Jack Reed

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, let me first recognize the contribution of my colleague from Illinois with respect to the bankruptcy provision. He explained it extremely well. What it does is give homeowners a chance to get out from underneath a collapsing housing market in the United States. It has been well tailored and it is responsible and I think we should adopt it quickly in this package that is going forward. The whole housing crisis is a reflection of a much deeper economic malaise that is gripping the country. We are seeing skyrocketing prices in terms of energy and foodstuffs. On the recess I visited two Italian bakeries in Rhode Island. They have been family-owned companies for over 100 years, and they have never seen the runup in prices of wheat they have seen over the last several weeks and months. The final thing is that we are losing jobs now. In the last 2 months, we have lost many jobs. We lost 63,000 jobs last month. That is the largest monthly decline in jobs in 5 years. The national unemployment rate is 4.8. In Rhode Island it is 5.8 percent. We are seeing an economy sliding into recession. Key to this, in my view, to reconcile and try to stop the erosion of economic opportunity in this country is to stabilize the housing market. That is what the package of proposals that we will vote on this afternoon attempts to do. We have a situation in this country where incomes have been flat for the last 8 years for most Americans--unless you were extraordinarily compensated at the highest levels. But if you are a working man or woman, low income, middle income, or even upper middle income, your income has been relatively flat. You have seen accelerated costs. The last thing people had in their tool kit, if you will, was the value of their homes. They could draw on that in emergencies and use it to help children go to college. They could use it if there was an unexpected expense. Now, with declining housing values, American families are being squeezed dramatically--job losses, increasing prices, flat incomes, and now declining housing values. In fact, it has been estimated that today in the United States the value of homes fell below 50 percent of equity--the ratio of equity fell below 50 percent for the first time in a long time. We are also looking at a situation where there is a record number of foreclosures. Just this morning, coming into work and listening to the radio, I heard in Montgomery County, MD, there is a huge acceleration of foreclosures in that suburb. It is also happening across the country. In the Providence Journal in Rhode Island, there used to be maybe two, three pages of foreclosures on a high number. Now there is a whole section devoted to foreclosures. This is becoming a problem not just for individual households but for communities because the value of a foreclosed home brings down the value of the surrounding homes. It is a cascading effect. It ruins communities as well as impairs the credit and lives and the opportunities of individual families. We have to do much more to stem this decline, particularly with respect to housing values. Yesterday, I noted that Secretary Paulson announced significant steps, he proclaimed, to begin to revise the regulation of financial institutions, and part of it is prompted by the subprime mortgage crisis, the securitization of these loans. There is nothing in his blueprint that dealt with the most important aspect of the problem, and that is home values. The administration has been very keen and quick to help Wall Street. The reality is we have to help Main Street, individual homeowners across this country. If we do I think that will provide a surge of confidence to the economy, which is the key factor in beginning a recovery from what looks like the beginning of a recession, and perhaps a long recession, unless we act promptly. I have joined my colleagues to introduce this legislation, the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, which builds on the economic stimulus package. It is a complement to it. I hope we can move today, despite previous opposition by my colleagues on the Republican side, to take up this legislation and begin the debate and modify it, if necessary, but move forward deliberately and quickly to address the issue of housing in the United States. This legislation, if enacted, would help families keep their homes by providing counseling for foreclosures, by expanding refinancing opportunities, and by getting the services and the counselors together to attempt to allow people to stay in their homes. One aspect of this, as mentioned by my colleague from Illinois, is the Bankruptcy Code modification that would allow these residences to be subject to a bankruptcy judge's determination of a different workout plan for the home. It also helps communities withstand the impact of foreclosures, as there is a cascading effect. If one home is foreclosed, the value of other homes begins to decline automatically. This would provide community development block grants to cities to purchase some of these homes. We have to move quickly because one of the other aspects is when these homes in urban areas are empty for a matter of weeks, or even, in some cases days, they are stripped--the siding is ripped off, or the copper plumbing is taken out. Unless there is someone to go in there and keep it in use or to board it up and protect it, then these homes are going to be a loss not just temporarily but for a longer term. This is going to help businesses by expanding the carry-back period from 2 to 5 years to utilize losses incurred in 2006 and 2007 and 2008. It is going to help, I hope, avoid foreclosure in the future. It will deal with the issue of clear disclosure of a maximum amount of a loan and maximum monthly payment legislation that I authored. This will give a bumper sticker or a big warning label on a mortgage to individual borrowers and tell them the maximum amount of money they have liability for. So the introductory teaser rate of $1,000 a month might be attractive, but if people realize that within a year or 2 years they will be paying two or three times that, it will give them the information they need to make a better judgment about signing up for that loan. So this legislation is critical to families, and it is particularly critical, I think, to ensure that we begin to work our way out of the looming recession and an economy that is deeply troubled. I hope all my colleagues will vote to go forward with this measure and, I hope, pass this measure. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify the amendment in order to reflect the previous amendment passed by Senators Harkin and Specter. It has been agreed to by both sides.

Mr. REED. I send a modification to the desk.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, my amendment would increase LIHEAP funding by an additional $2.6 billion to bring it up to the fully authorized amount. I call up amendment No. 4154.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, this amendment would raise the LIHEAP spending to the authorized total of $5.1 billion. I wish to recognize the work of Senator Specter and Senator Harkin, who earlier today passed an amendment that increased LIHEAP funding. I have worked very closely with my colleagues, especially Senator Collins. Let me point out what is obvious to everyone today: Oil reached $111 a barrel. That translates very quickly into excruciatingly high prices for seniors or low-income Americans. LIHEAP is a program that can help them. I would urge passage. I see my colleague, Senator Collins, on the other side.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. About 5 minutes.

