senator crapo's amendment on chokepoint. senator: this is the amendment to terminate operation choke point, the department of justice effort to identify disfavored businesses in the united states and try to deprive them of access to financing in our system. one of those industries has been identified as the second amendment industry, the firearms industry. there are others. once they got caught with this, they said we will eliminate our list of bad actors. they say do not make us stop doing this operation. they always could stop, and they can stop fraud in the future. we do not need to allow the operation to continue. chairman: opposition? senator: there areone is going against payday lenders breaking state laws and violating the contract. the second is a situation in california where free credit cards were given out to secure bank numbers and it was stolen out of accounts. >> i remind everybody what the banks said. they said the amendment would in no way inhibit the enforcement of anti-fraud. >> i would offer a counter. the

moving on, will be by senator crapo. sen. crapo: thank you, mr. chairman. this is crapo amendment number two. this is a bipartisan amendment and i want to thank senators warner, corker, and markley for joining me on this amendment. it establishes a scorekeeping rule to ensure that increases in guarantee fees for what has been called gp's of fannie mae and freddie mac shall not be used to offset provisions that increase the deficit. during the senate consideration of fiscal year 2014 budget resolution, a similar amendment was cosponsored by every member of the senate banking committee and was included in the budget resolution by unanimous consent. because the senate and house did not adopt the same budget, the point of order is not part of the senate rules and we need to pass this amendment. the purpose of the guarantee fee is to offset fannie mae and freddie mac credit from defaults. if you use the guarantee fees to offset new spending, you are doubling the revenue. in december of 2011, congress passed a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut that was o

the next amendment, senator crapo's amendment. mr. crapo: i yield to senator warner on this. mr. warner: we should not be using the fees which should be going to support our housing industry as a piggy bank for other programs. it's rare to see we've got bankers, civil rights groups, all aligned. s that fiscally responsible amendment and i urge passage. mr. enzi: any objection to a voice vote? seeing none. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. carried. next one is the murray amendment. ms. murray: this is the amendment that takes the deficit neutral reserve fund provided in section 307 and expands it to allow us to use it for drastically needed issues for our veterans and service members including providing additional job training programs, specialty services importantly caregiver support that i think we all know many of our veterans, aging veterans, need as well, allows them to stay in their homes and work with v.a.'s infrastructure needs which are dramatic and mental health care as well as providing fertility treatment for critically injured veterans who because of their in

next one is by senator crapo. senator crapo: mr. chairman, this is the crapo amendment number 2. this is a bipartisan amendment and i thank senators warner corker and merkley for joining with me on this amendment, which establishes a scorekeeping rule to ensure that increases in guarantee fees of what's been called g-fees shall not be used to off jet provisions to offset the deficit. during the senate consideration of the fiscal year 2014 budget resolution, a similar amendment was co-sponsored by every single member of the senate banking committee and was included in the senate budget resolution by unanimous consent. however, because the senate and house did not adopt the sail budget, the point of order is not part of the senate rules and we need to pass this amendment. the purpose of the guaranteed fee is to offset prospective credit losses from borrower defaults. if you use the fees to offset new spending, then you are doubly counting the revenue. in december of 2011, congress passed a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut that was offset by increasing the g-fees for 10 ye

>> senator crapo. >> i intend to vote for both of these. has he vindicated senator wyden and i have been working together on a solution for the sgi and the wildfire fighting problems we face in the last. this amendment will be very helpful in helping us achieve the resolution of issues. i also agree with chairman would need to dramatically increase timber production in the last and we have unreasonably depressed. i support the chairman's approach to focus on that as well. i want to indicate i will be voting for both of the amendments. >> mr. chairman, i think i would ask for a roll call then. >> okay, roll call vote on the senator wyden amendment. i am told that we vote -- >> now, you've vote on mine first, don't you? >> i have no problem with that. we will vote on yours first. and people can vote how they want. they take us under crapo's approach. the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> are there any wishing to change their vote? seeing none. please report the vote. >> mr. chairman, the yeas are eat team. the n

