Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I want to start by thanking some of our colleagues--Senators Rounds, Ernst, and Kelly--for cosponsoring the provisions of this amendment, and thank the chairman and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senators Carper and Capito, for their support as well. I also want to acknowledge the good work of our House colleague, Congressman Steve Lynch, on championing this issue. So what is this amendment about? It is a commonsense amendment to ensure that as we work on a bipartisan basis to modernize our infrastructure for the 21st century, we also work together to ensure that new infrastructure projects that flow from this bill and others are financed securely. Most Federal projects are financed securely by law. Most require some kind of surety bond. That has been the case for almost 100 years in this country. But because of an odd and old loophole, public-private infrastructure partnerships, or P3 projects, often do not maintain the same level of protection that has been required for public infrastructure projects over time. That can spell disaster for subcontractors, for workers, for taxpayers, and for the success of projects that are not so secure. We know that contractor defaults can cause costly delays, waste taxpayer money, and leave residents and local stakeholders and project workers in the lurch. In fact, one developer defaulted on a P3 project in Indiana and left subcontractors without pay and left taxpayers on the hook for over $300 million in additional project costs. This amendment simply requires that P3 projects using TIFIA financing--that is Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act financing--be secured with a surety bond. That way, in the event a contractor defaults, the protections by that bond ensure the completion of those projects. They protect taxpayers, and they ensure that workers and subcontractors and suppliers are paid for their work. Not surprisingly, this effort is supported by a broad coalition of organizations, including the American Subcontractors Association, the National Association of Minority Contractors, and a wide range of other contractors, because it will ensure that they are paid for the work they do, and it will also protect taxpayers who otherwise are left in the lurch if a contractor goes belly up and we do not have the protection of this kind of surety bond. That is why this amendment has broad bipartisan support, and I urge its adoption. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise to support the nomination of Kiran Ahuja to serve as the Director of the Office of Personnel Management. Mrs. Ahuja is highly qualified and has a deep commitment to public service that will serve her well as the Director of OMB. I am confident that she has the skills to rebuild the civil service and restore protections for civil servants that were rolled back by the Trump administration. Mrs. Ahuja spent her childhood travelling across the South with her parents as they worked to provide desperately needed mental health services to underserved communities. After graduating from Spelman College and the University of Georgia School of Law, Mrs. Ahuja began her career in public service as a civil rights attorney at the Department of Justice. She went on to lead the White House Initiative for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and then serve as the Chief of Staff for OPM as it responded to a data breach that exposed the personal information of millions of Federal employees and contractors. Kiran Ahuja will be tasked with leading OPM as it faces a new set of challenges. After 4 years of attacks by the Trump administration on the protections at the core of our merit-based civil service system, OPM needs a leader who understands that Federal workers serve our country, not the individual or political party currently occupying the White House. OPM is an independent Federal agency tasked with a vital mission: ensuring that the Federal workforce delivers top-notch service to the American people. The next OPM Director must recognize, as President Biden and Mrs. Ahuja do, that union organizing and collective bargaining are in the public interest and that these rights are vital safeguards to protect the merit system principles of the civil service. The next OPM Director must also work to attract new talent to Federal agencies that have lost valuable expertise and modernize OPM's outdated information technology systems. I am confident that Mrs. Ahuja has the skills and knowledge to meet these challenges and to carry out the agency's mission.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate, and if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all without intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and that the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 115.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I further ask unanimous consent that there be 2 hours for debate equally divided on the bill; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the Lee amendment; that the bill be considered read a third time; the Senate vote on passage of the bill, as amended, if amended; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader following consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 74, S. 1251; that the only amendments in order be the following: Lee amendment No. 2119.