ms. landrieu: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. ms. snowe: mr. president, i now yield the remainder of the time to senator brown. it is regrettable since this is an important issue, that wouldn't couldn't have more time until then on this key issue. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to begin by expressing my support for what senator snowe has been doing and for the e.d.a. reauthorization bill. i applaud the committee for producing a good and comprehensive bill, and as you know, these e.d.a. grants provide vital resources not only for massachusetts' economic development and businesses but also other states throughout the country, to help communities get back on their feet in this tough economic climate. for that reason, the reauthorization of this is incredibly important, and i would encourages that it be done so, i rise to speak about two amendments on this bill that affect the abilit stability of r small business, senator snowe's amendment is one that i have consistently supporte

ms. landrieu and myself, all with experiences in housing and the marketplace. we put it in because the original dodd-frank legislation said that people making mortgages were going to have to hold risk retention of 5% in that mortgage, which basically would put most everybody in the mortgage business out of the mortgage business except a handful of people. we put in the qualified residential mortgage the specific per am terse by which a mortgage could be exempt from risk retention which were a down payment of at least 20% or if the down payment was less than that it had to carry private mortgage insurance to ensure the effect of an 80% loan. second qualified ratios that demonstrated the couple could pay back the mortgage under any reasonable assumption. third, the house had to appraise. fourth the creditworthiness of the individual had to demonstrate they could pay for the mortgage. those are all the reasonable underwriting criteria that existed before the financial collapse of the mid 2006-2007. the rule that was proposed by the six regulators which now they ha

ms. landrieu: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the roll call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. ms. landrieu: and i also ask unanimous consent that the period of morning business be extended until 3:30 with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. ms. landrieu: thank you, madam president. i rise to come to the floor today to bring to the senate's attention and to the congress's attention a great challenge that we have before us relative to the budget of the department of homeland security and, frankly, it is a challenge facing the entire budget of the united states, and that challenge, madam president, is to make sure that we have enough funding in the disaster emergency account to cover the multitude of disasters that have taken place this year, just since january, as well as those that we are still recovering from some years in the past. i'd like to put up a chart, if i could, just to show in dramatic