Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

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 that any statements relating to the concurrent resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 503, submitted earlier today by Senator Durbin.

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 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 stand adjourned until 9 a.m. tomorrow, April 4; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of H.R. 3221, as under the previous order.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, Senators should be prepared to begin voting as early at 9:05 a.m. tomorrow in relation to the Voinovich-Stabenow amendment, No. 4406, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Landrieu amendment, No. 4389, as modified.

Mr. DODD

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

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Armed Services Committee be discharged of S. 2764, a bill relating to the Servicemembers Relief Act, and that it be referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk. I call up that amendment.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. May I ask the Senator from Ohio to yield without giving up his right to the floor?

Mr. DODD. Senator Shelby will be coming over shortly. A lot of Members have amendments they want to offer. We wish to obviously accommodate as many people as we can. I don't know what the leader's intentions are for this evening, but we will try to accommodate people and go back and forth in the normal process. We will be here while Senator Voinovich is offering his amendment. I know Senator Schumer is next in line. We will have to sit down and work out an order after that.

Mr. DODD. Reserving the right to object, I will try to accommodate everybody.

Mr. DODD. I am going to try to do that.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I first thank the Senator from Idaho for his very generous comments about the effort. We appreciate that very much. His willingness to work with us will be of help to see if we cannot move this legislation along. I am going to ask consent to get a batting order of amendments. Madam President, we have already considered the Durbin amendment. We are now considering the Voinovich-Stabenow amendment. Following that amendment, Senator Murray and Senator Schumer have an amendment, Senator Specter-- I should refer to them by number. The Voinovich amendment is amendment No. 4406, the Murray-Schumer amendment is No. 4397, the Specter amendment is No. 4392, the Feinstein-Martinez amendment is No. 4393, and an amendment offered by Senator Kyl of Arizona is No. 4407. I ask unanimous consent that those amendments be considered in the order I announced them; that the underlying amendment, the Voinovich amendment, at the conclusion of debate, be set aside and we move to consider these next amendments. We will try to complete four or five of these amendments, I am told by the leadership, with the possibility of votes on one or all these amendments this evening, with a couple more tomorrow.

Mr. DODD. Be happy to. Presently, we are considering the Voinovich- Stabenow amendment, No. 4406. The next amendment would be the amendment offered by Senators Murray and Schumer, No. 4397. There is then an amendment offered by Senator Specter, No. 4392; an amendment offered by Senators Feinstein and Martinez, which is amendment No. 4393; and an amendment offered by Senator Kyl, No. 4407. There are other amendments, but these are the four or five we are going to try to deal with here by setting aside the underlying amendment and debating them.

Mr. DODD. It is not on there.

Mr. DODD. Madam President, if I may, since the Senator from Montana has spoken on this amendment, I wish to advise Members that any amendment that is within the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, I am going to defer entirely to the Senator from Montana and his colleague from Iowa as to their advice and counsel. So if you have any amendment that impacts the Finance Committee, I am happy to see you, but I will turn you right over to see the Senator from Montana to talk about it. So I am going to make it clear we are going to rely entirely on the judgment of the Finance Committee on any amendments that affect that committee.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, if I may, let me say to my friend from Arizona, I do not know. I have asked Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, with matters involving tax policy, to come over and defer to them.

Mr. DODD. This is within their jurisdiction, and I just do not feel competent to address this as an issue. I am told by staff we are waiting for a score on this, how you would score it. That much I do know, that you have to score tax amendments. So I will let them come over and make a case for or against when they arrive. They should be here at some point to respond to the Senator from Arizona. I apologize to him, but I just do not feel--

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, if I may, reserving the right to object, I would say to my colleague, this is a tax amendment, and I am very carefully deferring any questions regarding tax matters to the Finance Committee, to Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, as to how they want to proceed. So I really would be hesitant about agreeing to--no votes have been agreed to on anything at this point. I would strongly recommend that my colleague from Louisiana talk to Senator Baucus about this.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, further, having spoken with Senator Baucus and his staff on this matter, they are trying to accommodate the various amendments that are being posed in the area the Senator is also suggesting some ideas for, and I think they are desirous of accommodating as many as they can, provided it can be worked out. I don't know enough about this to say any more than that. They are working on it. It might make more sense to work with them to make sure we are OK.

Mr. DODD. I have to object to any unanimous consent request at this time.

Mr. DODD. Does my colleague from Louisiana need to be heard any further on the amendment?

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

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, before our colleague from Missouri leaves the floor, I thank her. She has done a terrific job on this proposal. I know she is working with Senator Shelby and others on the committee in crafting this proposal in a way that can make a difference. Our colleague is absolutely correct in describing this problem. It is despicable in many ways how people are being lured into arrangements they cannot afford. It would be devastating for them economically. I thank her for the proposal and let her know we are going to do everything we can in these hours of trying to work this out to accommodate this very important idea. She has put in tremendous effort on this issue and needs to be recognized. I thank the Senator from Missouri, and we will try to be helpful on this amendment. I thank the Senator for raising it. My colleague from Vermont, Senator Sanders, who has left the Chamber, offered his amendment. I listened to my colleague from Missouri. I spent the last 20 years or so dealing with the credit card industry and various problems with it. I have not done terribly well, I might point out, trying to modify some of these ideas that have become outrageous. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan cares deeply about the issue as well. We have been preoccupied with the housing issue, obviously, in the Banking Committee over the last year, but we are also crafting legislation dealing with the credit card companies. Many are doing the right things today. Some of the major companies are. I don't want to suggest here it is an indictment of every credit card company, nor do any of us have any objection to credit cards. It has been a tremendously valuable vehicle for a significant number of consumers. But an abuse of the process, and where literally they are targeting some of the most vulnerable people in our society and targeting them in such a way where the slightest delay, even an hour or so, can add significant cost, fees, and an interest rate climb, makes it virtually impossible for some people to ever get out from underneath their credit card debt. The average person in this country today, an adult, has a revolving debt exceeding $9,300, getting close to $10,000, I was told the other day. And 95 percent of that is credit card debt. This is, obviously, heading in the wrong direction at a time when we have a negative savings rate and consumer debt is mounting. We need to be doing everything we can to make it possible for people to have credit cards, for the credit card industry to make a legitimate profit in that industry--that is critically important--but not to make it impossible for people to pay off these obligations and to get their lives in order. This is one of the concerns I had with the bankruptcy bill a few years ago when it was adopted; that bankruptcy legislation made it so difficult for people with credit cards to get out from under those obligations if they took the bankruptcy act. So there are a lot of issues to talk about, and Senator Sanders has raised an important issue and certainly Senator McCaskill has as well in talking about these problems. I want my colleagues to know that at some point we are going to craft legislation dealing with this issue in a comprehensive and thoughtful manner so we don't allow the abuses to go on where people never, ever can manage to climb out from under those obligations, saddling them with lifelong economic burdens and making it impossible for them to accumulate wealth and provide for the needs of their families. So I appreciate very much their raising these concerns as they have this evening. I suggest the absence of a quorum.