Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, a few days ago the Birmingham, AL, airport announced plans to rename the Birmingham International Airport after Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. I rise to honor the work of activist, legendary civil rights leader, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. For more than 60 years, Reverend Shuttlesworth has fought passionately for racial equality and social justice in our great country. Born in Birmingham, AL, Reverend Shuttlesworth became involved in the civil rights movement as a young pastor. He organized sit-ins and boycotts. He challenged the injustice for decades of Birmingham's Jim Crow laws, despite attempts on his life, and there were many by the Ku Klux Klan. In spite of repeated arrests, attacks by police dogs and firehoses, Reverend Shuttlesworth simply refused to back down. In 1957, Reverend Shuttlesworth joined the efforts with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ralph Abernathy to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Members of the SCLC fought side by side to increase educational opportunities, to promote voter registration, and to promoting equality of opportunity for African Americans throughout the country. In 1961, Reverend Shuttlesworth took up the pastorate of Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati, OH, and continued his campaign for racial justice. Bringing the same fearless opposition to segregation he had displayed in Birmingham, he joined forces with other Black ministers to make William Lovelace the city's first African-American judge. For greater than a half century, Reverend Shuttlesworth spoke out against injustice. He has worked to increase minority representation in city government, he has expanded minority hiring by the local police department, and worked to improve access to housing in Over-the-Rhine, an area of Cincinnati, for needy families and throughout Hamilton County. Reverend Shuttlesworth has made great personal sacrifice, risking his life, risking his own health and the health of his family, so every American, without regard to race, would have access to equal opportunity to succeed. I announced my campaign for the Senate in 2005 at the church of Reverend Shuttlesworth in Cincinnati. I consider him a friend. I have met him many times over the last 15 or so years. He took me one day to a small room in his church, a room he called a museum. It was a room dedicated to the civil rights movement. It had so many wonderful examples of his courage, his bravery, his accomplishments, and the accomplishments of so many people he worked with to promote social justice, to promote economic justice, to promote civil and human rights. For that, I am especially proud of Reverend Shuttlesworth. I am especially proud of the role he plays in Cincinnati, always battling for racial justice. I am proud the Birmingham, AL, airport has named their international airport after the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I wish to thank Chairman Kennedy, Ranking Member Enzi, and especially Senator Mikulski for her terrific work, and their staffs. J.D. LaRock was especially helpful; Erin Renner, Carmel Martin, and Missy Rohrbach. I wish to give special thanks to Will Jawando in my office for his terrific success on this legislation. He celebrated the success of the full conference committee, which was earlier this week, by taking the Maryland bar for those 2 days during the actual passage of the conference committee. The conference report before us takes important steps toward breaking down the barriers to higher education by addressing affordability and access. With college costs at alltime highs, family income and student aid simply have not kept up. In my home State of Ohio, between 2001 and 2006, the cost of attendance has increased 53 percent at 4-year public colleges. Yet the median income in Ohio, household income, increased only 3 percent. We know the purchasing power of the Pell grant has fallen dramatically. Students and parents are finding it harder and harder to figure out a way to finance their education. But our bill, as we know, increases Pell grants to $8,000 by 2014, enabling thousands of low-income and first-time students to attend institutions of higher education. For the first time, low-income students can receive Pell grants year-round, allowing them to accelerate the completion of their degrees. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid required for the receipt of Federal student aid is currently seven pages long and acts too often as a barrier for students seeking college aid. We have begun the process of taking care of the complexities and the bureaucracy of that. In the last 2 years, I have held about 110 roundtables around my State, in 75 of the 88 counties, listening to people telling me what we should do with higher education and other issues. Last Memorial Day, I met with veterans who were also students at Cleveland State University. I met with them at a veterans hospital and heard directly about their experiences transitioning from the battlefield to the classroom. This bill takes steps to ensure student veterans get the assistance they need. It authorizes funds for campuses to create Centers of Excellence for Veteran Student Success. It is modeled after a program at Cleveland State University. It will allow schools to provide student veterans with a one-stop shop for assistance with financial aid, with class selection, with VA benefits, and with other transitional issues. In addition to the unique challenges many student veterans face, others have their academic career interrupted by deployments. When students head off to war, they know they will be given the time and support they need now, because of this legislation, without falling unnecessarily behind academically or financially when they return to their life as a college student. By allowing servicemembers