Mr. REED. I thank Senators Conrad and Gregg for graciously allowing me to speak. We are debating the Federal budget today. While we do that, thousands of families in my State of Rhode Island and across the country are struggling to balance their household budgets. They are, in many cases, in dire circumstances. They are dealing with the effects of failed economic policies. Over the last several years, wages have been stagnant for most Americans. There has been no real increase in family income for almost a decade. In addition to a stagnant income, they have been assaulted by extraordinarily high prices. I had bakers in my office today whose bakeries in Rhode Island have to pay 100 percent more for wheat. What is staggering today is a fact my colleagues are probably aware of. The price of a barrel of oil is exceeding $110. That is the highest price ever for oil. It is even higher in real terms than we saw in the wake of the oil embargo of the 1970s. So wage growth and skyrocketing costs, particularly energy costs, are crushing and squeezing families. I regret that the President's budget proposal does not respond realistically to these current challenges. Instead, it offers more of the same. Since he took office, President Bush and his allies in Congress have increased our national debt to over $9 trillion, which is roughly $30,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. They have also made it harder for working families to make ends meet. In contrast, the resolution advanced by Senator Conrad and the majority would provide much-needed relief for millions of Americans and begin to reverse some of the negative trends that have accelerated with President Bush's term of office. I am pleased, for example, that the Budget Committee has increased the fiscal year 2009 authorization for low-income home heating energy assistance to $2.5 billion, $500 million more than the President's request. But I believe we need to do more. We certainly need to do more when the price of oil is soaring above $110 a barrel. That cost will quickly translate into heating oil costs, increased prices at the pump, and other energy costs throughout the economy and will have dire impacts on families. I will, at the appropriate moment, offer an amendment, along with Senator Collins, to provide an additional $2.6 billion for LIHEAP for a total level of $5.1 billion, the fully authorized amount. As my colleagues know, LIHEAP helps low-income families, seniors, and individuals with disabilities with their heating and cooling bills, bills that have become unmanageable, and with the skyrocketing price of oil, will become even more so. Family budgets have been squeezed. We have to do something to help them out. For example, heating oil prices have increased 138 percent from January 2000 to January 2008. Paychecks for working families have not increased 138 percent and neither has LIHEAP funding. We are not even keeping pace with the acceleration in the cost of energy. LIHEAP helps these households avoid making the tough choices between paying their energy bill or putting food on the table or also, in this environment, paying their mortgage. So we have to increase, not cut, LIHEAP funding. Funding LIHEAP at $5.1 billion would help literally millions of families cope with high energy prices during bitter cold winters and accelerating costs of energy and hot summers for those who live in the Southeast and Southwest and other parts of the country. I urge all my colleagues to join with me and Senator Collins in supporting this vital amendment to the budget. At this juncture, I ask unanimous consent that in addition to the 16 cosponsors listed on amendment 4154, as submitted, further, Senators Coleman, Kohl, Leahy, Lieberman, Lincoln, and Schumer be added as original cosponsors as well.

Mr. REED. In conclusion, this budget resolution and the amendment I have offered provide a blueprint for legislative action. The amendment that will be offered in its appropriate turn by Senator Conrad will address the critical issue of helping families make ends meet by helping them with their energy costs, both in severe winters and scalding summers. However, we have to do much more than this. We have to help people with mortgage bills, the rising cost of food and energy and stagnant wages. I hope the administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join us in the coming months to enact legislation that will make a huge difference for Americans in all phases of the economic issues that challenge them--paying the mortgage, feeding the family, heating their home, paying the health care bills, getting jobs in the United States that pay wages with which they can support their families. We could do that. We have done it in the past. There is no reason we cannot work together to make it happen now. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED. I would offer an amendment. I need 5 minutes.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I introduce, along with Senator Hagel, the Healthy Housing Council Act of 2008. This legislation would establish an independent interagency Council on Healthy Housing in the executive branch. The bill would improve the coordination of existing but fragmented programs, so that families can access Government programs and services in a more efficient and effective manner. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than 6 million households live in housing with moderate or severe heating, plumbing, or electric hazards. This count of moderate or severe physical problems does not even include significant lead-based paint hazards, which persist in 24 million, or approximately four times as many, households. Low-income and minority individuals and families are disproportionately affected by housing-related health hazards. We know that residents of poorly designed, constructed, or maintained housing are at greater risk for serious illnesses and injuries, including cancer, carbon monoxide poisoning, burns, falls, rodent bites, childhood lead poisoning, and asthma. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, non-Hispanic Blacks and Mexican- Americans are three times as likely to have elevated blood-lead levels, compared to non-Hispanic whites. About 1.2 million housing units with significant lead-based paint hazards house low-income families with children under 6 years of age. If the disease and injury toll taken on our Nation's individuals and families, particularly our children, is not enough to demonstrate the need for coordinated Federal Government action on housing-related health hazards, consider some of the annual costs. According to research at the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health Center, annual costs for environmentally attributable childhood diseases in the U.S. total an estimated $54.9 billion. That number is approximately 3 percent of total health care costs. The good news is that low-cost preventative measures can have dramatic effects. For example, properly installing and maintaining a smoke alarm can cut the risk of fire death in half. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that providing healthy housing to American families will help prevent 20 million asthma cases, 240,000 incidents of elevated blood-lead levels in young children, 14,000 burn injuries, and 21,000 radon-associated lung cancer deaths. While there are many programs in place to address housing-related health hazards, these programs are fragmented and spread across many agencies, making it difficult for at-risk families to access assistance or to receive the comprehensive information they need. It is time for better coordination. This bill authorizes $750,000 for each of fiscal years 2009 to 2013 for an independent Council on Healthy Housing, which would bring Federal, State, and local government representatives, as well as industry and nonprofit representatives, to the table at least once a year. The council would review, monitor, and evaluate existing housing, health, energy, and environmental programs. The council would then make recommendations to reduce duplication, ensure collaboration, identify best practices, and develop a comprehensive healthy housing research agenda. In order to ensure that members of the public are informed of and benefit from the council's activities, the council would hold biannual stakeholder meetings, keep an updated Web site, and work towards unified healthy housing data collection and maintenance. While there is a growing consensus on ways to help communities make housing healthier, there is also a lack of coordinated programs and information, which has made it difficult for the public to access research and data. By creating this council, we can provide a sorely needed forum for otherwise disparate health and housing experts, whether in the Government, private, or nonprofit sector, to share their experiences, successes, and agendas for the future. The Healthy Housing Council Act will help us start working towards a time when an affordable, decent, and healthy home will be not just the American dream, but the American promise. I hope my colleagues will join me and Senator Hagel in supporting this bipartisan bill and other healthy housing efforts. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I introduce, along with Senator Hagel, the Healthy Housing Council Act of 2008. This legislation would establish an independent interagency Council on Healthy Housing in the executive branch. The bill would improve the coordination of existing but fragmented programs, so that families can access Government programs and services in a more efficient and effective manner. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than 6 million households live in housing with moderate or severe heating, plumbing, or electric hazards. This count of moderate or severe physical problems does not even include significant lead-based paint hazards, which persist in 24 million, or approximately four times as many, households. Low-income and minority individuals and families are disproportionately affected by housing-related health hazards. We know that residents of poorly designed, constructed, or maintained housing are at greater risk for serious illnesses and injuries, including cancer, carbon monoxide poisoning, burns, falls, rodent bites, childhood lead poisoning, and asthma. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, non-Hispanic Blacks and Mexican- Americans are three times as likely to have elevated blood-lead levels, compared to non-Hispanic whites. About 1.2 million housing units with significant lead-based paint hazards house low-income families with children under 6 years of age. If the disease and injury toll taken on our Nation's individuals and families, particularly our children, is not enough to demonstrate the need for coordinated Federal Government action on housing-related health hazards, consider some of the annual costs. According to research at the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health Center, annual costs for environmentally attributable childhood diseases in the U.S. total an estimated $54.9 billion. That number is approximately 3 percent of total health care costs. The good news is that low-cost preventative measures can have dramatic effects. For example, properly installing and maintaining a smoke alarm can cut the risk of fire death in half. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that providing healthy housing to American families will help prevent 20 million asthma cases, 240,000 incidents of elevated blood-lead levels in young children, 14,000 burn injuries, and 21,000 radon-associated lung cancer deaths. While there are many programs in place to address housing-related health hazards, these programs are fragmented and spread across many agencies, making it difficult for at-risk families to access assistance or to receive the comprehensive information they need. It is time for better coordination. This bill authorizes $750,000 for each of fiscal years 2009 to 2013 for an independent Council on Healthy Housing, which would bring Federal, State, and local government representatives, as well as industry and nonprofit representatives, to the table at least once a year. The council would review, monitor, and evaluate existing housing, health, energy, and environmental programs. The council would then make recommendations to reduce duplication, ensure collaboration, identify best practices, and develop a comprehensive healthy housing research agenda. In order to ensure that members of the public are informed of and benefit from the council's activities, the council would hold biannual stakeholder meetings, keep an updated Web site, and work towards unified healthy housing data collection and maintenance. While there is a growing consensus on ways to help communities make housing healthier, there is also a lack of coordinated programs and information, which has made it difficult for the public to access research and data. By creating this council, we can provide a sorely needed forum for otherwise disparate health and housing experts, whether in the Government, private, or nonprofit sector, to share their experiences, successes, and agendas for the future. The Healthy Housing Council Act will help us start working towards a time when an affordable, decent, and healthy home will be not just the American dream, but the American promise. I hope my colleagues will join me and Senator Hagel in supporting this bipartisan bill and other healthy housing efforts. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, today marks the 18th annual National Sportsmanship Day. This initiative, the largest of its kind in the world, is a program of the Institute for International Sport based at the University of Rhode Island. Since 1991, the program has promoted the highest ideals of sportsmanship and fair play among not only the young people of Rhode Island but also among youth in every other State and, indeed, around the world. This year alone over 7 million children in more than 14,000 schools throughout the United States and countries as diverse as Ghana, Nigeria, India, Australia, and Bermuda, will celebrate National Sportsmanship Day. Our appreciation of sports is deep-rooted. The ancient Greeks, for example, recognized ``a sound mind in a sound body'' as the foundation of a good education. But a complete individual not only develops the mind and body, he or she also develops and exhibits fairness and honesty, key elements of sportsmanship. This year, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the famed Olympic Gold medalist, serves as chair of the National Sportsmanship Day program. She and the program's founder, Dan Doyle, remain committed to the goal of making sports a more positive force in society. They hope to achieve their objective by focusing this year on improving parental involvement in athletics, encouraging parents to be good sports on the sidelines so they can be good models of ethical behavior for their children. I am proud that Rhode Island is the home base of this program, and I hope it enjoys continued success.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, let me commend the Senator from Ohio for his very thoughtful and very persuasive remarks about a crisis that is gripping almost every family in this country. We are in an extraordinarily daunting moment in our history, and I was disappointed, to say the least, when our colleagues on the Republican side blocked consideration of the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. Every household in this country is beginning to recognize the specter of decreasing house prices, and for many it is not just a looming potential, it is a reality, and it is forcing them to consider very difficult choices in their own family lives. We have had a situation over the last 8 years in which the income of working families has been stagnant, and in contrast, prices for items that are essential, such as energy and food and health care, have gone up dramatically. Families across this country have been squeezed by flat incomes and rising prices. But there was one point of hope and confidence, a foundation, at least, for their hopes going forward, and that was the value of their home because it was appreciating. Now that has reversed dramatically, and there are estimates that if nothing is done, if the administration continues to block efforts through their colleagues here in the Senate and the House, we could lose somewhere up to 30 percent of the value of homes throughout the United States, from their peak several years ago to the trough that is anticipated. That would mean the loss of $4 to $6 trillion in household wealth--a staggering figure. It is a figure that, from a macroeconomic standpoint, would have huge ramifications. But let us step down to the actual effects on a family. What does it mean? Well, it means your senior in high school who was planning on going to a prestigious college is not going there. They are going to find an alternative, maybe a State school or another school, because you were going to pay for that, partially, by taking some money out of your house, which was worth so much. If you didn't have adequate health care, that was the reassurance you had, that if there was a major health care crisis in your family--a child or your spouse--that at least you could go in and quickly get some money. Now that has evaporated. If you are a retiree or about to retire, your plan was pretty simple: You had a home you were going to sell and you were going to use the profits to help you fund your retirement. This housing crisis is affecting working families across the country. They are now discovering, around the kitchen table, that their plans are being frustrated. We have to do something. Yesterday, when this Senate failed to at least consider moving to legislation like this, I think it is a telling indication