mr. crapo: madam president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. crapo: i ask the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. crapo: today i rise to discuss the nomination of john owens to the ninth circuit court of appeals. mr. owens who currently works as a lawyer in california has been nominated to fill the seat that has been held for the last 25 years by judge steven trott of idaho. judge trott took senior status way back on december 31, 2004, making the trott the longest current vacancy of any seat on the federal circuit courts. that doesn't mean that there haven't been previous attempts to fill this seat. in a letter to the idaho senate delegation in 2003, then-white house counsel alberto gonzalez stated -- "i also want to make sure the president's commitment to nominate an idaho indiana for the ninth circuit seat if judge trott retires or assumes senior status while president bush is still in office." idaho has had two ninth circuit se

thank you. >> senator crapo. >> thank you, mr. chairman.have a number of questions and i know i'm not going to get to go through them all during the hearing. although i'm going to ask each of the individual nominees for the federal reserve a question, i'm also going to ask the other nominees who don't get asked that question to respond to it later. i'd just alert you to that. the first one, i will start with you, mr. fischer. a recent paper presented at the u.s. monetary policy forum suggests the possibility that the current monetary stimulus may involve a, quote, tradeoff between more stimulus today at the expense of a more challenging and disruptive policy exit in the future. do you agree with that? and if you see that there will be challenges or dangers in the exit from our current monetary policy, could you tell us what you believe those are and whether you believe we can make an exit in a manner that is not disruptive to our economy? >> thank you, senator. i think the exit is beginning, has begun. the extent of the purchases of the fed

i now turn to ranking member crapo for his opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and welcome, also, chair yellen on your first appearance before this committee as the chair of the federal reserve board of governors. today's hearing is an important opportunity to examine the current state of monetary policy. since your confirmation hearing in november, the fed has begun the process of tapering its quantitative easing purposes. the pace of quantitative easing purchases has come down by $20 billion. this is a welcome development for those of us who disagree with the federal reserve's quantitative easing policy and prefer to see qe purchases end entirely later this year. by the time the fed stops expanding its balance sheet it will hold over $4 trillion in treasury and mortgage backed securities. former chairman bernanke suggested the fed might maintain the size of the balance sheet for some time rather than reducing it. this would mean the balance sheets to purchase those assets would remain in the financial system. rich manned fed president lacker has called these t

i now turn to ranking member crapo for his opening statement. g> thank you, mr. chairman, andn i join in your introductory comments about housing financead reform, and particularly i int appreciate the relationship we have and the opportunity we had to work together on this. the and also want to thank ourand il colleagues, bob corker and markt warner, and those who worked with them to help us lay the foundation for this effort. and, frankly, each member ofwitt this committee has been veryfour involved in working with us andt frthink it should be acknowledged as we move forward. iourth welcome each of nominees today. knowle at today's hearing we will hear from nominees to the federal reserve board, the department oe housing and urban development of the national credit unione fed administration board as the chairman has already indicated.e during dr. yellen's nomination hearing to chair of the federai reserve, i noted that the turnover of the board by thed. departure of chairman grenadesh, and elvis raskin and duke needed to be dealt with.at the i emphasize again t

mr. johnson and senator johnson and senator crapo are doing, they're taking what is essentially $355 billionis taxpayer money, in the pockets of taxpayer and taking it away from them. that doesn't make any sense. >> return it to the treasury, aren't they? where is it going to go? >> they can't, they, how can you return something to the treasury? basically you're wiping out 200, $190 billion in preferred stock. you're wiping it out. >> who, the preferred stock is largely owned by the taxpayer and some is owned by hedge funds obviously, correct? >> right. no, the senior, the preferred i'm talking about is 100% owned by the taxpayer. the taxpayer invested $190 billion of senior preferred which will become zero in valuethis bill goes through. the taxpayer has warrants which give it 8.2 billion shares in these two companies. the value of that in my view is 155 billion. it will be zero if this bill goes through. >> we obviously need to get those two on their side why they will do it. i'm sure they rationalized we dumped enough money in this morass if we put them out of their misery, fannie and fre

mr. johanns: i ask unanimous consent, madam president, that privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of senate crapo's staff. that would be hope jurkowsky. poeup without objection. mr. johanns: thank you, madam president. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: mr. pryor: madam president, i ask that the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: and i'd ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. all time has expired. under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment

i now turn to ranking member crapo for his opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and welcome, also, chair yellen on your first appearance before this committee as the chair of the federal reserve board of governors. today's hearing is an important opportunity to examine the current state of monetary policy. since your confirmation hearing in november, the fed has begun the process of tapering its quantitative easing purposes. the pace of quantitative easing purchases has come down by $20 billion. this is a welcome development for those of us who