to defer payments, interest free, on Federal student loans while serving on Active Duty, we have removed a financial penalty for student veterans. I would also like to thank the committee and the chairman for working with me to include several other provisions in the conference report. Among them is a program that creates an early childhood educator workforce development system to ensure that all children are taught by great teachers in their developmental years. I spoke with the head of Ohio Head Start today in Dayton, who is very excited about what this will mean for Head Start students in all of Ohio. Also included was a program that helps increase the enrollment rates of rural students at institutions of higher education. Finally, provisions are included that will reauthorize the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program and establish a Perkins loan forgiveness program for our nation's firefighters. We did it for the nurses, teachers, and police officers. We inadvertently left out firefighters in the bill last year. This takes care of that. While there are many other issues we must address in higher education, including the rise in private student loans, this bill makes important progress on assisting needy students, increasing affordability for all, and enhancing protections for our servicemembers because of this legislation, because of Chairman Mikulski's work. It means a whole lot of working-class kids, a whole lot of poor kids, a whole lot of middle-class kids will be able to go to college. It will be easier for them to finish their college degrees, not drop out with huge student loans. It will enable most of these students to graduate without the onerous burden of huge student loans. I thank Chairman Kennedy and I thank Ranking Member Enzi for their work. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that our half-hour be divided equally, with the first 15 minutes for myself, and Senator Nelson of Florida the other 15 minutes.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the Doha Round of World Trade Organization--the WTO--talks broke down yesterday. Given the tremendous problem with this Nation's trade policy, I don't know of many Ohioans who are going to be very upset, and I don't know of many of my colleagues who will be too troubled about World Trade Organization trade talks breaking down either. The impasse at the WTO is no different from the pause we are in right now when it comes to trade. Americans are rightly skeptical about the course we are on when it comes to trade policy, and Congress reflects that skepticism. In the 2006 elections, voters all across the country told those of us in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, that they wanted a timeout on trade; that they wanted to see us go back and look at the success and failures of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Central American Free Trade Agreement--so-called CAFTA and NAFTA--and they want us to look at what PNTR--Permanent Normal Trade Relations--with China has meant. They want us to look at Colombia, and Peru, and Panama, and South Korea, and what those agreements might mean to our country. It is pretty clear that Americans are not satisfied with the status quo of NAFTA, CAFTA, and WTO-modeled policies. One reason is our severely unbalanced trade relationship with the People's Republic of China. When it comes to competing with China, Ohio workers and manufacturers are playing with one hand tied behind their back. We shouldn't be playing under these rules. Athletes at next week's Olympics will not be playing by these rules. Maybe there is a lesson there for the Chinese Government, for the United States Government, and for our trade policy. Workers, like athletes, can compete with anyone--good athletes and certainly American workers can compete with anyone where there is a level playing field and the rules are not rigged. But manufacturers and workers in Ohio are struggling to compete while our Government too often stands idly by while China games the system over and over and over. This problem is urgent, as a new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows. This report finds that the United States is hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs at an alarming pace. Nothing new there. More than 366,000 jobs were lost last year alone because of our trade deficit with China--366,000 jobs in 1 year because of our trade relationship with one country. In all, EPI counts 2.3 million jobs lost to the China trade deficit since China joined the World Trade Organization less than a decade ago. Unless China raises the real value of its currency--the yuan--by at least an additional 30 percent, and lets it float on the international currency exchanges, as most countries do, the United States trade deficit and job losses will continue to grow. Labor rights are also a factor. The AFL-CIO estimates that repression of labor rights by the Chinese Government has lowered manufacturing rates by as much as 80 percent. To put it in perspective, my office receives at least two or three TAA certifications a week--trade adjustments from the Trade Adjustment Act on workers losing their jobs because of international trade. We receive from the Labor Department at least two or three TAA certifications a week for Ohio manufacturers. Each of these certifications represents, in most cases, hundreds of workers and their families. What happens to a community when there is job loss? Think about a community. I was speaking to a gentleman from Tiffin in the last hour. Think about the town of Tiffin, or Chillicothe or Wilmington or Finley or Mansfield--towns of 15,000, 20,000, 30,000, or 50,000 people. When they lose a plant, a manufacturing installation--or what is happening with DHL in Wilmington, which is way beyond that--even if they lose a plant with 300 or 400 workers, think about what it does, not just to a worker and his or