of the detachment from the reality of American lives that the administration and some of their colleagues here have. Today, in my home State of Rhode Island, an added complexity, unemployment, is beginning to creep up. And ``creep'' is probably too mild a word. It is 5.67 percent, the worst record of unemployment we have had since the mid-1990s. That is another blow to the working families in this country. So we must act. One other startling statistic to me is today it has been estimated that 10 percent of the households in America are upside down, not physically but financially. Ten percent of the homes, the mortgage is greater than the value of the home because of declining home prices. Now, what does that mean? Well, not only have you lost your nest egg, in many cases you now are in a situation of being tempted to just walk away from the home. Why are you making expensive mortgage payments at great sacrifice when the home is not worth it? These are real problems people across the country are facing. It is no longer a localized problem. It is no longer a certain section of the country is having a bad time, but the rest of the country is doing well. Nationwide, for the first time since the Great Depression, we have seen housing prices decline. That is a phenomenon that has to be dealt with. Ignoring it or suggesting that we are indifferent to that, as I think one can assume from the action of yesterday, is, I think, not only wrong, it is bad policy. It also is bad policy because the sooner we take proactive action, the more effective we will be in lessening the consequence of this crisis on working Americans. We are going to act eventually. This is not going to go away. The staggering numbers that Senator Brown pointed to, the estimates that there are so many more interest rate resets and so many more people will be overwhelmed by these alternative mortgages, these subprime mortgages, that is not fiction; that is the projection of the financial analysts. It is going to happen. We have to move now. If we move now, we move deliberately. We cannot eliminate some of the pain, but we can certainly lessen it. We also have to recognize, too, that we can only help those who are prepared to carry and shoulder the mortgage going forward. But I think if we act, if we act properly, we cannot only make progress, but we can respond to what is becoming an overwhelming cry for relief for American families across this country. In Rhode Island, for example, we have seen mortgage delinquencies increase from 6,100 in the third quarter of 2005, to 10,300. Again, Rhode Island is the smallest State in the Union. We have 1 million people. So these numbers, when you project them to Ohio, are much larger. But in my State, we are, unfortunately, seeing unprecedented foreclosures. According to the Joint Economic Committee, the number of subprime foreclosures in Rhode Island will total 5,800 between the third quarter of 2007 and 2009. We are seeing an acceleration and, in fact, we have the dubious distinction of having the highest foreclosure rate in New England. There are other parts of the country that are worse, but we have that unfortunate distinction. We are going to see the cost of these foreclosures in Rhode Island rise to an estimated level of $670 million from the end of 2007 to 2009. Those are huge figures from a small State like mine. In fact, forecasters are estimating that the foreclosure cost could total nearly $104 billion nationwide. But one of the things about these numbers that the numbers are growing--I have been looking closely at this crisis since last April when I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Securities and Insurance. We had a subcommittee hearing on securitization of subprime mortgages and the experts estimated that the subprime crisis was going to result in $19 billion in losses worldwide; that it was over because the mortgages were no longer being issued; that we were in a situation that would be almost self-correcting if we just let the markets work their will. Well, that $19 billion in terms of losses to financial institutions is now being estimated to be as high as $600 billion worldwide, and the losses keep growing and growing and growing. Again, I think another strong rationale for immediate action, not simply letting the market take its course, is we are seeing not only a deterioration in the financing mechanisms in the mortgage market, but this liquidity crisis is spreading over to other financing mechanisms. We have seen financing mechanisms for municipal bonds, for example, literally shutting down. There was a technique where municipalities and hospitals would, on a weekly basis, reset the rate for their bonds in an auction. The auctions have failed. The Port Authority of New York just a few weeks ago went from an interest rate of 4 percent to 20 percent, the default rate. I have talked to a hospital in my State. I asked them, among many other issues, what is happening with respect to their financing. Their rates are shooting up because their option securities are not working any longer. This credit crisis, this liquidity crisis, is spreading from mortgages to car loans to securitization of credit card receipts to municipal securities, and it is slowing down the economy. Now, the President does not think we are going into a recession. But, frankly, most everybody else does think we are going into recession. And we have to act, not only to directly respond to this housing crisis, but also to pull this country back as quickly as we can from this pending recession. I think one of the most important lines of approach to dealing with this problem is bolstering the housing market. That was one of the major engines that moved our economy for so many years. If we let it deteriorate, if we just shrug our shoulders and say, eventually, it will come back, we not only will see a very poor housing market, we will see a recession. And it will be more severe and more consequential than it ought to be. Now, the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates dramatically. We, very quickly, in a bipartisan fashion, passed a $168 billion stimulus package that will help. But I do not think it is going to be sufficient unless we make significant efforts to deal with the housing problems that are affecting all Americans today. The administration proposed a Hope Now Plan, a voluntary effort to deal with foreclosure problems. And, again, as Senator Brown pointed out today, to date 3 percent of potential foreclosures have been avoided through this voluntary effort. This is not an effective way to deal with the huge problems that threaten the economic well-being of this country and all of the families of America. This administration is great on slogans but poor on strategy and execution. Just a week after I was talking to the Under Secretary of the Treasury about the Hope Now Program, I said: Well, do you have a plan B? This does not seem to be working. ``No, this will work. We will have the metrics in a few weeks.'' Then the administration announced another program. I think it is called the Lifeline Program. Well, we need something more than slogans. We are going to need something more than hopeful wishes that everyone will get along and coordinate together. We need definite help for the homeowners in our communities. Embedded in the legislation that Senator Reid proposed was that specific kind of help: foreclosure counseling funding, CDBG monies for communities to deal more comprehensively with the problems caused by foreclosures, because one of the consequences of foreclosure is it is not just the individual's home, statistical analysis over many years points out very clearly that the surrounding homes lose value when there is a foreclosure on the block. And if those homes are on the tipping point, guess what. They will tip into foreclosure. I do not think I have to tell anyone in this Chamber, because we have seen it before, that once you have this growing sort of malaise in the community, it spreads block by block by block by block until you have a community-wide problem of not only foreclosures but of despair. I am taking, I think unfortunately, an example from Senator Brown's State. But I read a few weeks ago about a community in the Midwest, either Ohio or Pennsylvania, and it was an old ethnic community. In fact, I think the nickname for the community was Slavic Town. There, the foreclosures have been so extensive that literally gangs are going in and ripping off the vinyl siding, the plumbing. They are taking out the copper piping because it has been abandoned, this forlorn community, in the heartland of this great country. A tragic case was a retired gentleman who was trying to protect his property which he had worked for all of his life. He was killed by some of these marauding gangs. That is here in America. We are just going to sit back and say: Well, the market will adjust someday. No, I think we have to do much