Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly about an amendment I have filed and look forward to getting pending in a short while. This is an amendment which addresses many of the issues we have been hearing about this morning about which the American people are concerned. This amendment helps us lower the record-breaking deficit this country is facing, and this amendment will help us transform our energy system away from fossil fuel--away from the oil disaster that we are seeing in the gulf right now--to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. So for all my colleagues who are concerned about record- breaking deficits, I hope they will support this amendment which I will explain in a moment. And for all of my colleagues who understand that the future of this country is not offshore drilling, I hope they will support this amendment. Let me explain briefly what this amendment does. At a time when the profits of big oil companies are soaring, at a time when we are in the midst of the largest oilspill in our Nation's history--one of the greatest ecological disasters this country has ever experienced--at a time when we desperately need to end our dependence on oil and gas and seriously transform our energy system by investing in energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy, this amendment is simple and it is straightforward and I think it addresses all of those concerns. This amendment simply repeals over $35 billion in tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. Let me repeat that. This amendment simply repeals over $35 billion in tax breaks to the oil and gas industry, all of which were recommended for elimination in President Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget. What this amendment is doing is simply bringing to the floor of the Senate the recommendations that were in President Obama's budget. According to OMB, the repeal of these tax breaks would be equivalent to about 1 percent of domestic oil and gas industry revenues over the next decade. This is not an onerous attack on the oil industry. In other words, the cost to the oil and gas industry of repealing these tax breaks is negligible. And $25 billion of the money saved under this amendment would be used to reduce the deficit and $10 billion would be used to invest in the highly successful Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program over a 5-year period. This amendment does two things. For all of my friends, and every American who is concerned about a $13 trillion national debt and record-breaking deficits, this amendment says let us put $25 billion into deficit reduction. For all of us who are concerned about transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, this amendment says, over the next 5 years let's put $10 billion into the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, which provides funding to States, cities, and towns all over America to begin transforming energy in their communities. This amendment is supported by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, moveon.org, Center for Biological Diversity, One Sky, Environment America, the Sierra Club, and Greenpeace. If there is anything we should be learning from the gulf disaster, the horrendous disaster we are experiencing today on the gulf coast, it is that it is time to move aggressively away from polluting and unsafe fossil fuels which are getting more and more difficult to produce as we move farther and farther offshore to drill for them. With a $13 trillion national debt, the last thing we need to be doing is giving huge tax breaks to big oil and gas companies that have been making record-breaking profits year after year. As I indicated before, all of the oil and gas tax breaks that my amendment seeks to repeal have been targeted for elimination in President Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget. So here we are. For all of my deficit hawk friends: $25 billion into deficit reduction by asking the oil industry, which has been hugely profitable in recent years, to start paying their fair share of taxes. Let me quote from a speech that President Obama gave on this subject. Our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk. . . . If we refuse to take into account the full cost of our fossil fuel addiction--if we don't factor in the environmental costs and national security costs and true economic costs--we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future. . . . The time has come once and for all for this Nation to fully embrace a clean energy future. Now, that means . . . rolling back billions of dollars of tax breaks to oil companies so that we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development. That is the end of the quote from President Barack Obama. Frankly, that is what this amendment is all about. Let me give one interesting example of the absurdity of continuing to provide tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. Last year, ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, reported to the SEC that not only did it avoid paying any Federal taxes, it actually received a $46 million refund from the IRS. How is that, folks? So, for all of the taxpayers in this country, people who are making $30,000 or $40,000 a year, who are prepared to pay their fair share of taxes, we have a situation where last year ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, reported to the SEC that not only did it avoid paying any Federal taxes, it actually received a $46 million refund from the IRS. We have a lot of working people in the State of Vermont who make $50,000 or $60,000 a year, working 6 or 7 days a week in order to take care of their family. They pay taxes. ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in America, gets a refund from the IRS. If anyone thinks that makes sense I would like to hear about it. ExxonMobil is the same huge oil company that had enough money to pay a $398 million retirement package to its outgoing CEO, Lee Raymond, a few years ago, so it is a real struggling company. They make more profits than any company in the history of the world and paid their outgoing CEO $398 million in a retirement package but they cannot afford to pay a nickel in taxes. In fact, they get a tax refund. Do you think we need to change that system? I do. ExxonMobil is the same company that is making its profits by gouging consumers at the pump by charging higher and higher prices for gasoline even when demand is low and supply is high. In Vermont, gas is now $2.85 a gallon. That has to stop. This amendment would begin to make sure that ExxonMobil, BP, and other big oil companies pay at least a minimal amount of their record- breaking profits in taxes to the Federal Government so we can begin to deal with our record-breaking deficit; so we can begin the process of transforming our energy system. Let me be clear. As millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their life savings, and their ability to send their kids to college because of this horrendous Wall Street recession, we cannot continue to allow big oil companies to make out like bandits. In the first quarter--I refer people to this chart--in the first quarter of 2009, when our gross domestic product shrank by 6.4 percent and overall corporate profits decreased by 5.25 percent--that is what a recession is about; profits are down, overall corporate profits--the five largest oil companies were still able to earn over $13 billion in profits. As this chart shows, during the last 10 years the five largest oil companies--ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ChevronTexaco, and ConocoPhillips-- earned over $750 billion in profits: a 10-year period, $750 billion in profits. That is not chickenfeed. During the first quarter of this year, big oil's profits increased by 85 percent--not bad, 85 percent. Instead of using these profits to invest in renewable energy and to prevent oilspills, big oil and gas companies are primarily using this money to buy back their own stock and enrich their CEOs. According to the American Petroleum Institute, between 2000 and 2007 the entire oil and gas industry, of all of their profits--remember, $750 billion of profits over the last 10 years-- invested only $1.5 billion in North American ``nonhydrocarbon investments'' aimed at reducing the Nation's dependence on oil. That is less than one-quarter of 1 percent of their profits during this time period. Meanwhile, the CEOs of big oil companies have received hundreds of millions in retirement packages and total compensation. Over the last 5 years, Ray Irani, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, received over $725 million in total compensation; John Hess, the CEO of the Hess Oil Company, has received over $240 million in total compensation; David Lesar, the CEO of Halliburton, has received over $114 million in total compensation; James Mulva, the CEO of ConocoPhillips, has received over $95 million in total compensation; and Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, made over $30 million in total compensation over that 5- year period. Further, since 2002, the five largest oil companies have repurchased almost $270 billion of their own stock. It is important for the American people to understand how excessively we are subsidizing fossil fuels and benefiting big oil. It is not only that they are making record-breaking profits; it is not only that they are not paying their fair share of taxes; it is not only that they are not investing in renewable energy so we can break our dependency on fossil fuel and clean up this planet, but in addition to that, they are receiving huge amounts of taxpayer subsidies. These guys who tell us how terrible the big government is are not hesitant to be running here to Capitol Hill to get their fair share of their welfare payments. As this chart shows, according to the Environmental Law Institute, from 2002 to 2008, the U.S. Government provided more than $70 billion in fossil fuel subsidies compared to just over $12 billion for wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and other renewable energies which in fact are the future of this country in terms of energy. This set of priorities is totally absurd. We have to put an end to the outrageous tax breaks and subsidies that have been given to big oil and gas companies. But that, again, is not all this amendment would do. It is not only $25 billion in deficit reductions. This amendment begins to move us away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and renewable energy by investing $10 billion into the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. The stimulus package provided $3.2 billion for this highly successful program, and that money is filtering throughout 50 States in America. Hundreds and hundreds and thousands of communities are now making energy efficiency improvements in their townhalls, in their schools, and they are moving toward sustainable energy as a result of this program. We would put $10 billion more, over a 5-year period, into a program which finally moves us away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy and energy efficiency. Let me give an example of how this program is working. This program is helping to build wind turbines in Carmel, IN, to power its city sewer treatment plant. It is being used in Salt Lake City, UT, to provide loans to businesses to make energy efficiency upgrades. It is being used in Columbus, OH, to make 29 public buildings more energy efficient. I think, as everybody knows, the most significant thing we can do today, the best return on our dollar, is energy efficiency. That is what they are doing in Columbus, OH. That is what they are doing in Vermont. That is what they are doing, in fact, all over this country, as a result of programs such as the Energy Efficiency Block Grant Program. It is being used in Portland, ME, to retrofit 55 public buildings. It is being used in Miami, FL, to convert landfill gas into the production of electricity. Methane gas out of rotting organic matter in a landfill provides electricity. What can be smarter than that? It is being used in New York City to help homeowners and businesses with energy efficiency and renewable energy loans, among many other projects we are seeing all over America, 50 States utilizing this program, young people getting involved in thinking about energy, energy efficiency, sustainable energy. We need to keep these investments in energy efficiency and conservation going and that is what this amendment does. Finally, this amendment would dedicate $25 billion for deficit reduction. At a time of record-breaking deficits and debt, we simply cannot continue to give oil and gas companies huge tax breaks. When it comes down to it, this amendment asks a very simple question: Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Are you on the side of big oil and gas companies or are you on the side of reducing the deficit, reducing our dependence on oil, saving consumers and businesses money on their energy bills, and saving the planet we live on? I would hope most of our colleagues here are on the side of doing what is right for the American people. That is what this amendment is about. I understand that anytime you stand up to big oil and to big gas companies, there is going to be a lot of political push back. We know that since 1990 the oil and the gas industry has made over $238 million in campaign contributions, and over the past 2 years alone, they spent over $210 million on lobbying. With the BP disaster in the gulf coast, my guess is these guys are all over the place now lobbying and sending out their campaign contributions. But this amendment is the right thing to do. It should bring together all of us who are concerned about transforming our energy system, all of us who are concerned about lowering our record-breaking deficits. I intend to be offering this amendment. I look for widespread support on both sides of the aisle. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, at a time when the profits of big oil companies are soaring, at a time when we are in the midst of a horrendous and huge oilspill on the gulf coast, at a time when we desperately need to end our dependence on oil and gas and significantly increase our investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy, the amendment I am offering is simple and it is straightforward. This amendment simply repeals over $35 billion in tax breaks to the oil and gas industry, all of which were recommended for elimination in President Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget. Specifically, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the repeal of expensing of intangible drilling costs, repeal of percentage depletion for oil and gas wells, and repeal of the domestic manufacturing deduction for oil and gas production would save $35.3 billion over a 10-year period. According to OMB, the repeal of these tax breaks would be equivalent to about 1 percent of domestic oil and gas industry revenues over the next decade--1 percent. In other words, the costs to the oil and gas industry of repealing these tax breaks is negligible. More than $25 billion of the money saved under this amendment would be used to reduce the deficit, and $10 billion would be used to invest in the highly successful Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program over a 5-year period. So we are accomplishing two very important goals. Every day, Members of the Senate come down here and they say we have to deal with the deficit. Under this amendment, we would save $25 billion for deficit reduction. That is pretty significant. Second, Members come down here every day and talk about the need to transform our energy system, to move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy--wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, other technologies. This amendment puts $10 billion in moving us away from fossil fuel. So it accomplishes two very important purposes. This amendment is cosponsored by Senator Whitehouse and Senator Wyden. We have support for funding for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, from the National Association of State Energy Officials, and the National League of Cities. Taxpayers for Common Sense strongly supports our efforts to repeal the oil and gas tax breaks and pay down the deficit. Also supporting our amendment are the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, Conservation Law Foundation, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, moveon.org, Center for Biological Diversity, One Sky, Environment America, and Oceana. If there is anything we should be learning from the gulf disaster, it is that it is time to move aggressively away from polluting and unsafe fossil fuels which are getting more difficult to produce and more expensive to produce and that we must move toward safe, clean energy. With a $13 trillion national debt, the last thing we need to be doing is giving tax breaks to big oil and gas companies that have been making recordbreaking profits, year after year. I know there are some people who come down here and say that one way to deal with the deficit problem is to privatize Social Security, to privatize Medicare, to place at risk the retirement benefits of millions of senior citizens. I think that is a very bad idea. There are other people who come down to the floor and talk about cuts in education, cuts to health care that the middle-class and working families of this country desperately need. I think cutting those programs is a bad idea. But I think going after some of the largest and most profitable corporations in this country, which have not paid their fair share of taxes, is a positive and intelligent way to deal with deficit reduction. Let me quote from the President of the United States, Barack Obama, in his statements on this subject. Again, what we are proposing is what President Obama has recommended in his 2011 budget. This is what President Obama said: Our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk. . . . If we refuse to take into account the full cost of our fossil fuel addiction--if we don't factor in the environmental costs and national security costs and true economic costs--we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future. . . . The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future. Now that means . . . rolling back billions of dollars of tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development. That is exactly what this amendment is all about. Let me give just one example. I hope people are listening to this one. Let me give one example of the absurdity of continuing to provide tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. Last year, ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, reported to the SEC that not only did it avoid paying any Federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million refund from the IRS. So middle-class Americans, people in Vermont and all over this country who are working 50 and 60 hours in order to provide the necessary income they need to pay the bills for their families, those folks go out and they pay their income tax. They may not be too happy about it, but they understand that in a civilized society you have to pay taxes to pay the bills of government. Not ExxonMobil. The most profitable corporation in the history of the world last year not only avoided paying any Federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million refund from the IRS. If that makes sense to anybody--maybe it does--it surely does not make sense to me. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the page of ExxonMobil's 10-K report to the SEC that discloses this information.

Mr. SANDERS. ExxonMobil is the same huge oil company that has had enough money to provide a $398 million retirement package to its outgoing CEO, Lee Raymond, just a few years ago. They made more money than any corporation in the history of the world last year. They did not pay any Federal taxes. In fact, they got a huge refund from the Federal Government. And some years ago this particular corporation paid out $398 million in retirement package for its CEO. I do not think that makes a whole lot of sense. I think we ought to end that nonsense and end it now. This country is at record-breaking deficits. We cannot allow large corporations such as ExxonMobil not to pay taxes. ExxonMobil is the same oil company that is making its profits by gouging consumers at the pump by charging higher and higher prices for gasoline even when demand is low and supply is high. In Vermont, it is $2.85 a gallon. Working people are having a hard time paying high prices for gas. It does not matter whether demand is high or low, it appears that gas prices go up. This amendment would begin to make sure that ExxonMobil, BP, and the other big oil companies pay at least a minimal amount of their huge profits in taxes to the Federal Government. That, it seems to me, is the very least we can do. Let's be clear. As millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their life savings, and their ability to send their kids to college as a result of this Wall Street-induced recession, we cannot continue to allow big oil companies to make out like bandits. Enough is enough. In the first quarter of 2009, when our gross domestic product shrank by 6.4 percent, and overall corporate profits decreased by 5.25 percent, the five largest oil companies were still able to earn over $13 billion in profits. That is in the middle of a severe recession. As this chart shows, the combined annual profits of the five largest oil companies during the last 10 years--these five companies, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ChevronTexaco, and ConocoPhillips--earned over $750 billion in profits. Not bad. Not bad. During the first quarter of this year, big oils' profits increased by 85 percent. Instead of using these profits to invest in renewable energy and to prevent oilspills, big oil and gas companies are primarily using this money to buy back their own stock and enrich their CEOs. According to the American Petroleum Institute, between 2000 and 2007, the entire oil and gas industry invested only $1.5 billion in North American nonhydrocarbon investments aimed at reducing the Nation's dependance on oil. That is less than one-quarter of 1 percent of their total profits during this time period. So here you have these companies making huge profits. They are not reinvesting that money in making our country cleaner and in moving us away from fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the CEOs of the big oil companies have received hundreds of millions of dollars in retirement packages and total compensation. Over the past 5 years Ray Irani, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, received over $725 million in total compensation--$725 million, in a 5- year period, is not too sloppy. John Hess, the CEO of the Hess Oil Company, has received over $240 million in total compensation; David Lesar, the CEO of Halliburton, has received over $114 million; James Mulva, the CEO of ConocoPhillips, has received over $95 million; and Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, made over $30 million in total compensation over the past 5 years. Further, since 2002, the five largest oil companies have repurchased almost $270 billion of their own stock. When we talk about asking the oil companies to start paying their fair share of taxes, we should also remember that the Federal Government has provided very generous subsidies above and beyond tax breaks for the oil companies. As this chart shows, according to the Environmental Law Institute, from 2002 to 2008, the United States provided more than $70 billion for fossil fuel subsidies, compared to just $12 billion for wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and other renewable energy. This makes no sense at all. We have got to put an end to the outrageous tax breaks and subsidies we have been giving to oil and gas companies. But that is not all this amendment would do. This amendment would also invest $10 billion into the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided $3.2 billion for this highly successful program. It is already having a very positive impact in creating jobs, in saving energy in all 50 States of our country. I am now quoting from a letter sent, in support of the $10 billion block grant funding that this amendment provides, from Tom Cochran, the executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. This is what Mr. Cochran says: Throughout the United States more than 1,200 cities are now receiving direct funding under the EECBG program. We strongly support your efforts to secure predictable and ongoing funding for the EECBG program allowing the nation to continue to invest in these successful local energy and climate initiatives which have been shown to reduce energy use, harmful greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation. Let me give you some examples of how this program, of which this amendment would provide $10 billion over a 5-year period, is working. This program is helping to build wind turbines in Carmel, IN, to power a city sewer treatment plant. It is being used in Salt Like City, UT, to provide loans to businesses to make energy efficiency upgrades. It is being used in Columbus, OH, to make 29 public buildings more energy efficient. It is being used in Portland, ME, to retrofit 55 public buildings. It is being used in Miami to convert landfill gas into the production of electricity. It is being used in New York City to help homeowners and businesses with energy efficiency and renewable energy loans, among many other areas. I know in my State of Vermont, dozens and dozens of communities and schools are using this money to make their buildings more energy efficient and, in some cases, move to sustainable energy. We need to keep these investments in energy efficiency and conservation going. That is exactly what this amendment would do to the tune of $10 billion. Finally, this amendment would dedicate $25 billion for deficit reduction, $10 billion for the block grant program to make our country more energy efficient. And the $25 billion for deficit reduction at a time of record-breaking deficits and debt, we simply cannot continue to give oil and gas companies huge tax breaks. I know it is easy for some of my colleagues to come to the floor and talk about the deficit, talk about the debt we are leaving our kids and grandkids. It makes for great rhetoric. But, occasionally, you are going to have to stand up if you are serious about the debt and deficit and take on some of those very powerful special interests who are getting huge tax breaks, do not need those tax breaks and do not deserve those tax breaks. It is more important to protect our kids and grandchildren here and the deficit than it is to give tax breaks to ExxonMobil. When it comes down to it, this amendment asks a very simple question: Which side are you on? Are you on the side of big oil and gas companies, companies that year after year after year are making huge profits or are you on the side of reducing the deficit, reducing our dependence on oil, saving consumers and businesses money on their energy bills, and saving the planet we live on? That is what this amendment is about. I understand that there will be opposition to this amendment. I have seen it surface already. After all, since 1990, the oil and gas industry has made over $238 million in campaign contributions. And over the past 2 years alone, this industry has spent $210 million on lobbying, probably half a billion dollars since 1990 on campaign contributions and lobbying. They have gotten a lot for that, I must confess. For that investment, they have gotten a lot in tax breaks and subsidies. But I think now is the time, given the oilspill in the gulf, because of the threat of global warming, in order to clean up our country, in order to create jobs and energy efficiency and sustainable energy, we have got to say to big oil: Sorry. No more. No more. You are going to have to start paying your fair share of taxes so we can transform our energy system and so we can begin to deal with this very serious deficit problem. This amendment is the right thing to do for deficit reduction. It is the right thing to do to transform our energy system. It is the right thing to do for consumers. I ask my colleagues to vote for the amendment. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I honor Vermonter Lindol Atkins, Jr., a man who has dedicated his life to the struggle for workers' rights and economic justice. For more than 35 years, Lindol Atkins has provided spirited and dedicated leadership in representing municipal employees in Burlington. As a former mayor of Burlington, I can attest firsthand that Mr. Atkins has distinguished himself as an indomitable leader of workers' rights efforts in the State of Vermont. Lindol Atkins began his fight to improve the rights and protections of Burlington city employees back in 1968 when he joined AFSCME. Elected president of AFSCME Local 1343 in 1970, Lindol continued his mission to advance the rights of workers by skillfully handling all grievance and arbitration cases. As the lead negotiator for the union, he also led many successful contract campaigns that ultimately improved employees' wages and working conditions. In 2005, Mr. Atkins retired as president of the Burlington AFSCME local, but rather than slow down and enjoy his well-earned rest he continued his leadership role within the labor movement by being elected president of the Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. A husband and father of 12, Lindol Atkins has the enviable ability to be able to do many things well--a wonderful and necessary quality in one with such a deep devotion to the labor movement as well as to his large, loving family. Indeed, it is the dedicated and remarkable people like Lindol Atkins who have kept America moving forward. His unparalleled commitment to civic values has been a major factor in earning Vermont its well-deserved reputation for social justice and principled community leadership. Lindol has received many awards for his work guiding Vermont's labor movement, with the capstone being the presentation of this year's AFL-CIO Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. The quality of life in Vermont, and in our Nation, is strengthened by individuals such as Lindol Atkins, Jr., whose quest to better working conditions for men and women in his community has brought a great sense of solidarity to not just the people of Vermont, but the entire Nation. I commend his loyalty and great contributions to the labor movement, to Vermont, and to the United States.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, at a time when the Federal Reserve has been provided the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world, to the largest financial institutions in this country--trillion-dollar institutions--without the approval of Congress, without the real knowledge of the American people, the Sanders amendment makes it clear that the Fed can no longer operate forever in the kind of secrecy in which it has operated. Under the Sanders amendment, for the first time the American people will know exactly who received over $2 trillion in zero, or virtually zero, interest loans from the Fed, and they will know the exact terms of those financial arrangements. Under the Sanders amendment, for the first time, the GAO will be required to conduct a top-to-bottom comprehensive audit of every single emergency action the Fed has undertaken since the financial crisis began. Under the Sanders amendment, for the first time, the GAO will investigate whether there were conflicts of interest surrounding the emergency actions of the Fed. Madam President, the Fed has been fighting all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep this information secret. Well, this amendment says, in no uncertain terms, this money does not belong to the Fed; it belongs to the American people, and the American people have a right to know where their taxpayer dollars are going. That is not a difficult concept to get one's arms around. The American people have a right to know. Specifically, the Sanders amendment does two things: First, it requires the Fed to put on its Web site by December 1, 2010, the names of all of the financial institutions, corporations and foreign central banks--let me repeat, foreign central banks--that received trillions of dollars in taxpayer assistance from the Fed since the beginning of the financial bailout period. Second, the Sanders amendment requires the GAO--the Government Accountability Office--to conduct a top-to-bottom comprehensive audit of all of the emergency actions the Fed has taken since the beginning of the financial crisis, with a particular focus on all of the potential conflicts of interest within these secret deals. And that, Madam President, is an extremely important point which, by the way, was not in my original amendment. The fight for a GAO audit of the Fed and to require more transparency has been a long and arduous struggle. There are many people to thank for being at the point we are today. Partisan politics aside, this has been a joint effort on the part of some of the most progressive Members of Congress and some of the most conservative, and some of the most progressive grass roots organizations and some of the most conservative. I specifically want to thank, in the Senate, Majority Leader Reid, Majority Whip Durbin, Senators Dorgan, Feingold, Boxer, and Leahy and many others for their leadership on this issue on my side of the aisle, and to thank Senators DeMint, Vitter, Brownback, McCain, Grassley, and others on the other side of the aisle. Last week, a number of Senators--Democrats and Republicans--indicated to me they were uncomfortable with my original amendment, which they believed would have allowed Congress to be involved in the day-to-day monetary operations of the Fed. That was never my intention, and I still do not believe my original amendment would have done that. Nonetheless, that is what a number of Senators believed and were concerned about and they came to me about. The chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Dodd, indicated to me if we could clarify this issue, he would not only be supportive of this amendment, but he would cosponsor it. That is exactly what he did, and I very much appreciate his support. Let me just very briefly speak to what the principles of this amendment are. No. 1, the Sanders amendment, in terms of transparency, is clear we need to make sure the Federal Reserve releases the names of every single financial institution, corporation, and foreign central bank the Fed provided over $2 trillion in taxpayer assistance to since the financial crisis started and what the exact details of those arrangements were. This information, as a result of this amendment, will be on the Fed's Web site on December 1, 2010, and every single American who has a computer will be able to access that information. That is a major step forward. Secondly, in terms of the audit, I have always believed the main purpose of this audit was for the GAO to conduct a top-to-bottom comprehensive review of every single emergency action the Fed has undertaken since the start of the financial crisis. That is exactly what this amendment does. In addition, let me be clear, the modified amendment--the amendment I am offering today--is stronger than my original amendment on one very important point, a point I think millions of Americans are concerned about; that is, it requires the GAO to investigate whether there were conflicts of interest in the establishment of the emergency lending programs at the Fed. My original amendment would have allowed the GAO to look into conflicts of interest at the Fed but did not require it. This amendment requires it. We are very specific about that. For example, I want to know--and I think the American people want to know--why Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, attended a meeting at the New York Fed when the Federal Government decided to bail out AIG to the eventual tune of $182 billion, allowing Goldman Sachs to pocket $13 billion of that money. My original amendment would have allowed the GAO to look at this. The new amendment makes it clear this kind of conflict of interest must be looked into by the GAO. Further, I want to know--and I think the American people want to know--why the head of the New York Fed, Stephen Friedman, was allowed to serve on the board of directors at Goldman Sachs and was allowed to purchase over 37,000 shares of Goldman stock at the same time the New York Fed was approving Goldman's application to become a bank holding company. My original amendment would have allowed the GAO to look into this. The new Sanders amendment requires the Fed to investigate whether conflicts of interest existed in these types of financial deals. Some 35 members of the Fed's Board of Directors are executives at banks which received over $120 billion in TARP money. I want to know-- and I think the American people want to know--how much these financial institutions received from the Fed and if this represents a conflict of interest. My original amendment would have allowed the GAO to look at this. The new Sanders amendment requires the GAO to take a look at those potential conflicts of interest. What is important to point out is, in terms of transparency, I am not the only person--other Members of the Senate are not the only people-- who is demanding that the Fed tell us to whom they lent money. I would point out that Bloomberg News has gone to court and, in fact, has won two Federal court decisions against the Fed in which the courts have said the Fed has to release that information. But the Fed persists in saying no. They want to keep that information secret. So that is where we are today. We are on the verge of lifting the veil of secrecy at perhaps the most important government agency in the United States--an agency which has control of and expends trillions of dollars. They do it behind closed doors, and they do it in ways the American people know very little about. So I ask for strong support for the Sanders amendment so we can go forward and break this veil of secrecy. With that, Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me summarize again what the Sanders amendment does. Let me take my colleagues back to a meeting of the Budget Committee, on which I serve, about a year ago. Chairman Bernanke came before that committee. I asked him: Will you tell the committee, me, and the American people which large financial institutions received trillions of dollars of zero or near zero interest loans? I thought that was a reasonable question. Mr. Bernanke said: No, I will not do that. I will not release that information. On that day, I introduced legislation to compel him to release the information. This amendment, if passed, on December 1, 2010, would, in fact, contain that information. It is a major step forward. Secondly, many Americans are beginning to catch on--and some Senators have referred to that today--to the immense power of the Fed. People are demanding transparency at the Fed. People want to know what happens behind closed doors when some of the leaders of the largest financial institutions sit down with the Fed and, lo and behold, programs are developed which benefit those very same large financial institutions. Wouldn't it be nice, wouldn't it be great if small businesses in Vermont could end up with zero interest loans? They can't. But somehow or another, some of the largest financial institutions in this country manage to do that, and we don't know how this process goes on. Passage of the Sanders amendment is a step forward. I congratulate all those people from both political parties, with very different political ideologies, for coming forward, for pushing this issue forward. This is not the end. This is a beginning. As Senator Dodd said a moment ago, this is historic. We are beginning to lift the veil of secrecy on what is perhaps the most important agency in the government. I urge passage of the Sanders amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, let me begin by thanking my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Vitter, not only for his remarks today but for his excellent work throughout this process. I have enjoyed working with him. What we have tried to do in this whole process is to bring together people who come from very different ideologies to basically make the point that the time is now to end the secrecy at the Fed. Madam President, I would like to yield myself 15 minutes, if the Chair can let me know when 15 minutes has expired.

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator from Iowa not only for his support but for his long fight for transparency. It has been a pleasure working with the Senator.

Mr. SANDERS. Point of order: How many hands do you need up?

