mr. toomey. mr. toomey: mr. president, i want to thank the senator from wyoming for her very constructive leadership in this area and i'll yield at this time to the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i just want to say briefly to my colleague from wyoming and my colleague from pennsylvania and also to our other colleagues who have worked with us over the past week or so to come up with a good approach to this issue that is vexing that we need to figure out how to get this into this legislation. so i support the amendment, of course. i think there's a general consensus that information reporting is a good thing and that particularly for our constituents who every day holders of digital currency, they want to have that reporting in order to be able to pay their taxes properly. the vast majority of them are good hardworking taxpayers who want to get what their basis is or what their information is from a broker just as they would from a stock or bond. what we have done here through this language is ensure that while d

mr. toomey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. toomey: thank you, mr. president. i want to the address an opportunity that we have in this body to fix a flaw in a provision in this infrastructure bill. i want to the thank my colleague from oregon and our colleague from wyoming. the three of us have been working on this. and i really hope we get this done. i'm going to insist on having a voten this. let me just give a little context here. so we're all aware of this new category of assets some would describe as currencies which are also called cryptosceneses. and this is a -- crypto currencies. they've come into the public eye in a much bigger way in recent years. while sometimes we think of this as some kind of unit of value that is traded and has some pretty spectacular volatility. sometimes for me, while that's very interesting, what's much more interesting is the underlying technology and what that might make possible. i'm still trying to understand. i'm still on a steep learning curve about all the possibilities of the distribut

senator toomey: thank you, mr. chairman. this is an intrinsic problem with many kinds of insurance products. flood insurance is no exception. when homeowners and communities are protected from the financials of flooding, all of us being equal, they have less incentive to manage and mitigate that risk. these properties that have repeatedly flooded and repeatedly been rebuilt by nfip money over the years, these properties have had approximately $17 billion in nfip claims over the years. i worry nfip in its current form is not appropriately managing hazards. do you think historically the nfip has the right structure to manage moral hazard, or should we do something differently? >> i think it is pretty clear it has not have the right structure to deal with moral hazard. in my testimony, i highlighted how the subsidies disproportionately go to more wealthy communities, but when you look at the numbers, i found that only 5% of the subsidies go to the lower value, lower wealth communities. it was disproportionately balanced, so we

senator toomey: thank you, mr. chairman. in the last decade, we've seen financial technology companies driving amazing new innovations in financial markets. fin techs have developed technology oriented solutions to meet consumers' needs. as many banks have exited the personal loan market, fin techs have filled the gap and today, they issue nearly 40% of all the unsecured personal loans in america. in recent years, both nationally charted and state charted banks and credit unions have begun to partner with fin techs to offer improved products and reach more customers. this is particularly beneficial for community banks who often lack the resources to develop banking technology. in fact, 65% of community banks consider fin tech partnerships important to their business strategy. and these partnerships also generate significant consumer benefits. bank fin thec partnerships generate efficiencies that can lower the price of financial products, expand consumer choice and increase competition and these bank fin tech partnerships off

mr. chairman. >> thank you, ranking member toomey for your comments. i'll introduce the witnesses. mr. josh stein is attorney general of north carolina, as attorney general he works to protect north carolina families from crime and consumer fraud. he previously served just the -- in the north carolina department of justice. ms. lisa -- the director of state policy at the center for responsible lending. she works with global organizations and lawmakers to eliminate abusive lending and debt collection practices in her state. and also, advocates on the national level on abusive debt collection and debt settlement practices as well as predatory auto and student lending. dr. frederick hanes is a senior pastor, activist and educator in dallas. dr. hanes currently serves as chairman of the board of the samuel dewitt proctor conference, board member of the conference of national black churches and the national action member, and a member of the board of trustees for pall quinn college. mr. brian books is the former acting controller of the currency prior to becoming acting controller he served

toomey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. today we will hear from the occ, fdic, and ncua about their recent regulatory actions. i want to welcome all the witness but especially chairman mcwilliams witches this is a homecoming of sorts as a senior staffer on this committee. throughout the pandemic, i have been encouraged by certain targeted regulatory changes to support the financial system. however, as the pandemic recedes, i am now concerned the biden administration is seeking to use financial regulation to advance social goals unrelated to banking, and its agency heads are contributing to the politicization of banking regulation without providing independent analysis. such a shift would erode the longstanding nonpartisan objective of having independent regulatory agencies. as one example, the administration's executive order, or eo, on climate risks seeks to use financial regulation to further environmental policy objectives. under the guise of assessing risk, the eo directs the regulatory agencies to undertake a range of

mr. toomey: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: madam president, i rise in opposition to the duckworth -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. toomey: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. toomey: thank you, madam president. so i rise in opposition to the duckworth amendment 2140. first of all, i think there's very broad support in this chamber -- and i certainly support the idea that local transit agency meet a.d.a. standards wherever it is possible to do so. of course, transit agencies got a truly massive, staggering amount of money, over about a 12-month period ending in march. so much so that cumulatively they're sitting on something close to $40 billion that they just weren't even able to spend. but despite all that, we dramatically increased the annual run rate of the federal government's contribution to transit agencies, and then on top of that, the bipartisan negotiators agreed to a big one-time plus-up, above and

mr. president. i want to say a few words about the wyden-lummis-toomey amendment that is ready for the senate to vote on tonight. america is at its core a country of innovators. it's written into our d.n.a. it's why we were the first country to develop a computer, land on the moon, and develop the internet. right now our financial system is evolving before our eyes, much in the same way that the internet first began to find a foothold in the mid-1990's. distributed ledgers, digital assets and other forms of financial technology are in the early stages of transforming the way we share and store value. these technologies have the potential, if implemented properly, to create a vast, new economic opportunity, reduce systemic risk in our economy, and provide for faster payments and create a more inclusive financial system. these are principles that all americans can agree on. america has a heritage of being the global leader in financial services, and this has created enor husband wealth -- enormous wealth and opportunity in this nation. but we must be careful not to rest on our laurels. america's leader