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 to conduct a business meeting on Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 9:45 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate 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 Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a nomination hearing.

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 Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a hearing on international treaties.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Fuel Subsidies: Is There an Impact on Food Supply and Prices?''.

Mr. DODD. 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 ``Judicial Nominations'' on Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. DODD. 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, May 7, 2008 to conduct a hearing. The Committee will meet in room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Concentration in Agriculture and an Examination of the JBS/Swift Acquisitions'' on Wednesday, May 7, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Public Sector Solutions to Global Warming, Oversight, and Children's Health Protection be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to hold a hearing entitled, ``Oversight Hearing on Science and Environmental Regulatory Decisions.''

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 554, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I further 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 relating to this measure be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that I be included as a cosponsor of this resolution.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Con. Res. 81, submitted earlier today by Senator Feingold.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent 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 any statements relating to the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday, May 8; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that there be a period of morning business for up to 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each and the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of S. 2284, flood insurance, as under the previous order.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. Con. Res. 72, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. DODD. I further 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 relating to this measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. DODD

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

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, before reading the concluding comments here, I wish to take a minute or so to summarize what happened today regarding the flood insurance bill. I express my gratitude, first of all, to Senator Reid, the majority leader, for insisting that this flood insurance matter come before the Senate. This is an important bill. There are a lot of issues that our constituents are facing,--the housing issue, on which I am spending a great deal of time, the economic issues generally, the price of gasoline, and the price of oil at $120 a barrel, causing staggering problems across our country. The flood insurance issue, as we enter hurricane season coming up, could make a great deal of difference for people in this country who are concerned about that issue and what could happen with the cost of premiums, whether they are going to have that coverage at all. Senator Shelby of Alabama, my ranking member and former chairman of the committee, along with Senator Bunning and others actually passed this legislation in a previous Congress and weren't able to get it adopted. We adopted it again out of the Banking Committee earlier this year, and I am optimistic that we will be able to bring final closure to this issue. In light of the fact that there is a tremendous amount of debt, FEMA--the Federal Emergency Management Agency--had to borrow $17 billion from the Federal Treasury to meet the claims of people who faced the devastating loss as a result of the flooding that occurred with the major natural disasters. Borrowing that money had an interest payment due on it, and that cost alone was raising the cost of premiums. This bill, which I hope we complete tomorrow, will forgive that debt. That will remove that cost that is added to the premiums, which are not inexpensive but absolutely necessary if you are going to have a flood insurance program. I point out that the program generates about $2.5 billion worth of revenues each year with the premiums collected. About a billion dollars of that is administrative costs. When you have demands, as we did out of 2005 of $17 billion just in the flood insurance area, you get some idea of how expensive this program can be if it is not well managed and actuarially sound. So we have made this significant effort, which I think will be valuable to people across the country and make a difference. We still have major work to do on the housing issue. I would be remiss if I didn't say how disappointed I was earlier today to listen to the President of the United States standing with the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, announcing that he intended to veto the housing legislation. Congressman Franks and his Republican counterparts are working on it in the House, and we are working on it in the Banking Committee. We are nowhere near having a bill per se, so I was shocked to hear the President saying he was vetoing something that doesn't exist yet. We are making an effort to have a bipartisan bill. I would have hoped he would say: I am watching what you are doing and I am interested, and I have ideas about what ought to be included, or excluded, and I invite the leadership in Congress to make sure we are involved. That would have been appropriate because we have dealt with the leadership of the administration's agencies that have been deeply involved in helping us craft the Hope for Homeowners Act. It was, therefore, shocking to have the President of the United States, despite the advice and counsel of some of the key economic advisers of the administration who have been constructive in working with us on a way to keep people in their own homes, announce he intended to veto something even before we have had a chance to put it together. The good news is that I believe my colleagues on the Banking Committee, who are working on this, from the minority and Republican side, are still interested in hearing some ideas and working on this. That is not to suggest they have agreed to anything. They have not. But we are working--and our staffs are--to develop that compromise bill. They haven't been cowed by the announcement by the administration that they will veto anything we might do to keep hundreds of thousands of people in their homes. I would be remiss if I didn't note that it was only about a month ago or a month and a half ago that the Federal Government committed $29 billion, without ever a vote occurring here, to make the merger between Bear Stearns and JPMorgan occur. That $29 billion the Federal Government put into that deal made it possible for it to actually be accomplished. I happen to think they probably did the right thing that Sunday night of March 16. But I find it somewhat shocking that the President of the United States had little or nothing to say about that commitment of Federal dollars, and yet the idea that we might do something to make it possible for middle-income, hard-working families to stay in that most important possession, their home, he objects to--a bill before it exists that might accomplish that goal, done in a bipartisan fashion, involving his administration, key regulators from his own Government. That he would announce a veto of it is alarming to me, knowing how damaging this mortgage crisis is in so many aspects of our lives: commercial lending, student loans--they are all being adversely affected because of the mortgage crisis. The fact the President said, I am going to veto this bill no matter what you do up there, is disappointing. My hope is in the coming days, as we move toward a markup in the Banking Committee on this issue, that we will get cooperation and support. I cannot guarantee what we are doing will work, but I know inaction is not an option and failure is not an option. Too many of our fellow citizens are hurting with rising energy prices, health care costs, the cost of higher education, not to mention all these other costs, commodity increases and the like, and they need to know their Government is making an effort to make it possible for them to stay in their homes. That is why I feel so strongly about it. Although we are dealing with flood insurance today, I did not want to have people believe we are unmindful of what needs to be done in the area of home foreclosure. Mr. President, 7,000 to 8,000 foreclosures are filed every day, by 7,000 to 8,000 of our fellow citizens, and if you add our next door neighbors who are adversely affected, that is more than 20,000 people a day who have their life savings, their best investment put in jeopardy. For those reasons, I am hopeful we can get more cooperation on that issue.