Mr. SANDERS. I wish to thank the Senator from Kansas for his remarks and for his strong support from day one for this concept of transparency of the Fed.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3738.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this amendment, which calls for transparency at the Fed, is, frankly, one of the more unusual amendments I have ever participated in, not so much for its content but for the kind of coalition that has come together around it. How often do you have the AFL-CIO and FreedomWorks supporting the same effort? How often do you have the SEIU, which is the largest trade union in this country, moveOn.org, which I believe has some 5 million progressive members, and Public Citizen striving for the same goal as the National Taxpayers Union or the Eagle Forum or the Conservative Americans for Tax Reform? There is a coalition representing tens of millions of grassroots activists. Some of them are progressive, some where I come from, some of them are conservative, but they are all united around a very basic principle: We need transparency at the Fed, and we need it now. I want to use this opportunity--and I thank Chairman Dodd for allowing me to do this--to talk about the amendment, what it does, and why so many diverse groups are coming together in support of it because you do have to ask yourself: What is bringing together some of the most progressive groups in the country with some of the most conservative groups, some of the most progressive members of the Senate with some of the most conservative? I also want to tell my colleagues not only what this amendment does but to clarify as best I can what it does not because there has been some distortion about this amendment, and those distortions are blatantly untrue. I want to touch on that also. The origin for this amendment came on March 3, 2009. That was the date that, as a member of the Budget Committee, I had the opportunity to ask Chairman Bernanke what I thought was a pretty simple question. Chairman Bernanke, obviously, is Chairman of the Fed. What I asked him was: Mr. Chairman, my understanding is that the Fed has lent out some $2 trillion to some of the largest financial institutions in this country. Would you please tell me and the American people who received that money? I thought that was a pretty simple and straightforward question. Mr. Bernanke said: No. Despite the fact that this was $2 trillion in zero interest or near zero interest loans, he apparently believes the American people do not have a right to know who received that money. On that very same day, I introduced legislation requiring the Fed to put this information on its Web site, just as Congress required the Treasury Department to do with respect to the $700 billion TARP. And here we are today. Whatever one may think of TARP, one can get information as to who received that money, when it was paid back--the details. It is right there on the Internet. I believe that same information should be made available in terms of the Fed's zero interest and near zero interest loans. What the Fed apparently does not understand--and this is the important point--is that this money, these trillions of dollars, do not belong to the Fed; they belong to the American people. It is incomprehensible to me--and I think to the overwhelming majority of people in our country--that the Fed believes they can keep this information secret. This amendment not only requires that the Fed tell us who has received the $2 trillion it lent out, but, similar to the language incorporated in the House bill, it calls for an audit of the Fed by the GAO. That is it. That is what we are attempting to do with this amendment: transparency and a straightforward audit. Who got what when, on what basis, on what terms, who was at the meetings, who made the decisions, and taking a look at possible conflicts of interest--simple, factual questions that people from the State of Vermont ask me and I suspect people from Minnesota ask you, Mr. President, and people all over this country, regardless of their political persuasion, are asking. I understand this amendment may not be supported by everyone. Some may suggest, inaccurately, that this amendment--and I quote from a statement--``takes away the independence of the Federal Reserve and puts monetary policy into the hands of Congress.'' That is one of the charges being made against this amendment. Let me address that concern by simply reading to the Members of the Senate exactly what is in the amendment so that we know what we are talking about. I quote from page 4 of a six-page amendment. It is not a long amendment. It cannot be clearer than this. This is what it says: Nothing in this subsection shall be construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy to the Federal Reserve System by the Congress or the Government Accountability Office. If there are people who are saying: Oh, we are going to get involved in monetary policy; oh, we are going to be politicizing the Fed; oh, we are going to have, before an election, Congress telling the Fed to raise interest rates or to lower interest rates, that is absolutely inaccurate. That is not what we are doing. That is not, in my view, what we should be doing. We want an independent Fed. We want them to develop monetary policy. That is not--underline not--what this amendment does. This amendment does not tell the Fed when to cut short-term interest rates and when to raise them. It does not tell the Fed which banks to lend money to and which banks not to lend money to. It does not tell the Fed which foreign central banks they can do business with and which ones they cannot do business with. It does not impose any new regulations on the Fed, nor does it take any regulatory authority away from the Fed. Let's be clear about that. I think what the opponents of this amendment are doing is equating independence with secrecy, and there is a difference. At a time when our entire financial system almost collapsed, we cannot let the Fed operate in secrecy any longer. The American people have a right to know. I find it amusing that there are some people who oppose this amendment. As Chairman Dodd and the Presiding Officer know, we have had heated debates on the floor of the Senate over a $5 million amendment, over an $8 million provision that goes on for hours. Yet where we have trillions of dollars being lent out, there are some people who think the American people don't have a right to know who got that money. I think, frankly, that is absurd. The American people, as we hear over and over on the floor of the Senate, play by the rules. That is what the average American family does; they play by the rules. Well, what are the rules governing the Fed? Who makes those rules or are they just made up as they go along and they do not have to tell anybody about it? So I have a problem with that, and that is what this amendment is about. Here, to my mind--and these are just my issues; others may have different issues, and I am sure they do--are just a few of the questions the American people are asking and why we need a GAO audit of the Fed. These are just a few. Let me throw them out. Why was Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, invited to the New York Federal Reserve to meet with Federal officials in September of 2008 to determine whether AIG would be bailed out or allowed to go bankrupt? When the Fed and Treasury decided to bail out AIG to the tune of $182 billion, why did the Fed refuse to tell the American people where that money was going? Why did the Fed argue that this information needed to be kept secret ``as a matter of national security?'' Here is the point. When AIG finally released the names of the counterparties receiving this assistance, how did it happen that Goldman Sachs received $13 billion of this money; AIG, $182 billion; $13 billion going to Goldman Sachs--100 cents on the dollar of a company that was going bankrupt and that was bailed out. How is that-- 100 cents on the dollar? Not bad. Another question people might ask: Did Goldman Sachs use this money to provide $16 billion in bonuses the next year? Here you have Goldman Sachs getting $13 billion out of the $182 billion that AIG got, and the next year they are announcing $16 billion in bonuses. Did they use some of this money to provide those bonuses? A GAO audit of the Fed might help explain to the American people if there were any conflicts of interest surrounding this deal. I think the average American would say: Yes, there is a conflict of interest. You have a guy from Goldman Sachs sitting in the room arguing for $182 billion. They got $182 billion; he gets $13 billion. The next year his company gives $16 billion in bonuses. Is there a conflict of interest? I think so. That is my opinion. My opinion isn't the important one, but that is what the GAO will be doing if this amendment is passed. Just another question out there. In 2008, it seems to me--I may be wrong--there was a conflict of interest at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, when Stephen Friedman, the head of the New York Fed, who also served on the board of directors of Goldman Sachs--let's back it up. The head of the Fed serves on the board of Goldman Sachs, approved Goldman's application to become a bank holding company, giving it access to cheap loans from the Federal Reserve. OK. The head of the New York Federal Reserve, on the board of Goldman Sachs, is applying for Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company to gain cheap loans from the Fed. It looks to me like there may be a conflict of interest, but what do I know? That is what we need a GAO report to tell us. Here, interestingly enough, is an article from May 9, 2009, in the Wall Street Journal. Let me quote briefly from that article: Goldman Sachs received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September of 2008. During that time, the New York Fed's chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman's board and had a large holding in Goldman's stock, which, because of Goldman's new status as a bank holding company, was a violation of Federal Reserve policy. The New York Fed asked for a waiver, which, after about 2\1/2\ months, the Fed granted. While it was weighing the request, Mr. Friedman bought 37,300 more Goldman shares in December. They have since risen $1.7 million in value. Mr. Friedman, who once ran Goldman, says none of these events involved any conflicts. That is the Wall Street Journal article from May 9, 2009. That is what Mr. Friedman says. Well, I kind of disagree with him, but I would like the GAO to take a look at that. Without a comprehensive GAO report, we have to take Mr. Friedman at his word, and I don't think we should. Who got what? When did they get it? On what basis and what terms? Who was at those meetings? Were there conflicts of interest? These are the kinds of questions a GAO audit of the Fed will answer. As a result of the bailout of Bear Stearns and AIG, the Fed--and this is a beauty, this is quite something--the Fed now owns credit default swaps--listen up on this one--betting that California, Nevada, and Florida will default on their debt. So the Federal Reserve stands to make money if California, Nevada, and Florida go bankrupt. I suspect that the Senators from the great States of California, Nevada, and Florida would be rather interested to know that if their States go bankrupt, the Fed makes money. On the surface, this looks a little absurd to me, but again, I think this is an issue that the GAO might be taking a look at. It has been reported that the Federal Reserve pressured the Bank of America into acquiring Merrill Lynch--making this financial institution even bigger and riskier--allegedly threatening to fire its CEO if the Bank of America backed out of this merger. When the merger went through, Merrill Lynch employees received $3.7 billion in bonuses. Was this a good deal for the American taxpayer? A GAO audit can help us find out. When the Federal Reserve provided a $29 billion loan to JPMorgan Chase to acquire Bear Stearns, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, served on the Board of Directors at the New York Federal Reserve. Let me repeat that. When the Federal Reserve provided $29 billion to JPMorgan Chase, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase served on the Board of Directors of the New York Fed. Did this represent a conflict of interest? I think the average American would say yes. Maybe some people would have a different point of view. But I think a GAO audit can help explain all this to the American people. Currently--and I think we have to appreciate this as well; we have to shed some light on these issues--some 35 members of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors are executives at private financial institutions which have received nearly $120 billion in TARP funds, but we don't know how much these big banks received from the Fed. We know what they got from the TARP, not from the Fed. A GAO audit could answer this question. All of us--I believe all of us--are deeply concerned that small- and medium-sized businesses around this country--I know it is certainly