Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. DODD. 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 May 6, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., in room 406 of the Dirksen Office Building.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``The Meaning of Marjah.''

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing entitled ``Ensuring Fairness for Older Workers'' on May 6, 2010. The hearing will commence at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Seapower of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 6, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I see my friend from Arizona. Can I ask the Senator, did he lay down his amendment? I am unclear.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I join the Senator in opposition to the Brown amendment, but I wish to speak about the Ensign amendment. We talk about rushing things through around here. I have heard that mentioned a lot over the last couple of days. This is going beyond rushing through. The entire 97 percent of all mortgages--97 percent of all mortgages in the country today--are going through the GSEs, Fannie and Freddie. Without them, there is no housing market in the country. So before we decide to do this without any alternative in place--and clearly one is needed. I take a backseat to no one on the idea we need to reform how the GSEs are functioning. As I think my friend Judd Gregg mentioned the other day, this is far too complex an issue to include in this bill. We already have 1,500 pages. We never intended to deal with every financial issue in the United States, and particularly one where the housing market today is completely dependent on this. Adopt this amendment and, believe me, by tomorrow we will have an economic reaction in the country we won't want to believe. So with all due respect, we will deal with this. I will have language in this bill that will absolutely guarantee we are going to take up this issue in the coming Congress. It has to be done. But to grapple with that and all of these other matters in the same bill is asking too much. It doesn't minimize the importance of the issue, but this evening, without any other kind of alternative in place, to adopt this amendment and then have the implications--97 percent of all mortgages in the United States go through the GSEs and without them there is no housing market--I urge my colleagues to reject the Ensign amendment.

Mr. DODD. If my colleague would yield, that is untrue. We passed legislation only last year on the GSEs.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, before calling for the vote, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a vote with respect to the Shelby amendment No. 3826, with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote; further, that the previous order with respect to the Sanders amendment remain in effect, and provided that after the Sanders amendment has been called up and reported by number, Senator McCain be recognized to call up an amendment relating to GSEs; that after the McCain amendment has been reported by number, the Senate then resume consideration of the Sanders amendment.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I will respond more fully a little later because my colleague and friend from Minnesota is on the floor to be heard, but I just wish to say that a lot of work went into this bill on consumer protection. You don't have to wait 10 or 15 years to find out what can happen. We have watched painfully what can happen over the last several years, when the very people--the prudential regulators--should have been standing and saying: No-doc loans are wrong and dangerous. In fact, it was consumer groups that warned about the real estate bubble. We were being told everything was safe and sound because people were making money, and it looked like it might go on forever. Of course, everyone has 20/20 hindsight looking back as to what occurred. But had we had in place someone saying: No-doc loans, no downpayments, adjustable rate mortgages at fully indexed prices are going to cripple people's ability to meet those obligations, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today. None of the seven agencies that have jurisdiction over consumer protection were doing their job very well. I will address more specifically the alternative idea being suggested, and let me also say I have never claimed our proposal on consumer protection is perfect. I acknowledge the word ``abusive'' does need to be defined, and we are either talking about striking that word or defining it better. Deceptive and fraudulent cover the ground pretty well, but I thought abusive was a pretty good explanation point. Because it was abusive, in common language. So I will come back later, but I wished to acknowledge that we have a number of organizations that have endorsed this bill of ours, strongly support our committee bill, ranging from the Americans for Financial Reform, the Consumers Union, Center for Responsible Lending, the Consumer Federation of America, U.S. PIRG, Public Citizen, the National Consumer Law Center, Consumer Watchdog, and AARP. Of course, we are all familiar with the group representing older Americans. In fact, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, at this point, a letter from AARP, opposing the Shelby substitute on the consumer protection title.

Mr. DODD. So major groups, ones that are consumer oriented as well as those that watch out for older Americans--many of whom have to pay mortgages, are on fixed incomes--are worthy of note. Again, I wish to thank my colleagues for their comments and thoughts on this amendment, and I will address more of that later, but I will yield the floor. Amendment No. 3808

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, my colleague from Arkansas will speak soon. I want to say to the former chairman of the Banking Committee, my friend, I appreciate his comments. There are four major parts of this very large bill. They are too big to fail, the early warning system, consumer protection, and dealing with exotic instruments. There is a lot in the bill besides those major points, but those are the four major thrusts of the legislation. I hope our colleagues will support this amendment as we vote shortly on it, and that it will help us reach agreement on what I argue is a major part, which is that we never want to see taxpayers again confronted with having to underwrite a failed institution. There has been a lot of hard work and negotiation to get here, and not just over the last couple of days, but weeks. I particularly thank Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. They spent a lot of time on this issue, literally going back months on it. We would not be in this position today were it not for their labor and effort. My colleague from Virginia is on the Senate floor, and he will want to say a few words. I thank Senator Shelby and our staffs for their efforts. I thank Senator Boxer too. She will have an amendment that strengthens this issue on too big to fail and taxpayers. We have more work to do, but this is a good beginning. I thank Senator Shelby.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, again, I thank my colleagues. I thank Senator Corker, Senator Warner, and Senator Shelby. A lot of work went into this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support it. I yield back our time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DODD. I hope we can stay away from filibusters and get everybody to have an up-or-down vote. This is a very important bill, and it is also about how this institution functions and whether we trust each other to be able to offer an amendment, have an adequate amount of time to debate, and then vote up or down. That is how we ought to function. I hope this bill will not only produce a good product in the end but will also have the healing quality this institution needs. We have been through a lot in this Congress. We need to get back to acting like colleagues, respecting each other's opinions, having a good partisan debate but doing it in a civil fashion, having the consideration each person deserves to be heard, and having a vote up or down. I offer that as a suggestion on how we might proceed.

Mr. DODD. I will find out from my colleague.

Mr. DODD. My colleague from Montana wishes to speak.

Mr. DODD. My friend can call up his amendment. Amendment No. 3749 to Amendment No. 3739

Mr. DODD. I just want to thank him for all his work. We have spent a lot of time in the last year or so on the health care debate, where we sat next to each other day after day going through all of that. We, obviously, go back a lot longer than that. The Senator from Iowa and I arrived here on the very same day. The pages have oftentimes asked me when did I get here, and I have said: Thomas Jefferson was President when I arrived. It wasn't quite that long ago, but we arrived together on the same day, 35 years ago, in the House of Representatives, and we have been great friends and colleagues. No one cares more about not only his State but people all across this country who struggle. He is the author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, affecting millions of Americans, and I have a family member who benefitted from Senator Harkin's work. I wish there had been someone around in the 1930s when she was born who might have stood up and recognized her talents and ability. Fortunately, she grew up in a family where they did some things and she ended up helping restore the American Montessori system of teaching as an early childhood development specialist. But had she been born under different circumstances, I suspect she would have been doing piecemeal work somewhere. So there is a lot for which our country has to thank the Senator from Iowa. I appreciate his efforts on this amendment and thank him for his general concerns on the bill as well.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, before our colleague from New Jersey leaves, let me thank him. He is a member of our Banking Committee, and a very valuable member. He has been tremendously helpful as we have worked together, through my 37 or 38 months as chairman of the committee, very closely on the housing issues, on the credit card legislation. There have been some 42 measures that have come through the Banking Committee in the last 38 months, 37 of which have become the law of the land. That is a pretty good record out of our committee. It reflects the tremendous effort of members of that committee to help pull together sound pieces of legislation. Senator Menendez has been critical in so many of those efforts. I want to thank him for that and I want to thank him for his ideas on this bill. We are hoping we get many of these amendments up and have a chance to debate them. But I thank him for his contribution already.