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 282, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, just a short time ago on this Senate floor, we witnessed a low point for this body. We witnessed every Republican Senator voting against moving forward to consider legislation to strengthen our democracy. We witnessed all 50 Republican Senators voting to block consideration of the For the People Act. I don't know why people are afraid of debating this issue, which is so fundamental to our country at this particular point in time. This bill, the For the People Act, has many important provisions. One of them, of course, is to establish minimum national standards, to make sure that every eligible American voter can access the ballot box. That should be something we all want. We should want every American eligible to vote to be out there exercising his or her right to vote, to participate in the decision making in our democracy. And yet not a single Republican Senator voted to proceed with that debate, even though this bill is more important now than ever before because we see, as we speak, Republican State legislatures, in so many places around our country, voting to erect barriers to the ballot box. We see this in State after State, a pure partisan power play to rig the rules, to win elections by subtraction--not to win elections through the hurly-burly debate over the issues of the day, not to win elections by talking about the agenda that somebody is advocating and why someone should vote for a particular candidate. That is the way it is supposed to be. But these are legislatures that are putting up barriers to make it harder for people to access the ballot and specifically designing these barriers to try to limit participation by people of color and by younger voters. We saw that even before the aftermath of this election. We saw it in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder. We saw Texas and North Carolina and other States adopting these kind of restrictive voting laws. You don't have to take my word for it; the U.S. courts took a look at the North Carolina law that was passed a number of years ago and said that they targeted African-American voters with ``surgical precision'' to try to keep them from accessing the voting booth, and that is exactly the kind of thing that is going on now in State after State around the country: trying to win, not by the addition and multiplication of democracy, but by subtraction and by division. And so why are these States doing this at this moment? They are doing it because of the Big Lie that was perpetrated in the aftermath of our Presidential election, a lie that the former President persists in spewing and repeating to this very moment, the lie that he was somehow cheated or robbed out of an election that led to the attack on this Capitol on January 6. It is that lie that is giving rise to these actions in State legislatures. It is that lie that sadly led this body just a short while ago to block consideration of a bill to establish a commission to look at what happened on January 6. That bill, too, was filibustered just like this one, in order to prevent the American people from getting to the bottom of the Big Lie. Republican Senators blocked that, too. They don't want the country to know, and they are perfectly happy to allow all these State legislatures to put up barriers to voting as part of that Big Lie narrative. And we know it is a big lie for so many reasons. Of course, President Trump and his campaign took their claims to courts throughout the country. Over 60 courts said those were ridiculous claims. President Trump's own Justice Department and his Attorney General, former Attorney General Barr, before he stepped down, said there was no wrongdoing in this election that would change any kind of outcome. The President's point person at the Department of Homeland Security, responsible for monitoring the integrity of elections, has testified before Congress and said very clearly that the 2020 Presidential election was the most secure election in American history--most secure in American history. That is from the person in charge of election integrity in President Trump's own administration. So why are all these States enacting these barriers to voting after an election that the Trump Homeland Security Department said was the most secure in history? It is because so many people turned out and voted in that secure election and they didn't like the outcome. So when you don't like the outcome in elections, instead of taking your case to the American people and saying, Vote for us next time because here is our agenda for the country, here is what we are going to do--instead, they decided they are going to try to win by putting up barriers to try to prevent those large turnouts, especially from people of color, and we saw younger voters come out in 2020. So the decision to block this bill from debate is just a continuation of protecting the Big Lie. It is a continuation of protecting the Big Lie that is being fueled around the country by Donald Trump's continuous fraudulent claims, which unfortunately have seized the Republican Party. We saw what happened in the House of Representatives. Liz Cheney, a stalwart conservative, ousted from her leadership position because she didn't pay homage to the former President. That is what is going on here. That is what is going on in the House, and that is what is reflected in this vote today, the refusal to even debate a bill to strengthen our democracy. Come to the floor, tell us what you don't like, tell us what you want to do. Do you really believe that what these State legislatures are doing is a good thing for our democracy? I know it is easier not to have to talk about that, easier to ignore that, but we are not going to let this issue go away. We are going to be here week after week to make sure that we continue to push this For the People Act. Now, in addition to the provisions to establish minimal protections so every eligible voter can access the voting booth, the For the People Act also has a number of very important provisions that are overwhelmingly popular with the American people. One of them is the incorporation of what is known as the DISCLOSE Act. The DISCLOSE Act does a very simple thing: It gets rid of secret corporate money being plowed into our elections through these secret super PACs. You know what happened after the decision in Citizens United were two things. One, corporate money could flow in unlimited amounts into elections, but the Supreme Court at the time said: You can at least be aware of who is spending this money if you pass laws to make sure it is transparent. In fact, a lot of the Justices who voted to overturn the Citizens United--excuse me, voted to allow corporate money in politics, who were the majority in Citizens United, have also said in that same opinion