Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Yes.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15 p.m. there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided between Senators Thune and Dodd or their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to Thune amendment No. 1030 and that there be no amendments in order to the Thune amendment prior to the vote.

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

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, my understanding is my friend and colleague from Tennessee has an amendment which is in order. I am prepared to defer to him. Then when he completes his remarks, I will respond. I believe Senator Martinez of Florida may be coming over as well. I understand we have an agreement to have a vote at 10:50. Is that correct?

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, a quick response. The homeowner gets to keep their home, hopefully, at a rate they can afford to pay. That is not insignificant, I say with all due respect. The idea there is nothing in here that benefits homeowners--and I am not interested in helping out the four big banks at all. I am interested in making it possible for this to avoid litigation. That is what the concern is; that if we are going to do this, we run the risk because it violates a contract potentially, and if you do that, you are subject to a lawsuit; hence, nothing happens. That is the fear: nothing happens. If the servicers do not act, then you end up with the borrower losing their home, the lender ends up getting nothing out of it at all; and, hence, the reason why this safe harbor is designed to get us to the point where both the borrower and the lender--again, we are not interested in anyone coming out of this situation with some enrichment, but the idea of slowing down this cascading problem of foreclosures, I think is in everyone's interest, as my colleague has pointed out. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I will take a minute. Let me just say again that I have great respect for my colleague from Tennessee. He and I work closely together on a lot of issues. He is invaluable as a colleague, as is Senator Martinez, former Secretary of Housing, who understands a lot of these issues well, not just from a senatorial perspective but from his previous job as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Washington. Again, this is a program that is limited in time, limited in scope. As both the Senator from Florida and I have said, this is far from a perfect world in terms of how we have to balance the various interests in all of this. I am not unmindful of the fact that we are in uncharted waters. We all recognize as well that we are in uncharted waters in a larger sense. We are in a time that none of us in this Chamber--with the exception of my colleague from West Virginia and a couple others-- can recall. Our parents and grandparents talked to us about times like these almost a century ago. While we are taking action here--and I hear my colleague from Tennessee, who made a legitimate point that we establish precedent here, and I understand that. People will look back, as we have looked back, to previous decades to seek ideas that might help us get back on track again and restore that optimism and confidence in our country. So we are moving into an area that is new, but as the Senator from Florida pointed out, we are in a time that is new as well. We have tried, as we know, in numerous ways over the last many months to figure out ways to get at the root of this foreclosure problem. Every idea you can come up with has its shortcomings. We have yet to find the perfect one that everybody agrees on. If somebody has it, please let us know because we are looking for it to get us to the point where we can put the brakes on foreclosures, not because you impose a moratorium but because people can afford their mortgages, lenders are being paid, the economy is moving, credit is flowing, businesses are growing, and joblessness is no longer increasing but declining--all of the things we want to see. This proposal we have advocated here, the safe harbor, in a narrowly crafted way, limited in time, scope, and circumstance, we believe will help in that regard. Is it perfect? Far from it. Is it necessary? Absolutely. That is why I think you see the collection of organizations. I don't want to overemphasize this point, but they have come together to say this is an idea worth trying. Rarely do you get that kind of cooperation. At least there is some indication that the other body might be willing to accept our language and take this bill, and the other provisions of the bill-- my colleague is correct--really are important and are needed immediately. We don't need to delay this further. That is not a reason to be for or against the amendment, but I just point out that the other side would agree to the Martinez idea. I ask our colleagues to, at the appropriate time, oppose this amendment--and I say that respectfully--so that we can move on to the other amendment and see if we can reach a final vote this evening or sometime in the morning. I yield the floor.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, so the pending matter is the Corker amendment?

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. DODD. I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside so I may call up, on behalf of Senator Kerry, amendment No. 1036.

