Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Would the Senator from Ohio yield?

Mr. SANDERS. I wish to thank him for his cogent remarks, talking about one of the most basic issues facing this country and that is health care. We are on the Veterans' Committee as well, and I know you spend a lot of time talking to veterans in Ohio. Has the Senator heard a veteran in Ohio tell you they want to privatize the VA?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I am very pleased that we are finally taking up this very important legislation. Regulating tobacco through the FDA is an essential part of addressing public health issues related to tobacco use, and I fully support this long overdue legislation. The cost of smoking is estimated at $96 billion a year in health care costs. The human toll is even more appalling: 440,000 smoking-related deaths per year. Tobacco is responsible for one-third of all cancer deaths in the United States each year, and tobacco use is the most preventable cause of death in the country. There are many important provisions in this bill, but this issue is primarily about our children. It is appalling that in Vermont, one in every six high school students smokes cigarettes, and nationally 20 percent--one in every five high school students--smoke. Every day, about 3,600 children between 12 and 17 years of age smoke their first cigarette; 1,100 of them will become regular smokers, and 300 of those will ultimately die from this habit. That is condemning over 100,000 kids every year to a certain early death caused by tobacco. No wonder that 70 percent of voters strongly support FDA having the authority to regulate tobacco. Make no mistake, tobacco marketing and marketing to kids is big business. The tobacco industry spends about $36 million every day marketing and advertising its addictive products in the United States. That is over $13 billion a year. The multinational corporations that market tobacco are not spending that kind of money if they don't expect a big return. Some of these ads are not just trying to get older addicted smokers to switch brands, they are marketing to girls and young women to get them to start smoking and they are marketing to teenage boys to get them to start smoking. They are adding candy flavors to get young people to start smoking. That our Nation's most vulnerable are subjected to these kinds of marketing campaigns of multimillion-dollar profit companies is a disgrace and an outrage. Can one imagine a company trying to addict our young people to a habit which will prematurely kill them? I am not quite sure what kind of morality exists on the part of people who do this. We are talking about an industry where the largest company, Philip Morris, brought in $18.5 billion in revenue in 2007 from their U.S. business alone and over $64 billion in total revenues internationally. The tobacco industry spent nearly $28 million lobbying Congress in 2008, and from 1998 to 2006, they spent over $248 million to prevent Congress from acting to protect the children and the citizens of our country from this addictive practice. Given these figures and the fact that profit margins are estimated at 46 cents per pack for Philip Morris, I cannot understand any argument against legislation to regulate the marketing, advertising, and product standards of cigarettes and other tobacco products. Tobacco has been considered more addictive than heroin. Let me repeat: Tobacco has been considered more addictive than heroin. In fact, there are a number of anecdotal stories of former heroin addicts who were able to kick their heroin habit but not their tobacco habit. It was just too hard to quit tobacco compared to heroin. Imagine that. Tobacco companies are adding nicotine and other chemicals to their products to make these products even more addictive. And they are not regulated. Nobody regulates them. They can add whatever they want whenever they want. So we have multinational corporate executives in three-piece suits making huge amounts in compensation packages based on selling a killing and addictive product to the American people and to our children. We should be very clear when we take a look at these CEOs and understand that they are nothing more than high-priced and high- paid drug pushers. This Congress has spoken out repeatedly against those horrendous people, the lowest of the low, who are trying to get our kids into heroin and other drugs. We should look at these CEOs in the same way and say to them: How dare you try to sell addictive products to our kids, get them hooked into smoking cigarettes, and force them to end their lives prematurely and, in many cases, very painfully. While one major part of this issue is stopping tobacco use before it starts, Congress will also need to take up the issue of cessation. About 70 percent of all smokers say they want to quit smoking, but tobacco is so addictive that even the most motivated may try to quit eight or nine times before they are able to do so. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to address what I see as an addiction that leaves hard-working people struggling to make ends meet with limited choices in terms of cessation programs. What we have to do as a nation--and I know it is outside the scope of this particular bill--is to make it as easy as possible for anyone in America who wants help in order to stop smoking and kicking the habit to be able to do so. We are not there right now. Sometimes it is complicated. Sometimes it is expensive. Sometimes people do not know how to access cessation programs. But I think that is a goal we must strive for. Studies have shown smoking has become even more concentrated among populations with lower incomes and with less education. Why do low- income people smoke? Medical research shows that being poor is, needless to say, extremely stressful. And as anyone who has ever been addicted to tobacco knows, being anxious, being stressful makes you reach for a cigarette. We have a lot of work in front of us. I think this bill is a very good step forward. The bottom line is, this Congress has to, through the FDA, regulate tobacco. Our goal has to be for these companies to stop pushing their dangerous and addictive product onto our people, especially our kids. Our goal has to be to come up with programs to make it as easy as possible for people to get off their addiction. So we have a lot of work in front of us. I think this bill is a very good step forward. Having said that, Madam President, I yield the floor and 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. Madam President, I am assuming today we are, in fact, going to vote on the credit card legislation, which is a very important step forward in beginning to address some of the outrages the large banks and credit card industry are perpetrating on the American people. A few weeks ago, I asked folks on my mailing list to tell me what credit card companies are doing to them. Within 3 days, we had over 5,000 responses, and many of these responses were hair-raising. People have seen their interest rates on their credit cards double, triple. People are now paying 25 or 30 percent interest rates, which to my mind is unacceptable. The issue we are dealing with on