Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DODD. I see my friend and colleague from Oregon. I will yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to our colleague from Washington.

Mr. DODD. Let me thank my colleague from the State of Washington. I appreciate very much her comments and her leadership. I see my friend, Senator Brownback, as well. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the last 7\1/2\ minutes be reserved for myself before the vote. Is that the correct time; 7 or 7\1/2\ minutes? 7\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. DODD. I thank the Senator from Arizona. My intention was--let me say a couple of things.

Mr. DODD. I have reserved the last 7\1/2\ minutes. I think otherwise we might run out of time, I say to my friend from Arizona. I will just take 1 minute, if I may. I want to tell him and say this to him. I have been here 30 years. I have chaired bills on the floor. I never chaired a committee before 36 months ago when I became chairman of the Banking Committee under our system. But I want to say this to my friend from Arizona and I want him to convey this to his colleagues through this vehicle: I would never deprive another Senator of the opportunity to offer amendments on the floor. I revere this body. I began my service in this body sitting on those steps over there as a page. And how the Senate works is because we all participate in the debate. I know there are those who have this concern and fear. Obviously, you do not have unlimited debate forever. But the point is, amendments ought to be offered. I have colleagues on my side, politically, of the aisle who want to make this bill stronger, in their views. I know there are people who think I have gone too far with the bill and want to water it down a bit. That debate can only occur if we are on the bill. But I want my colleague to know, as one of the leaders of the minority, that I would never deprive another colleague of the opportunity to be heard, offer their amendment and their thoughts in that process. Secondly, on the too big to fail, this goes back and forth. Senator Shelby and I have worked on this. I see the possibility that--if there are some workability amendments that tighten that up, I am all for that. Senator Boxer of California has an amendment that would say that nothing in this bill can ever allow taxpayer money to be used. I am for that amendment. I don't know how many different ways we can say it. I think all of us agree we don't want to see our country go through that again. So the only limitations here are, do we think we are finding additional language here that will satisfy us that we have done the job we think we have intended to do? Senator Shelby and I talked about how to do this. Again, if that is the holdup, that should not hold us up because we are both committed to that. Thirdly, I want to say that there is a document circulating with some ideas of a Republican alternative that includes getting into the government-sponsored enterprises. I say to my friend, it is a huge issue, the GSEs. It is not just Fannie and Freddie; there are others. It needs a lot of work. But this proposal I have read--and it is not legislative language--a lot of it, I don't have any problem whatsoever. I am not sure who the author of this is, but it has been circulated. Again, I am not endorsing everything here because it is just a concept, but if that is an amendment, the better part of what I have seen, about 90 percent of what I have seen here, I have no problem with at all. That can be an amendment included as part of our bill. But, again, I have to get to it. The difficult problem I have is everybody is coming with things they would like to add to or subtract from the bill, but, as my colleague knows, having been a leader around here for a long time, you have to get to the product. That is my frustration here. Lastly, I am not going to bore him with too much detail here, but in section 1027--and I won't read all of it--the last lines on limitations, because of the concerns people have about dentists or other people being drawn into our consumer protection section say: Notwithstanding subparagraph (B), the Bureau may not exercise any rulemaking, supervisory, enforcement, or other authority under this title with respect to a merchant, retailer, or seller of nonfinancial goods or services that is not engaged significantly in offering or providing consumer financial products or services. And, again, to insulate against the very worry you would have, and others have talked about, the NFNIB, someone who has four installment payments--it may be your local grocer, people who show up and buy food and do not pay for it, but usually at the end of the month or the end of 6 months, you have to be in the business of financial services or products to be affected by the legislation. Now, again, I know there are Members who have problems with that part of the bill. People on my side who want to strengthen it think I have not gone far enough on the bill. One of the difficult jobs is trying to reconcile differences that exist. But I cannot even begin to do so if we cannot even talk about it. So that is my frustration as the chairman of a committee, trying to get us to a point where all of us want to be, I am sure. We do not want to leave here having said we did not really deal with this problem that everyone in the country--I know, Arizona, what you have been through in your housing issues is staggering. Florida, California, Arizona, I think Nevada probably rank in the most difficult States where housing prices have declined and foreclosures have occurred. I know my friend from Arizona feels as strongly about this as I do. But I assure him, I will not deprive anybody of an amendment to be offered at all in the process. Secondly, we will try the workability issues on too big to fail and, again, language we have worked on on the consumer protection, and we think we took care of those dentists and others who were worried about it. But, again, others may have amendments and ideas. I will have to consider them on the Senate floor, and all of us will have to vote on them. But I appreciate him giving me a little time to express my thought.