chairman, by saying that i think the bill senator crapo and i have introduced is not the only answer to what we're going to be dealing with this fire season but it is an important one. another approach that i think makes a great deal of sense is the forest service collaborative forest landscape restoration programs because again these help bring together people of differing political views and the differing philosophies to clear flammable materials from our forests while producing saleable timber for the mills. on the malhure forest in my home state for one the southern blues collaborative project is a real success story. the stewardship contracts there not only help clear the forests of unhealthy snags and hazardous wildfire fuels they help bring the malhure lumber mill back from the brink of closure at least once. so there is an effort at the u.s. department of agriculture to encourage these collaborative partnerships across the country. i want to commend the department of agriculture chief tidwell in particular for these collaboratives because they are vital to the health and vita

i want to thank senator crapo for being willing. and chairman enzi, this creates an opening for us to do this. we do not go programmatically here but you and senator sanders are talking about creating an opening for us to do that and i can mention other natural resources issues as well. i intend to offer an amendment for the land and water conservation fund. they are the legs of a stool that supports the economy of rural oregon and rural america along with agricultural research and i hope our colleagues will support that. but there are some budget issues that are major everywhere you go. for example, health care is a priority. structurally, we understand there is nothing in the budget that is a bigger challenge. we have got to find a way in this budget to tackle something that has been missed by basically everybody in washington, d.c. and that is chronic disease. medicare is no longer about broken ankles. medicare is about cancer and diabetes and stroke and heart disease and i see colleagues here, senator whitehouse has been interes

the next is the crapo amendment. >> thank you mr. chairman. this is relate to the victims of crime fund. essentially this creates a budget point of order to stop congress mugging the victims of crime act and allowing some of the most vulnerable in our society to be protected, instead of continuing to be victimized in their own homes and having congress rob the very fund that is designed to protect them. and i think we can go on a voice vote here. >> acceptable. all in favor say aye. opposed? that amendment has been adopted. senator murray. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this amendment fixes a problem which we all know is coming, which is sequester based on agreement if two years. basically, it makes your defense and nondefense equally. this keeps us out of a giant nightmare this fall that i know is coming at us if we don't deal with it in this budget. i urge your support. >> we do take seriously the call for future legislation regarding possible modifications to budget control act. and we'll take a look at that budget control act right after apri

. >> next amendment by senator crapo. >> thank you, i am bringing crapo amendment one, which most of the februarys of this committee are familiar with. i've brought it the last two times and it's been approved unanimously each time. i hope we get the same result this time. this is the amendment that credit creates a point of order to -- to the crime victim's fund to being used and diverted for other purposes rather han the protection. it's one of the biggest changes in the mandatory spending programs in order tomas k our spending somewhere else by stopping this fund for being utilized for the purposes it was intended. this has $9 billion in it and congress will only allow about 730 million of those to be spent to protect victim of crime. who are we talking about? the most vulnerable. i was the republican sponsor of the violence against women act. the women and children and men who are victims of crime in their own homes are the ones being deprived of access to these funds by congress, which wants to use these funds for another purpose. these are not taxpayer dollars. these do not add

>> senator crapo. >> mr. chairman, not rebuttal. it was support. i just want to thank senator widen for this amendment and if work he does to help us deal with these problems with the secure rural schools and pilt funding. i appreciate working with him on this and hope we can pass in amendment unanimously. >> no. do we know when the vote is going to be? at noon. okay. i think we can go ahead and vote on sessions number one, sanders number one, grassley number one and sanders number two and that will give us some time to work on the others so that we can do those after the vote. sessions number one, sanders number one. grassley number one. and sanders number two. >> could you also just -- without raising new revenue? >> yeah, yeah, okay. i trust you. >> if everybody's got their materials, i'll call up sessions number one. gets 30 seconds. the other side gets 30 seconds. i think i can see confusion on both sides. unless there's an objection we'll start the votes after. and we'll have a little lunch break that includes that time of voting. hopefully e

i think senator crapo for yielding to me. it's been 15 years congress has been take hundreds of millions of dollars in the federal law should be going to victims of the most tremendous crime sex assault, domestic violence other crimes and not using money for the benefit of the guns despite the fact the law requires you it's outrageous. i'm enthusiastically supporting senator crapo. from 2010 to 2014 the fund collected $12 billion not from taxpayers some of that convicted criminals and gave the big as