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

Mr. DODD. I thank the Chair, and let me just say to my colleagues-- and I see my friend, Senator Shelby, on the floor of the Senate as well--that we are open for business, as the expression goes. We have a number of amendments--a significant number--on which I think we might be able to reach agreement. We are not quite there on those, but we can do that. There are several that require votes, and the leadership would obviously like to complete this bill this evening, if it is possible. My good friend from Alabama has been a good partner in all of this, in working on this, and so we invite all those with amendments to come over. We can offer them, debate them, and possibly reach agreement on them as well and adopt them as part of the bill. So I would just make that point. I see one of my colleagues on the Senate floor but who is maybe not ready yet, so I will suggest the absence of a quorum until we get someone to show up.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, before my colleague leaves the floor, I thank him as well. He has been a senior Member of the Banking Committee and has been an invaluable asset and partner on these issues. He understands regulatory reform as well as anyone and has dedicated a good part of his service on the committee to that issue. It was a pleasure to work with him on the issues he has mentioned in this bill, dealing with the FDIC and the National Credit Union Association. We are providing these resources. We think we have built in some pretty good safeguards so these guidelines will not be exceeded, but the best safeguards are for the institutions themselves to be cautious and prudent in utilization of these resources as well. I underscore and endorse his comments on that point and I thank him immensely for his work on the bill, making it possible for us to arrive where we are this morning. Lastly, I join him as well in his concerns about the Federal Trade Commission issue that I thought we successfully resolved in the colloquies we had here. Unfortunately, that was not, apparently, the case. We are still working at this. I want you to know Senator Crapo's office is directly involved with ours and others we are negotiating with and will obviously pursue this matter. I am hopeful we can resolve it amicably but, if not, there will be a moment in the not-too-distant future we will have to vote. I would like to work things out to everyone's satisfaction without that, but if that is the case, we will have to do that. I join with him. I think the jurisdiction is clear on that matter, and I think most agree with us, but, obviously, from time to time, you need to bring these matters to a head and actually have a decision by the body. Again, I hope we can avoid that, but if not, I join him in that effort to provide that legislative effort. I thank him very much, and hopefully we will, this evening, complete work on this bill and send it off. I am hopeful about the other body which, I am told, has looked on our efforts here with approving eyes, so we may be able to get it signed into law pretty quickly.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I thank my colleague from South Dakota. I appreciate his cooperation in getting the amendment up and having a chance to debate it. It is my understanding, even though the debate may not last long on this, there will be a vote probably sometime around 2:15. That is the plan right now. So while we may not exhaust a lot of time when we come back at 2:15, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes equally divided between the Senator from South Dakota and myself for the benefit of our colleagues before a vote, to explain the amendment once again before we actually have a vote. I ask unanimous consent for that. Madam President, I withhold that request. Let me address the substance of the amendment. What all of us want, without exception, is to have this TARP money come back. This is taxpayer money that went out last fall to shore up the financial system, to make it possible for the financial system to get stabilized and provide resources to either purchase toxic assets or legacy assets, as well as to make capital investments in order to provide stability to institutions that were at risk of becoming completely insolvent or going out of business entirely. History will ultimately judge whether that decision was the right one or the wrong one. I happen to believe it was right. Most people concluded that it was, that had we not taken that step, as difficult as it was, with the warnings of the Federal Reserve Board and others that the financial system, in fact, globally, could melt down if we did not act quickly--it was awfully difficult in that environment to know exactly what was best. But given the time constraints and the importance of the issue, this body acted. I think we did so appropriately and properly. The good news is that it is showing some glimmer of hope. I don't want to overstate the case, but there are some indications that this is beginning to work. Not that it will resolve itself overnight, but certainly it is beginning to show the possibility of getting credit once again moving. The Senator from South Dakota offers an amendment that has a certain attractiveness, the idea that TARP money now coming back, as much as maybe $25 billion, maybe more--certainly, we hope a lot more ultimately will come back into the coffers of the Government--what do we do with that TARP money at this juncture? If we adopt the amendment of the Senator from South Dakota, it would take those resources off the table. We couldn't use them. What does that mean? It would mean that just at a time when the so-called stress tests are being conducted--and none of us knows and won't know until this Thursday how many of these 19 institutions will actually need additional capital. We hope none do, but I suspect some will. If that is the case, where does it come from? I know this much about our colleagues: Whether you serve on one side or the other, none of us would rather go back and have to vote again on yet another tranche of TARP money. Wouldn't it be wiser, since the previously passed legislation allows for any money that comes back into the Government from these institutions repaying the TARP money, to recycle that money rather than coming back again and asking for additional money, which we may very well