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Republican leader for his comments. Part of what he just said is worthy of note. This institution suffers. We operate on unanimous consent. That is the way it works. And inherent in unanimous consent is trust. It is the only way this institution has ever operated. There has been, I think we would all have to acknowledge, a breakdown for a lot of different reasons. We have to get back to it. This is an opportunity to do that. Senator Shelby and I have a very good working relationship. We trust each other. We talk to each other. We spent an hour together. We are meeting again at 5:00, after this vote today, to talk about one way or the other where the bill is. There has to be a return to that comity and understanding, while we have differences of opinion. If the American people believe we cannot trust each other, when I say I will--I was asked at our conference lunch, again, the very question that my colleague from Arizona raised: Will I be allowed to offer an amendment, Senator Dodd? Absolutely, you will. So it is a concern I know that everybody has about whether they can be heard on these matters. I would never, as a person who reveres this institution, want to deprive anybody of an opportunity to be heard on a matter as important as this. We have amendments I know are offered. I heard them--the cosponsors-- one Senator today listed the cosponsors of an amendment he wants to offer. There are more Republicans than Democrats on the amendment dealing with the Federal Reserve System. I have some concerns about that amendment. But the fact is, it has bipartisan support for an amendment they want to offer. There are a lot of these ideas. I know within the Republican circle there are divisions as well as to what ought to be in this bill. We have them on our side as well. It is not as if there is some bright line here, and there is one solid thought process over here, and an alternative one over here. We have about as many different views on this bill as there may be Members in this body. But all I ask for is to get to this bill. Let's get to this debate. Again, the leader got up and said this was a partisan bill. I have worked very hard to avoid that. Back in November when I introduced the bill, there were objections on the minority side as well as on the majority side. We put it aside. We have spent from November up until just a few days ago trying to put a product together that would reflect all of this different thinking. It is a vastly different bill from the one I introduced in November. I know it is not yet to everyone's satisfaction, but we need to debate this bill, in my view. It will take a long time. This is not going to be a short debate. I know that. But we need to allocate the time talking about what is in the bill or not in the bill rather than questioning each other's motives as to why we are not on the bill, it seems to me. So my plea is, again, as Senator Shelby has said, I think we are about 80 percent in agreement. I believe that to be the case. If we are 80 percent in agreement, that ought to be enough of a basis upon which to move forward. If we were all in disagreement about everything, well, I might still believe we ought to debate it. So, again, I see my colleague--I realize he has to go, and we are going to vote in a couple of minutes. But I thank him for spending the time with me and to hear me out on these points. I am grateful to him for that. Mr. President, those are sort of the points that I intended to make in these closing minutes of this discussion, once again. We had it yesterday, and here we are again this afternoon. With all of the things that people are going through in the country, it seems to me, again, this bill, which has been the product of a year and a half of work-- this was not drafted over a weekend or some short period of time trying to reflect the interests of my colleagues--is deserving of our consideration. I am not asking to vote for this with this next vote. No one will be asked to vote for this. No one will be asked to vote for any of the various amendments I am sure will be offered, and I will welcome, as part of this debate, and that Senator Shelby and I as managers of the bill will consider them. All we are being asked to do, in the next 7 minutes or less, is to give this product a chance to be discussed. This product reflects a year and a half of effort to answer the question: What went wrong that caused our economy and our Nation to go through the worst economic crisis since the early part of the last century? That is a legitimate question being asked. What are the gaps? What steps are we taking to fill in those gaps? Are there cops on the beat to protect us? Do they have the authority and the resources to do the job? Is there an early warning system? These are all issues upon which I suspect, based on my conversations over a year and a half--or more than that now--on which we have a lot of agreement. I do not know of anyone in this Chamber who wants to support a bill that does not end too big to fail. If they exist, I have not heard their voices. I do not think there is anyone here who does not believe we should not have an early warning system so we can identify problems before they become the large ones that cost us as much as it has over the last year and a half. I think all of us--I have heard my colleagues say they are for a consumer protection agency. I believe them. We have a consumer protection agency in this bill. There is a debate about how much authority we want to give them, the interface, the interaction with prudential regulators. Those are all arguments within the context of whether we ought to have a consumer protection agency. There is not a position over here that I know of--maybe some have it--that they are just flatout against a consumer protection agency. Senator Shelby has told me, and others on the Banking Committee: We are for a consumer protection agency. They have differences about what ought to happen within that. That is the purpose for having the debate. We are told again, we heard it a moment ago: We ought to have the bright sunshine on derivatives, these exotic instruments that were used, went from $91 billion in 1998, to close to $600 trillion--that is with a T--11 years later. That shadow economy contributed significantly to what we went through. Based on what I have heard, everyone thinks we ought to do something about that and not leave the situation as it is today, as it was 18 months ago, because nothing has changed since then, putting our Nation at risk once again. So we agree on that as well. Let's have transparency. Let's have accountability. There are differences; I would be naive and foolish to suggest otherwise. But everyone seems to agree we ought to do something about it. So if we look at the major thrust of our bill--end too big to fail; set up an early warning system to avoid the problems we saw in the past; deal with these exotic instruments out there and have some agency that at long last might keep an eye out for the average citizen in this country, that watches their credit cards, their mortgages, and so many other financial activities they engaged in that became deceptive and fraudulent, that they suffered terribly. So we all agree on the basic goals outlined in this bill. Differences exist, at least in one or two of the years. Too big to fail, I do not think there is any real disagreement. I do not think there is any disagreement on the early warning system, as I have heard the debate. The differences exist in what happens inside the consumer protection agency and what happens in the area of the shadow economy and dealing with the derivatives and other items, but not whether we want to do something. So that is what we ought to be doing.