her family, but what it does to the community at large, with the layoffs of police officers and teachers and firefighters, because there are significantly fewer jobs in a community of that size. Last week, it was Ceva Logistics in Miamisburg that we got a TAA certification about--near Dayton; Acuity Lighting in Newark, and more Delphi workers. The same old story with Delphi and what has happened in the last year in Moraine, OH--again, near Dayton. Yesterday, we got a TAA notice about Acklin Stamping Company in Toledo. The Labor Department certified that an increase in imports caused Acklin to lay off workers. That was last week and yesterday. But how about today and how about tomorrow? Probably more TAA notices, because we get two or three almost every week. Probably more today, tomorrow, and next week, again because of a failed trade policy. On my desk, I have a stack of auction notices from small tool and die manufacturers going out of business in my State and across the country. These notices are going-out-of-business sales. They are notices offering the sale of equipment from machine shops not just in my State but all over the country. This week, I spoke with the CEO and the family owners of Norwalk Furniture in Norwalk, OH, a community between Cleveland and Toledo. We are trying to keep this 105-year-old company in business. Norwalk workers are represented by the Teamsters and United Steelworkers. It is a company playing by the rules, paying good wages in a small town in Ohio, with good benefits, trying to stay competitive despite having the deck stacked against it because of our trade policy with China. Again, American companies are playing with one hand tied behind their back. China's undervalued currency and weak safety and environmental standards put American furniture manufacturers such as Norwalk at a huge disadvantage. Like many Ohio businesses, Norwalk Furniture can compete with China. It can and has competed with foreign competition. That is not the complaint. The reason manufacturers such as Norwalk Furniture are struggling and pleading for a change in trade policy is that they can't compete while the U.S. Government--the Bush Commerce Department, the Bush U.S. Trade Representative--stands by and allows China to game the system. We see what these plant closings do to communities, which is why not only Norwalk Furniture is fighting back, but Mayor Lesch and others in Norwalk are joining them in this struggle. The trade deficit with China costs manufacturing jobs, and not just low-skilled jobs, as is commonly thought. One very salient point from the EPI report is that it is not only apparel jobs we are talking about, and not only relatively low-wage jobs. We are getting into high-tech products, many integral to our defense industrial base. The report finds that more than a quarter of last year's record trade deficit with China was due to advanced technology products. Last year, a $68 billion deficit in advanced technology products was responsible for more than 25 percent of the total United States-China trade deficit. Since 2001, the flood of advanced technology imports from China eliminated 561,000 United States jobs in computer and electronic products. So we are not just talking about textile and apparel jobs. EPI also counts more than $8,000 in lost income for displaced workers. People who support U.S. trade policy--President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Republican leadership in this body--say: Well, yes, prices are low as a result of U.S. trade policy, but when companies such as shoe manufacturers move out of the United States or a steel manufacturer moves out of the United States, I don't see steel or shoe prices dropping necessarily. So I don't know if that argument holds water. Even if you concede it might affect prices some, EPI counts more than $8,000 in lost income per displaced worker. So what does that mean? It means someone working at American Standard in Tiffin, OH, or someone at the old Westinghouse plant in Mansfield, where I grew up, or a GM worker in Dayton or a DHL worker or ABX or ASTAR in Wilmington, when they lose a good-paying job making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, or $60,000 a year, the next job they have on the average makes $8,000--if they can find a job--makes $8,000 less than they were used to making. And lower prices don't give you much of a break when you have a new job at $8,000 less than your old job. Proponents of China PNTR or NAFTA like to say that the jobs displaced from China are replaced with export-oriented jobs that pay better, or jobs in the service sector that pay better. Again, not true. The truth is that wages earned in United States export heavy industry paid 4 percent less than the jobs displaced by Chinese imports. So when we lose these jobs to Chinese imports, it is costing our workers that $8,000 we were talking about. Even if we are exporting some to China, the amount we are exporting to China versus the amount we are bringing in obviously is a huge chasm. It is the better paying jobs that are moving offshore or closing because of a flood of Chinese imports. The failure of the WTO talks could, in fact, be a blessing. The DOHA talks long ago became more of a threat than an opportunity to American farmers and to American workers and long ago represented more of a threat than an opportunity for sustainable development abroad for our trading partners. We have an opportunity now, because of the failure of DOHA, to step away, to evaluate what is working and what is not working and start again with a new trade model--for New Jersey, the State of the Presiding Officer, and for my State. I have introduced legislation, S. 3083, the TRADE Act, which evaluates our Trade Agreements Program, which allows for renegotiation and which sets forth principles for future trade deals. In my State, in the last year and a half, I have held about 110 roundtables in 75 of