the case in Vermont--are begging for affordable credit. They have the opportunity to expand. We are beginning to see some economic recovery, but they want to expand, they want to create new jobs, and they are finding it extremely difficult to acquire those desperately needed affordable loans. I find it an important issue to ask how much of the trillions of dollars in zero or near zero interest loans that financial institutions received from the Fed went out to those small businesses or, perhaps, as I personally believe is the case, were simply invested in Federal Government bonds, earning an interest rate of 3 or 4 percent. A number of observers believe--and the GAO can help us discover--the Fed provided zero interest loans to a large bank, which then took that money and bought government bonds at 3 percent. If that was the case, and I suspect it was, you are looking at a huge scam--a huge scam--when small- and medium-sized businesses needed the money. That was the intention of these loans. But I don't know how much of this was invested in growth bonds, you don't know, and the American people don't know. It is time we found out. This amendment I am offering is virtually identical to legislation that I have offered on this subject that has 33 cosponsors. The amendment, I think, has 20, 22 Democrats and Republicans. The original legislation had 33 cosponsors. Just so you can get a sense of the diversity of ideological opinion behind this amendment, let me tell you the names of the people on board the legislation--not the amendment, the legislation: Senators Barrasso, Bennett, Boxer, Brownback, Burr, Cardin, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Crapo, DeMint, Dorgan, Feingold, Graham, Grassley, Harkin, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Landrieu, Leahy, Lincoln, McCain, Murkowski, Risch, Sanders, Thune, Vitter, Webb, Wicker, and Wyden. Those are people who are on the original legislation--33 cosponsors. As you can see, they range from some of the most progressive Members to some of the most conservative Members. The amendment that is now on the floor has, I believe, 22 cosponsors, Republicans and Democrats alike, and I wish to thank all of them for their support. The American people are asking: Can people work together? Can they come together on important issues? If there is an important issue that people with different ideological backgrounds have come together on, this is that one. So I wished to thank my Republican friends and my Democratic friends who, every other day, are fighting like cats and mice but on this issue have come together, and I appreciate that. But it is not only the Members of the Senate. In terms of progressive grassroots organizations, this amendment enjoys the strong support of the AFL-CIO; the Service Employees International Union, the single largest union in the country; the United Steelworkers of America; Public Citizen; the New American Foundation; Center for Economic Policy; U.S. Public Interest Research Group; Americans for Financial Reform, which is a coalition of over 250 consumer, employee, investor, community, and civil rights groups. There is a huge amount of support from the progressive community. It also has a huge amount of support from the conservative community. Let me read, briefly, a letter I received from the legislative director of the AFL-CIO. This is what he says: On behalf of the AFL-CIO, I am writing to urge you to support the Sanders-Feingold-DeMint-Leahy-McCain-Grassley- Vitter-Brownback amendment to increase transparency at the Federal Reserve. Working people want to know who benefitted from the liquidity provided by taxpayers during the crisis and this amendment will ensure that we receive this information. I received another letter, which came from the president of the SCIU, the president of the United Steelworkers, the president of Public Citizen and many other progressive groups and this is what they say: Since the start of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has dramatically changed its operating procedures. Instead of simply setting interest rates to influence macroeconomic conditions, it rapidly acquired a wide variety of private assets and extended massive secret bailouts to major financial institutions. There are still many questions about the Fed's behavior in these new activities. The Federal Reserve's balance sheet expanded to more than $2 trillion, along with implied and implicit backstops to Wall Street firms that could cost even more. Who received the money? Against what collateral? On what terms and conditions? The only way to find out is through a complete audit of the Federal Reserve. That's why we support the amendment to increase transparency at the Fed. That is from the SEIU, and many other unions. That is what some of the progressive groups, quite frankly, that I work with quite often have to say about this amendment. But let me quote from some of the conservative organizations that, frankly, I usually do not have very good voting records with. Very often they oppose what I bring forth. Here is the National Taxpayers Union. I don't know how many folks they have, but they are a big organization. This is what the National Taxpayers Union says: The National Taxpayers Union urges all Senators to vote ``yes'' on S. Amendment 3738 to the financial regulatory reform legislation. This amendment, introduced by Senators Sanders and DeMint, would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct an audit of the Federal Reserve. . . . I like their next sentence. Transparency is not a Democrat or Republican issue, but rather an issue of right or wrong. If the Senate insists on further expanding the Fed's reach, Americans deserve to know more about the workings of a government-sanctioned entity whose decisions directly affect their economic livelihood. A ``yes'' vote on S. amendment 3738 [this amendment] will be significantly weighted as a pro-taxpayer vote in our annual Rating of Congress. That means I may have at least a 1-percent approval vote from the National Taxpayers Union. I appreciate their support. That is from the National Taxpayers Union. Let me quote from another letter of support I received from a group of conservative organizations that includes the Americans for Tax Reform, the Campaign for Liberty, the Rutherford Institute, the Eagle forum, Freedomworks, and the Center for Fiscal Accountability--again, some of the more conservative groups in the country, groups that usually do not support my issues. This is what they say: We urge you to vote for Senators Sanders, Feingold, DeMint, and Vitter's Federal Reserve Transparency Amendment. . . . This amendment does not take away the ``independence'' of the Fed. It simply requires the GAO to conduct an independent audit of the Fed and requires the Fed to release the names of the recipients of more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed assistance during this latest economic crisis. Any true financial reform effort will start with requiring accountability from our Nation's central bank. Let me thank all of the conservative groups--in this case the Americans for Tax Reform, the Campaign for Liberty, and the others--for their very strong grassroots effort in supporting this amendment. It is an indication, again, that on certain issues progressives and conservatives can come together. Let me mention this because I think it is possible that some of the Members do not know this. This amendment is not a radical idea. As part of the budget resolution debate in April of 2009, the Senate voted overwhelmingly in support of this concept by a vote of 59 to 39. I brought that up. It was a nonbinding vote, part of the budget resolution, 59 to 39. So many Senators have already gone on record supporting that. Here is also an important piece of information. In the House of Representatives, this concept passed the House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 43 to 26 and was incorporated into the House version of the Wall Street reform bill that was approved by the House last December. Again, what we are talking about is something that was passed in the House, and it is in the House bill. There is a variation. We are not the same, to be honest, but the same concept--for a Fed audit--already exists in the Wall Street reform bill passed in the House. This concept has the support of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who has said Congress should ask the Fed to put this information ``on the Internet like they've done with the recovery package and the budget.'' That is exactly what this amendment would do. Here is another point many people don't know. A lot of this language is in the House bill. A lot of this language has already been supported in the Senate last year as part of the budget resolution. But here is an important point many people do not know. Bloomberg News service did a very good job, and they have aggressively demanded, as a news organization, this information about who the Fed lent money to be made public. As a result of their efforts, two Federal courts--not one, two Federal courts--have ordered the Fed to release all the names and details of the recipients of more than $2 trillion in Federal Reserve loans since the financial crisis as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. So Bloomberg News filed suit and two Federal courts supported Bloomberg. The Fed had argued in court in opposition to Bloomberg that it should not have to release this information, citing, according to Reuters--this is what the Fed said--``an exemption that it said lets Federal agencies keep secret various trade secrets and commercial or financial information.'' However, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York disagreed. Here is what a unanimous three-judge appeals court panel wrote in their opinion: To give the Fed power to deny disclosure because it thinks it best to do so would undermine the basic policy that disclosure, not secrecy, is the dominant objective. If the Board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest, it should ask Congress to amend the statute. This appeals court decision upheld an earlier ruling by the Southern Federal District Court of New York that also ordered the Fed to release this information. In other words, we now have 59 Senators who, as part of the budget resolution, voted on this issue; 320 Members of Congress, the House, and two U.S. courts that have all told the Fed in no uncertain terms: Give us transparency. That is what we have. As I wind down and conclude my remarks, let me just simply say that I am thankful for all of the support, all the grassroots support from progressive and conservative groups, and from my fellow Senators. The American people have a right to know when trillions of their dollars are being spent and who gets it. The American people have a right to know whether there are conflicts of interest. I thank my colleagues--there are so many cosponsors, I will not mention them all--but I thank all of them. Let me conclude by saying I am very proud to say we have been working with Senator Dodd's office and some other offices. Amendment No. 3738, as Modified I am going to ask that my amendment be modified with the changes that are at the desk. I am proud to say these modifications have been worked out with Senator Dodd and would allow the GAO to conduct a top-to- bottom audit of all of the Federal Reserve's emergency lending activities since December 1, 2007. In addition, the modifications require the Fed to put on its Web site all of the recipients of over $2 trillion in emergency assistance since December 1, 2007.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the chairman.