Mr. DODD. I ask unanimous consent for 30 additional seconds.

Mr. DODD. We have spent the last day debating whether we ought to have this. Let's vote to invoke cloture and begin the long debate we need to have. I urge my colleagues to do so.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to the Pitney Bowes Company on the occasion of its 90th birthday. Headquartered in Stamford, Pitney Bowes has proven time and again that it is a true Connecticut institution, leading the way in innovation and facilitating progress in the mailing industry. But at least as important as its financial success, is the kind of company that it is. The company is a notably progressive employer, capturing repeated honors for its commitment to diversity. It is regularly cited as among the best places to work for women, African Americans, and Hispanics. It does this because it is right but also because they know it makes smart business sense. Pitney Bowes is also a corporate leader in health care. It is truly in the forefront of efforts to improve their employee and retiree health while at the same time reducing costs. The examples are numerous. The company learned that forcing people to make large copayments for the medications they need to manage chronic conditions often led employees to skip taking their medicine. This resulted in more trips to the doctor and hospital, higher costs, and more absenteeism. So the company reduced or eliminated employee copayments for these medications. It cost more in the short run, but a lot less in the long run, and the affected employees enjoy greater health and productivity. The company put healthy food in its cafeterias and charges less for it. There are still lots of choices, some not so healthy, but you have to look harder for the less healthy foods, and you have to pay more. And either way, there are on-site gyms in many facilities. The company also established on-site clinics to make it easier for employees and retirees to obtain medical care. Indeed, Pitney Bowes went so far as to arrange for specialist doctors, used by many of their employees, to hold office hours on-site. These efforts have been recognized by the Obama administration, and Murray Martin, the chairman and CEO, met with the President last year to discuss the company's programs. Finally, the company also has a profound commitment to community service, providing funding for education and literacy organizations, and encouraging employees to volunteer their time to a wide variety of causes. This is just another way in which Pitney Bowes has benefited our State. At a time when many American companies have failed, and others have become deeply troubled, it is with pleasure that I am able to recognize a cutting-edge company with good old fashioned values. Congratulations, Pitney Bowes, on your 90th birthday.