credit cards is something I have been involved in for many years. I was a member of the Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives in 2003. We introduced legislation entitled the ``Credit Bait and Switch Prevention Act,'' which deals with many of the same issues that, in fact, we are going to be dealing with today. So it has taken us a little bit of time to get to where we are, but I think it is a step forward. What I do wish to say is, while the legislation we are passing today is important--and it is a very good piece of legislation; I congratulate Chairman Dodd for his work on it--it does not go far enough. One of the areas where it is not going anywhere near as far as it should be is finally addressing the issue of usury in the United States of America and making a moral determination whether it is acceptable, whether it is moral for banks to be charging Americans 25 or 30 percent interest rates and, in some cases, in terms of payday lending, significantly higher than that. Is that what we want to be doing as a nation? What I would like to do now is briefly read from what I thought was a very thoughtful article by Arianna Huffington in the Huffington Post, where she touches on the issue of usury, which is an issue we have to address. This is what she says: Throughout history, usury has been decried by writers, philosophers, and religious leaders. Aristotle called usury the ``sordid love of gain,'' and a ``sordid trade.'' Thomas Aquinas said it was ``contrary to justice.'' In The Divine Comedy Dante assigned usurers to the seventh circle of hell. Deuteronomy 23:19 says, ``thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother.'' Ezekiel 18:10 compares a usurer to someone who ``is a thief, a murderer . . . defiles the wife of his neighbor, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not give back a pledge, raises his eyes to idols, does abominable things.'' The Koran is equally unequivocal: ``God condemns usury.'' And it goes on to say that ``those who charge usury are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence.'' In other words, throughout history, and in all the major religions, usury has been condemned. What civilization has said is that it is simply wrong and immoral for those people who have money to take advantage of those people who need that money by charging them outrageously high interest rates. In my view, interest rates of 25, 30, 35, 50 percent are outrageous and it is usury, and it is time the Senate address those issues. Up until the late 1970s-- and I am quoting Arianna Huffington again-- America's laws followed suit, keeping interest rates in check. Then, in 1979, a Supreme Court ruling allowed banks to charge the top interest rate allowed by the State where a bank is incorporated as opposed to the borrower's home State. Hoping to lure banks' business, States like South Dakota and Delaware repealed their usury laws--and off we went. That same year, Congress passed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which, among other things, allowed federally chartered savings banks and loan companies to charge any interest rates they chose--putting us on the path that led us to today, where banks routinely gouge their most vulnerable customers. So here is where we are today. The bottom line is we are going to pass a bill that is long overdue. It is a good bill. I commend Chairman Dodd for his hard work. It is an important step forward in protecting consumers. But I am going to be back on this issue of usury. In the United States of America, we have to finally tell banks and credit card companies it is simply not acceptable to charge people 25, 30, 35 percent interest rates. We have to end that abominable practice, and I intend to be playing an active role in that. I ask unanimous consent that the article to which I have been referring be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANDERS. I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, for the past 5 months, I blocked consideration of the nomination of Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC. As a strong supporter of President Obama, I took no particular pleasure in doing that. But given Mr. Gensler's history as a senior executive of Goldman Sachs for 18 years and the role Mr. Gensler played in deregulating the financial services industry as a senior Treasury Department official from 1991 to 2001, I did not believe Mr. Gensler was the right person at the right time to help lead this country out of the financial crisis we find ourselves in today. In my view, we need a new vision of what Wall Street should be--one that is not obsessed with quick profits, bubble economies, and huge compensation packages for top executives. We need financial institutions which will invest in a productive economy and which will help create millions of decent-paying jobs as we rebuild our Nation and rebuild the middle class. I am happy to say that last week I had a productive meeting with Mr. Gensler, the second meeting I have had with him. While Mr. Gensler is clearly not the nominee I would have chosen for this position, nor were his answers all that I would have liked, there is no question in my mind that he is a stronger nominee today than he was 5 months ago when I first met him. In preparation for the meeting last week, I outlined a number of issues I wanted Mr. Gensler to respond to, and let me highlight some of Mr. Gensler's written replies for my colleagues. In terms of strongly regulating credit default swaps and other derivatives--something Mr. Gensler opposed in the Clinton administration--Mr. Gensler now says: I believe we must urgently move to enact a broad regulatory regime that covers the entire over-the-counter- derivatives marketplace. As a key component of this reform, we should subject all derivatives dealers to: Conservative capital requirements; business conduct standards; recordkeeping requirements, including an audit trail; reporting requirements; and conservative margin requirements. I believe that the CFTC should be provided with authority to set position limits on all OTC derivatives to prevent manipulation and excessive speculation. Such position limit authority should clearly empower the CFTC to establish aggregate position limits. Mr. Gensler also wrote to me saying: I will work closely with Congress to pass legislation that will mandate registration of hedge fund advisers. In addition, I will work with agency staff to review all previously granted exemptions from registration. Finally, Mr. Gensler told me in writing that he supports: . . . actions to close the ``London loophole'' and ensure that foreign futures exchanges with permanent trading terminals in the U.S. comply with position limitations and reporting and transparency requirements that are applied to trades made on U.S. exchanges. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record all of Mr. Gensler's written responses to me dated May 14, 2009.