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, as soon as I possibly can, I intend to bring up an amendment which calls for transparency at the Fed. I must tell my colleagues that this amendment is one of the more unusual amendments that has been brought up in the Senate, I suspect for many years, because of the rather strange coalition that has come together around it. How often do we have the AFL-CIO, a progressive organization, and Freedom Works, a very conservative organization, supporting the same effort? How often are the SEIU, the largest union in America; moveon.org, 5 million members as a progressive organization; and Public Citizen, another progressive organization, striving for the same goal as the National Taxpayers Union or the Eagle Forum or Americans for Tax Reform, very conservative organizations? How often do we have some of the most progressive Members in Congress--and I include myself within that fold--working with some of the more conservative Members? It doesn't happen every day, but that is what is happening on this amendment. I rise to talk about the amendment, what it does, and why so many diverse groups, representing tens of millions of Americans, are coming together in support of it. I also wish to suggest what it does not do and some of the ways it has been distorted by the Fed and other groups that are opposed. I have seen some of the statements made by the Fed which are absolutely untrue in terms of what this amendment does and does not do. For me, the origin of this amendment came on March 3, 2009, when, as a member of the Budget Committee, I asked the Chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, a very simple question. I asked him if he would tell me, the committee, and the American people which financial institutions received over $2 trillion in zero interest or near zero interest loans during the start of the economic crisis. During the bailout period, some $2 trillion of taxpayer money was lent. My question was: Mr. Chairman, who received that money? I don't think that is an unfair question. We have heard great debates here on the Senate floor about $5 million or $10 million. To ask who received over $2 trillion in zero or near zero interest loans is something I believe should be answered by the Fed, and they should make that information public. But Bernanke said no. He gave his reasons. On that very day, I introduced legislation that would require the Fed to put this information on its Web site, make it public, just as Congress required the Treasury Department to do with respect to the $700 billion TARP money. Some may like TARP; some may not. Some may have voted for it; some may not have. But the information about who received the money, when it was paid back, et cetera, is right there on the Web site of the Treasury Department. This $2 trillion in zero or near zero interest loans does not belong to the Fed. It belongs to the American people, and the American people have a right to know where trillions of their taxpayer dollars are going. It is not complicated. One doesn't need an MBA from Wharton to know that. That is why millions of Americans, whether conservative or progressive or in between, have come together to say we need transparency at the Fed. This amendment not only requires that the Fed tell us who has received the $2 trillion it lent out, but, similar to the language incorporated in the House bill, it calls for an audit of the Fed by the GAO. As we all know, the GAO is the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office that does a great job in trying to figure out where there is waste and fraud within the government. That is it. This is a very simple, short amendment. It is five pages. It calls for transparency at the Fed and a straightforward audit. Who got what? When did they get it? On what basis and on what terms? Who was at the meetings? Who made the decisions and were there conflicts of interest? Simple, factual questions the American people deserve answers to. That is what it is; it is not complicated. I understand this amendment will not be supported by everyone. Some may suggest, inaccurately--and I have heard these statements--that this amendment ``takes away the independence of the Federal Reserve and puts monetary policy into the hands of Congress.'' Let me address those concerns by simply reading exactly what is in the amendment. It is not complicated. I quote from page 4 of the amendment. This is what it says. I don't think I can be more straightforward than this: Nothing in this amendment shall be construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve system, by the Congress, or the Government Accountability Office. It can't be more simple. It can't be more straightforward than the language in this amendment. So when people tell us this amendment is going to interfere and have Congress dictate monetary policy, it is simply not true. In other words, this amendment does not take away the ``independence of the Fed'' and it does not put monetary policy into the hands of Congress. This amendment does not tell the Fed when to cut short-term interest rates or when to raise them. It does not tell the Fed what banks to lend money to and what banks not to lend money to. It does not tell the Fed which foreign central banks it can do business with and which ones it cannot. It does not impose any new regulations on the Fed, nor does it take any regulatory authority away from the Fed. It does none of those things, no matter what anybody coming to the floor may say. What the opponents of this amendment are doing is equating independence, which we support, with secrecy, which I do not support. At a time when our entire financial system almost collapsed, we cannot let the Fed continue to operate in the kind of secrecy they have operated in for years. The American people have a right to know. Very often, we see Senators coming down here to the floor to make the point that working people have to play by the rules. How often have we heard that rhetoric? What are the rules governing the Fed? Who makes those rules or do they just make them up as they go along? Let me list a few of the questions millions of Americans and Members of Congress are asking that a GAO audit might help to answer. I am sure there are many more. Question: Why was Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, invited to the New York Federal Reserve to meet with Federal officials in September of 2008 to determine whether AIG would be bailed out or allowed to go bankrupt? I wasn't invited to that meeting. Other Senators were not invited to that meeting. Lloyd Blankfein was invited to that meeting. When the Fed and Treasury decided to bail out AIG to the tune of $182 billion, why did the Fed refuse to tell the American people where that money was going? Why did the Fed argue that this information needed to be kept secret ``as a matter of national security''? When AIG finally released the names of the counterparties receiving this assistance, how did it happen that Goldman Sachs received $13 billion of this money, 100 cents on the dollar on what AIG owed them? How did that happen? I don't know. We don't know. The American people don't know. But I think we have a right to know. Did Goldman Sachs use this money to provide $16 billion in bonuses to its top executives the next year? All over this country, Americans have lost their jobs. They have lost their homes. They have lost their savings. They have lost their ability to send their kids to college because of this recession caused by Wall Street. Yet Goldman Sachs gets $13 billion--100 cents on the dollar--after AIG is bailed out at a meeting in which Lloyd Blankfein is in attendance. I think it is an interesting question. I don't know the answer, but I think the American people have a right to know. A GAO audit of the Fed might help explain to the American people if there were any conflicts of interest surrounding that deal. Who got what? On what basis? On what terms? Who was at the meetings? Who made the decisions? And were there conflicts of interests? In 2008, it seems to me--I did not go to Harvard Business School, but it does seem to me--there was an apparent conflict of interest at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when Stephen Friedman, the head of the New York Fed--who also served on the board of directors of Goldman Sachs--let me repeat that: He was the head of the New York Fed; he also served on the board of directors of Goldman Sachs--and the New York Fed approved Goldman's application to become a bank holding company, giving it access to cheap loans from the Federal Reserve. Let me quote from an article published in the Wall Street Journal on May 9, 2009, and let the American people determine whether this deserves a GAO audit. Quoting the Wall Street Journal: Goldman Sachs received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September of 2008. . . . During that time, the New York Fed's chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman's board and had a large holding in Goldman stock, which because of Goldman's new status as a bank holding company was a violation of Federal Reserve policy. The New York Fed asked for a waiver, which after about 2\1/2\ months, the Fed granted. While it was weighing the request, Mr. Friedman bought 37,300 more Goldman shares in December. They have since risen $1.7 million in value. Mr. Friedman, who once ran Goldman, says none of these events involved any conflicts. That was from the Wall Street Journal of May 9, 2009. Well, maybe Mr. Friedman is right. Maybe there is not a conflict of interest. It seems to me there is a very apparent conflict of interest, but that is an issue that maybe a GAO audit might want to look at. As a result of the bailout of Bear Stearns and AIG, the Fed now owns--this is pretty amazing--now owns credit default swaps betting that California, Nevada, and Florida will default on their debt. Let me repeat that. Senators from California and Nevada and Florida might be interested in this. As a result of the bailout of Bear Stearns and AIG, the Fed now owns credit default swaps betting that California, Nevada, and Florida will default on their debt. So the Federal Reserve stands to make money if California, Nevada, and Florida go bankrupt. What can I tell you? This is the reality. I know it will seem strange to the American people that the Fed makes money and is betting that three of our great States go bankrupt. This may make sense to the Fed. It may make sense to some of my colleagues in the Senate. It does not make sense to me. Frankly, I do not believe it makes sense to the American people. But this is what an audit of the Fed will allow us to better understand: whether we want the Fed to be betting against some of our great States, that they will go bankrupt. It has been reported that the Federal Reserve pressured Bank of America into acquiring Merrill Lynch--making this financial institution even bigger and riskier--allegedly threatening to fire its CEO if Bank of America backed out of this merger. When the merger went through, Merrill Lynch's employees received $3.7 billion in bonuses. Was this a good deal or a bad deal for the American taxpayer? Perhaps a GAO audit can help us find out. When the Fed provided a $29 billion loan to JPMorgan Chase to acquire Bear Stearns, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Mr. Diamond, served on the board of directors at the New York Federal Reserve. Let me repeat that. When the Fed provided a $29 billion loan to JPMorgan Chase to acquire Bear Stearns, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Mr. Diamond, served on the board of directors at the New York Federal Reserve. Did this represent a conflict of interest? To my mind, it does. Maybe I am wrong. But that is what a GAO audit can help explain to the American people. Again, I know we are going to have Senators running down here saying: Oh, we are trying to break the independence of the Fed. We are not trying to do that. What we are trying to do is allow the American people to get a glimpse and an understanding of some of the actions of the Fed involving huge sums of money. Currently, some 35 members of the Federal Reserve's board of directors are executives at private financial institutions which have received nearly $120 billion in TARP funds, but we do not know how much these big banks received from the Fed. A GAO audit could answer that question. Here is a very interesting point I know a lot of Senators have raised in different context: If the goal of the huge amounts of money in Fed loans--trillions of dollars in Fed loans--to large financial institutions was to achieve the goal of getting credit flowing to small- and medium-sized businesses that were cash starved--they were crying out for credit--why is small business lending in freefall? What happened? We gave the large financial institutions trillions of dollars, presumably to get it out to the small- and medium-sized businesses. They have not gotten it. Question--I think it is a reasonable question, and I am not the only one who is asking it--how much of those zero interest or near zero interest loans that these huge financial institutions received from the Fed were simply invested in Federal Government bonds, earning an interest rate of 3 or 4 percent? In other words, are we looking at a huge scam? I cannot think of a better word. You give these large financial institutions trillions of dollars in zero interest loans in order to enable them to provide desperately needed loans to small- and medium-sized businesses, so those businesses can expand and create jobs. Yet that appears not to be happening. Question: How much of those--those several trillion dollars in loans--simply went from the Fed to the financial institutions in order to purchase government-backed obligations at 3 or 4 percent? If that is the case, that is just giving away money. You have zero interest coming in; you get 3 or 4 percent guaranteed by the faith and credit of the United States of America. Well, do you know what. I do not know. I do not know how much. I suspect, other people suspect, that was done. How much, I do not know. Maybe the GAO can tell us. This amendment is virtually identical to legislation I have introduced on this subject that has 33 cosponsors. Just as we have a very broad spectrum of political ideology from grassroots organizations on the left and the right--conservative, progressive; Democrat, Republican--supporting this amendment, so we have had widespread-- across ideology--support for this legislation. Let me mention who the 33 cosponsors are. You will see how people with very different political ideologies have come together. The