Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on H.R. 26, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program. I thank Senator Crapo, and I appreciate and enjoy the relationship we have had over the last 8 years since I joined the banking committee. He was already a relatively veteran member of that committee and very knowledgeable and very straightforward and fair. I appreciate his work, especially on this legislation. I support the reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, and I did not want it to expire in December. Many of us on both sides of the aisle in the Senate worked to try to get this reenacted in December. Unfortunately, because of partisan games in the House of Representatives, it didn't happen. But that is why I voted for TRIA reauthorization, S. 2244, in the banking committee last June. I supported the bill that the full Senate passed in July by a strong vote of 93 to 4. S. 2244 made important reforms to TRIA in order to gain bipartisan support, but it still provided long-term certainty in the marketplace. What was unfortunate was that last fall the House Republicans were unable to embrace the Senate bill--similar to immigration, if you will--that had broad bipartisan support. They waited until the last days of the last Congress to engage the Senate in an effort to reauthorize TRIA. The situation could be dangerous if it is unauthorized. Fortunately, we will be able to move today and get this to the President pretty quickly and at least protect our cities and our communities and our people. While the TRIA provisions the House and Senate eventually agreed on went further than I would have liked, they represent a compromise-- something we obviously don't see enough around here these days. Ultimately, though, the swap end-user provision that was added by House leadership to the TRIA bill at the last moment was not a compromise. It was moving in a different direction. It was a weakening of Dodd-Frank. It was not the way this Congress or any Congress should enact legislation and should proceed. That end-user provision did not go through regular order in the Senate. The committee held no hearings and no markups to consider its merits or its demerits. This bill was never brought to the Senate floor to be debated. That is what people, whether in Florida or Idaho or Ohio, are unhappy about--legislation that needs to pass, things for which there is strong, bipartisan, across-the-board, almost unanimous support, and then special interest groups get provisions in that don't belong there that were not debated and never discussed. Unlike TRIA, the swap end-user provision is controversial and overrides regulators' proposed rules. It prevents future regulatory flexibility. It allows another avenue for derivatives risk to build up in the financial system. These actions of inserting this provision in legislation with overwhelming, almost unanimous support--adding these kinds of provisions simply doesn't work for our system. It is not the way we should be legislating. It begs the question, Did we learn nothing less than a decade ago? We know what happened to our financial system. The greed on Wall Street and the pain it caused on Main Street in Boise, Pocatello, Columbus, and Cleveland was pretty hard to measure. The financial crisis exposed risks in all areas of the market, and the provisions in Wall Street reform target dangerous exposure in the system by strengthening protections using clearing and margin requirements. Under Wall Street Reform, commercial end users are exempt from clearing requirements, and regulators have provided them with accommodations from margin requirements, recognizing the business- related need of the companies. The end-user legislation added to the TRIA bill goes above and beyond the existing law and the existing rulemaking and could tie regulators' hands in the future if excessive risks were to develop, thus exposing the financial system and taxpayers to more harm. In just one example that this end-user provision could cut both ways, 2 days before Christmas Reuters reported that ``major U.S. airlines including Delta and Southwest are rushing to finance losing bets on oil and revamp fuel hedges as tumbling crude prices leave them with billions of dollars in losses, according to people familiar with the hedging schemes.'' We know most of us are thrilled with the price of gasoline at the pump going significantly below $2 a gallon. We know there are other people who are a little bit less thrilled, as this story illustrates with Delta and Southwest. We know the economy of Texas and North Dakota have had problems because oil revenues declined. We know all of that, but we also know that when you enact provisions such as this that aren't debated and aren't discussed, that haven't had hearings, there could be unforeseen consequences. Less than 7 years after the financial crisis, we shouldn't forget the risks involved. Let's not forget the impact of the financial crisis on consumers, investors, taxpayers, and the financial system as a whole. What we do here has impact in Omaha and in Cleveland, and it is important that we really understand what we are doing by going through regular orders. Slipping this provision in the TRIA bill is just the latest Republican effort to roll back Wall Street reform. In December, we know the same cast of characters attached an effective repeal of section 716, the Lincoln amendment, to the end-of- the-year spending bill. Yesterday they tried--and thankfully failed--to pass a bill consisting of 11 smaller bills that included attempts to weaken a number of important Dodd-Frank provisions. I don't like the way this has been done today. I want to see TRIA pass. We have seen this movie before. We will keep seeing it over and over again. This seems to be the new Wall Street playbook. It seems to be the new Republican playbook. I hope it is not the Senate leadership's playbook, where you take a bill that most people like, that has pretty much overwhelming support, is a must-pass bill, and you help Wall Street and Wall Street lobbyists get provisions in, and they can weaken consumer protections. Consumer protections rules on Wall Street will keep Wall Street safer so we don't have to have another Federal bailout. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN. Senator Durbin is right about that. Madam President, before putting us in a quorum call, I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided between both sides.