Ohio's 88 counties where I gather a group of 20 or 25 people, a cross-section of the community, and listen to them talk about their hopes and dreams and what they wish and hope for in their community and what they are fighting for, for their families and their communities. Few issues in these roundtables get workers and businesses, Democrats and Republicans--and I don't know people's party affiliations at these roundtables--few issues get them as worked up as our unfair trading relationship with China in deals such as NAFTA and CAFTA that protect Wall Street investors but don't protect labor, don't protect safety, don't protect the environment. We have an opportunity, in the coming months and especially next year with the new President, to renew a consensus on trade. I look forward to working in my caucus and across the aisle on a better approach to trade policy for our workers, for their families, for our communities, and for our country. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today, Senator Snowe of Maine and I are introducing a workforce development bill--the Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success, or SECTORS Act. Over the last 16 months, I have held 110 roundtable discussions in communities all over Ohio. One of the themes that have recurred in the roundtables--from workers and employers, business and labor, teachers and professors--is that we need to do a better job connecting workers with the middle and high skills needed for careers that are growing in Ohio. Today, Ohio has an unemployment rate above the national average. It was 6.3 percent in June. Between 2000 and 2007, Ohio experienced a 24.3 percent drop in manufacturing employment, shedding nearly 230,000 jobs. Overall employment dropped by nearly 3.6 percent in the same time period. That said, employers throughout the state talk about jobs gone begging, and not being able to fill middle and high skilled positions. There are open jobs in high-tech, healthcare, and even manufacturing that are going unfilled. A recent report by labor economists Harry Holzer and Robert Lerman found that substantial demand remains in today's labor market for skilled workers. This is particularly true for ``middle-skill'' jobs that require more than a high school degree but less than a 4-year college degree. These jobs make up nearly half of America's labor market and provide good compensation for workers. The approach Senator Snowe and I take in this bill is to organize training around industry clusters. Silicon Valley, the Research Triangle in North Carolina, Route 128 around Boston--these are examples of clusters. But it is not just high tech jobs either. Think of tourism in Florida, or insurance in Connecticut, or food packaging in Pennsylvania. These are successful clusters that build around a skilled labor force. The Ohio Workforce Board has compiled great information about emerging industries and skills programs needed to see people fill these jobs. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut are giving workforce training a high priority. This bill complements those efforts, and builds on great examples of cluster partnerships around the country. The National Governors Association has been promoting this model, and it really will be the way we successfully train our workers and promote regional economic development. Nobody wants lack of training to be the constraint on Ohio's economic growth. So the SECTORS Act focuses on targeted training, with multiple stakeholders in the same industry. The bill right now requires four principal stakeholders to be part of a training program: industry, labor unions, workforce investment boards, and community colleges. We want to build in a process that makes a training program sustainable and not just a one-time infusion of money. With that in mind, Senator Snowe and I have written in our bill a matching funds requirement. The legislation builds in rigorous evaluation so lawmakers and policymakers know how tax dollars are being spent, something that has not been the cause under President Bush's Department of Labor's training initiatives. The Government Accountability Office found in May 2008 that the Labor Department's demand-driven workforce training programs have often been awarded through a non-competitive process, and have lacked accountability and evaluation so that Americans know how their tax dollars are being spent. We need to break clean from this approach. I plan to work with Senator Snowe and colleagues in both chambers to authorize an industry clusters skills training program that builds in accountability and sustainability, and helps workers and businesses thrive in Ohio, Maine, and throughout the country. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today, Senator Snowe of Maine and I are introducing a workforce development bill--the Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success, or SECTORS Act. Over the last 16 months, I have held 110 roundtable discussions in communities all over Ohio. One of the themes that have recurred in the roundtables--from workers and employers, business and labor, teachers and professors--is that we need to do a better job connecting workers with the middle and high skills needed for careers that are growing in Ohio. Today, Ohio has an unemployment rate above the national average. It was 6.3 percent in June. Between 2000 and 2007, Ohio experienced a 24.3 percent drop in manufacturing employment, shedding nearly 230,000 jobs. Overall employment dropped by nearly 3.6 percent in the same time period. That said, employers throughout the state talk about jobs gone begging, and not being able to fill middle and high skilled positions. There are open jobs in high-tech, healthcare, and even manufacturing that are going unfilled. A recent report by labor economists Harry Holzer and Robert Lerman found that substantial demand remains in today's labor market for skilled workers. This is particularly true for ``middle-skill'' jobs that require more than a high school degree but less than a 4-year college degree. These jobs make up nearly half of America's labor market and provide good compensation for workers. The approach Senator Snowe and I take in this bill is to organize training around industry clusters. Silicon Valley, the Research Triangle in North Carolina, Route 128 around Boston--these are examples of clusters. But it is not just high tech jobs either. Think of tourism in Florida, or insurance in Connecticut, or food packaging in Pennsylvania. These are successful clusters that build around a skilled labor force. The Ohio Workforce Board has compiled great information about emerging industries and skills programs needed to see people fill these jobs. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut are giving workforce training a high priority. This bill complements those efforts, and builds on great examples of cluster partnerships around the country. The National Governors Association has been promoting this model, and it really will be the way we successfully train our workers and promote regional economic development. Nobody wants lack of training to be the constraint on Ohio's economic growth. So the SECTORS Act focuses on targeted training, with multiple stakeholders in the same industry. The bill right now requires four principal stakeholders to be part of a training program: industry, labor unions, workforce investment boards, and community colleges. We want to build in a process that makes a training program sustainable and not just a one-time infusion of money. With that in mind, Senator Snowe and I have written in our bill a matching funds requirement. The legislation builds in rigorous evaluation so lawmakers and policymakers know how tax dollars are being spent, something that has not been the cause under President Bush's Department of Labor's training initiatives. The Government Accountability Office found in May 2008 that the Labor Department's demand-driven workforce training programs have often been awarded through a non-competitive process, and have lacked accountability and evaluation so that Americans know how their tax dollars are being spent. We need to break clean from this approach. I plan to work with Senator Snowe and colleagues in both chambers to authorize an industry clusters skills training program that builds in accountability and sustainability, and helps workers and businesses thrive in Ohio, Maine, and throughout the country. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, with gas prices soaring, the effects are being felt all across my State of Ohio. In the last year and a half, I have held 110 roundtables, talking to people in 75 of Ohio's 88 counties, listening to what they are telling me about gas prices and about other challenges: food prices, the cost of energy to heat their homes--all of those. School districts in Appalachia are contemplating going to 4-day school weeks just to cut down on the amount of gas the buses will use. The bicycle police academy in Columbus is being forced to turn applicants away, as community after community is looking to put police on bicycles in order to keep fuel costs down. Police and fire departments across Ohio are struggling to keep community services going while facing crippling gas prices. Our truckers, our farmers, and our businesses are struggling and are often forced to raise the prices of their goods and services. This price increase is devastating to our poorest populations, who, come winter, will be facing a double whammy: trying to pay for gasoline to get to work and for either natural gas or heating oil to heat their homes. We are deep into this energy crisis, and while Americans are currently most affected at the pump, we cannot forget that winter is around the corner. Fuel prices are still on the rise. We have witnessed a nearly 40 percent rise in heating oil already this year. That means Americans are going to need all the relief they can get this winter. When pocketbooks are drained to pay heating bills, families are forced too often to make very difficult decisions. It is money families can use to put food on the table, pay for transportation, buy winter coats or other necessities for their children. That is why we have LIHEAP, which we just voted on and which, on basically a party-line vote, Republicans oppose. The LIHEAP program is geared toward preventing families from facing this heat-or-eat dilemma. But despite its success, current funding levels do not meet its demands. That is why LIHEAP is so crucial. It would assist the elderly, assist moderately low-income families, and other low-income individuals who already experience financial strain as their wages remain stagnant but they have higher gas prices to get to work, higher food prices, and now, when winter comes, higher prices to heat their homes. The lack of funds to invest in solutions with upfront costs and long-term savings keeps too many low-income individuals in poverty. An increase in LIHEAP funding would also increase the Weatherization Assistance Program, which prevents families from wasting energy while also providing good-paying jobs. In Marietta, a few weeks ago, I met a crew of four young men who were learning a skill and assisting the elderly. They were paid $12, $13 an hour, fixing up homes, weatherizing them, cutting energy bills for the elderly, for low-income elderly residents of Washington County. They were saving on energy for all of us as energy prices keep going up, and they were learning this trade and making a difference for all of us. Given current energy strains and current financial strains Americans have already experienced, the time for Congress to act on LIHEAP is now, before Americans get left out in the cold.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, would the Presiding Officer let me know when I have 1 minute left, please?