that they essentially expected Congress to enact laws to ensure transparency. In fact, eight of the nine Supreme Court Justices in that case took that position. Yet the Republican leader, who in the early 2000s called for more transparency when it came to money being spent in elections, is taking the opposite idea: We don't want the public to know who is spending all that money. We want it to be secret. I think most of us would agree and I know the American public agrees that they have a right to know who is spending millions and millions of dollars to try to influence their votes. We know that because survey after survey shows that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all agree that they should know who is spending all of this dark money. When you see a TV commercial that says, ``Paid for by the Committee for America,'' you should know who is financing that ad to try to influence your vote. It is a very simple principle. Voters have a right to know. It was a principle agreed to by conservative jurists like Justice Scalia. And yet the position of the Republican Senators today was: We don't even want to talk about that. We don't even want to debate that provision. By the way, that provision, the DISCLOSE Act, passed the House back in 2010, and it came here to the U.S. Senate, and the Senate version of the DISCLOSE Act was debated on this Senate floor, and 59 Senators at that time voted to proceed with the bill. You might say: 59 Senators, that is the majority; why didn't it pass? Because of the filibuster rule. They needed 60. And 59 Senators said: We want disclosure. And 59 Senators said: Get rid of secret money. But because of the filibuster rule, it didn't pass. It couldn't get to final passage on a simple majority. If that had passed back in 2010, we wouldn't have our airwaves flooded with secret money today. We would have done what the American people wanted. The DISCLOSE Act is in this bill now, and once again, 11 years later, Republican Senators are filibustering the bill for the DISCLOSE Act. They don't want the American people to know who is spending all of that money, mostly corporate money, flowing underground under the radar screen through our political system to try to elect candidates of the choice of whatever special interests are spending that money. They don't want you to know who they are, who is spending all that money to elect people. So why don't we all agree we are going to get rid of secret money? Apparently, we don't even want to debate that. Another provision that is universally popular with the American people is the idea that we should have nationwide nonpartisan congressional districting. Let's draw congressional districts not based on politics but based on some nonpartisan criteria. I think we all heard the line that it should not be the case that politicians are picking the voters. Voters should pick their elected officials. These days, people can draw congressional district maps with incredible precision with the use of computers. You can literally try and draw a congressional district designed to get exactly the electorate they want. I don't think that is the way the Founders expected it to end up working, to get a computer that could draw these districts with that kind of precision and accuracy. And so one of the other important provisions in the For the People Act is, Let's draw congressional districts so that, we, the people, can make these decisions without the lines having been drawn to predetermine the outcome. That is also in this bill. It also has some other important provisions that I support to try to reduce the impact and influence of big money contributors to allow people with lesser means to be able to contribute to elections and have some element of public financing so that the system is more geared toward the public interest than relying exclusively on the private big contributions. That is another provision that is in the For the People Act. Some people may disagree with that. Come to the floor, debate it, offer an amendment to get rid of it, let's vote. But what we saw today was a refusal to engage in the democratic process of debate in consideration of a bill. They used this provision, the filibuster provision, to block a bill to help protect and strengthen our democracy, and that is a sad and shameful day in the U.S. Senate. But I am going to end with this. This issue is not going away. I was glad to see that even as every Republican Senator voted no, every Democratic Senator united together to say, We stand for the idea that we should have some minimal national standards for access to the ballot booth to protect our democracy and that we should get rid of secret money in politics. Every Democrat said, Let's proceed to debate a bill that has those important provisions in it. And so we are not going away. This is a vote that may be a temporary setback, but it is my strong view that, at the end of the day, democracy will prevail in the sense that it will be strengthened and that the American people are not going to stand for a process that reinforces the Big Lie that was perpetrated on this country. And so the good news--the good news, as I said, is every Democratic Senator said yes to moving forward, and we will find a way to get this done. We will find a way to protect our democracy. I yield the floor.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2184 introduced earlier today.