i think senator crapo for yielding to me. it's been 15 years congress has been take hundreds of millions of dollars in the federal law should be going to victims of the most tremendous crime sex assault, domestic violence other crimes and not using money for the benefit of the guns despite the fact the law requires you it's outrageous. i'm enthusiastically supporting senator crapo. from 2010 to 2014 the fund collected $12 billion not from taxpayers some of that convicted criminals and gave the big as 2.6 billion of that. this is outrageous senator crapo is exactly right and i'm proud to cosponsor. >> a few seconds left. senator ayotte. >> i would like to ask my colleagues comment. thank you. rebuttal? >> as senator crapo mentioned, i suspect many of my colleagues will support this amendment. that i did want to add to it that if we are serious about helping the unsubscribe as i suppose all of us are we would not be voting for a budget that slashes funding to the program. .. democrats and republicans across the country have sai

so what senator crapo and i with as i have indicated a large bipartisan coalition of senators are seeking to do is to end that kind of fire borrowing, and what we're proposing is that the biggest fires, perhaps the 1% of the fires that really turn into infernos, you would fight those mr. president, from the disaster fund because they really are in fact disasters. and we have received an analysis from the budget officials indicating that this would really be a wash from a budgeting standpoint, because in effect while you do spend a bit of money from the disaster fund putting out these infernos, you also generate some real savings from the prevention fund by not having as many fires in the first place. so mr. president what our bipartisan amendment will do later when we intend to offer it is to give the departments of agriculture and interior the opportunity to access the disaster funds for that 1% of the fires that really comes apart, that can really break a community apart. and it seems to me that americans across the country who live in communities where there are these fires they deserv

senator crapo's amendment. >> mr. chairman, this is the amendment to terminate operation chokepoint. this is a program by the department of justice and financial regulators to identify favor businesses in the united states, totally legal businesses, but disfavored by them and try to deprive them of access to financing in our financial system. one of the industries identified as the second amendment industry. firearms and ammunition industry. there are others. once they got caught with this company said we we will eliminate our list of bad act yours and now they say don't make us stop doing this operation because we can't stop. the fact is they could always stop fraud before and they can stop fraud in the future. we don't need to allow this operation to continue. >> opposition? >> two high-profile examples about the operation is done. one is against payday lenders using on my numbers and breaking state laws and violating payday loan contracts. second is the situation in california where credit cards are given out over

we need a tax code echoing what senator crapo said. what it is going to take is a willingness to say it can't be sacred. but i also know that this business plan for our country -- there are certain things government does that the private sector doesn't do -- education, infrastructure, research and development. this business plan for america cuts those investments by $236 billion beyond even sequestration. that would take from our share of revenues 9% goes into those categories down to about 6%. i spent 20 years in investment business and i have never invested in an enterprise that spent 6% of revenues on its workforce, its plant and equipment. education, infrastructure, research and development. i, for one, have stood up and can assure you, mr. chairman, that you have not only been at the end of a bernie sanders talk -- i have been on the end of many bernie sanders talks. the mandatory programs can't be on autopilot. i want to echo what mr. crapo said -- many of you on the other side have backgrounds in business and i just don't get th

senator crapo and i set aside politics so we could pass that bill. that's what we should do today. madam president i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. sessions: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: madam president i appreciate the work our colleagues have done -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. sessions: i would ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: i appreciate the work that my colleagues have done on this trafficking bill and it's an important issue that deserves debate and a vote. madam president i'll tell you why i believe the lynch nomination should not go forward. i think it is a very important reason and unfortunately it's one that i think congress has got to address. in their wisdom, our founders gave congress certain powers as a coequal branch of government, and one of those powers was the power to confirm our not confirm nominees. long before ms. lynch's

senator crapo followed by senator whitehouse. cnet thank you mr. chairman and i join with those who thank you for bringing forward a budget. as we all know it's difficult to create a budget in the circumstances we face right now in the united states could i believe you have done a very good job. this is a budget that balances budget that as important reforms that will improve the processes by which congress operates. it's a budget that contemplates addressing those concerns that it has been raised about our burgeoning health care costs. the budget to contemplate reform on our tax code that we need to make america more competitive and to generate those jobs we all agree are necessary to keep our economy strong and i commend you for that. remarkably we are still debating in washington a budget crisis. although there has been lipservice to the question as to whether or not we have a crisis, the fact is those who say we have gotten past that make the case that we have reduced the deficit by 66% in the last five or six years. what they don't point out i