more. Unfortunately, because of the policies of this administration, we are not as well positioned to do what we have to do. Yesterday Chairman Bernanke was before the Banking Committee. In response to a question by Senator Dodd, he said: Frankly, we are in a worse position today than 8 years ago to deal with this crisis, the housing crisis. Falling productivity, falling value of the dollar--yesterday, the dollar hit a new low against the Euro, and I think today against other currencies. Surging oil prices--yesterday the price of oil went to $102 a barrel, which is translated automatically at the gas pump into higher gasoline prices, higher heating oil prices. These are huge, huge, huge problems. Because of decisions made by this administration, we do not have surpluses we had 8 years ago. We are committed to a conflict in Iraq which costs $190 billion a year. And even with a change in policy, there will be, unfortunately, not a dramatic shift in spending in the next several months because it takes time to disengage and to change policies. So we are seeing economic vulnerabilities because of, I think, the policies of this administration. We have forfeited the strength we had 8 years ago to deal with these issues. We understand, too, from looking across the globe at other countries that if you do not move promptly and aggressively and deal with problems like this, they do not go away, they get worse. In the 1980s, we had a S&L crisis. It took about 2\1/2\ to 3 years for, first, the Reagan administration, then the George Herbert Walker Bush administration to deal with it. In those 2\1/2\ years, experts on either side of the aisle pointed out that the cost of remediation went up and up and up. I fear that is the same situation we are going to have today unless we deal promptly and immediately with this housing situation. Again, I think the vote yesterday to stop consideration of legislation to help deal with this crisis was very short-sighted and unfortunate. Now, as I said before, the legislation we would have considered, the Foreclosure Prevention Act, of which I am a proud cosponsor, deals with, in a very pragmatic way, many of the features of the housing crisis that are of immediate concern: the $200 million foreclosure counseling, and part of that has to be not only setting up the counseling but also outreach. We have to do more of that. It also allows State housing finance agencies to increase their bonds, raise capital to buy mortgages to essentially take out the current mortgage holders, renegotiate the terms with the borrower, and put them in a mortgage plan they can live with and afford. In fact, the President has called for that, but he is objecting to its inclusion, I presume, in this legislation. Then there is a change in the Bankruptcy Code, which has been carefully tailored so as not to roil the financial markets. It would allow a very limited category of individuals who have these subprime mortgages to go into bankruptcy court and allow the bankruptcy judge to set up a new payment plan. The first criterion he or she would have to look at is the fact that these individuals do, in fact, qualify for bankruptcy protections, that if there is a restructuring of their mortgage loan, they can carry out the terms of that loan. This is not only giving people a chance who don't have the wherewithal to take up that opportunity. There is also language in the bill that sets the lowest rate charged as the prime rate, plus a premium for risk. So this does not allow a bankruptcy judge to take an 11-percent mortgage and make it a 1-percent mortgage or a zero-percent mortgage. There is a very narrowly tailored exception. As my colleague, Senator Brown, pointed out, you can do that with a second home. You could do that with a farm, if you are in bankruptcy. I don't see why, in this particular crisis, we cannot extend that same protection to homeowners who have subprime mortgages and need immediate help. I think it would accelerate efforts to not only help these individuals in bankruptcy, but it would send a strong message to the financial community that unless they get engaged with working out these foreclosures and mortgages, there is the alternative of bankruptcy court which, if they think it is so onerous, then they should be even more incentivized to work with borrowers to ensure foreclosure doesn't take place and new mortgage terms are negotiated. An additional element in this legislation is language I suggested as a way to prevent a reoccurrence in the future of this type of mortgage problem by giving the borrowers, in a timely way before they close on the loan, specific information that is essential. The most specific information is the maximum payment they would pay under the terms of the mortgage. There is a lot of discussion about people who were winking at each other across the table, can't afford the mortgage, but ``I will take it if you give it to me.'' Many people honestly walked in, sat down, and thought they were getting a mortgage of 5 or 6 percent with a payment on a monthly basis of perhaps $1,500 or $2,000. Tough to afford, but it was within their budget. But lo and behold, years later or months later, that initial teaser rate became much higher. That maximum payment should be disclosed. A borrower should be able to look at the piece of paper and say: At some point in this mortgage, I will have to be paying $2,500 a month. That is the type of information people need to know. Frankly, many would say: I can't afford that. There is a suggestion I have heard so often in the debate that we would be rewarding families and homeowners who were trying to take advantage of a good deal with these subprime mortgages. The impression I have, from talking to people in Rhode Island, is that for many families, going back 2 or 3 years, they found themselves saddled with extraordinary credit card debt at interest rates that could be as high as 15 to 18 percent. Why? If you have a health care problem, where do you go? The first response is to put it on the credit card. If you have to go to an emergency room and you don't have health care insurance, if you have an unexpected expenditure, the first thing you do is to put it on the credit card. So many families were stuck with a huge credit card bill. Somebody walks in and literally sells them a bill of goods by saying: You have 18 percent interest rates. I can put you in a mortgage for 2 years at 9 percent. Of course, it goes up a little later. The little later was not dwelled upon. So for many families, this was not an irresponsible, irrational act. They were buying time, in other words. They were hoping this would be a bridge to a better future, that they would get a raise at the job so they wouldn't have to depend on their credit cards and, when the reset came up, they would be able to refinance. Little did they know that many of these subprime mortgages were constructed so there was a prepayment penalty exactly at the time the reset took place. So as you tried to get out of it, you discovered you would be paying a huge penalty. The point I wish to make is we have families who now, for the last almost decade, have been struggling. They have exhausted all their options. The last option was their home. Now that option seems to be evaporating in terms of financial strain and support. What we have to do is respond. I believe that is the nature of Government, to respond to the genuine concerns, the genuine expectations of the people we serve. I defy anyone in this Chamber to go back to their States and talk not just to low-income families but to every family and say: Shouldn't we be doing something dramatic, challenging, visionary, and doing it immediately with respect to housing? The answer would be an overwhelming yes. We should listen to the people of America. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. I am encouraged also. It is incumbent upon supporters like myself and yourself to begin to reach out, which I think we are both committed to doing, and doing it personally to try to get through. I think my sense is a lot like yours. It is not an issue that people are objecting to; it is caught up in bigger issues. And sometimes we just have to step back and understand that the big issues will still be there and the points can still be made, but we can get this bill done. I noticed the warriors in Boey's drawing at the White House. My hope is one day the President in the White House is going to sign this bill. She will be there, and Ben will be there in spirit because they are the warriors, and the young men and women who are helping us in our mission. So that is my hope. I think we can do that. We are going to try. If it is because we have not been as explicit or as communicative as we should have been with all of our colleagues, that is something we will correct very quickly.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business and also to engage in a colloquy with my colleague from Oregon.