names of those people are: Senators Barrasso, Bennett, Boxer, Brownback, Burr, Cardin, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Crapo, DeMint, Dorgan, Feingold, Graham, Grassley, Harkin, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Landrieu, Leahy, Lincoln, McCain, Murkowski, Risch, Sanders, Thune, Vitter, Webb, Wicker, and Wyden. Those are the people who have supported the legislation. This amendment coming to the floor has 20 cosponsors--Republicans and Democrats alike--and I want to thank all of those Senators for their support. In terms of progressive grassroots organizations, this amendment enjoys the strong support of the AFL-CIO; the SEIU, the largest union in America; the United Steelworkers of America; Public Citizen; the New America Foundation; the Center for Economic Policy and Research; the Roosevelt Institute; the U.S. Public Interest Research Group; and Americans for Financial Reform, which in itself is a coalition of over 250 consumer, employee, investor, community, and civil rights groups. Let me read you a letter of support I received for this amendment from Bill Samuel, the legislative director of the AFL-CIO. This what the AFL-CIO said: On behalf of the AFL-CIO, I am writing to urge you to support-- This is a letter going out to other Senators-- the Sanders, Feingold, DeMint, Leahy, McCain, Grassley, Vitter, Brownback amendment to increase transparency at the Federal Reserve. . . . Working people want to know who benefitted from the liquidity provided by taxpayers during the crisis and this amendment will ensure that we receive this information. Let me also quote from a letter I received from Andy Stern, the president of the SEIU, the largest union in the country; and also from Leo Gerard, the president of the United Steelworkers of America; and a number of other academics and economists. This is what they write: Since the start of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has dramatically changed its operating procedures. Instead of simply setting interest rates to influence macroeconomic conditions, it rapidly acquired a wide variety of private assets and extended massive secret bailouts to major financial institutions. There are still many questions about the Fed's behavior in these new activities. The Federal Reserve balance sheet expanded to more than $2 trillion, along with implied and explicit backstops to Wall Street firms that could cost even more. Who received the money? Against what collateral? On what terms and conditions? The only way to find out is through a complete audit of the Federal Reserve. That's why we support the Sanders, Feingold, DeMint, Leahy, McCain, Grassley, Vitter, Brownback amendment to increase transparency at the Fed. That is what leading progressive economic and social justice organizations are saying about this amendment. Let me briefly, if I might, quote from some of the conservative organizations. One of the larger ones is the National Taxpayers Union. I do not usually quote from the National Taxpayers Union. I think I am not rated very highly on their chart. But this is what they say in support of this amendment: The National Taxpayers Union urges all Senators to vote ``YES'' on S. AMDT 3738 to the financial regulatory reform legislation. This amendment, introduced by Senators Sanders and DeMint, would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct an audit of the Federal Reserve. . . . Transparency is not a Democrat or Republican issue, but rather an issue of right or wrong. If the Senate insists on further expanding the Fed's reach, Americans deserve to know more about the workings of a government-sanctioned entity whose decisions directly affect their economic livelihood. A ``YES'' vote on S. AMDT 3738 will be significantly weighted as a pro-taxpayer vote in our annual Rating of Congress. We also have support from other conservative organizations, including Americans for Tax Reform, the Campaign for Liberty, the Rutherford Institute, the Eagle Forum, FreedomWorks, and the Center for Fiscal Accountability. In a letter of support I received from them they write: We urge you to vote for Senators Sanders, Feingold, DeMint, and Vitter's Federal Reserve Transparency Amendment . . . This amendment does not take away the ``independence'' of the Fed. It simply requires the GAO to conduct an independent audit of the Fed and requires the Fed to release the names of the recipients of more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed assistance during this latest economic crisis. Any true financial reform effort will start with requiring accountability from our nation's central bank. Let me conclude by saying this amendment is not a radical idea. I have just indicated to you that we have progressive groups, representing millions of people, and we have conservative groups, representing millions of people. We have the AARP, the largest senior group, representing, I think, tens of million of Americans. I should also mention to you that as part of the budget resolution debate in April of 2009, the Senate voted overwhelmingly in support of this basic concept, by a vote of 59 to 39. In the House of Representatives, this concept passed the House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 43 to 26 and was incorporated into the House version of Wall Street reform that was approved by the House last December. In other words, a lot of what I am talking about is in the House bill--not a radical concept. This idea has the support of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who said Congress should ask the Fed to put this information ``on the Internet like they've done with the recovery package and the budget.'' That is what this amendment does. This concept has also been supported--and this is important. I know my friend from Texas wants to speak. I am winding down and I apologize for going on this long. But it is important to point out that this concept has also been supported by two Federal courts that have ordered the Fed to release all of the names and details of the recipients of more than $2 trillion in Federal Reserve loans since the financial crisis started as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Bloomberg News. The Fed has argued in court that it should not have to release this information citing, according to Reuters: ``an exemption that it said lets federal agencies keep secret various trade secrets and commercial or financial information.'' That is what the U.S. Appeals Court in New York said in disagreeing with the Fed. It was a unanimous three-judge appeals court. This is what they wrote in their opinion: to give the [Fed] power to deny disclosure because it thinks it best to do so would undermine the basic policy that disclosure, not secrecy, is the dominant objective. If the board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interests, it should ask Congress to amend the statute. Let me conclude by saying this: We now have 59 Senators having voted for this transparency, 320 Members of the House, and 2 U.S. courts. All we want to know is who got trillions of dollars. That is what we want to know. We also want to know on what basis, on what terms, and who was at the meetings where key decisions were made. This is an important amendment, and it is an amendment that millions of people want to see pass. I hope we will have an opportunity to offer it as soon as possible, and I hope it is passed. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. If the Senator will yield, do we have any sense of what is happening this afternoon?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, before I talk about financial reform, I did want to say a word about the disaster on the gulf coast now and the oil spillage there. Obviously, all of our hearts go out to the families of the 11 workers who lost their lives and to the thousands and thousands of employees in the region who are going to lose their jobs as this terrible contamination spreads all over the gulf coast. But I hope very much we comprehend, in the midst of the disaster, that when we are dealing with technologies such as offshore drilling or, in fact, nuclear energy, we cannot be 99.99 percent successful. Unfortunately, as human beings, 100 percent success is a goal we often do not reach. That is why, in my view, as someone who has long opposed offshore drilling, I think it is absolutely imperative we understand as a nation if we move aggressively to energy efficiency, if we move aggressively to such clean, sustainable energies as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal, we can, in fact, break our dependence on foreign oil and on fossil fuel in general, and we can create millions of jobs as we become energy independent without having to deal with the calamities we are experiencing today. Mr. President, either tomorrow or shortly after--I hope tomorrow--I will be offering an amendment which deals with transparency at the Fed. I did want to say a few words about that. At a time when many Americans are dispirited by the intensity of the partisanship which they see in Congress, this amendment, demanding transparency at the Federal Reserve, does something which is quite unusual. It brings together some of the most progressive Members of the U.S. Congress--and I consider myself in that fold--with some of the most conservative. It also brings together some of the strongest grassroots progressive organizations in the country with some of the most conservative. So what we are seeing in this amendment is a coming together of millions of Americans who have very different political ideologies but who agree it is absolutely imperative we bring transparency to the Fed. This amendment is virtually identical to legislation I have offered on the subject that now has 33 cosponsors. In order to give an indication of the diversity of ideological position, let me read who they are. They are Senators Barrasso, Bennett, Boxer, Brownback, Burr, Cardin, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Crapo, DeMint, Dorgan, Feingold, Graham, Grassley, Harkin, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Landrieu, Leahy, Lincoln, McCain, Murkowski, Risch, Sanders, Thune, Vitter, Webb, Wicker, and Wyden. That is a very broad cross section of ideological opinion in the Senate. In the House of Representatives, a similar process has taken place, and this concept has been cosponsored by 320 Members of Congress. That is a lot. That very rarely happens. That legislation was authored by Republican Congressman Ron Paul and Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson. The amendment I will be bringing to the floor of the Senate has 15 cosponsors--Republicans and Democrats alike--and I very much appreciate their support. This amendment is simple and it is straightforward. At a time when the Federal Reserve has provided over $2 trillion in zero or near zero interest loans to some of the largest financial institutions in this country, this amendment requires the Fed to tell the American people who got the money. I do not think that is a very radical concept. This amendment would simply do two things: No. 1, require the nonpartisan GAO, the Government Accountability Office, to conduct an independent and comprehensive audit of the Fed within 1 year; and, secondly, require the Federal Reserve to disclose the names of the financial institutions that received over $2 trillion in virtually zero interest loans since the start of this recession. In terms of progressive grassroots organizations, this amendment enjoys the strong support of Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of over 250--250--consumer, employee, investor, community, and civil rights groups, including the AFL-CIO, which represents millions of American workers, and the AARP, which is the largest senior group in this country representing tens of millions of seniors. So what we are looking at are grassroots organizations representing a huge part of our population that say it is time for transparency at the Fed. There are also many conservative grassroots organizations that are supporting this amendment, including the Campaign for Liberty, the Rutherford Institute, the Eagle Forum, and many other groups. This amendment is not a radical idea. As part of the budget resolution debate in April of 2009, the Senate voted overwhelmingly in support of this concept by a vote of 59 to 39. That is a strong sign that this Senate wants transparency. In the House of Representatives, this concept passed the House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 43 to 28 and was incorporated into the House version of the Wall Street reform bill that was approved by the House last December. So a provision very similar to what I am offering is already in the House bill. So we are not talking about some kind of fringy idea. It has widespread support in the Senate. It is already, to a significant degree, incorporated into the House bill. This concept has the support of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who has said Congress should ask the Fed to put this information ``on the Internet like they've done with the recovery package and the budget.'' In other words, what she is saying