there is a bipartisan effort that i, senator crapo, a big group of westerners are part of, big group in the house is part of. tell us how you feel the increased budget certainty provided by this restructuring would help you. as you know we got a favorable score from the budget office because it really shows how valuable it is to preserve the prevention fund because it means you're going to have fewer disasters, but how would this increased budget certainty be of value to your agency, madam secretary? >> senator, thank you for your leadership. the bill that you put out there with senator crapo and the companion bill with representatives simpson and schrader, we're fully supportive of those efforts. we have in this budget about $200 million of a total $13.2 billion amount that is part of the wildfire funding cap. it would take the top 1% of catastrophic wildfires and put them off as the disasters they really are, coming out of the disaster funding cap that wean able us to work with tribes, work with land management agencies to do the important prevention and restoration work to prevent

tom: i was in senator crapo's office and he had a potato on the shelf. we'll talk more about this. i think it's important. let's continue celebration of our coverage of an important book. john chancellor's force for good. with us, robert -- john taft's "force for good." with us, robert shiller and charles ellis. charles, you have the most wall street chapter. what would you like in terms of leadership from goldman sachs on bringing good to capitalism? charles: i like what i've seen let's start right there. lloyd blankfein is one smart cookie. everyone underestimates him until they get to know him right -- quite well. he has the concept of what he must do before he retires. he has put goldman sachs back on the right track and that a lot of things to make that happen. tom: at the heart of this in the endless conference calls you have been on is bringing compensation from revenue metrics down from the income statement to some form of profit metrics or profit ratios. are you optimistic we can achieve that? charles: i'm always optimistic. you've got to watch

crapo's amendment. >> i will yield to senator warper. >> republicans supported it. we should not be using the fees going to support our industry as a piggy bank for other programs. it's rare to see a group where you have bankers all aligned. this is a fiscally responsible amendment and i would urge passage. >> any objection? >> seeing none all those in favor say aye. opposed. carried. next one is the murray amendment. >> this is the amendment that takes the deficit neutral reserve fund provided in section 307 and allows us to use some drastically needed issue for our veterans and service members including providing additional job training programs, specialty services importantly care giver support that i think we all know that many of our veterans aging veterans need as well. allows them to stay in their homes and work with v.a.'s infrastructure needs which are dramenty and mental health care as well as providing fertility treatment for our critically injured veterans who can no longer have families. i think it's important to expand this fund to make sure we address

passing the bipartisan legislation that senator crapo and i have authored is urgent. and i also feel that funding for agricultural research is another vital tool for giving rural communities a chance to get ahead. each dollar that goes into agricultural research will be far outstripped by the value created in crops and crop lands. i was told just recently, madam president, by wheat farmers in eastern oregon that investing in agricultural research is going to give them and people all through eastern oregon a better chance to get ahead and be more successful with their farms. now i want to make mention of the important of low-income and middle-class tax challenge. we ought to make the tax cuts for middle-class and low-income americans permanent. there is a very big tax looming in 2018 unless the congress moves to prevent it. millions of families in oregon and across the nation depend on the expansion of the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, and the american opportunity tax credit. these are all set to expire madam president. and the longer families sit in

the second amendment i wish to raise is a bipartisan measure 636, filed along with senators crapo and king, dealing with consumer data security. recently we've seen major data breaches that have affected hundreds of millions of american consumers, those who shopped at target and home depot have accounts at j.p. morgan chase. in the aftermath of the target breach working with senator kirk, we recommended various industry groups in the private sector coordinate on information sharing to ward off data thieves. with continuous advances in technology, it's vitally important that we continue to strengthen our efforts to protect consumers from cyber crime by enacting smart targeted protections. our bipartisan amendment simply recognizes that we need to provide reasonable notification to consumers when thairl -- their personal information is compromised and encourage greater cooperation in the private sector to safeguard that data. i urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan amendment. finally i'd like to introduce a third amendment number 638 along with my colleague senator ayotte that m

democrats alike supported in this body we passed the violence against women act last congress the leahy-crapo bill. it's the same language the house passed the republican-controlled house passed and the president signed into law two years ago. last year as chairman of the senate judiciary committee i moved this legislation through committee and senator grassley and senator cornyn to their credit and almost every republican on the judiciary committee voted for it. if these protections are is central for adult victims of domestic and sexual violence, why shouldn't they be for children? no one should be discriminated against, especially not these vulnerable children who have already faced more adversity than many of us will ever know. mr. president, we as senators lead a privileged and sheltered life. we work hard but it's still a privileged and sheltered life. we're not facing these children children scared, lonely, vulnerable child at a busstop or trying to get somebody to buy them a pizza because they're hungry or looking for a place where they can sleep out of the cold. we're never going to