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for bringing the housing bill to the Senate today. It was met in the past by a filibuster, but the good work of Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby and the majority leader means we finally have housing legislation that will matter to Ohioans and matter to Americans. In Ohio's Morgan County, for instance, a small rural county in southeast Ohio, foreclosures were up 60 percent over last year, and the year, obviously, is only half over. More than 200 families in my State lose their homes every day. This housing legislation will make a difference in helping people stay in their homes. It will help communities deal with the costs they bear in fixing up abandoned homes, sometimes knocking down those homes because homes that are blighted homes in any community cause the value of homes in the neighborhood owned by people who are paying and keeping up, keeping their houses looking good and paying their mortgages--their homes decline in value because of the foreclosures in their neighborhoods. This legislation, in addition to all the other things it does, provides help to communities to fix up those blighted homes, to knock down those that are beyond repair, and provides money--as has been cosponsored, worked on assiduously by the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Pennsylvania--provides money for neighborhood counselors so they can work out these loans and stay in their homes, people who might be delinquent but, if they can get a 30-year fixed mortgage, are able to stay in their homes. This is particularly good news this week, moving forward on housing legislation to deal with this crucial problem that afflicts so many in our community. Every day we delayed has meant more families who were not able to refinance their homes through the HOPE for Homeowners program. Every day we spent slogging through procedural hoops meant more communities that were unable to keep up with the flood of foreclosures they are facing. And every day of delay denied help to homebuyers that might help stem the slide that is hurting everyone. This legislation was adopted in the Banking Committee by a vote of 19 to 2, thanks to the leadership of Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby. It has the support of the overwhelming majority of the Senate. The bill before us would provide critical relief to homeowners and communities across the country. By no means will it help everyone. Some people just took on too big a mortgage. Even with a reasonable mortgage, they would be unable the home they purchased. Other people have encountered trouble--like job loss or a divorce--that this legislation cannot cure. Still others got caught speculating on endlessly rising prices. But hundreds of thousands of families could afford to stay in their homes if they had a fair and stable mortgage, one with a reasonable interest rate rather than a predatory one, without hidden strings or traps that make it impossible to pay off. These are the families that need our help. They may be a minority of the people who face foreclosure in the next two or three years, but their numbers are substantial. And every home we do save makes this effort worthwhile. Every home we save spares a family from the trauma of foreclosure. It saves their neighbors from the drag that foreclosures have on the price of surrounding homes. And it saves their towns and cities from the increased costs that often stem from abandoned buildings. Up until this week, President Bush planned to veto this legislation. He argued that cities whose neighborhoods are being hollowed out by foreclosures do not need help from the Federal Government. I strongly disagree. This legislation contains close to $4 billion that will be allocated to the States and towns that have been hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. Ohio is certainly one of these States. By most measures it is in the top three to five States based on foreclosures, subprime loans, and defaults. The $4 billion in this legislation would be used to provide grants to cities and towns across the country to deal with vacant properties-- renovating some and tearing down others. Ironically, years ago many cities in my home State tried to block predatory lending in their communities since the Federal and State governments were standing on the sidelines. They were prevented from doing so. Many are now taking these lenders to court, to try to get some help in cleaning up the damage from a decade of irresponsible lending. Does the President really think that the mayors of Ohio are going to bail out these very same lenders? Of course they won't. What they will do is try to reclaim and rebuild their neighborhoods. In addition to helping Ohio's cities, this legislation will provide vital help to homeowners. The HOPE for Homeowners Act we are adopting will provide hundreds of thousands of families the opportunity to refinance their current, unaffordable loans into a fixed rate loan at an affordable interest rate. This is a voluntary program. It will only work if lenders are willing to recognize a significant loss on these loans. But I hope it will be in the interest of many lenders to take a partial loss rather than force people needlessly into foreclosure. This legislation will also modernize the FHA loan program so that homeowners will have a good alternative to the subprime loans that have led to so much trouble for so many. It will provide some $15 billion in tax benefits to help families and shore up the housing market. First-time homebuyers will be eligible for a refundable tax credit to help finance the purchase of a home. People who do not itemize their taxes will be able to claim an additional deduction for property taxes this year. And housing agencies will be given increased authority to issue tax- exempt bonds to refinance subprime loans, help first-time homebuyers, and build low-income rental housing. This legislation also provides an additional $180 million in funds for counseling to help people figure out how