Mr. DODD

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

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, as I understand it, there is a vote scheduled at 5 p.m., is that correct?

Mr. DODD. And the time between now and 5 p.m. will be for general debate on the matter of the motion to proceed, is that correct?

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I see my friend and colleague from Delaware, Senator Kaufman. How much time does the Senator need?

Mr. DODD. I yield 16 minutes to the Senator from Delaware.

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

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

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suspect sometime over the next hour and a half, Members will come to the floor--including the Presiding Officer-- and I will be glad to take a few minutes and share some opening comments and then give him relief so he can be heard on this matter. I thank Senator Warner and my colleagues on the Banking Committee, both Democrats and Republicans. We have spent a lot of time together over the last 2 years now--longer, in fact, going back even before the arrival of my friend from Virginia. When I became chairman of the Banking Committee in January of 2007, I was asked to pick up this issue. We began to look at the issue of the mortgage crisis in the country through all of 2007 and, of course, the following year when events began to unfold, culminating with the disaster we encountered in the fall of 2008. The members of the committee have worked very hard. We have had literally hundreds of hearings and meetings, listening to people across the spectrum of how best to address these issues, filling in the gaps that led to the near collapse of our economy; what steps we ought to be taking to provide intelligent, thoughtful, commonsense regulation, as well as to see to it, in the process of doing so, we do not stifle the ability of this country to lead in the financial sector globally; as well as provide for the innovation and creativity necessary for our country to grow and prosper economically, the wealth creation that is necessary for our country. It has been a long and arduous journey. I was speaking with Bob Corker of Tennessee, with whom I spent a great deal of time, as I know the Presiding Officer has as well. I thank Senator Shelby, my colleague and former chairman of the Banking Committee, who is the ranking member on our committee. We have spent a lot of time on these issues, including some time earlier this afternoon, and we will be meeting again depending on the outcome this evening one way or the other. We will continue our conversations to try to resolve some of these outstanding matters in a very long and complex piece of legislation. I will not enumerate every member of the Banking Committee, but suffice it to say, to this juncture, the work they have done has been tremendously helpful and has produced a good and strong bill on financial reform. Today the Senate faces its first vote on the issue, which will occur in a little less than 2 hours from now, deciding whether we can even go forward and debate the matter. My hope is our colleagues will allow us to debate this issue. I understand there are differences. There is hardly unanimity in caucuses, let alone in the Chamber, on the way to go, particularly in areas involving systemic risk, dealing with the so-called too big to fail provisions, dealing with the provisions of how we administer the notion of exotic instruments, the derivative community, and the like. Significant discussions have gone on. The assumption we are going to resolve all of those issues prior to debating the issues is somewhat unrealistic if we are trying to reach accommodation on all the various matters that are included in the 1,400 pages of the proposal which we will have before this body. Today my plea is not so much on the substance of what is here, although I am willing to discuss all of that because it is important our colleagues know what we have tried to achieve and accommodate in our legislation, but a plea to let us get to the debate. I do not think the American people understand this. Regardless of where you come out on the issues, whether you stand on the various provisions of the bill, I do not know how to explain to people to make them realize how vulnerable we are today in the waning days of April 2010 as we were in the fall of 2008 when we saw what happened to our economy. Nothing has changed except, of course, jobs have been lost, homes have gone into foreclosure, retirement incomes have evaporated, and housing values have declined. Almost $11 trillion in household wealth has been lost. That is what has happened over the last 18 months. We have yet to stand and address what caused that to happen in our country, to fill in those gaps to provide the regulation, put the cops on the beat, create provisions that would minimize the next economic crisis. And it will occur. There is nothing I have drafted that can protect our country from future economic difficulty. As certain as I am standing here today, we will face yet another crisis or crises in the future. The question is, Are we going to be better positioned to minimize that crisis so we do not see the collateral damage that has been caused to businesses, individuals, retirement, homes--all of the things that we have suffered because we did not have in place the kind of safeguards that might have put a tourniquet on this problem in its earliest stages, not to have eliminated the crisis but certainly eliminated the damage it caused because we did