be asked to do very quickly? My concern with the amendment is, just at the very hour that we may need some additional resources to either further capitalize or purchase toxic assets, in either case to allow our economic recovery to move forward, we would be removing those resources altogether, once again forcing this institution to allocate additional resources. The more prudent step to take would be to utilize these resources coming back at this critical moment in order to get this program working. Why is that important? It isn't just about the financial institutions. In fact, if it were only about that, I suspect I know where 99 or 100 of us would be on that issue. The question isn't so much what happens to these major institutions in and of themselves; it is what happens to the people who depend upon them, those small businesses, midsize businesses that need credit lines in order to buy inventory, to pay employees. What happens to people who are seeking a mortgage, buying an automobile, dealing with student loans, dealing with credit card debt? All of these issues are affected by what happens in the financial system as a whole. These are not separate entities disconnected to the overall well-being of the economy. If you could divorce them from the well-being of the economy, most would say amen and do so. But to suggest so is to not understand how the financial system has to operate. At the very moment that we as a nation need to keep this ball moving in a direction that allows for the financial system to shed the toxic, clogging assets that are freezing up the circulatory system financially, we would be stepping back and forcing an institution to vote for additional resources. My political barometer tells me there are not the votes. I think most of my colleagues know that. At this juncture, we need to see a lot more about how this program is working before this institution is likely to vote again for an additional allocation of taxpayer money for the program. It may come to a point where the President will ask us for that. But I don't think we want to jump to that option, particularly if we have resources coming off the TARP program that could be recycled for the next 11 months or so and that we can properly use at a moment that it is needed. That is the reason I will ask my colleagues to respectfully reject this amendment. At this very hour, the last thing we need to be doing is deny the Treasury Department and others the resource capacity to respond to a situation. It is in one sense, on one level, about the financial institutions. But in a far more profound and important way, it is about the people who depend upon these institutions for their economic livelihood, their economic well-being, their economic survival. That is not an exaggeration. Most businesses need credit in order to operate. If you strangle credit and it does not move, then the people whom we care most about--the small businesses on Main Street, that home purchaser, that other person out there struggling at this hour, when you are losing 20,000 jobs a day, 10,000 homes every day through foreclosure, not to mention retirement accounts and other problems--at the very hour that things seem to be just limping ever so slightly in the right direction, to deny these moneys to reinvest in the program and make it work and depend upon the outcome of a vote here to provide additional resources would be the wrong step in the wrong direction. The very people we want to see get back on their feet again would be the victims. We have a tendency to focus on whether these institutions are deserving of help. My colleagues may be divided on that point. I don't think we are divided on whether we want to see the people who need the institutions get help. There, I think we all agree. So at the very hour we agree about helping them, we deny them the ability to get the help they need by depriving these resources to be reinvested in the acquisition of the very assets that are making it difficult for credit to move. That is the reason I am asking my colleagues to reject the amendment when the vote occurs at 2:15. Again, we will know on Thursday how many of these lending institutions are so-called ``passing the stress test.'' My hope is that a majority of them are and that there would be very few, if any, that need more capital. I suspect there will be some that do. Which is the better choice at that moment--to take some of this TARP money that has come back and put that to use or take that off the table and have to come back up here and seek a majority vote or a 60-vote margin? What is the likelihood of that occurring? If it is not likely to occur and we stall out in this recovery, all of us would regret that. So I appreciate very much the spirit with which Senator Thune offers the amendment. We all agree we would like this money back. We would like it back with interest. We would like to strengthen our economy, restore that confidence and optimism that is critical for the success of the Nation. But we also recognize, as do most Americans, that we have a time to go before this is going to result in the recovery we would all like to see. This decision, at this juncture, could stall or set that effort back, not just days and weeks but months. None of us wants to be a party to that. With those thoughts, at the appropriate time I will ask my colleagues to vote against the Thune amendment and move on to the remaining amendments which we hope we can clean up this afternoon and finish voting on this very important bill. This is a bill that is very important to our community bankers, to our folks out there trying to resolve how they can stay in their homes. It is very important to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the insurance fund, as well as to the national credit unions across the country. There are a lot of entities that do need this kind of help. It is a major step in getting our economy moving in the right direction. This amendment would set that effort back and jeopardize this legislation from being adopted quickly at a time when we need it. With respect to the author of the amendment, knowing his intentions and his motivations are certainly understandable, I think it is the wrong choice at this hour. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD

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

Mr. DODD. What is the pending business before the Senate?