to stay in their homes. This is so important. The changes in mortgage finance have been effective in spreading risks around the globe, but responsibility has followed. Very rarely these days can you go downtown to your local bank and rework your mortgage. Borrowers are understandably confused and frustrated in their efforts to rework their loans. The nonprofit counseling agencies in Ohio and around the country have performed a vital service in saving home after home. Finally, this legislation will strengthen the regulation and oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They play a critical role in our economy. Today they hold or guarantee some $5 trillion in mortgages. With the weakness in the credit markets, they are providing important liquidity to the housing market. Treasury Secretary Paulson came before the Banking Committee a week and a half ago and made the case for providing extraordinary power to the executive branch to backstop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This legislation provides it to him and his successor for the next 18 months. I hope the market stabilizes over the months ahead and the regulatory changes we have put in place will ensure that the Treasury Secretary never has to utilize the power given to him. It can only be exercised if taxpayers are first in line to be paid back and the financial consequences of inaction would be worse than intervention. We don't know what the months ahead will bring, but we do know that we cannot stand by and watch any longer. I regret that it has taken so long for the Government to act-- regulators, State government, and Congress. But at long last we are about to take action, and for that I am grateful.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I was in the House of Representatives for 14 years and have been in the Senate for a year and a half, as has the Presiding Officer. During that time, all of us have noticed when there is a spike in oil prices, as there has been obviously intermittently for decades in this country, we can always ascribe a spike in oil prices to one of several factors: either a major fire in a refinery or there might have been an outage on a pipeline somewhere in our country. It might have come from something such as Hurricane Katrina, some major natural disaster in our country that caused a disruption of oil supplies, or it may have come from an international incident where there would be, again, a disruption in oil getting to our country, some major international incident. So it has either been a refinery fire, pipeline outage, a Katrina-type disaster or some interruption in foreign oil supplies coming to this country. That is what it used to be. The huge increase in oil prices, the fact that since George Bush and Dick Cheney came to the White House, two oilmen in the White House, oil has gone from $30 a barrel to quadruple that number, that gasoline prices have gone from roughly, I believe, no more than a couple dollars a gallon--less than that back then--to about double that now, that has been for different reasons. It is pretty clear, because there has not been a major outage of a pipeline, a refinery fire or a disruption because of a natural disaster or because of a foreign international incident, that something else has happened. That is why Senator Reid's legislation is on the floor today because we know part of the reason for prices doing what they have done is certainly there has been more demand from China and India, but that does not account for the doubling and tripling of prices when, in fact, so much of this is about the issues of gaming the system by the oil industry, whether it is price fixing in some sort of way that the Justice Department should go after or mostly what this bill is about, speculation. It is clear that kind of hanky-panky has gone on in the oil market. You don't have to look very far to figure that out, that it is not just a question of supply and demand. The other factor compounding this--even though I hear my friends on the Republican side of the aisle talk about we need to do more drilling, and I am fine with that. But the fact is there are 68 million acres out there--2\1/2\ times the size of my State, the State of Ohio, 2\1/2\ times the number of acres of the State of Ohio--there are 68 million acres on which the oil companies have leases. Yet they are not drilling in most of those 68 million acres. If they are committed to producing more oil to bring prices down, they would begin drilling in far more of those acres than they talk about drilling in. So why should we, again, in this institution, the Senate, and as I saw for years in the House, buckle to the oil industry? Why should big oil always have its way here? Why should Wall Street always have its way here? That is why Senator Reid's bill on speculation is so important, empowering the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, empowering the Justice Department to go after the oil industry on price gouging. It is clear we need a more aggressive Federal Government, a more aggressive administration. Again, we have had two oilmen in the White House. Look what happened in these 8 years to oil prices. I beseech my colleagues to support Senator Reid's speculation bill, and I beseech the President to be more aggressive with his Justice Department to go after the oil companies that are price gouging and to empower the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to go after Wall Street on some of this speculation. It is pretty clear that is the biggest reason for these price increases, and it is important the Federal Government get behind efforts to do all we can to rein in the cost of oil for truckers, for motorists, people who are getting squeezed and hurt so badly by these increasing oil prices. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, to conduct a hearing in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 3 p.m.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Information Sharing: Connecting the Dots at the Federal, State, and Local Levels.''