Mr. BROWN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, how much time is left on both sides?

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from New York. I thank him for his leadership for a number of years on this bill and the hard work he did leading up to December to try to get this passed before the unfortunate response of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, and I thank him for his leadership.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I will be no more than 3 minutes. I wish to make a short response to my friend from Idaho that the issue here is more about process than substance. We have slight disagreement on substance, partly from the delta issue. I understand the farmer and rancher in Idaho and the farmer in Ohio and the importance of managing risks. I was also a bit amused by the examples he used of manufacturers, those same manufacturers who came in front of our committee that produce beer or soft drinks that were paying more for their metals, for their aluminum cans because of the overreach in some commodities from some Wall Street firms. But this is not the time to debate that. The issue is really the process of this change. I was part of legislation with Senator Collins and with Senator Johanns in the last session. It was a lengthy process. Senator Crapo supported our efforts in committee and beyond. It was a slight change to Dodd-Frank. It was a change that we did cautiously. We made agreements and compromises. We brought in Sheila Bair, who had helped in some of the crafting of the language with the Collins amendment. We worked with her, we worked with Senator Collins, we worked with Senator Johanns, and I started the process. Senator Collins became the lead sponsor of it--the compromise through hearings in both Houses and hearings in the Senate banking committee. There were discussions in both Houses. We eventually came to that agreement with a free-standing bill. That is the way this should be done. I would be happy to have a debate on the end-user provision with Senator Crapo, Senator Shelby, and the rest of us. Then we come to a conclusion, we get compromise, and we move forward. The lesson, before Senator Coats gives his comments, is let's do this in the future the way we did--Senator Collins, Senator Brown, and Senator Johanns last year, and do this right so all sides can be represented, we come to a compromise, and the stand-alone bill goes to the President. That is the way this should have been done, and I am hopeful that is the way it will be done in the future. I yield the floor to Senator Crapo and Senator Coats.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I thank the Democratic whip for his comments. I was part of a group, with Senator Leahy, Senator Whitehouse, and Senator Flake, who worked on this. The credit overwhelmingly goes to Congressman Van Hollen and Senator Durbin and Senator Leahy in the negotiations and discussions the administration had. It was so important. I also appreciate the opportunity to be a cosponsor of Senator Durbin's resolution. I mentioned to him that one of the most intriguing and most admirable things Pope Francis has said as he travels the world and ministers to the poor and talks to his flock--one day he exhorted his parish priests to go out and smell like the flock--a good admonition to all of us to make sure to go out and know how people live their lives so that we can minister to them and govern this country better. So I appreciate Senator Durbin's words.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, in his first legislative message to the 89th Congress in 1965, 50 years ago I believe this month, President Johnson laid out what would become a key marker in the legislative fight for Medicare and Medicaid. Ultimately, the bill was passed in July 1965. President Johnson signed it in Independence, MO, I believe at the home of former President Truman. President Johnson, in his legislative message to the House and Senate in 1965 said: In this century, medical scientists have done much to improve human health and prolong human life. Yet as these advances come, vital segments of our population are being left behind--behind barriers of age, economics, geography or community resources. Today, the political community is challenged to help all our people surmount these needless barriers to the enjoyment of the promise and reality of better health. Fifty years later we have made historic improvements to our health care system, thanks in large part to a couple of things: No. 1, medical research, funded both by taxpayers and often by drug companies, foundations, universities, and others; and No. 2, because of social insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Before the passage of Medicare--listen to these numbers--30 percent of our Nation's seniors lived below the poverty line, only half our Nation's seniors--at this time 50 years ago, early in 1965, had health insurance, and insurance usually only covered visits to the hospital in those days. Now, thanks to Medicare, 54 million seniors and people with disabilities have access to guaranteed health care benefits. Let me share a letter a constituent named Donald, from Toledo, OH, wrote to me last Congress, when the House of Representatives threatened to turn Medicare into a voucher program as part of its budget proposal. Donald wrote: Thank you for your efforts to keep Medicare from being privatized. At the age of 63, I am going to be eligible for Medicare before too long and looking at the affordability of health care is critical. If Medicare is privatized, we will not be able to afford it any more than we can afford private insurance today. That is the whole point. The reason there is a government health care program, the reason there is social insurance, is because people, as in 1965, only half the people in the country had any kind of health insurance. It is a little disconcerting to know that after working all our lives and living comfortably, that in our retirement years we will either have to try to find full-time employment to be in a position of affording Medicare, privatized Medicare. I am sure I don't need to tell you how difficult finding a job is these days when you are an older citizen. I know normally I am writing you from the opposing side, but this time we definitely see eye to eye. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 150 or 160 years ago, said that history has always been a fight between conservators and innovators. There is a legitimate place in society for both, creating the tension that moves our country one way or the other. Conservators want to protect the status quo. They want to preserve privilege and want to hold on to their wealth. Conservators fundamentally don't believe the government should be involved in ensuring a decent standard of living. Innovators--what we might call today progressives--understand our society is only as strong as its most vulnerable members. If we go back to the key congressional votes--the key congressional votes, not necessarily final passage--to advance debate of a Medicare bill in 1965, most Republicans voted no. Then it was the John Birch Society that opposed it. Today, 50 years later, it is the tea party that opposes social insurance. Some of the most privileged interest groups in Washington opposed the creation of Medicare. But they were wrong. As I said earlier, 30 percent of seniors lived below the poverty line prior to Medicare. Medicare helped to cut the poverty rate in half by 1973, only 8 years after its passage. We see the same attacks today. Budgets proposed in the House of Representatives over the past several years have tried to dismantle Medicare, by and large by privatized vouchers, to help offset the cost of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. They would privatize the program and undermine its guaranteed benefits. Ohio's seniors have worked hard, they have paid into Medicare, and they deserve a program that truly meets their health care needs. They deserve better than the underfunded voucher that would put them at the mercy of the private insurance industry. Thankfully, we have been able to block this plan in the Senate. We will continue to do that. Interestingly, the Affordable Care Act has provided significantly enhanced benefits for Medicare beneficiaries. In my State alone more than 1 million Ohio seniors have gotten free--meaning no copay, no deductible--preventive care benefits under the Affordable Care Act. If you are on Medicare and your doctor prescribes an annual physical or asks that you be given an osteoporosis screening, a diabetes screening--all the things doctors order for their patients for preventive care--those are provided under the Affordable Care Act and under Medicare, no copays, no deductible. Many of the efforts to privatize and voucherize Medicare mean taking away preventive care, taking away prescription drug protections added to Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. Others want to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. I was in Youngstown, OH, a couple of years ago at a townhall. A woman stood up and said: I hold two jobs, and I am barely making it. I think the two jobs were close to minimum wage, so she was probably making $8 an hour in one and $8.50 in the other. She was a home care worker and doing something else. She had tears in her eyes. She said: I am 63 years old. I need to stay alive until I can get health insurance. This was maybe 5 years before we passed the health care law. Imagine being 63 years old and your goal in life is just to find a way to stay alive so you can have health insurance. Some geniuses in the House and maybe in the Senate think it is a good idea to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. Just because we dress like this and have jobs that aren't all that physical other than walking back and forth from our offices to the floor, just because we have this kind of lifestyle and just because we are privileged enough to get to dress like this and get paid well and get to do these incredibly privileged jobs as Members of the Senate--there are a whole lot of people in this country whose bodies won't last until they are 67. They can't work until they are 67 to get Medicare. They are working at Walmart, standing on floors all day, they are home care workers, they are working at fast food restaurants, they are construction workers. Both my wife's parents died before the age of 70 in large part because of the work they did, the kind of heavy, strenuous work, and the chemicals they were exposed to and all that. So when I hear my colleagues propose to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67--and I know they say we can't sustain these entitlements, whatever that means. What they really want to do is raise the eligibility age. To raise the eligibility age for Medicare to 67, they need to take Abraham Lincoln's advice. His staff wanted him to stay in the White House and win the war, free the slaves, and preserve the Union. President Lincoln said: No. I need to go out and get my public opinion bath. What did he mean by that? He meant: I have to go out and talk to people. So when I hear Senators say they want to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67--whether they are in Gallipolis or Troy or Zanesville, OH--when I hear people say they want to raise the retirement age or the Medicare eligibility age--what I think when I hear Senators say that is they are not out talking to real people. We know we can do a number of things to improve and strengthen these programs so future generations can continue to move into retirement years with a sense of security. Last Congress I was an original cosponsor of the Medicare Protection Act, which would make it difficult for Congress to make changes that would reduce or eliminate guaranteed benefits or restrict eligibility criteria for Medicare beneficiaries. With several of my Senate colleagues, I will submit a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, a reminder that these programs must be protected, not weakened, not rolled back, not undercut, not privatized, not voucherized--if that is a word--a reminder that all these programs must be strengthened. As we move forward in protecting social insurance, we should remember President Johnson's words when speaking to the House and the Senate 50 years ago: Whatever we aspire to do together, our success in those enterprises--and our enjoyment of the fruits that result--will rest finally upon the health of our people.