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I want to take 1 minute. Let me say to my colleagues, all of us would like to see the TARP money come back and we recapture all of it. The danger in all this right now, with the stress test coming out on Thursday, is to be utilizing the TARP money rather than having to appropriate more money, it seems to me, to utilize TARP money to buy toxic assets and make the capital investments is what we want to do. The last thing we want to do is come back here and vote for additional money. Here is a moment when it is critically important that we take advantage of the resources to continue the program, so that we buy the assets, invest the capital necessary to get us out of this mess. At the very moment we want to be doing that, we will be back here voting. I do not need to tell my colleagues, if we need new TARP money, how difficult that would be. To avoid going down that road, utilizing the money that has come back from these interests that have gotten their money makes a lot more sense to me, I respectfully say to my friend from South Dakota. This amendment could not come at a worse time. We are going to need the capital for institutions that need help. They need help. I am not interested in them. I am interested in their ability to provide credit to homeowners, small businesses, and student loans. The credit system is frozen. We need to unfreeze it. If you deny the ability to invest these TARP dollars into buying assets and providing capital, it seems to me you slow down or set back that process considerably. For those reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment. I thank my colleague for the intention behind it. Have the yeas and nays been ordered?

Mr. DODD. I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, we are waiting for someone to come with an amendment. In the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD. Let me first thank our colleague from California for her leadership on this issue. They are very commonsense, straightforward proposals that we think can improve the legislation. And it is almost, in a way--I was thinking, as my colleague and friend was talking, it is almost sad that we have to have an amendment such as this. You would almost think that there has got to be some law someplace that would say what she is suggesting by her amendment would be covered. In a way it is a tragic commentary on the times we are in, the idea where we have to say that, by the way, collusion is not permissible. I did not think it was anyway. But her amendment makes it certain in this legislation that that is the case. I am not sure the of order, but the first comments my colleague gave regarding information about their mortgages, again this is pretty straightforward. I see Senator Ensign is on the floor, and I will be brief, because I want him to be able to offer his amendment so we can move forward. But the idea that you can find out who owns the mortgage is pretty straightforward. Those of us with a little gray hair on our head--and my colleague from California has none, I want the Record to show.

Mr. DODD. I do remember when I bought my first home, an old 1710 center chimney cape house in Connecticut. I went down to the Old Stone Bank and got a mortgage. I could go down every day for as long as that mortgage was around and look at it, see it, and pick it up if I wanted to and hold it and do whatever I wanted to do with that mortgage. Today, of course, because the world has changed, people buy a home-- and, of course, put aside the issue of predatory lending and subprime mortgages and the rest--and that mortgage, within 8 to 10 weeks, on average, is sold off. It is securitized, as they call it. This is true of a lot of debt. It is student loans, it is credit cards, it is all kind of debt that gets securitized. By the way, that is not a bad thing, because that provides liquidity, that provides assets for people so more people can afford to buy homes. But the Senator from California has pointed out that you ought to know who that is. That seems to me a logical request. If that mortgage has been sold off, who owns it? So if a borrower wants to be able to do something with it, you ought not to have to go through and hire a private investigatory agency to find out who holds your mortgage. So while we respect the idea that securitization can actually be beneficial to the community at large, if it deprives that owner of the mortgage the opportunity to determine who is the holder of that mortgage, obviously then we have lost something in the process. The Senator from California has proposed a very worthwhile amendment. The New York Times story of April 24, 2009, notes: Advocates wanting to engage lenders ``face a challenge even finding someone with whom to begin the conversation,'' according to a report by NeighborWorks America. . . . That is exactly what the Senator from California addresses with her amendment. With whom do you begin the conversation? The conversation ought to be with the person who is holding that instrument. I endorse her amendment and urge my colleagues to do so as well. Regarding the second amendment, the other amendment offered by Senator Boxer deals with the collusion issue. I briefly addressed that previously by saying, in a way, I was almost sad to hear her offering the amendment. I was under the impression that was against the law anyway. The idea we are offering an amendment to further corroborate that collusion in these matters ought to be against the law. If it is not, it ought to be. I commend the Senator from California and her colleague from Nevada for offering the amendment, along with Senators Pryor and Snowe. This amendment is clearly a step in the right direction from where we were last week. I do want to say the administration has some concerns. My colleagues know that. They have talked about them. I have listened to them. I am not suggesting their concerns are illegitimate, but I believe the value of the amendment trumps their concerns. I think we have done enough to continue to move forward, and it is the right step to be taking. This is an important effort. I support the Ensign second-degree amendment to the Ensign-Boxer amendment however that amendment is described. With that, I yield the floor. Amendment No. 1038 to Amendment No. 1018