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, needless to say, I am encouraged by the commitments Mr. Gensler made to me to regulate hedge funds, to make sure banks are not allowed to manipulate the price of heating oil and crude oil, and to prevent the enormous conflicts of interest that exist with respect to our energy markets, among many other things. In addition, last week the Obama administration introduced a comprehensive plan to--for the very first time--significantly regulate credit default swaps and other over-the-counter derivatives. Exempting these investments from regulation was a huge mistake that led to the $180 billion taxpayer bailout of AIG, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and greatly contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Last March, I and a number of other Senators asked the President to support strong regulations on these risky investment schemes. The President's proposal accomplishes many--not all but many--of the goals we have been advocating. While this plan is not as strong as I would have written and may have loopholes in it that need to be closed, I believe we are headed in the right direction to make sure a financial crisis of this magnitude never occurs again. As a result of the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior of Wall Street, our country has been thrown into a deep recession which has caused intense suffering for millions of our people. We need to end the current era of financial deregulation which largely caused this crisis and move to a new Wall Street which understands the need for long-term productive investment and job creation rather than short-term profits, outrageous salaries, and a bubble economy. We need to break up financial institutions that are too big to fail. If a company is too big to fail, that company is too big to exist. We should do the same thing to the banking industry that Teddy Roosevelt did to break up the oil companies. And we should stand up today, on behalf of the American people, to our modern-day robber barons. Most importantly, we need to end the era of deregulation that has led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. While I am still not convinced that Mr. Gensler is the independent leader we need at this time to head the CFTC, the strong commitments he has made recently in support of serious regulations of the financial industry lead me to believe he now understands the direction we as a nation have to go. Mr. Gensler certainly is a knowledgeable person and he has the ability to do a very fine job if he is willing, in fact, to stand up for the American people and assume the courage, the great deal of courage, he will need to stand up to the very powerful financial institutions which have so much control over what goes on here in Congress. In fact, this may be Mr. Gensler's ``Nixon in China'' moment. I hope this turns out to be the case, and I look forward to working with Mr. Gensler as he assumes the Chair of the CFTC. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I make a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify amendment No. 1062 and send to the desk the modification.

Mr. SANDERS. I move to waive that.

Mr. SANDERS. This amendment is being cosponsored by Senators Harkin, Durbin, Levin, Leahy, and Senator Whitehouse. It is not being supported by the American Bankers Association and the other financial institutions that have spent $5 billion in the last 10 years to push their interests against the needs of the American people. This amendment is, in fact, very simple. It says now is the time to end usury in the United States of America. Now is the time to protect the American people against 25, 30 percent or more interest rates on their credit cards. It says now, when the American taxpayer is spending hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out Wall Street, they should not be lending the American people their own money at usurious rates. When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available; they are engaged in loansharking. That is what they are engaged in, and we should be very clear about that. Now is the time to eliminate that behavior. We picked a number, a maximum of 15 percent plus 3 percent, under extraordinary circumstances, not because it came out of the top of my head but because credit unions in this country have been operating under that law for 30 years. And you know what. It has worked well. It was not the credit unions coming in here for billions of dollars in bailouts; they are doing very well. This law has worked for credit unions; it should work for large financial institutions. Let's stand up for the American people. Let's put a cap on interest rates, 15 percent plus 3. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment, once again supported by Senators Harkin, Durbin, Levin, Leahy, and Whitehouse.

Mr. SANDERS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I move to set aside the pending amendment so I can call up amendment No. 1062, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam, this amendment, No. 1062, is being cosponsored by Senator Harkin, Senator Durbin, Senator Levin, Senator Leahy, and Senator Whitehouse. Before I speak on this amendment, let me begin by commending the chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Dodd, and Ranking Member Shelby, for introducing the underlying bill we are debating today that, for the first time, would seriously begun to crack down on big banks and credit card issuers that are ripping off millions of American consumers by charging outrageously high interest rates and sky-high fees. The American people are saying loudly and clearly: Enough is enough. This legislation begins--begins--to move us in the right direction. I also commend President Obama for his leadership on this issue. Without his tenacious support for this bill, it is doubtful we would have the necessary votes to pass this important piece of legislation-- and we will have the necessary votes to do that. Under the Dodd-Shelby bill, credit card companies will no longer be payable to raise interest rates at any time for any reason. Credit card companies will be banned from retroactively raising interest rates on consumers who are less than 60 days late in paying their credit card bills. This bill also prohibits credit card issuers from increasing interest rates on consumers during the first year after a credit card account is opened, and it requires teaser rates to last at least 6 months, among many other things. When I was the ranking member of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee in the House, I fought to end the ``bait and switch'' practices of the credit card companies for years. It is something we worked on for a long time in the House. I applaud Chairman Dodd for putting a stop to some of the most egregious practices being perpetrated by the credit card companies today. But while Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby deserve strong credit for standing up to the big banks and credit card issuers that oppose this legislation, in my view, this bill, as good as it is, does not go far enough. That is why I am introducing this amendment today. At a time when banks are receiving the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world, at a time when the Federal Reserve is providing banks with zero interest loans, those same banks are now charging consumers outrageous fees and sky-high interest rates on credit cards and other loans. In other words, after taking $700 billion from the taxpayers, after getting zero interest loans from the Fed, what these banks are now saying is: Thank you very much, chump, we are going to take your money, and then we are going to charge you 25 or 30 percent interest rates. All over this country, people are saying: Sorry, that cannot be allowed to continue. That is why we are here tonight. Today one-third of all credit cardholders in this country are paying interest rates above 20 percent and as high as 41 percent--more than double what they paid in interest in 1990. Nineteen years later, people are now paying double what they paid in 1990. According to a recent Business Week article: Bank of America sent letters notifying some responsible cardholders that it would more than double their rates to as high as 28 percent, without giving an explanation for the increase. What's striking is how arbitrary the Bank of America rate increases appear. In other words, they are doing it, and I know many people in Vermont call and they say: I paid my bills every month on time. Why are you doubling my interest rates? Essentially, what the bank is saying is: We are doing it because we can do it. That is not acceptable. Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and other banks should not be permitted to charge consumers 25 to 30 percent interest on their credit cards while they are getting bailed out by the middle-class taxpayers of this country. The amendment I am proposing with Senators Harkin, Durbin, Levin, Leahy, and Whitehouse would cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent, the same interest rate cap that Congress imposed on credit unions almost 30 years ago. Under our amendment, the Federal Reserve would have the authority to allow credit card lenders to charge higher rates if the Fed determines this cap would threaten the safety and soundness of financial institutions. In other words, the time is now--not tomorrow, not next year, but now--to have a national usury rate. As a nation, what we must say is banks cannot charge people 25 percent or 30 percent. As I mentioned, this is not a new idea I pulled out of my ear. This, in fact, is what credit unions have been living under for the last 30 years. Do you know what. Credit unions are doing fine. I don't see them crawling in here asking for hundreds of billions of dollars of bailout money. They are doing fine with that regulation, and we should impose that same regulation on the private banks as well. Establishing a national usury law is not a radical concept. Up until 1978, about half the States in our country had usury laws on the books capping credit card interest rates. While the State usury laws remain on the books in several States, they were effectively eradicated by a 1978 Supreme Court decision Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corporation, which concluded that national banks could charge whatever interest rate they wanted if they moved to a State without a usury law, which is, of course, what they did. South Dakota, Delaware, other States do not have usury laws, and that is where these companies moved. Our amendment simply applies the same statutory interest rate cap on credit cards that Congress imposed on credit unions in 1980, capping interest rates at 15 percent. The National Credit Union Administration has the authority to raise interest rates if it determines the 15-percent cap threatens the safety and soundness of credit unions. It is also important to know that the concept I am bringing forth tonight is one that former Senator Al D'Amato, Republican of New York-- who was then chairman of the Banking Committee, by the way--advocated for in 1991, when he offered an amendment to cap credit card interest rates. The D'Amato amendment would have capped all credit card interest rates at 14 percent. Do you know what. That amendment won on the floor of the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 74 to 19. That was back in 1991. If that amendment received 74 votes in 1991, the truth is our amendment should receive even more because the situation today is more egregious than it was in 1991. Here is what the Republican Senator, then chairman of the Banking Committee, Al D'Amato said in 1991: Fourteen percent is certainly a reasonable rate of interest for banks to charge customers for credit card debt. It allows a comfortable profit margin but keeps banks in line so that interest rates rise and fall with the health of the economy. He was right then. We are right now. The Bible has a term for what we are seeing today. I see a lot of my friends coming to the floor and quoting the Bible. I don't often do it, but let me do it at this moment. In the Bible quite often we see the term ``usury.'' Usury. It appears very often in the Bible. Because not only in Christianity, but in Judaism, in the Muslim world, there is a reprehension against people who lend money out at outrageously high rates. There is a strong sense that that type of activity is not moral. In Dante's ``Divine Comedy'' there was a special place reserved in the seventh circle of hell for sinners who charged people usurious interest rates. So that is a warning for our friends in the credit card companies. Beware. Today we do not need the hellfire and pitchforks, we do not need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law capping credit card interest rates. That is why I am proposing this amendment today. I am not under any illusion that this amendment will easily pass. After all, the financial services industry has spent over $5 billion on campaign contributions and lobbying activities over the past 10 years in support of deregulation, and they are spending even more money today trying to prevent Congress from seriously regulating their industry. They are a very powerful force here in Washington. In many ways all of that money has got us to where we are today with the collapse of major banking institutions. Let me conclude by saying this: On April 24, a few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to my Senate mailing list, and I simply said: Tell me how credit card companies are treating you. We did not know what kind of response we would get. But 3 days later, I had almost 1,000 responses, many from obviously the State of Vermont, but from people all over this country. I took some of these responses and I put them into a booklet. Let me conclude by reading a few of those e-mails that I received. Donna from Neptune, NJ, writes: I want to know why consumers are not protected in any way from these predatory lenders who were bailed out with my taxpayer dollars and then turn around and raise my interest rates from 7 percent to 27 percent because of ``difficult economic times'' for the credit industry. This is outrageous. I have not missed a payment and my credit rating is in the high 800s. How can they keep getting away with this? And Steven from St. Johnsbury, VT, wrote: A couple of weeks ago, Bank of America sent us a letter saying they were going to raise our interest rate from 7.3 percent to 24 percent. The letter stated we could get our credit report to find out why. We received our credit report and I still have no reason why they wanted to raise our rate. We did opt out, kept the 7.3 percent and