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I think it is important to understand that TRIA is legislation that we need, which is the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. We passed a bill with only two or three ``no'' votes in the Senate last year. But what the House of Representatives has done looks like what they will probably do in the future: They have taken legislation which is really important to the country, which passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis, and they have loaded on to that legislation extraneous provisions. Frankly, that is what people in this country are tired of--when legislation that must pass and has overwhelming support is about to pass, special interest groups come and add their language to it. That is exactly what happened here. If the House of Representatives gets its way, if Wall Street gets its way, it is the first step to begin to slice away at the Dodd-Frank legislation. When I hear a number of my colleagues in this body and down the hall in the House of Representatives say they support progrowth policies and deregulation, what they are saying is they want to roll back the protections for consumers in Dodd-Frank, the Wall Street reform bill, and they want to weaken the provisions in the rules that govern Wall Street behavior. I don't quite understand it because what I do understand is less than a decade ago, because of Wall Street greed, because of Wall Street overreach, because this body and the body down the hall weakened the rules on Wall Street, and because the previous administration appointed regulators who would really look the other way, we had terrible damage done to our economy. About a mile north of the ZIP Code I live in in Cleveland had the highest number of foreclosures of any ZIP Code in the United States of America because of deregulation, because of Bush appointees to many of the bank regulatory bodies. So I caution my colleagues, as we accept this legislation, the TRIA legislation--and I assume we will--to understand that is not going to be behavior that we are going to sanction in the Senate, where they take must-pass legislation and they find ways to attach to this legislation rollback of consumer protections and weakening of Wall Street rules. That is what got us into this. We can't let these special interests who have so much power in the House of Representatives, who have so much influence in the House of Representatives--we can't let them have their way on legislation like this. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, the Senator from Hawaii be recognized.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor one of my best friends in the Senate and a long-time public servant whom I greatly admire, John D. Rockefeller IV. In 1964, in Athens, OH, President Johnson went to Ohio University, and he said: Poverty hides its face behind a mask of affluence. But I call upon you to help me to get out there and unmask it, take that mask off of that face of affluence and let the world see what we have, and let the world do something about it. Several months later, John D. Rockefeller IV, 27 years old, came to West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer. Well-educated and well-connected, Jay Rockefeller could have chosen any career he wanted. But to him, it was about public service. This year marks Jay's 50th year in public service. He found himself in Emmons, WV. Emmons, WV, is a small town. Jay didn't shy away. Jay didn't keep his distance. He wanted to know the people he was going to be working with, and he set out to do that. For 2 years, he worked alongside the people of Emmons for accessible health care, for education, for opportunities. His work included dismantling and moving a condemned elementary school from a neighboring town onto a flatbed truck, and establishing it in Emmons as a community center. Jay never forgot that, Jay, who in this Chamber sits across the aisle from me at this desk. I was sitting here 2 weeks ago and Jay was talking about Emmons. He said going to Emmons--and I will quote from his farewell speech 2 weeks ago to the Senate: That set my moral compass and gave me direction. Where everything in my real life began. Where I learned how little I knew about the problems people face. I was humbled by that lesson. He went on to say: My time in Emmons was transformative. It explains every policy I pursued and every vote I have cast. It was where my beliefs were bolted down. And where my passion met my principle. Fifty years ago, Jay learned those lessons. For 50 years, as a VISTA volunteer, as a State legislator, as the Secretary of State, as the Governor of West Virginia, and as a Senator for 3 decades from West Virginia, he learned those beliefs. They were bolted down, and he practiced those beliefs. In 1966, he was elected to the West Virginia House. Two years later, Jay had an opportunity that most people I know would not have refused. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated--the Senator from New York at that time. In June of 1968, the Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller-- Jay Rockefeller's uncle--offered that appointment to the U.S. Senate to Jay Rockefeller. The Governor offered that position to Jay Rockefeller, and his answer to his uncle was: No, thank you. I want to earn a seat some day in the U.S. Senate. That is what Jay set out to do. He reminded us a few weeks ago: Important undertakings can't be halfhearted. You have to commit your whole self--almost like pushing a heavy rock uphill. With both of your hands you push, because if you let up for a split second with either hand, you and the rock go tumbling backwards into the abyss. Jay had a chance to prove that in this body over 20 years ago. He pushed that rock uphill to fight to protect retired coal miners' promised health care benefits. It is easy for Members of this Senate who have good titles, who are well paid, who dress like this, who don't really need to go out and listen to the public very much, to forget people like union coal miners or nonunion coal miners. He called this ``the greatest moment of my career.'' Jay threatened to keep the Senate in session. He was going to do whatever it took--22 years ago, over Christmas, over New Year's, whatever it took--to make sure his colleagues didn't leave town before passing the 1992 Coal Act. Because of his legislation, more than 200,000 coal miners and their families have kept the benefits they were promised. He spearheaded efforts to ensure workplace safety. I have talked to Jay after coal-mining disasters when miners are killed in one of the most treacherous, difficult, and dangerous jobs we can imagine. I can see the pain in his face because he knows people who work in the mines and he has listened to them. When Lincoln's staff wanted him to stay in the White House and win the war and free the slaves and preserve the Union, Lincoln used to say, I have to go out and get my public opinion bath. That is what Jay did. A son and grandson of privilege, Jay understood that he served the public best when he got his public opinion bath and when he went out and listened to people. He fought against unfair trade practices, and he fought against tax policies that shipped jobs overseas. He reinvigorated the steel caucus, fighting for an industry that clearly has been victimized by unfair trade