Mr. REED. I thank the Senator. One of the things we are doing this evening is once again highlighting the critical importance of this legislation, the impact it would make in the lives of children and families across the country. And your voice is a strong voice for not only this legislation but for issues affecting health care and children in this country. I think we are picking up speed, but we need the cooperation of virtually all of our colleagues, not to pass the bill--we have 51 votes--but to get it on the floor. That is not something unusual here in the Senate. But I think this is the type of legislation that should not be caught up in the kind of procedural rules that we all use. I am going to try to reach out and explain personally what is at stake, how we have tried to make changes, how we have pursued a bipartisan approach. I hope we can be persuasive enough to get this legislation on the floor for a vote. I do not think the opposition, frankly, is the concept and the mechanisms we are talking about. Certainly it is not opposition to helping families and children who have cancer. I think it is caught up in other issues. We would like to disentangle those issues and focus on what we can for children who have cancer. I think that is one of Boey's works.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I initially wish to make a few comments, and then I will yield to my colleague from Oregon. Today, I rise to honor two young heroes and their families. Ben Haight of Rhode Island and Boey Byers of Oregon were two remarkable young people whose lives were cut short by cancer, but whose hopes were not. Of course, when a child has cancer, it deeply affects the parents, siblings, friends, and extended family. In fact, a pediatric illness affects the entire family. Even those who don't bear the damage of the illness bear the pressures, the strains, and the frustrations over dealing with the serious illness of a child. These two young children were extraordinary. We mourn their loss and at the same time we celebrate their lives. Ben Haight was only 4 years old when he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. He fought valiantly, enduring chemotherapy, two bone marrow transplants, and total body radiation. Ben did not let cancer stop him from living life. I am told he would dictate his treatment schedules to his doctors: ``No treatments during science class; have to be out by 3 to go to Cub Scouts, baseball or soccer.'' Even at a young age, Ben knew a lot about what was important in life. He cared about others and wanted to help. He held a bandaid drive at school to donate colorful bandaids to the hospital, which used plain bandaids to save money. Ben knew that patients enjoyed picking out a ``cool'' bandaid and that this simple pleasure offered them a brief respite from the rigors of their disease. Ben's cancer went into remission, but after 2 years it came back. The doctors gave him 3 months to live, but he was tough. He fought for 2 more years. Ben was 9 years old when he died. I never had a chance to meet Ben, but I have had the honor of meeting his wonderful family. His family has turned the tragedy of losing their son into a message of hope for other families. Just before Ben died, he and his family enjoyed a special activity together--swimming with dolphins. Now, the Haight family's mission is to do all they can to fight cancer and to provide one child a year with the opportunity to swim with dolphins. I think there is a sort of symbolic link here between his family and these dolphins. His father was a career enlisted man in the U.S. Navy, a chief in our submarine service. Of course, submarines use the dolphins as the symbol of their service branch. This is a family who has served the Nation in uniform and who continues to serve the Nation by fighting hard for other families who are afflicted by childhood cancer. Now, Boey Byers was, in her words, a warrior against cancer, and I was very saddened to learn she has recently passed way. A few months ago, I had the privilege of speaking with Boey over the phone. She was full of life and spirit and struck me as very polite, poised, and wise beyond her years. I wanted to thank Boey for all she was doing to try to help other kids with cancer. Her passion in life was to find a cure for her warrior friends, as she called them, so they didn't have to suffer anymore and so they could live out their dreams and contribute to this great country. We must remember there are thousands of children like Ben and Boey across the country. Each year, there are about 9,500 new cases of pediatric cancer, the leading cause of death by disease among children in the United States. While the incidence of cancer in children is increasing, the causes are largely unknown. The National Cancer Institute--the NCI--currently spends about $170 million a year on pediatric cancer research, but most of the money goes toward laboratory research and preclinical testing. While it is important to test treatments in a test tube, Petri dish, or on animals, it is equally important to test treatments on humans in clinical trials. For example, a recent clinical trial found that for children with neuroblastoma, less intensive chemotherapy is as effective as more intensive and toxic chemotherapy. In 2002, an NCI peer review group of scientists recommended about $50 million in funding for pediatric cancer clinical trials. That level was never funded, and since then it has been cut, despite biomedical inflation and the increasing incidence of childhood cancer. Unfortunately, declining funding has stopped promising clinical trials. Pediatric cancer researchers expect only flat funding for clinical trials this year. We can do better. The Conquer Childhood Cancer Act invests $30 million a year to expand pediatric cancer research and develop pediatric cancer clinical investigators. The bill also creates a national childhood cancer registry to track pediatric cancer. Researchers would be able to contact patients within weeks, enroll them in research studies, and follow up with them over time. Similar registries are already in place in Europe. If Europe can do it, we can do it, and we should do it. This bill awaits action by the full Senate. It recently reached a significant milestone, garnering its 51st cosponsor. So even before any vote, we know for sure a majority of the Senate supports the bill. It has broad bipartisan support, with 14 Republican cosponsors and the support of both the majority and minority leaders. Regrettably, a small minority is blocking this bill, and I call on the Senate to carry out the will of the majority and pass the bill. It is my hope that in doing so we will intensify our fight against childhood cancer, so that one day the hopes of Ben and Boey, and thousands of children like them, will be realized. Mr. President, I yield now for the purpose of a colloquy with my colleague from Oregon.