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 present business of the Senate?

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, first, let me thank my colleague from Louisiana and the Senators from Mississippi for their willingness to sit down and try to consolidate this so we will have a finite number of amendments that we can work through that are their particular concern. I pledge to him, as I have to his colleagues from the gulf States area as well as other coastal State Senators representing coastal areas of the country, I am determined, as I know Senator Shelby is, to move through this bill, to give each of these amendments fair consideration, to make sure there is a full opportunity to debate them. There will be a full hearing on them. I cannot pick outcomes, but certainly the right to offer amendments, to be heard and debate them and vote on them, I am determined to make sure that happens. From my conversations with Senator Reid, the majority leader, I can tell my colleague that he is determined as well to make sure there is that opportunity, that there is going to be a full discussion and debate. My only advice is the sooner we get going, the greater likelihood we get through that process. He has my assurance that I will do everything to make sure that opportunity will be there.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. Before I make a motion, I will wait for the Senator to let me know.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, it has been a half an hour since we had the colloquy about moving forward on the flood insurance bill. My commitment to the Senators from Louisiana and Mississippi was that we would move these amendments along. In fairness, I have to say, if it takes a half an hour to obtain approval on a unanimous consent to vitiate or at least to deem the 30 hours that remain on the motion to proceed to expire so we can move to the body of the bill and amendments--I know the majority leader wants to consider this bill. He would like to do it in the normal, routine way. Amendments are offered, debated, voted on, and move on to the next amendment. But here it is, a half an hour since we entered into that colloquy. We are here on Wednesday to complete the bill. There are about 20 amendments I am aware of--6 or 7 on the Republican side and easily that number on the Democratic side--that Members want to be considered. If this bill is not done, the program expires. I can't, obviously, predict the schedule. The majority leader has that responsibility. But knowing what work we have to do in the remaining weeks, it may be difficult to get time. The majority leader has been extremely generous in providing this time so we could reconstitute the flood insurance program. In the absence of doing so, the flood insurance program will expire, as we move into hurricane season. This is the opportunity to deal with it. I have made a good-faith commitment that I will allow for these amendments to come up, be debated, and voted on up or down. But it will be hard to fulfill that obligation if I can't even move to have the time on the motion to proceed considered expired. For those listening, I appreciate if we could get an answer quickly and then bring up the amendments. Then let's move on them. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be deemed expired, the motion to proceed be agreed to, the motion to reconsider laid upon the table, and the Senate now proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 460, S. 2284, the National Flood Insurance Act amendments.