practices. Most importantly in Jay's career--and the thing I think he is most proud of--was another lesson he learned in Emmons, WV. He learned that many of the community school-aged children had never been to a doctor, they had never seen a dentist before because their families simply didn't have the money. Because of that, Jay made accessible, affordable health care for children part of his lifelong mission. He believes that health care is a right and not a privilege. He championed Medicaid expansion, and he championed this new health care law. It has Jay Rockefeller's fingerprints all over it. That is why hundreds of thousands of people in my State are grateful to Jay Rockefeller, because hundreds of thousands of people in Ohio now have health insurance who didn't have it before. Hundreds of thousands of families have benefited for a couple of decades because their children had health insurance. Again, this is because of Jay Rockefeller. In 1997, he devoted much of his time and career at that point to help write the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP. Because of CHIP, 8 million children across this country--some of them in Emmons, WV, and some of them in my hometown of Mansfield, OH--now have access to health care, health care that they would not have otherwise. He continues that fight always on health care. I want to close with this. I have seen a lot of Senators come and go. I have seen a lot of Members come and go. I have seen a lot of public officials come and go. There can be a shortage of humility in these jobs. As Members of the House and Members of the Senate, sometimes we are a little puffed up about our titles and about the power that many of us have, and we are caught up in the way we are treated. People are often obsequious to Members in Congress, and all of that. What stands out to me--it is even more remarkable when you consider his family and what he came from--is Jay Rockefeller's humility. Here is the best example, I think. I found out almost by accident what Jay, as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, would do regularly during his time in the Senate is he would send all the staff away, he would send the press away, and he would go to someone's home or community center or rec center or labor hall and he would sit with a number of veterans and listen to their stories. He would take notes and help those individually who might need help. Most importantly, he was listening to their stories. It reminds me of another story from Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's staff watched him, during one of his public opinion baths, talk to a number of people who were pushing him on something that mattered to them personally. His staff wanted to send them away. Lincoln said, ``No, I am not going to do that.'' Then Lincoln said--about these people who were talking to him, ordinary citizens outside the White House or anywhere else the President of the United States may have been--Lincoln said: They don't want much. They get so little. Each one considers his business of great importance. I know how I should feel if I were in their place. I can see Jay Rockefeller meeting with veterans, many of whom had never been thanked for their service. Many of them were suffering from wartime injuries from their time in the service, coming back to West Virginia and eking out a living. I can see Jay Rockefeller saying the same thing: They don't want much. They get so little. Each one considers his business of great importance. I know how I should feel if I were in their place. Going back 2 weeks ago to Jay's farewell speech across the aisle at this desk, he called upon us to remember that ``our north star must always be the real needs of the people we serve.'' Jay used his farewell speech to exhort us to do better on behalf of miners, on behalf of veterans, on behalf of single parents, on behalf of children, on behalf of sick people, people who do not always get a fair shake in life. He found his north star in public service, a career he chose because he wanted a mission to complete, a cause to believe in, a dream to follow. He found that mission. He found that cause. He found that dream in Emmons, WV, in 1964. It never left him. That is my friend Jay Rockefeller. For all of that we are so grateful.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I wish to congratulate Dr. Vivek H. Murthy on his confirmation as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States. Earlier today, the U.S. Senate held a series of votes in order to confirm Dr. Vivek H. Murthy as Surgeon General of the United States. The first vote was held to invoke cloture on his nomination, the second to confirm. Dr. Murthy was successfully confirmed by a vote of 51-43. My flight from Cleveland to Washington, DC was delayed causing me to miss both votes. Had I been present, I would have voted to support Mr. Murthy's nomination. President Obama nominated Dr. Murthy for this position last November. Dr. Murthy's extensive experience as an entrepreneur, health professional, and public health advocate make him an exceptionally well qualified candidate for Surgeon General. Although I was unable to make it to DC in time to vote to help confirm Dr. Murthy, I would have voted to support his confirmation. Dr. Vivek H. Murthy will be an exemplary Surgeon General, and it is for this reason that I wrote to President Obama asking that he nominate Dr. Murthy for this position. His long record of innovative business leadership and unwavering belief in a more inclusive health care system advance our Nation's public health agenda. I look forward to working with Dr. Murthy in his role as Surgeon General.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, it is no surprise to any of us that the first thing Carl Levin did when he spoke today was thank his staff. He thanked them, and then he thanked the police force and the groundskeepers and the food service people and the people who too many in this world ignore. That was the first thing he did. The second thing Carl did in his address was to talk about the gulf between the fortunate few and the struggling many. That has been what I most admire about Carl Levin--that he is always aware of that and always fighting the fight for people who have a lot less privilege than those of us do who dress like this and get really great titles. And no one, frankly--no one in this body--has stood up against special interests for the most powerful interests in this town more effectively and more energetically than Carl Levin. For that, I am grateful, and I know so many in this country are grateful as well. Thank you, Senator.