Mr. REED. We have begun in earnest months ago, and we are picking up the pace. I thank the Senator for his wise and kind words. I yield the floor.

Mr. REED. I agree. I think it is something we can do. The effort is to bring people together and move from 51 to 61 to 71 to 100. I think we can.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Madam President, we have had a lengthy debate, and in the end I decided to vote against final passage of S. 2248, the FISA Amendments Act of 2007. First, I commend Senators Rockefeller and Bond for recognizing immediately that the Protect America Act, passed in August, needed modifications. S. 2248 does improve FISA procedures. The bill increases the role of the FISA Court with respect to targeting. It mandates FISA Court review and approval of the minimization procedures governing the protection of identities and nonpublic information about U.S. persons. This bill also provides statutory rules for the use of information acquired under it. However, when S. 2248 came before the full Senate for debate, I, and many of my colleagues, believed that additional protections and clarifications could and should be added. But it soon became clear that all such measures would be defeated. I was particularly disappointed that Senator Feinstein's amendment on exclusivity did not pass. I believe it is very important to reiterate that FISA is the exclusive means for conducting surveillance on Americans for foreign intelligence purposes. I would have thought that every member of the Senate would have been interested in clarifying what the administration was authorized to do under the laws that Congress passes rather than allowing the administration to boldly and erroneously assert authorities from the Authorization for the Use of Military Force against al-Qaida and the Taliban. But unfortunately I was wrong. I also admit that I had serious concerns about granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies for actions they may or may not have taken in response to administration requests that may or may not have been legal. One of my concerns is regarding the accessibility of information. First, my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee and Intelligence Committee were allowed to read the necessary documents only after extensive negotiations with the administration. I, and the rest of my Senate colleagues who are not on those committees, were denied access to those documents. In addition, the telecommunications companies who have been named in several lawsuits have been prohibited by the Government from providing any information regarding this issue to the courts, to the plaintiffs, to Members of Congress, or to the public. Yet we were asked to blindly vote for retroactive immunity, which is something I simply could not do. Therefore I supported Senator Dodd's amendment to strike immunity, but it did not pass. I was then willing to consider some compromise approaches, such as the Specter and Whitehouse amendment, which would have substituted the Government for the telecommunications companies in civil suits, or Senator Feinstein's amendment, which would have provided for the FISA Court's review of the telecommunications companies to determine if immunity should apply. However, neither of these amendments was able to secure enough votes to pass. At the end of day, retroactive immunity remained in the bill, setting what I believe could be a dangerous precedent. S. 2248 is indeed an improvement over the Protect America Act. But in my judgment, it still did not provide enough protections to American citizens and did not provide ample justification for retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. I therefore voted to oppose the bill. I hope to continue to work with my colleagues to pass the modifications I believe are needed.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, across the Nation, millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet as our economy has slowed dramatically. In December, I spoke on this floor about how President Bush has presided over a period of divided prosperity in the United States, where a privileged few have done remarkably well but the rest of us have been trying to get by. For most working people, the trademark of the Bush administration and their economy is wage stagnation. Indeed, in my home State, real median wages have not increased since 2000. Rhode Islanders are coping not only with flat wages but increasing prices in critical commodities they must consume. Energy, education, and health care have all gone up. In January, in Rhode Island, gas was $3.11 cents a gallon; heating oil costs in the Northeast are projected to be at least $2,000 this year, which is about a $400 increase from last year. These price increases would be difficult to manage even in good times, but again paychecks for most working families have not kept up. In fact, they have been flat. With prices accelerating, wages flat, and a huge gap in the capacity of middle-income working Americans to keep up and try to get ahead, the subprime crisis is real. This housing crisis is having huge and devastating effects. Two years ago, most of our constituents, the vast majority of them, were sitting around the table thinking: Well, when my daughter is ready to go to college in 2008, we will go ahead and borrow from the house to provide the extra income she will need to go ahead and make it through college. A lot of those families now are recognizing they can't do that. They are more concerned about a health care incident, because, unlike a few months ago, there is no reservoir in the value of their house to cushion the blow of unexpected expenses. So this housing crisis, together with this wage stagnation, together with increased prices for energy and health care and education, and so many other things, is putting middle-class Americans in a vise and squeezing them. We have to do much better. The Joint Economic Committee and others have estimated some of the costs already in terms of this mortgage- related foreclosure crisis. In my home State, they think $670 million will be lost to the family incomes of Rhode Island from 2007 through the end of 2009. These economic conditions are being felt across the country. They are not localized warnings. The weakness in housing has spread to all parts of our Nation and across our economy. Growth in the fourth quarter of last year was .6 percent compared to a 4.9-percent increase in the third quarter. We are slowing down, moving into a recession. Yesterday the market, Wall Street, went down over 300 points, largely due to a very weak report of a survey on the service sector. We have known for many months now that the manufacturing economy was having difficult times, but the service sector was holding up a bit. Yesterday, there was a chilling indication the service sector has also contracted. The market took the news very badly. The market also took the news very badly a few days ago, when we showed a loss of 17,000 jobs, the first time we have actually lost jobs in more than 4 years. Again, the administration's performance in terms of creating jobs has been less than stellar, barely keeping up with the new entrants into the labor market on a monthly basis. Now, for the first time in more than 4 years, we have lost jobs. Furthermore, the average length of unemployment is increasing from 16.6 weeks in December to 17.5 weeks in January. More people are losing jobs and it is harder to find a new job. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve released a survey of senior bank loan officers who indicated that the credit crunch is spreading from consumer loans into the commercial and industrial loan sectors and that foreign banks are tightening their lending terms, in fact, even more so than some U.S. financial institutions. Taken together, it clearly shows Wall Street is going into what one analyst called a recession panic mode and many economists are seeing signs that weaknesses in our economy are spreading internationally. In fact, one investment banker today, in a speech reported on the Internet, suggested that in the credit markets fear has overtaken greed, creating a situation of near panic in many respects. So there is no doubt we have to act quickly on this stimulus package, not only to inject needed spending power into the economy to try to revive our consumer sector but also to signal to the American public we will act decisively to try to moderate, if not head off, the effects of a pending recession. We have, I think, a lot to be grateful for in the work of Senator Baucus and Majority Leader Reid and Senator Grassley in terms of taking a House proposal and increasing it with important provisions, such as expanding the eligibility criteria for income tax rebates, including 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans. The package we are considering also includes $10 billion for a temporary extension of unemployment insurance and $1 billion of emergency funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the LIHEAP program. Both of these initiatives are targeted to families, seniors and low-income households, and they would help jump-start the economy. Economists agree these programs among others are a good use of taxpayer money. Last week before the Budget Committee, Alan Blinder from Princeton University and Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com both recommended that unemployment insurance and LIHEAP be included in the stimulus package. They also included other elements, but at least these elements are part of the list they feel will provide a bang for the bucks we are going to invest in the economy. They meet the three T test--timely, targeted, and temporary. Now, Friday's disappointing jobs report showed that the ranks of the unemployed are unfortunately growing. Nonfarm payrolls actually decreased, as I said, by 17,000 workers last month. In fact, even President Bush acknowledged ``troubling signs in the economy.'' So given these facts, I was surprised to hear Treasury Secretary Paulson say yesterday, in testimony before the Finance Committee, that he does not support including unemployment benefits in the stimulus package because national unemployment is only 4.9 percent, which is not historically high. What we want to do is take preemptive action to prevent the situation from further deterioration. We want to move now so we do not see unemployment rates climb, so we do not see the duration of unemployment continue to grow, so that we give Americans a real chance to get back to work; and if they are not back to work, then at least we provide something to sustain them in these difficult moments. In Rhode Island, my home State, we have reached a very high unemployment rate, 5.5 percent. Many other States are creeping up there too. We should, I think, move quickly, move decisively and support the Senate Finance package. We are also beginning to see that unemployment insurance provides a very good return on the investment. Mark Zandi, the economist I mentioned before, indicated that for every dollar the Government spends on unemployment insurance, it adds $1.64 to the national GDP. In other words, it leverages the investments we are making. So contrary to what some have talked about as excessive spending, this is exactly the targeted, temporary, timely spending that will accelerate, not decelerate, the economy. The stimulative effects of unemployment insurance will get more money into the hands of people who will spend it right away in their local communities, which is generally the whole purpose of our stimulus approach. Moreover, providing these benefits to these individuals will give them not just some dollars but a sense, I hope, of hope, that their Government is responding to their concerns and that we will respond in the future, if necessary. Making the long-term unemployed eligible for a temporary extension of an additional 13 weeks at this time also makes good sense and is the right thing to do. Two weeks ago, I wrote a letter to the majority and Republican leaders asking that they include unemployment insurance in the stimulus package, and 26 other Senators joined me. Senators Durbin and Kennedy have long led the fight on this issue. I commend them for their efforts. I hope unemployment insurance is part of the final package we are able to vote out of this body. Now, there is another aspect of the package we will consider later today, I hope; that is the LIHEAP support. We have seen a huge increase in energy costs. On average, Americans are spending about 11 percent more to heat their homes this winter. For Rhode Islanders who rely on heating oil, that is about 39 percent higher than last year in terms of their heating oil expenses. We know that the timely, targeted, and temporary aspects of stimulus have to be met. LIHEAP will do this. It is timely because it will be delivered very quickly. We have a delivery mechanism in place. It is also something that will fund families, low-income families, who desperately need this money. I do not have to belabor the point that today, around the kitchen table, people are figuring things out. They are thinking, first of all, they probably need to take off sending their first born or their second or third child to the expensive school; that may be off the table for a few years. But they are also talking very basically about which bills to pay this month? Do we pay our mortgage? Do we pay the energy bill? Do we pay the credit cards which we are using to buy food at the supermarket these days? I mean, these are the debates American families are having. They are not talking in terms that we are here, such as what is the best macroeconomic policy or how we can delay these expenditures, they are talking in terms of a real crisis in the family. We have to respond. One way we can respond quite clearly is with this LIHEAP money because that will go to one of their major concerns: How do we keep the heat on in the Northeast for the next several weeks and month; and in the Southwest, in anticipation of the grueling temperatures down there in the summertime, too. This additional money will provide an advance payment on cooling problems in the Southeast and the South, parts of the country that will soon encounter warm temperatures, not cold temperatures, which cause their energy costs to rise. Again, these are the households who need LIHEAP. And so we know we have a program that works in LIHEAP. If we can deliver additional resources, it will get to the families who need it, particularly seniors, it will get out immediately. It will add to the stimulus effect because as the economists--both Mr. Blinder and Mr. Zandi-- pointed out, it will leverage our investment in the economy. So with the escalating costs for energy I would urge my colleagues that we go ahead and accept this amendment, particularly the funds for LIHEAP. I urge us all to support the Senate Finance Committee package, a package that provides for greater coverage to seniors and disabled American veterans and also provides unemployment insurance for those who desperately need it and heating assistance for, again, the families who desperately need it. I hope that today, not only good sense, good economic sense, but a sense of our obligations to the most vulnerable in this country will persuade us to support this package strongly. The Senator from Texas.

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the recess be delayed until I complete my remarks.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order with respect to Senator Dorgan be changed to provide that if Senator Dole is here at 2:15 p.m., she be recognized for up to 5 minutes and then Senator Dorgan be recognized.

Mr. REED

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a fellow in my office, Melissa Fiffer, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this session.