is, if we look at the TARP bailout, we have all the information we want--from who received that money, how it was paid back, et cetera, et cetera--it is out there on the Internet of the Treasury Department. That is where it should be. We want to bring that same type of transparency to the Fed. This concept, interestingly enough, has already been supported by two Federal courts--two Federal courts--that have ordered the Fed to release all of the names and details of the recipients of more than $2 trillion in Federal Reserve loans since the financial crisis started as a result of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Bloomberg News. The Fed has argued in court that it should not have to release this information, citing, according to Reuters, ``an exemption that it said lets federal agencies keep secret various trade secrets and commercial or financial information.'' However--this is important; this is not Bernie Sanders speaking, but this is a Federal court--the U.S. Appeals Court in New York disagreed with the Fed's assertion. Here is what a unanimous--underline ``unanimous''--three-judge appeals court panel wrote in their opinion. I quote them: [T]o give the [Fed] power to deny disclosure because it thinks it best to do so would undermine the basic policy that disclosure, not secrecy, is the dominant objective. If the Board-- The Fed-- believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest it should ask Congress to amend the statute. That is what a three-judge U.S. appeals court panel unanimously said. This appeals court decision upheld an earlier ruling by the Southern Federal District Court of New York that also ordered the Fed to release this information. In other words, we now have 59 Senators, 320 Members of the House of Representatives, and 2 U.S. courts who have all told the Fed, in no uncertain terms: Give us transparency. Tell us what happened when you put at risk trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. Based on the kind of grassroots support that exists in support of my amendment, I think the overwhelming majority of the American people want that transparency, and it is our job to give it to them. I do understand this amendment will not be supported by every Member of the Senate. Some of them may come up and say: Well, it is not accurate, so I want to deal with this right now. They may state that this amendment would take away the independence of the Fed and put monetary policy into the hands of Congress. Every other day, there could be a great debate here about whether we raise interest rates and that we get involved in every detail of monetary policy. That is absolutely not what this amendment does, and the language in the amendment is very, very clear. This amendment does not take away the court-appointed independence of the Fed, and it does not put monetary policy into the hands of Congress. This amendment does not tell the Fed when to cut short-term interest rates or when to raise them. It does not tell the Fed what banks to lend money to and what banks not to lend money to. It does not tell the Fed which foreign central banks they can do business with and which ones they cannot do business with. It does not impose any new regulations on the Fed, nor does it take any regulatory authority away from the Fed. In fact, the amendment prohibits Congress and the GAO from interfering with or dictating the monetary policy decisionmaking at the Fed. We are very clear about this in the amendment. This amendment simply requires the GAO to conduct an independent audit of the Fed and requires the Fed to release the names of the recipients of more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed assistance. There is a lot more to say, and I look forward to saying it when the amendment gets to the floor. Let me conclude by saying this: I don't remember the exact date--perhaps a year or so ago--when, as a member of the Budget Committee, we were addressed by Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Fed. When he came before the committee, I asked Mr. Bernanke if he would release the names of the financial institutions that received trillions of dollars on near zero interest loans. He said he would not do that. On that day, I introduced the legislation which now has 33 cosponsors. So I look forward to hopefully tomorrow bringing this amendment to the floor. I am proud of the kind of tripartisan support we have gotten. I am proud of the fact that we have people from every conceivable ideology who are fighting for transparency, and I hope we can win this amendment and let the American people get an understanding of who received trillions of dollars of their money during the bailout period. Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank my colleague, and I applaud his introducing this amendment. The issue of credit card companies charging Americans outrageously high interest rates is something that has concerned me for a number of years. We have another amendment which approaches this issue from a different level, but I am going to work with Senator Whitehouse, and I think this is a very important amendment. The bottom line here is that usury and loan-sharking is immoral, it is wrong, and it has got to be prohibited. I know Senator Whitehouse and Senator Merkley are more than aware, there are even Biblical references in both the Old and New Testament to the immorality and the condemnation of usury. We know as a Nation, people look askance at loan sharks. Let's be honest. What are we talking about here? If a financial institution is charging people who are desperate enough to be buying their groceries, in many cases their basic necessities, on their credit card, 25- or 30-percent interest rates, if that is not usury, if that is not loan sharking, then I don't know what is. We have introduced legislation that would cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent. Senator Whitehouse is approaching it in another way, which is an interesting way. But the bottom line is that we have to deal with the absurd Marquette ruling which essentially nullifies what every State in the country has done. I think in Vermont we have usury rates at 12 percent. But it doesn't mean anything because of the Marquette decision. So all over this country, when we have 20 percent of the people in America now paying at least 20 percent interest rates on their credit cards, those people want action. And when we talk about Wall Street reform and we talk about consumer protection, yes, of course, we need a strong, independent financial services consumer protection agency but, more importantly, we need to address this outrage of high credit card interest rates, and the amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island would do that. I think the American people want to see action, and I hope we can work together on the amendment and on my amendment and give people some relief.

Mr. SANDERS. If I can pick up from the Senator from Oregon, the reason, for thousands of years, that religious leaders and philosophers have condemned usury, which is what we are talking about today, is that it is basically immoral, according to every major religion on Earth, to tell a desperate person who is in need of a loan that I am going to give you this loan but I am going to charge a very high interest rate. That is condemned by every major religion on Earth as well as every great writer I can think of who addressed that issue. What I wish to do, I suggest to my friend from Rhode Island, is I want for a moment to read some of the e-mails I received from Vermont dealing with this issue we are attempting to address. You are dealing with it one way. I am trying to deal with it more on a national way. But we both, together, are trying to address this. Let me give a couple of e-mails that came to me over the last couple of months. This is from Jeffrey, from the State of Vermont: I was one of those guys who failed to read the fine print. A couple of years ago my credit card payment got lost in the mail. By the time I had realized what had happened, they charged me a $45 late fee and then spiked my interest rate up to 35 percent. At the time I was in good standing with them. I desperately tried to get this back on track but after 10 or 12 months of making these crazy payments I had to make a choice--lose my transportation to work, lose my house--I am a father of four beautiful children--or stop paying on the credit card. Now my credit card report has suffered greatly and, even though it has been over a year, they still harass me almost daily. This situation has affected every part of my family and my life. That is the end of the quote from Jeffrey from Vermont. This is Ronald from Colchester, VT: I am writing about my Citi credit card. I should point out, as my friend from Rhode Island knows, that the four largest financial institutions in this country issue 66 percent, two-thirds, of the credit cards in the country. I am writing about my Citi credit card. My interest rate went from 12 percent to 29.9 percent overnight. I phoned them and was told it was not just myself paying that rate, but everyone pays that rate. How can credit card companies let you make purchases on your account for a moderate interest rate and just mysteriously move to 29.9 percent overnight? I hope you are able to pass your law to restrict credit card companies from abusing their power over their customers. I have gotten many e-mails and I am sure you have as well. The bottom line is what we are saying is we intend to end this outrageous practice on the part of huge banks that are ripping off the American people. What Senator Whitehouse is trying to do is say let us go back to the federalist principles of this country where States have established their own interest rate caps, and let's enforce that. We are taking a little bit different position. But both of us are going to do everything we can to end this outrage and I applaud the Senator from Rhode Island for his hard work on this.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank my friend from Illinois for raising that question. I wish to congratulate him because our colleagues should know he has been a leader on this issue for many years and has already achieved some significant success. My memory is, we had payday lenders that, if you can believe this, were charging men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces--who, in many cases, do not have a lot of money, who are trying to take care of their families--outrageously high interest rates on check cashing and payday loans. The Senator from Illinois led the effort successfully to put a cap on that, and I thank him very much for doing that. That is a start. But, clearly, as the Senator from Illinois indicates, we have to go further. Here is the story. Just a couple weeks ago, there was a rally, right here on Capitol Hill, led by religious groups--religious groups-- who said it is immoral and unacceptable that in the United States of America we are now seeing usury and loan sharking taking place by some of the largest financial institutions in this country. So we are not just talking, I would say to my friend from Illinois, about an economic issue; we are talking about a basically moral issue. If one reads the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, every major religion on this planet has said that usury is immoral; that if you are desperate and you need money, I cannot charge you outrageously high interest rates. That is immoral and the wrong thing to do. Yet in this country today, as a result of a Supreme Court decision some years ago, we have millions of Americans who are paying 25, 30, 35, 40 percent interest rates. This is not from loan shark gangsters on a street corner in Chicago; this is from some of the largest, most distinguished financial institutions in the world. We have to put an end to that. I would tell my friend from Illinois that the legislation we have offered would put a cap of 15 percent, except under extraordinary circumstances, on the interest rates banks can charge the American people. We came up with this idea because this is what credit unions in this country have been doing for several decades, and they have been doing it successfully.

Mr. SANDERS. The Senator from Illinois is, of course, absolutely right. The point the Senator from Illinois is making, which makes eminent sense, is if our friends disagree, if our friends want to offer an amendment, if the Republicans want to alter the bill, that is their right. That is what the Senate is about. But we can't proceed or go forward in putting a cap on the outrageous interest rates financial institutions are charging the American people--the loan sharking-- unless we get this bill going. We can't talk about Fed transparency unless we get this bill going. So I certainly agree with my friend from Illinois. People have a right to disagree, but the American people are disgusted and frustrated with what is going on on Wall Street. They want action. So to simply have our Republican friends saying: No, no, no, we are not going forward, doesn't make any sense to me.

Mr. SANDERS. I am very pleased to yield to my friend from Illinois.