Mr. BROWN. Tom Harkin is my hero. Tom Harkin has never shied away from a fight when it comes to workers rights not only for Iowa but for workers all across the country and workers around the world. He has come to many of us repeatedly and said: Don't forget what our obligation is to the community of men and women around the world who labor with their hands, who fight challenges every day, who are abused in the workplace, who are abused as children in the workplace, and Tom Harkin has been the single strongest voice for as long as I can remember for those workers. Tom comes from a right-to-work State. It is not always easy to stand up for labor unions and organized labor. We have a press and media in this country which is consistently anti-labor. We have a political class in this country at every opportunity that tries to undermine organized labor and undermine the rights of human beings to organize and bargain collectively, and Tom recognized that is one of most important rights that human beings have. Tom Harkin, being from a right-to-work State, knows he will face a difficult election darn near every 6 years. One of the little-noted historical facts about Tom Harkin--and I have not heard anyone else mention--is that Senator Harkin has defeated more incumbent Members of Congress than any elected official in United States history, and that is not because of the luck of the draw or some lottery in Des Moines or Iowa City or Davenport. It is because Tom Harkin doesn't shy away from his strong beliefs in the rights of humanity--organizing and collective bargaining rights. When you are willing to stand up day after day--not just in quiet groups in the Democratic Caucus--on this floor and you are willing to stand up in Dubuque and the more conservative parts of southwest Iowa and argue for labor rights, you are saying to the other side: Bring them on. Bring on big money, bring on anti-labor forces. He expected to have tough elections, and that is why Tom Harkin is my hero and always will be.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I join my colleague Senator Inhofe in the passage of S. 2614. This legislation corrects a glitch in the law that was doing great harm to 100,000 American Airlines employees, including approximately 10,000 employees working out of or residing in Ohio. Ninety-five percent of these workers were unionized. We are talking about pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, ramp workers, and dispatchers, all unionized. Part of the collective bargaining agreement was a defined benefit pension plan. These are plans where you earn benefits through your hard work, and those benefits provide you with annuitized income for life. When American Airlines went bankrupt, these workers all received a single lump sum payment. For pilots, these payments were as much as $162,000, but the average payment was $120,000. For other workers, these payouts were much, much less. Now, $162,000 may sound like a lot of money, and it is a lot. But not when it is meant to take the place of your entire pension for what could easily be a 20- or 30-year retirement. What we have done in the past for employees at United, Delta, Northwest, and US Airways is allow them to roll this entire amount over into an Individual Retirement Account or IRA. It is important to understand what this is. When you roll over, you generally do not pay tax on it until you withdraw it from the new plan. The assets in the account continue to grow tax deferred. Deferred is the operative word. This does not mean that the employees do not pay taxes. It means they will pay them as they make withdrawals to finance their own retirement. This bill is needed to give the American Airlines' employees that same opportunity. It is a simple fix, and it is the least we can do for workers who work hard and play by the rules, but lost their pensions through no fault of their own.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Vermont. I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, of up to 10 minutes, that Senator Manchin be recognized for his remarks.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, every year about this time--actually every few months, or maybe every month--there are attempts by Wall Street to again change the rules, cut back consumer protection laws, and change the regulations that protect the American public against Wall Street greed. It happens almost weekly, it seems, in the Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives. There are attempts in the Agriculture Committee, beaten back by Senator Stabenow, to her credit, and attempts in the banking committee, beaten back by Chairman Johnson, to his credit. Almost every week, it seems, there are efforts by Wall Street to undermine the protections that we were able to build in under the Dodd- Frank bill to stop Wall Street from doing to the economy what it did in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. September of 2008 had been preceded by a decade of deregulation of the financial industry, decades of lobbying by very effective lobbyists for the six biggest Wall Street banks. Risky behavior was rewarded with gargantuan profits for the firms and multimillion-dollar bonuses for the executives. The CEO of one of the largest megabanks in the history of the world-- not just in our country--said: As long as the music is playing, you have got to get up and dance. There is a lot of money to be made on Wall Street, and they have to take advantage of every loophole, particularly those loopholes that their lobbyists create. This unmitigated greed led to 8 million people losing their jobs, 7 million losing their homes after being foreclosed on because the financial system lacked the necessary safeguards to protect Wall Street. Dodd-Frank was supposed to end all of that. It has made progress by preventing taxpayer bailouts for banks. Risky derivatives trading was one of the central goals of Dodd-Frank. An amendment by Senator Lincoln, then the Chair of the Agriculture Committee, brought forward an amendment in 2009. Dodd-Frank went through the process. The day that President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank bill to protect Americans from Wall Street