not have the cops on the beat, we did not have the regulation, and we did not have what is exactly included in this bill to minimize the danger in the future. I have tried to explain this issue. Obviously, it is complicated when you start talking in these words that are archaic; talking about credit default swaps and derivatives and systemic risk and all the other terminology that is used to talk about financial services. But let me try to phrase this in more graphic terms, if I can. Imagine coming home from a weekend away. You have been away. You have taken your family out on a trip and you come home to find the front door swinging wide open, flapping back and forth. When you walk in the house, you realize you have been robbed. Your TV is gone, your furniture, your jewelry, important documents, cash, and family photos, all have been stolen out of your home. Maybe worst of all, there is broken glass and shattered pottery. Not only did they steal, but they decided to wreck the house as well. So you are angry and frightened, wondering what is coming next and how much it will cost you to replace your TV and your stereo. Then you find out, at the end of all this, that they have identified the robbers who have broken into your home and stolen everything and, by the way, you have to write a check to them. The very people who caused the damage are now going to get a check written out to them--those who caused the problem in the first place. Well, that is what happened, in effect, 18 months ago. People came in and robbed our homes, in effect. In fact, they took the home, they took the income, and they took the retirement. They watched jobs go out the window. The very people who were responsible for it, of course, were stabilized because we wrote a check for $700 billion to stabilize those institutions. As we did so, and, of course, we got them back on their feet, the very leaders of these industries began to reap massive bonuses to put themselves on solid footing. So they have benefited from this financially. Yet 8\1/2\ million jobs were lost, 7 million homes ended up in foreclosure, there was a 30-percent decline in home values and a 20-percent decline in retirement of working families, all who thought they were protected. All that is gone, and somewhere between $11 trillion and $13 trillion--not ``b'' as in billion but a trillion dollars--in household wealth has been lost in 18 months. If that is not wreckage of your home--your economic home--I don't know what is. Today, we are as vulnerable as we were 18 months ago. Our house is still unlocked, in a way. What happened 18 months ago could happen again. The difference this time is I don't think there is an ounce of willingness on the part of the American people to write that check again. What they are asking is for us to step up, to think carefully--as we have tried to do over the last year or so as we have gone through this process--and craft some ideas that would minimize that from happening again so there is not a huge part of our economy that is totally unregulated, as we had with real estate brokers who on their Web site had as their first rule to brokers, convince the borrower you are their financial adviser, when they were anything but their financial adviser. So they were luring people into mortgages they couldn't afford and convincing them they could pay for it, knowing full well they never ever could. Of course, the banks themselves were then bundling these mortgages, only holding them for 8 or 10 weeks and then selling them off, branding them AAA to unsuspecting investors, and that created that bubble that ultimately was the major cause of the collapse. Today, that same problem can exist in the absence of the law we are putting before our colleagues. Maybe I should have said this at the outset, but we hardly claim perfection in what we have written here. Hardly. But we believe they are sound ideas that deal with these very issues that caused the problem in the first place, and what we need to do is to be able to debate those ideas. If my colleagues disagree, as many do--some think I have gone too far, some think I haven't gone far enough, and those are maybe two legitimate points--how are we to resolve our disagreement if we can't bring up the bill and have the debate this Chamber was designed to engage in? What is the point of having 100 seats, coming from 50 States, when a major issue affecting our country cannot even be the subject of a debate? So I urge my colleagues--I urge them--to let us get to this debate. Let us do our best to resolve these matters as adults, as people who have strong views and feelings, many of which we agree on, by the way. I mentioned my colleague from Virginia, the Presiding Officer. I don't know how long Mark Warner and Bob Corker spent--hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours--to make sure that in this proposal never again would a financial institution in the United States of America reach such a status that it would be guaranteed implicitly that the Federal Government would bail them out when they engaged in excessive risk and put themselves in great jeopardy. Our bill does that. Without any question whatsoever, those entities, if they reach that point, will fail. They will go into bankruptcy, they will go into receivership, and management gets fired. They don't get a bonus, they get fired. Shareholders lose their resources or their investments, as well as do creditors, not to mention other problems associated with it. But the idea is, those entities go out of business, and we wind them down in a way that doesn't jeopardize