we destroyed our card, but we do know what was wrong with our credit report. On and on it goes, arbitrary acts on the part of credit card companies, raising rates to outrageous levels. There is a lot of frustration on the part of the American people as to what has gone on in Wall Street, and the fact of what has gone on here in Congress. The American people want to know that we are fulfilling our constitutional responsibilities and representing the needs of ordinary people and not just major financial institutions that may make lots of campaign contributions and have their lobbyists out lining the Halls of Congress. The time is now to say there must be a limit on credit card rates. The time is now to pass a national usury law. I hope very much we will have the support of our colleagues in going forward on this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, today we celebrate the 75th birthday of Senator James Merrill Jeffords of Vermont, who was born in Rutland, VT, on May 11, 1934. He is the son of Marion Hausman and Olin Jeffords. His father served as chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. Jim Jeffords went to college at Yale University and thereafter got a law degree from Harvard Law School. He served 3 years of Active Duty in the U.S. Navy and was in the Naval Reserves until he retired as captain in 1990. In 1966, he entered the political world and was elected to the Vermont State Senate. Two years later, he ran for Vermont attorney general and was elected to that position. In 1974, he ran for Vermont's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and served for 14 years. In 1988, Jim Jeffords was elected to the Senate of the United States. He was reelected in 1994 and 2000. In 2006, he retired from public life. Jim Jeffords' mother was a music teacher. Her work had a profound impact on his life. While in Congress, he cofounded the Congressional Arts Caucus. He also began the Congressional High School Art Competition, a bipartisan program that celebrates the talents of local high school students in congressional districts all across America. That program still exists and flourishes. Jim Jeffords' work in both the House and the Senate was centered on education, on job training, and on individuals with disabilities, culminating in his strong support for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. He will be long remembered as a champion of education, and especially for providing new and rich educational opportunities for those millions of Americans with disabilities who in too many instances were ignored by our schools. Jim Jeffords continued a long Vermont tradition, in the footsteps of his predecessors Senator Robert Stafford and Senator George Aiken, of serving on the Environment and Public Works Committee. When he assumed the chair of that committee, he provided early and courageous leadership on an emergent problem, which today we recognize as the central environmental issue of our time: global warming. Early on, Jim Jeffords recognized that the buildup of greenhouse gases would change the climate of our entire planet. He said about it: The climate is warming, it is due to human activity, and only a change in human behavior will ensure that my grandson, Patton Henry Jeffords, will not suffer the consequences. But he not only recognized the problem, he set about finding a solution, drafting far-reaching cap-and-trade legislation which even today represents the single most important Federal route to reducing greenhouse gases and to lessening and hopefully reversing global warming. As we consider cap-and-trade legislation in this session, we will be continuing the work Jim Jeffords helped begin and which his foresight set on the national agenda. In 2001, Jim Jeffords, in a move of great courage, left the Republican Party and became an Independent. This action changed control of the Senate, won widespread support in Vermont, and thrust this normally reserved and quiet man into the national spotlight. On October 1, 2002, Jim Jeffords was 1 of 23 Senators to vote against authorizing the use of military force in Iraq. I, personally, have known Jim Jeffords for 37 years, and I can attest to the warmth and affection with which he is held to this day in the State of Vermont. Unassuming, straightforward, and honest, he is respected not only by those who agreed with his views but by those who disagreed. His service has been a beacon of Vermont independence and vision, and so I join the rest of my fellow citizens in Vermont and the Senators in this body in wishing Jim a very happy 75th birthday. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wanted to take a couple minutes to talk about an issue that will be on the Senate floor next week, and that is the outrageous way that the credit card industry is treating millions and millions of Americans. Last week, 2 weeks ago, I sent an e-mail out to my mailing list, which is about 135,000 people, and I said: Tell me how credit card companies are treating you. Within a few days, we had 1,000 responses, many from Vermont but, in fact, from all over the country. Essentially, what people were saying, as they described the treatment they are receiving at the hands of these credit card companies: We are disgusted that at the same time we as taxpayers are bailing out Wall Street and these large financial institutions, at the same exact time as the big banks are receiving zero interest loans from the Fed, the response of the credit card companies and the banks is to double or triple the interest rates we are paying on our credit cards. The stories that came in were heartbreaking, appalling, and they spoke to the greed and the callousness of many of these financial institutions. We put a couple dozen of these responses into a little booklet called ``Enough is Enough, How Credit Card Companies Are Abusing Americans, Letters from Vermont and the Nation.'' They are available on my Web site at sanders.senate.gov. What I want to do for the moment is read some of the comments we received from Vermont and around the country and also invite any viewer who has a problem to correspond with us and we will read them right here in the Senate. I think it is time that some of my colleagues in the Senate understood what is going on in the real world. Yes, I do understand that the financial interests have put $5 billion into lobbying and campaign contributions over the last 10 years. And, yes, I do understand that despite the fact that they have pushed this country, through their greed and recklessness, into a recession, they still have enormous power on Capitol Hill. But maybe it is time that we started listening to the American people rather than the lobbyists from the large banks. I will read a few of the comments, excerpts from some of the responses we received from all over the country. This is from Donna from New Jersey: I want to know why consumers are not protected in any way from these predatory lenders who were bailed out with my taxpayer dollars and then turn around and raise my interest rate from 7 percent to 27 percent because of ``difficult economic times'' for the credit industry. This is outrageous! I have not missed a payment and my credit rating is in the high 800's. How