greed, the chief lobbyists for the chief financial trade association in this town said: Now it is half-time. What does ``now it is half-time'' mean? Well, the bill passed, and Wall Street financiers and lobbyists said, we don't like that, but now we can go to the regulatory agencies and weaken the rules, delay their implementation, sometimes stop some of the rulemaking, and we can go back to Congress and continue to lobby and weaken these rules. To give you an example of what has happened, in 1995, the 6 largest banks in the United States had assets equal to 18 percent of the GDP. I don't want to bore people with numbers, but in 1995, the 6 largest banks had assets equal to 18 percent of GDP. Today they make up 64 percent of GDP. The largest six Wall Street banks--everybody knows their names--are getting larger and larger, increasing their economic power, and as we see almost every day in this Congress and especially in the House of Representatives dominated by tea party Republicans and people at the beck and call of Wall Street, we see their political power growing. Under the accounting rules applied by the rest of the world, the derivatives holdings of the 6 largest banks--basically insurance policy on top of insurance policy on top of insurance policy as financial instruments--are 39 percent larger than we think they are, which is a difference of about $4 trillion. Derivatives were described by Warren Buffett as timebombs--financial weapons of mass destruction carrying dangers that are potentially lethal. Senator Levin, who is about to retire from the Senate after 36 years, calls these derivatives nuclear weapons. According to the New York Times, bank lobbyists wrote provisions dealing with derivatives that will repeal--not to get too technical-- the Lincoln language. And here is what the language in section 716 says: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal assistance may be provided to any swaps entity with respect to any swaps, security-based swap, or other activity of the swaps entity. This is the language that is now Federal law. This language says no more bailouts. However, the legislation likely to be in front of us, the omnibus we will be facing, because of Wall Street lobbyists, because of Republican financial services members caving to special interests, this provision that says ``no more bailouts'' is done with. We will see language now stripped out of Federal law that says ``no more bailouts.'' The public needs to understand that if this language passes to strip this language out, if this bill passes, that again bailouts can be imminent--bailouts brought on by Wall Street greed, bailouts brought on by risky trading, now protected by taxpayers. So, in other words, it is heads I win, tails you lose. If I make big bets on derivatives and I am a Wall Street banker, I make tens of millions of dollars. However, if I make big bets and something bad happens, taxpayers get to pay for it. That is the problem with stripping out section 716. I am not the only one who thinks this. Tom Hoenig, Leader McConnell's selection to the FDIC board, supports keeping 716 in the law. Sheila Bair--once Senator Bob Dole's chief of staff, President Bush's appointment, and then President Obama kept her on as a major Federal regulator--she is opposed to repeal, as has the White House opposed the repeal. Mark Stefanski, a friend of mine from Third Federal in my neighborhood in Cleveland, in Slovak Village, which is about an $11 billion bank on the southeast side of Cleveland. That is a bank which makes mortgages. It does not trade in exotic derivatives. He told me: You know, banking should be boring. It is not about taking excessive risks, especially when those excessive risks are underwritten by taxpayers. That is what abolishing 716--that is what the repeal of the 716 language does. It puts taxpayers on the hook in the form of a future bailout. It is a subsidy today for the six largest banks. It puts taxpayers on the hook in the future, gives all kinds of additional incentives for Wall Street bankers to engage in more risky derivatives trading, and puts us all again under the possibility of a bank bailout. It simply does not make sense. We have the opportunity to reject this part of this legislation. We owe it to the families in my State, to families in Virginia, to families in Delaware, to families in Georgia, and all over this country. That is why we cannot support a measure that values corporate greed over working America.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. BROWN. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 2614 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I and other original cosponsors and strong supporters of S. 2270 have, like you, been disappointed by the regulators' failure to recognize that they have the authority to implement the Collins amendment as it applies to insurers in a manner that tailors the capital requirements for insurers to reflect the substantial differences between insurers and depository institutions. We continue to believe that the regulators could solve this problem using their existing authority. This legislation shows that there is strong bipartisan support for addressing this issue. As you know, 31 of your colleagues and I cosponsored the bill, and the legislation passed the Senate with unanimous support in early June. S. 2270 is narrowly crafted to only address this issue as it relates to insurance companies and insurance savings and loan holding companies. If you are a bank, or another entity that owns a bank, you will be subject to the full force of the Collins amendment for your banking activities. At the same time, if you are a financial organization engaged in insurance which is also engaged in bank activities, including derivatives market making, those activities would be subject to the Collins amendment. To accomplish the goal of directing the Federal Reserve to tailor rules for insurance, our legislation permits the Federal Reserve to create a non-Basel III regime for the insurance operations of supervised entities. The legislation allows the Fed to work with State insurance regulators to develop appropriate insurance-based capital standards for insurance activities.