other sectors of our economy. Nothing could be more clear in our bill than that. If there was one issue I think we all agreed on, it was to make sure that didn't happen. Again, the Senators from Tennessee and Virginia, and there were others, by the way, who were engaged in that debate in writing this bill to achieve that desired result by the American people. We also said: Look, one of the problems that happened over the years leading to this crisis is that we didn't even know what was going on out there. We heard Bob Rubin, the former Secretary of the Treasury, and we heard Alan Greenspan and others--whether you believe them--who said we didn't understand how this was happening or why it was happening or even that it was happening. Well, that excuse ought to never occur again. So we create in our bill that early radar system--again, maybe a more graphic description of what the Systemic Risk Council does. This is made up of various Federal agencies, so that there is not just one but a multiple set of eyes with differing backgrounds and experience to deal with the economic issues of our Nation; to be constantly watching and monitoring what is occurring out there and not just in our own country, by the way, but around the world. How many of us have read headlines over the past few weeks about Greece and what problems it may pose to Europe and other parts of our global economy or what happened in the Shanghai stock market a number of years ago, where a decline in value in that exchange put the entire world in a tailspin for several days. So the notion that it is just what happens here at home on mortgages or other issues is not limited, it is also what happens around the world today that can affect us. Anyway, this part of the bill is designed to be that early warning system--that radar system. Again, I wish to thank my colleague from Virginia and my colleague from Tennessee. One of the provisions in that early warning system is data collection on a daily basis, so we know what is happening economically literally on an hour-to-hour basis. That will be a great value as we sit there and try to make these assessments and pick up on these problems in the earliest stages before they can occur. Consumer protection. This ought not be a radical idea--to protect consumers from any problems financially. How many of us, of course, read the tragic news over the last few weeks about an automobile manufacturer that had a defective accelerator? What was the first thing you heard? Those cars are being recalled so you would not be at risk in driving them. We hear of recalls all the time on products we buy. You buy that nice TV and it doesn't work, you can send it back, you can recall that product, and you will be protected as a consumer. What happens when you get a financial product that doesn't work or is defective or certainly producing results that were never intended but are causing major problems? Where do you go to get a recall on a faulty mortgage or a credit card deal that is corrupt or fraudulent or deceptive or abusive? Why shouldn't we deal with financial products that can bring someone to financial ruin? We can do it with a toaster, a TV or an automobile. Well, our bill sets up a Consumer Financial Product Safety Commission or bureau or division that we have established in this bill. So consumers themselves can have someplace to go to get redress. Rules can be written to protect them against abusive practices. I appreciate my colleague from Delaware mentioning my credit card bill, but we shouldn't have to write a bill every time there is a deceptive or fraudulent practice that does damage to consumers. Why does it take writing a bill every time there is a problem? Why not have regulations in place that would protect consumers? Let me mention what else that does. It isn't just protecting the consumer from a faulty financial product. One of the most important elements in our economy is consumer confidence--having a sense of optimism and confidence or faith that our institutions will be there to work for them and not against them. One of the great damages to our country--and I don't know how you put a number on it. I can't cite the number on home values lost or wealth lost or mortgages or foreclosures or jobs lost. Tell me what price we put on the loss of the American public's confidence in our financial system. What is that number; that people no longer trust or have deep questions about whether they are going to be protected with their hard-earned dollar with that insurance policy or that stock they want to buy? Not that they ought to be guaranteed a return on it but that there isn't going to be some deceptive, abusive practice that will put them at risk. To me, that is about as important an issue as you can have--confidence of the American people that the architecture of our financial system is one they can have faith in, that they can have confidence in. That reputation has been damaged severely over these last number of months. I don't claim what we have written in this area of consumer protection solves every problem. But for the first time in our Nation's history, for the very first time, we will have a consolidated consumer protection agency with the principal responsibility of watching out for the consumers of financial products. I think that is a major achievement for our bill. Lastly, let me mention the old issue of these exotic instruments that I mentioned earlier that have complicated definitions of what they do and how they work. One of the major problems is, of course, it has been an unregulated area. It has been what they