mr. merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: madam president, i rise to praise my colleague from rhode island for producing this amendment. i look forward to seeing it filed. i certainly am honored to be able to cosponsor it. i thought i would share with him a story that goes back to my days as a member of the oregon legislature. when i came into the oregon legislature, i had a lot of folks in my house district saying wouldn't you do something about payday lending and other high interest lending? how is it possibly reasonable to have payday loans, which are secured by the next paycheck at over 500% interest, and how is it reasonable or fair that i'm being lent money through my credit card at 25% or 30% when the interest i'm earning is just 1% or 2%? and i had no good answer for why it was fair, because it wasn't fair. it wasn't right. and so i proceeded to start working on this issue. and when i went down to legal counsel, they advised me, well, representative merkley, it works like this: you can at the state level apply

mr. merkley: mr. president, tonight we had a vote in which 57 members of this body said we should proceed to have a full debate and votes on issues related to wall street and main street. 57, far more than a majority, said it is time for us to come to this floor, now well more than a year after our bubble economy burst, and wrestle with the right rules of the road and lay markers for our financial system. but, unfortunately, mr. president, 57 votes are not enough. we need additional votes from our colleagues across the aisle in order to have that debate on this floor. we need additional votes from our colleagues across the aisle to consider what the lay markers should be and what the traffic signals should be in a financial regulatory system. but tonight we did not get those votes. instead, tonight my colleagues across the aisle said they do not want a debate in public on how to reform wall street. they want a conversation behind closed doors instead. quite frankly, i don't think the american people a

mr. merkley: thank you very much. i'll just close and say that this bill must get done because we have a responsibility to restore foundations for our nation. thank you, madam president. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: madam president, let me first thank the senator from oregon for his remarks. he has brought great passion for this issue to the senate. he serves with distinction on the banking committee. and i could not agree with him more that the spectacle of colleagues scampering up to wall street to offer their services there and interfering with obstructing, watering down and impeding of all things, financial regulatory reform, after all we have been through, is not a spectacle that is salutary. and i appreciate his remarks on that. i ask unanimous consent that jordan dimaggio of senator bingaman's office be given the privileges of the floor for today, april 20, 2010. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. whitehouse: mr. preside

mr. merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: madam president, i thank the chairman of the banking committee for the time to address an issue that i think is essential in this bill and for all the good work that he has done to bring this reform bill to the floor of the u.s. senate. it really is time that we have an open debate on the floor of the u.s. senate about provisions that affect the financial foundations of our entire economy. and i know the chair has been working hard. we've been holding the vote yesterday to try to proceed with an open debate. we're going to be holding another vote today, i believe another vote tomorrow, to say let us have this conversation about reforming wall street. today, though, i want to address a particular point which is limiting the ability of high-risk investors to blow up our economy. my colleague and friend, senator levin, did a monumental service to this institution today by holding a hearing with the executives of the large investment firm goldman sachs discussing practices that mi

mr. chairman. >> merkley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for your testimony. i just came back from doing six town hall meetings, traveling around oregon, rural or again, and as i went to each community, either spoke to teachers of the town hall or held a special meeting with educators. the most concern that came up the most often was that the revision for rewriting this program misses the mark in terms of its emphasis on grant applications. just rural schools saying, i am the superintendent and principal and the only administrator and i am writing some grants now, but only a small chance of getting them and i can only afford to do that once or twice. we know we will be out competed by professional grant writers administrators, administrative teams at larger school districts. we will just have to give up, if you will. they talked about an alternative model where each -- is essentially a goal is laid out, for example, maybe it is better data management of testing so you can track a student's progress year to year to year and a school wants to sign up to do it, t

mr. merkley: madam president, thank you for letting me speak tonight, and i am pleased to be here with my colleague from eafnlg i also wasn't planning to come to the floor to talk about this tonight, but -- because i thought the vote was going to passments i thought this was -- this is called a motion to proceed, and around here that is senatefeck for a motion to not get -- that is senatespeak for a motion to not get anything done. it is particularly aggravating because i was back in colorado this weekend, as i am every weekend, traveling the state and had the chance to see the tv friments. from time to time. you couldn't so aturn on a tv station without seeing some politician talking about the importance of getting this work done. democrats and republicans. people take the time out of other weekend to say to the american people we're working hard to try to correct the problems that led us into the worst recession since the great depression. then we all get back to town on monday and we don't get anything done. we take a vote not on the bill but a vote that would just allow us to debate t