Mr. BROWN. Another important provision of our legislation addresses the issue of insurance accounting for a small number of non-publicly traded insurance companies. While every publicly traded company in the United States is required by the Federal Securities laws to prepare consolidated financial statements under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP, all insurance companies in the United States--whether in mutual or stock form of organization--are required by their State insurance regulators to utilize an accounting method known as Statutory Accounting. Indeed, most mutual insurance companies only use Statutory Accounting in preparing their financial statements. Statutory Accounting Principles, SAP, are generally more conservative than GAAP because they are specifically designed to promote insurer solvency and the ability to pay claims instead of measuring an insurer's value as a going concern. SAP does not allow a number of non- liquid or intangible assets to be included on an insurer's balance sheet and provides less favorable accounting treatment for certain expenses. In both the text of the Dodd-Frank Act and its legislative history, Congress recognized the acceptability of SAP for holding companies engaged in insurance activities coming under Federal Reserve jurisdiction. Specifically, Congress 1) directed the Federal Reserve to rely on existing reports and information provided to State and other regulators (which for insurance companies would have been prepared according to SAP); and 2) included Senate report language stating that Federal Reserve assumption of jurisdiction over savings and loan holding companies engaged in the business of insurance did not reflect a mandate to impose GAAP. However, in proposed rulemakings, the Federal Reserve expressed its intention to require all companies to eventually prepare GAAP financial statements-consistent with their existing model for all bank holding companies. Imposing such a mandate on companies using only SAP would cost insurers a substantial amount to take on multi-year financial projects yielding minimal, if any, supervisory benefit to regulators. S. 2270 makes clear that under Section 171 of the Dodd-Frank Act and the Home Owners' Loan Act, such a mandate is inappropriate where the holding company is a non-publicly traded insurance company that is only required to prepare and file SAP statements. Nothing in this provision prevents the Federal Reserve from obtaining any information it is otherwise entitled to obtain from a SAP-only insurer.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I attended a Martin Luther King, Jr. event in Cleveland on a cold, snowy day earlier this year. The keynote speaker said something that we have all heard, but so often do not think about. He said, ``Your life expectancy is connected to your zip code.'' Whether you grew up in a city like Cincinnati, a suburb like Kettering, or in rural Appalachia, your zip code often determines whether you have access to quality health care, great education, and the social support necessary to succeed. Ohio is fortunate to have many organizations, like the Center for Closing the Health Gap in Cincinnati, working to create zip codes where every resident has the opportunity to succeed. For the past 10 years, The Center for Closing the Health Gap under the leadership of Dwight Tillery has worked to address health disparities across Southwest Ohio through private-public partnerships. Their work is invaluable in the Queen City, as we know health disparities take both a moral and economic toll on our communities. Today, more than 1.8 million Ohioans live in poverty and almost one in six families do not know where their next meal will come from. We also know that the end of the school year does not mean an end to hunger. That is why the work of nonprofits like The Center for Closing the Health Gap and programs like the Summer Food Service Program are so important. They work together to ensure that Ohio families know about these programs and ensure our students have enough food to keep growing and learning long after the final school bell rings for summer vacation. As we work together to address child hunger and nutrition, we are also working to eradicate infant mortality. Ohio ranks 48th in the nation for infant mortality, and we are the worst State for the survival of African American babies. Each year, there are more than 4,600 sudden unexpected infant deaths, and there is no known cause for as many as half of the 25,000 stillbirths in this country. No parent should ever have to grieve the loss of a child with no answers and no help. My Sudden Unexpected Death Data Enhancement and Awareness Act would fill in the gap in how infant deaths are tracked by the Federal Government so that we can better understand and prevent these tragedies. We can begin to address the disparities facing our communities--and our economies--by working together on the local, State, and federal levels. Ohio is fortunate to have organizations like The Center for Closing the Health Gap working to make sure that all Ohioans have a chance to lead healthy, successful lives.