call the shadow economy. To give an idea of how the issue has exploded, in 1998, the area of derivatives generated about $91 billion in activity. That is 12 years ago. Last year--I think it was 2009 but the last year we have numbers on this, the amount of activity in this area jumped from $91 billion to almost $600 trillion--$91 billion to $600 trillion in 10 years in unregulated activities, in this shadow economy. It was those activities that also contributed so much to the economic difficulties we are going through. The Agriculture Committee, run by my good friend from Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln, and the members of her committee and our Banking Committee have worked out a sound and solid proposal on how we can protect the American consumers from these very risky instruments if they are not subjected to some basic rules of margin requirements-- capital. Let the Sun shine on them in the exchanges, where people can see the value. The market can determine that. All those things are critical. Derivatives are not a bad thing. They are needed, in fact, to have economic growth and prosperity. The problem isn't using them, it is how they are used and whether they operate in the shadows or in the bright light, where everyone knows what they are and how to value them. That is in our bill as well. There is a lot more in this legislation, and my intention was not to go through and enumerate every section of the bill--all 12 sections of the bill. My point to my colleagues is: Let us get to this debate. Let us have a chance. If you don't like what I have done on consumer protection, on derivatives, if you don't like what we have done on too big to fail, if you don't like what we have done on other provisions in the bill, then come and bring up amendments. Let's debate them and let's have that ability to at least try to shape this legislation. At 5 o'clock this afternoon, for the very first time since the crisis hit--other than the credit card bill and a housing bill that we had come out of my Banking Committee--this is the first chance we will have in 18 months, since the worst economic crisis in 80 years--which we are still suffering from. I know the markets are doing better, I know corporations are doing better, I know the stock market is making more money, but for most of us in this Chamber, we know it hasn't quite reached down yet--the economic recovery--to average citizens who have lost their jobs, who have lost their retirement, who have lost the wealth they built up over the years. All that is gone. For a lot of them it is not going to come back. So what we need to do is step up and try to provide some answers the American public is looking for. A lot of the rage and fury and anger we are seeing around other issues happened in no small measure because of what happened to our economy and because of the failure to have regulatory procedures in place, to have cops on the beat to enforce those regulations, to be able to have the early warning system to identify problems before they spun out of control. Our bill, we believe, steps up and addresses those issues. Again, give us the opportunity to at the very least debate them. We cannot get to the resolution of these matters if the matter is not on floor. Senator Shelby and I have been talking. We talked over the weekend. We talked already this afternoon. We will meet again. Even if we get this done and move to the bill, we have to sit down and work out how to manage all of this, so I thank him again for his willingness to do that. I deeply believe Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama wants to get to a bill, as I believe do most of my colleagues here, but we cannot ever get there if we do not have that debate. I did not mean to speak this long but I wanted at least to let my colleagues know how important I believe this issue is. Frankly, I don't think it serves our interests well to be screaming at each other about who cares more about this issue than the other. I think it unfortunate that a number of my Republican friends who I know care about this very much would be branded that somehow they don't care about it to such an extent that they would not even let it get to a debate. They have ideas on this legislation. They want their amendments considered and they don't want to be told you cannot even do that because we do not have some large, sweeping agreement on a bill here. Senator Shelby and I are very close on some issues that we think we can reach an understanding. Basically we are there in a lot of these matters. I had hoped maybe we would get there before this afternoon, but there is no reason to stop all this, in my view, and not get to the adoption of the motion to proceed. For all of those reasons, I urge my colleagues at 5 p.m. to vote to proceed to this matter and let us take the next few days to consider this legislation. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 500, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, April 27; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that there be a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3217, the Wall Street reform legislation. Finally, I ask that the Senate recess from 12:30 until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus luncheons.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the following members of my staff be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the consideration of S. 3217, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010: Matt Green, Mark Jickling, Deborah Katz, Minhaj Chowdhury, William Fields, and Erika Lee.