagues fundamentally to ask themselves, whose side are you on? are you voting yes on this and

siding with special interests and wall street? are you going to vote no and side with taxpayers and homeowners and students and workers? i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: mr. president, the time to vote has come. we're a few minutes over. this is one of those times when the senate is on a very tight timeline. so i'm going to ask unanimous consent in a moment to give the -- to have the majority of my speech put into the record. i just wanted to respond in one quick way to some of the comments that my colleague from ohio has just made. a lot of attack on this floor has been made saying that this bill rolls back the regulatory authority of the federal reserve. it exposes all of our large banks to a much greater risk or much less supervision than they would have had before. and on and on. we knew these attacks were coming. they came in the banking committee when we had the markup on this bill. and basically i just want to read a colloquy thattive had or a series of questions and

answers i had with the current chairman of the federal reserve about these types of allegations. with these allegations being made about the bill, a bill which is designed to deal with credit unions and community banks and the smaller sector of our economy, not the big banks, all these attacks, all this is rolling back the protections against big banks. i said to the federal reserve chairman jay powell, i asked if there was accurate if this bill were passed that the federal reserve would still be required to conduct supervised stress tests for any bank with total assets between $100 billion and $250 billion to ensure it has enough capital to weather economic downturns. he answered, yes, it is. i asked, if this bill were passed whether it was accurate that the federal reserve would still have sufficient authority to apply any prudential standard. let me repeat that. any prudential standard to a bank with between $100 billion and $250 billion in total assets if the fed determined that was

appropriate. he answered yes, that is true. i asked if it was accurate that this bill does not weaken oversight of the largest globally systemic banks. he answered correctly, yes, that was correct. and then i asked if it was accurate that the federal reserve applies enhanced standards to international banks based on their global consolidated assets, meaning that our bill would not exempt banks like deutsche bank and san tan der from section 165 of dodd frank. he answered again that is correct. i want to repeat this because this keeps coming up, the chairman of federal reserve said this bill does not exempt foreign banks such as deutsche bank and we do not eliminate the ability of our federal reserve to correctly and properly supervise our banks. we're going to go back and forth over this but this bill, mr. president, is a bill designed to protect community banks and credit unions and that's why we have such bipartisan support for it. as i indicated, i know those who are trying to keep things under

control around here are getting nervous about how far we have gone over in our debate. i ask unanimous consent that the rest of my remarks be made a part of the record at this point. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. crapo: mr. president, before i yield, i also withdraw my amendment number 2152. the presiding officer: the senator has that right. mr. crapo: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the amendment is withdrawn. the question now occurs on amendment number 2151 as modified. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: perdue,

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 67, the nays are 31. the amendment is agreed to. ashe -- as modified. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on calendar number 287, s. 23155, a bill to promote economic growth, provide tailored regulatory relief, and enhanced consumer protections and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory

quorum call has been waived. is it the sense of the senate that debate on s. 2155, a bill to promote economic growth, provide tailored regulatory relief and enhance consumer protections and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays a mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? on this vote, the yeas are 67, are the nays are 31. the motion is agreed to. the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: i ask unanimous consent that the senate stand in

recess until 5:45 p.m. today and that when the senate reconvenes, all postcloture time be considered expired and the senate vote on the motion to waive and following the vote on the motion to waive the bill be read a third time and the senate vote on passage of the bill, as amended. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until care and take them back into slavery. >> order. statement. the prime minister. >> hear, hea