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to consider pending nominations.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 1:30 p.m.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 9:30 a.m., in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to hold a hearing entitled, ``The Midwest Floods: What Happened and What Might Be Improved for Managing Risk and Responses in the Future.''

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on July 23, 2008, at 9:45 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 10 a.m.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing on executive nominations, on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 2 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Courting Big Business: The Supreme Court's Recent Decisions on Corporate Misconduct and Laws Regulating Corporations'' on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The PRESIDING OPPICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. committee on the judiciary

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Dirksen 562 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today gas costs $4.09 in Bellefontaine, OH. In Conneaut, it is $4.05 a gallon. In Galion--not far from where I grew up in Mansfield--gas costs $4.04 a gallon. In southern Ohio, in New Boston, on the Ohio River, gas costs $4.06 a gallon. Instead of helping the residents of those communities and in other States around the country, my Republican colleagues are asking for another handout for Exxon, Shell, BP, and Chevron. The last thing oil companies need is a handout. They don't need more drilling permits on top of the unused permits they already have. What big oil does need is to revisit their business strategy because if they think complaining about the need for more drilling permits and getting my friends on the other side of the aisle to do their bidding and having a President of the United States and a Vice President--two oilmen--siding with them time after time--if they think that will win over the hearts and minds of the American people, they have another thing coming. The people I report to don't like opportunists, they don't like snake oil salesmen, and they don't like unbridled greed. Big oil has 68 million acres, directly or indirectly, of leased Federal lands they are not even drilling. That is 2.5 times the size of my State of Ohio. But somehow, to big oil, that isn't enough. Somehow, record profits aren't enough. Somehow, big oil executives making tens of millions of dollars every year isn't enough. Big oil wants the right to drill everywhere and anywhere so they can attract more shareholders and make more money. Perhaps that is understandable. What is not understandable is people who are elected to office doing bidding for them. Oil companies should use the lands that are already leased, and they should reinvest in refineries and alternative fuels--not lobby for another land grab. Republicans back the oil companies up, parroting them on the need for more drilling. I suppose it is nice to have friends in the oil industry. But we are not in Congress to make friends with the oil industry. We are not in Congress to do the oil industry's bidding. We are in Congress because Americans put us here, and they deserve real answers, real solutions. Talking about drilling is a lot easier than doing real work. It is easier than tracking down the most promising avenues in alternative energy and accelerating their development. It is easier than opening the stockpile of U.S. oil and demanding real accountability from oil companies. And it is easier than taking on the speculators--as the majority leader's bill does today--who are making handshake deals that push prices higher and higher. Going after the speculators is what this bill we are debating today is about. It would go after unscrupulous, unregulated traders. It would crack down on underhanded price manipulation so we can pop the energy price balloon. Instead of cuddling up to the energy industry and specialty oil companies, we should go after price gouging, price manipulation, and price speculation. The White House may report to big oil, but we don't. Some in the other party, in both the Senate and House, may do the bidding of big oil too, but we should not and cannot, and we won't. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.