Mr. DODD. Certainly.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am very pleased to work with our colleague from Rhode Island on this matter and strongly urge the support of this amendment as well. This is a good bill. We have an underlying bill that is a better bill because of what Senator Reed and Senator Bond have added to it. This is a value added to the issue. It is one that our colleague from Rhode Island has been involved in for virtually the entire time he has been in the Senate, and cared about. His earlier partner, Senator Allard of Colorado, worked with him on the issue. Senator Allard retired from the Senate, so Senator Reed reached out to Senator Bond, who has a strong interest in housing issues, and became his partner, along with others. I am proud to call myself one of those partners, as chairman of the Banking Committee. As we move forward, I know in my own State of Connecticut, we have had a 13-percent increase in homeless families in the last year and a half--that is really beginning in 2007 before this issue of foreclosures exploded in our communities. So I think those numbers are up beyond that. The number of homeless children and families is now increasing. The fastest growing part of the population that is homeless is children in our country, and this is no longer just that person we see on a street corner who is struggling in their lives. Shelters are jam-packed. You can only stay so long. I know many of my colleagues have visited these facilities and seen families who, only weeks before, owned a home or had a place to live, are out of that situation and now are part of a growing number of people. So the timeliness of this legislation could not be more important. We are talking about trying to stop foreclosures. What an important corollary to that to make sure we are simultaneously providing--Lord forbid people fall into that situation-- an opportunity to have decent shelter. So I thank my colleague from Rhode Island for his leadership. I applaud those of his cosponsors. This amendment would consolidate existing HUD McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs and make several improvements to cost effectively end homelessness. I have to take note because I mentioned McKinney-Vento. Both individuals are great friends of mine. Stu McKinney was a Congressman from Connecticut for many years and took on the issue of homelessness. He passed away many years ago. He had a wonderful family. His son John is one of the Republican leaders in the Connecticut State legislature. His wife Lucy is a wonderful friend. Stu McKinney was a remarkable human being. Of course, Bruce Vento was a great champion. I served with him in the House as well. McKinney-Vento, we throw these names around, but know that McKinney and Vento were two wonderful Members of Congress who cared deeply about what happened to people who fall on hard times. We can add the name Reed to that group as well. I compliment my friend and urge adoption of his amendment.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I believe this request has been agreed to by both the majority and minority. I ask unanimous consent that there now be 2 minutes prior to a vote in relation to the Ensign second-degree amendment No. 1043 to the Boxer amendment No. 1038; that prior to the vote, the Ensign amendment be modified with the changes at the desk; that upon the use or yielding back of the time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Ensign amendment, as modified; that if the Ensign amendment is not agreed to, then the Senate vote in relation to the Boxer amendment; provided further that if the Ensign amendment is agreed to, the Boxer amendment, as amended, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that there then be 2 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the DeMint amendment No. 1026, with the time equally divided and controlled between Senators Dodd and DeMint or their designees; that after the first vote in this sequence, the second vote be 10 minutes in duration.