can they keep getting away with this? Well, that is a good question. How can they keep getting away with this? And they continue to get away with it. This is from James in Highgate Center, VT: I once had Bank of America charge me 27.99 percent interest when I had only a $53 balance on one of their cards. I of course paid it in full, then closed out the card to avoid doing business with those crooks! The next one is from Los Angeles, CA, from Jennifer: I have personally had three separate credit cards raise the APR to 29.99 percent--when I have paid my bills on time (Citicard, Chase and [Bank of America]). Then just last billing cycle, another card I am in perfect standing with doubled my APR--no apparent reason (Chase). Well, I think Jennifer raises a good question. What are we doing about it? How can companies get away with doubling or tripling the interest rates on people who have always paid their bills on time? This is from Sheila in Wilder, VT: I am tired of being the one who has to pay! The executives of these credit card companies mess up and the little people pay. The government messes up and the little people pay. Now my oldest child is going off to college and I can't even get financial help except for loans. Yes, more interest! So now I have to pay more interest on my credit cards. When will I get help? Well, Sheila, I guess you will have to contribute a whole lot of money into the political system because apparently Congress is not listening to you. Susan and John in Sea Cliff, NY: Capital, Chase, and Bank of America all doubled and tripled their rates despite a lifelong perfect payment record, with no excuse (we phoned them) except that they could. This is nothing but breach of promise and a flat-out theft. A good reason for severe, retroactive rollbacks or simple seizure of banks. . . . Theft? Not bad. Anne from Brattleboro, VT: I live in a small town in Vermont. I feel that the credit card companies need to have a ceiling on interest rates and fees they are stealing from us. We pay for the bail out and we pay the interest increases. They must think we are stupid. And on and on it goes. This is just a couple of dozen. We received 1,000. There are millions of people out there who are sick and tired of being ripped off. What is the solution? I think the House has made some progress. I guess the Senate committee is making some progress. Ultimately, what we have to do is call a spade a spade and say that when you are charging people 25, 30 percent in interest rates, that is usury. That is outrageous. It should be illegal in America. As many people know, for a number of years individual States had usury rates. They said loans could not be made out above whatever the rate may be, depending on the State. Then what happened in 1978, the Supreme Court made a decision in the Marquette case which basically said if a credit card company did business in a State without any usury rates, other States could not stop them from charging any interest rates whatsoever. That is, in fact, what has happened. I have introduced legislation and will bring up an amendment when we debate the credit card issue. I hope we can get some support in the Senate to pass a national usury law. The rate we have decided upon is 15 percent, with some exceptions. The reason we chose that as the ceiling is that is exactly what credit unions have been existing under for 30 years. A lot of people don't know that. But a credit union cannot charge 25, 30 percent interest rates. It is illegal for them to do that by law. So I think if we have a regulatory ethic with credit unions that has been working quite well for the last 30 years--credit unions are not marching into Washington for bailouts--I think we can apply it to the private sector as well. What we are proposing is a cap on interest rates of 15 percent; under exceptional circumstances, which is currently the case for credit unions, another 3 percent. That would be it. I think that is sensible legislation. Whether we can get much support here and take on the banking interests, I don't know. But I think it is what the American people want. I certainly hope we can pass legislation like that. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the chairman for yielding. I want to congratulate him and his staff for the excellent work they have done on this budget, which I certainly will be voting for. What I wanted to do is to take a brief moment to highlight a provision in the budget resolution that I introduced, along with Senators Feingold, Webb, and Bunning. That deals with the outrage that exists in our country at what happened last year and this year on Wall Street. I think, as most Americans know, as a result of the greed, the recklessness, the illegal behavior we have seen within some of our largest financial institutions, our country and, in fact, much of the world, has been plunged into a very deep recession which has cost millions of Americans their jobs, their homes, their savings, and their ability to get a higher education. A lot of people are suffering because of the greed and recklessness of Wall Street. In my view, the regulatory efforts of the last several decades, which I strongly opposed as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, have proven to be a grotesque failure. The bottom line is, when you deregulate Wall Street, they do what we would expect that they do; that is, they do anything and everything they can to make as much profit as they can in as short a period of time as they can, no matter how recklessly they behave in the process. They create a bubble. When that bubble bursts, as it surely would, the American people are left holding the bag in the midst of a very deep recession. In my view it goes without saying that we must restore regulations on Wall Street. One part of that process is to bring about substantially increased transparency. It is beyond comprehensive, it is absurd, that trillions of dollars in credit default swaps and other exotic and complicated financial instruments are traded every single day with no public understanding about who owns these instruments or the impact these trades are having on the world's financial system. I am happy to note that as one small step forward in terms of transparency, this budget resolution incorporates provisions that passed the Senate by a 59-to-39 strongly bipartisan vote. What that amendment does is quite simple: It adds the reality that in the midst of this financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has lent out over $2 trillion to financial institutions. If you were to ask the American people, if you were to ask any Member of this Senate, any Member of the House, who received that money, which financial institutions got it, and what the terms are that they received it are, nobody would be able to tell you. No one in this country understands it, because that has been kept secret. What the provision that I introduced into the budget resolution does is simply say: We have got to make that public. The American people have a right to know who is getting those loans and what the terms are. I am delighted that that provision is in the budget resolution. In my view, this is a small step forward in fighting for transparency within the Fed. It is a smaller step forward, overall, in beginning the reform measures that we need to create a new Wall Street, so that never again will we be placed in the position that we have been over the last few months. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. I need 5 minutes.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to take just a very few moments to speak about an issue I think is resonating and causing great concern all over our country; that is, the outrageous escalation in credit card interest rates. I note that the House and the Senate will soon be addressing the issue of credit cards, but I hope very much that both bodies will include within their legislation something that is long overdue; that is, a cap on interest rates. We need a national usury rate law. It is totally unacceptable to me--and I think the vast majority of the people in our country--that credit card companies are charging people 25, 30, and 35 percent rates of interest on their credit cards. This is usury. This is wrong. From a biblical perspective, this is immoral, and it is time we got a handle on it. The truth is that a number of years ago, many States had usury laws which prohibited very high interest rates. As a result of a Supreme Court decision, those State laws were essentially made null and void and companies that moved to States such as South Dakota and Delaware could essentially charge the American people any rate they wanted. Within the last 20 years, we have seen a huge increase in interest rates. About one-third of the American people are paying 20 percent or more. It is time we got a handle on that issue. What I would like to do this afternoon, very briefly, is read some of the e-mails that are coming to my office from the State of Vermont but, in fact, from all over this country. On late Friday afternoon, I sent out an e-mail to our e-mail list, and within 2 days' time we have had 900 responses from people who have expressed to me what is going on in terms of their relationship with their credit card companies. The stories I am hearing are absolutely appalling--in some cases, unbelievable. What is particularly disturbing is that at a time when the taxpayers of this country have provided hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out failing financial institutions--which, because of their greed, their recklessness, and their illegal behavior, caused them to collapse--these same financial institutions are now saying to the taxpayers who bailed them out: Thank you very much; now we are going to raise your interest rates substantially. So what I will be doing in the coming weeks is coming here to the floor and reading stories from Vermont and from all over this country. Let me start off with one that comes from Poultney, VT. This is what the gentleman says: I owned and operated a summer business in excess of 43 years. My business credit card was with Avanta at 7.9 percent for years. Last year, my payment jumped about $400 per month. I thought there was fraud involved. Upon checking, I found my interest had been raised from 7.9 to 28.8 percent. I always paid more than the minimum and always on time. When Avanta was contacted and asked why, I was told it's a floating interest. I asked to speak to a manager and was advised that's the way it was and they could do nothing to lower it. I got a line of credit loan from Heritage credit union at 1 percent over prime, paid them off, and shut down my business. After 43 years of business, it took usury to shut me down. That is just one story. Somebody writes from Virginia--the State of our Presiding Officer-- and says: Explain to me, do the banks/credit card companies feel that the only way to make money is to cheat us or manipulate us into taking part in an endless Ponzi scheme? How much profit is to be expected in an honest deal? Even 15 percent seems high to me. This goes on, Mr. President. We have one from Barre, VT: I only have one thing on my credit card every month. It is the Internet access charge of $10.95. My credit card is a Visa from Capital One. I received a letter stating that the rates were almost double what I agreed to pay if a payment was late, but it also stated if I did not agree to their term, they would cancel my credit card. Let's not only do something about credit card fees, let's stop banks in their tracks with all fees they access on customer accounts they have. From Castle Rock, CO, another individual writes: I have excellent credit. Nearly 780 last time I checked. I had a ``fixed'' interest rate with Capital One at 4.9 percent since 2002. In 2007 the rate was raised to 7.9 percent. I received a letter in early April of this year that it will rise to 17.5 percent for no particular reason, except that it was a company decision. I am outraged! This is really unfair for everyone but I think especially unfair for those who really pay attention to maintaining good credit. That person had a 780 credit number, which is very good. Here is one from Bennington, VT: I'd been on time every month and one day I got my statement and wow my interest rate had more than doubled. I called and they did put it back to the rate I had and said it would be good for only 9 months and then they would up it again and I would have to call again. This is hard for the families who aren't using their credit cards anymore and they are on a budget and factor in the credit card payment, and then all of a sudden one month it's gone up a lot and you didn't factor that in. Wilder, VT: I am tired of being the one who has to pay! The executives of these credit card companies mess up and the little people pay. The government messes up and the little people pay. Now my oldest child is going off to college and I can't even get financial help except for loans. Yes, more interest. So now I have to pay more interest on my credit cards. When will I get help? I pay my bills, I pay my taxes. If I pay late I get a finance charge and it hurts my credit rating. When these big companies fall behind, they get my tax money, and I get to pay it back for them. This is from Bridport, VT: On my Bank of America cards I made purchases at 9.9 percent which was not a variable rate. I assumed I had that interest rate because I have never had a late payment and have never made just the minimum payment. This month I received notice that my interest rate is going to jump to 15.65 percent and be a variable rate. I do have steady income and I don't want to damage my credit rating by paying the balance off in a few months then cancel the card. Here is another, from West Burke, VT: My husband sustained severe brain trauma in 2000. We managed to not file bankruptcy and to pay off all credit cards. I now find that we were idiots to do this. Our credit is ruined by going a year without income. Ruined, because we paid any credit card debt we owed. Here is one from Little Rock, AR: I am 67 years old and had the card since the year of the flood. I was on vacation and out of the country and did not make my card payment on time. I had always kept my account up. When I went to charge a flight on line it was denied. I called them and they replied that since I was a ``late payer'' I had to pay off my account every 30 days as it used to before they allowed extended payments for large purchases. I paid off the card that day and cut up the card. From West Newberry, VT: I send my payment by mail and sometimes the postal service is slow and the card company got payment one day late and has changed my interest rates from 16 percent to 29.9 percent, and now if I pay the minimal payment the charges are more than what I paid on the bill. One day late, and their rate went from 16 percent to 29 percent. As I mentioned, in 2 days we have gotten about 900 e-mails, significantly from Vermont but from all over the country. So I have introduced legislation which would cap interest rates on credit cards at 15 percent, with some exceptions going up to 18 percent. That legislation is cosponsored by Senators Durbin, Leahy, Whitehouse, Harkin, and Levin. The legislation is based on longstanding law which regulates credit unions, which under normal circumstances cannot charge more than 15 percent. The American people are hurting. We are in a recession because of the greed of a small number of banks on Wall Street, and now these very same banks are hitting the middle class and working families of this country with outrageously high interest rates. Enough is enough. We need to establish a national usury rate, so I ask my colleagues to support this legislation. Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank my colleague from Vermont. I wish to congratulate him for bringing forth a very important piece of legislation. Clearly, if we are going to begin to address the crisis in our financial institutions, we need the manpower to go out there and do the investigations. We do not have it and this legislation does that. I wished to say a few words in the midst of this debate on an issue. I am not bringing forth an amendment, but I did wish to say a few words on that; that is, in my office--I suspect in every Senate office--we are being deluged with e-mails and letters and telephone calls expressing outrage at the high interest rates people all across this country are being forced to pay by these very same financial institutions we are in the process of bailing out. What is going on now is that while we spend hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out our friends on Wall Street, and while they receive zero interest loans from the Fed, what they are saying to the American people is: Thanks very much for the bailout. We are going to raise your interest rates from 15 to 20, to 25, to 30 percent. Pure and simply, that is called usury within Biblical terms. In fact, that is immoral. That is the type of action we should be eliminating right now. I have introduced legislation which is very similar to the type of legislation that regulates credit unions right now. We would have a maximum interest rate of 15 percent, with some exceptions going to 18 percent, so the American people who are now on under great financial stress, who are buying groceries with their credit cards, who are buying clothes for their kids with credit cards, who are paying for college expenses with their credit cards, are not forced to pay 25 or 30 percent interest rates. What I would like to do, rather than relate what I believe, is read a few of the e-mails I have received from the constituents. We are receiving a lot of them. Let me read one that comes from the northern part of our State. It says: I, like so many others, am appalled at the hikes in credit card rates. Everywhere in our small town of Montgomery everybody is talking about the latest surge in interest rates. People who are never late in payments have seen their rates climb overnight. I, for one, used to overpay on my payments but can't afford to now. In addition, I am a founding member of a small agricultural co-op and we have a shop and studio. Today we found out that the charge for using credit cards has increased. How are people supposed to buy things when small businesses can't afford to process credit cards and people can't afford the interest rates if they use cards? No one has any money for anything anymore. The outrage, which I am sure doesn't surprise you, is building. Doesn't anyone get it? Well, doesn't anyone in the Senate get it? I hope we do. Here is another one that comes from the largest city in our State, Burlington: I signed up with MBNA (at the time) for a credit card with an interest rate of 7.9 for the life of the credit card (as long as I adhered to terms such as paying on time, not going over limit, etc.) I received a notice yesterday that the interest rate is going to 13% on May 1. I called them and they said it had nothing to do with my credit. Bank of America, due to the economic situation, is raising its rates ``for business reasons only.'' One option they gave me is to pay down my balance at 7.9 but not use it on any future purchases. I now appreciate more than ever your fight against this sort of action. Basically they can do whatever they want. That is quite right. They can do whatever they want. Another one: Dear Senator Sanders, we just received a note from Bank of America in which they tell us that they are raising our credit rate: 15.74 percent on new and outstanding purchases . . . using a variable rate formula. I know you have been working on a cap for credit cards and are very concerned about big banks profiting so highly at the expense of consumers. Here is another one: Senator Sanders, there is a lot of news this week on how the credit card companies are trying to recoup their losses by raising interest rates on our credit cards. That is what my husband and I have just experienced. Two months ago I ran my husband's credit report, and between three credit bureaus we ranked around a 800 credit score. We have never been late on a payment and have been married 41 years. Then she talks about the impact these high credit rates are going to have on her. Another one: Dear Bernie, yesterday in the mail I received notification from Bank of America that they were hiking up the interest on my Visa card from 7% to over 12%. This seems arbitrary and in a time when I am extremely worried about my ability to pay my bills because my workload has gone way down. I am furious and scared. The bottom line is, I am receiving dozens of e-mails from people in my State and from all over the country. They want to see whether the Congress has the guts to stand up to the financial institutions which have poured $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions into Washington in the last 10 years. What the American people are saying is that 30-percent interest rates--arbitrary and huge increases in interest rates for people who have always paid their bills on time--is not only unfair, it is immoral. People should not have to pay 30 percent to borrow money in the United States. I hope very much the time will come, sooner rather than later, when we will pass a national usury law that will put a cap on interest rates for large financial institutions similar to what exists for credit unions, which is 15 percent with some exceptions. I yield the floor and look forward to working with the senior Senator from Vermont in passing this legislation. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

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