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 2 p.m., Wednesday, June 23; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Boardman nomination; further, that if cloture is invoked on the Boardman nomination, all postcloture time expire at 5:45 p.m.; finally, that if the nomination is confirmed, the motions to reconsider are considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I rise to support the nomination of Anton Hajjar to serve on the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service. Mr. Hajjar is highly qualified for this position, and his experience with postal unions and legal expertise provides him with the knowledge and skills required of this role. If confirmed, I am confident that he will serve our country well as a member of the USPS Board. Mr. Hajjar was raised in a working class Brooklyn family and worked as a summer letter carrier, where he learned the ins and outs of mail delivery in his local community. He worked hard in school and became the first in his family to graduate from college, receiving his bachelor's degree from Fordham University. Before attending Tulane Law School, he worked as a janitor, hospital attendant, U.S. Merchant Marine seaman, taxi driver, and U.S. Custom inspector. These experiences, along with his upbringing, inspired him to use his law degree to stand up for workers, and he went on to serve as the general counsel for the American Postal Workers Union. His long history with APWU exposed him to a wide array of postal regulatory and legal issues and provided him with important insight into the postal workforce. Throughout his career, Mr. Hajjar has also demonstrated an abiding commitment to public service. He has worked pro-bono to represent Arab and Muslim Americans in discrimination cases. He volunteers regularly to serve his community in Chevy Chase, MD, including as a member of his church and as an election judge. His skills and his leadership make him right for this role, but the challenges before him are great. Throughout the tenure of the current Postmaster General, who was installed by the Board of Governors during the previous administration, I have heard from constituents about unacceptable delays and disruptions in mail service. Medication shipments have gone missing, some small businesses cannot get their products to customers, and many customers are getting hit with late fees for bill payments that didn't arrive on time because of mail delivery delays. Despite unprecedented challenges, the men and women of the USPS have worked tirelessly to deliver the mail. We have seen an incredible outpouring of support for postal workers and the USPS from the American people. But the Board of Governors must restore the public's trust and confidence in the Postal Service. Mr. Hajjar is the right person to help do just that, and I am confident he will be a key player in tackling the Postal Service's current challenges and ensuring that Americans can count on a reliable and sustainable Postal Service for decades to come. I am proud to support his nomination and urge my colleagues to vote for his confirmation.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise to voice my strong support for the recent passage of S. 914, the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021. I believe it is a vital investment in the current and future health of all our communities, and I applaud my Senate colleagues for helping to get this done. Ensuring access to clean water is essential--and one of the most basic duties of government. Every American deserves safe drinking water and wastewater treatment systems, and in my home State of Maryland, these systems are vital both to the health of our fellow citizens and to the health of our rivers and our beloved Chesapeake Bay. This bill will help pull our waterways into the 21st century by providing a critical boost in water systems investments to restore aging infrastructure, fund cutting-edge waterway technology, create resiliency in the face of climate change, and create new jobs. And critically, this legislation was designed with equity in mind, so marginalized communities can benefit from this big leap forward. This has been a longstanding bipartisan priority, and I am pleased that colleagues from both sides of the aisle have come together to pass this vital legislation through the U.S. Senate. Now, it is up to our colleagues in the House to pass this bill too so we can get it to the President's desk. And should he sign it into law, as I believe he will, I will be doing my part as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee to ensure we fully fund this initiative. I thank my colleagues for joining me and a bipartisan group of Senators in supporting this key investment in our Nation's water infrastructure.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking the senior Senator from Delaware for his longtime persistence in making sure that this Congress ultimately does the right thing and makes the District of Columbia the 51st State. I want to thank Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for representing the people of the District of Columbia so ably. She deserves a vote in the House of Representatives just like every other Member of the House of Representatives from the 50 States. The District of Columbia deserves two Senators right here in the U.S. Congress. I want to thank President Biden for saying that if this Senate will just get this bill to his desk, he will sign that piece of legislation and make sure that these people in the District of Columbia are represented as every other citizen in the 50 States is currently represented. All of us come to this floor and we hear our colleagues on both sides of the aisle talking about the importance of democracy overseas. We criticize China, rightly, when it begins to snuff out the right to vote in Hong Kong. We criticize the authoritarian rulers in Belarus when they clamp down on freedom. We look around the world, and we try our best to establish a standard for standing up for the principle of democracy. We are not always consistent. We are not always constant in that message, but we make an effort to do that. We need to look in the mirror and make that same effort right here at home. I hear so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talking about the importance of democracy around the world, but when it comes to granting the people in the District of Columbia the full rights of a democracy--the right to two votes in the Senate and a vote in the House--they are not there. The people of the District of Columbia are fed up and tired of the hypocrisy. They are even more fed up about what my friend and colleague, the Senator from Virginia, was just talking about--the fact that they contribute in every way to our country but are denied the right to have voting representation in the House and the Senate. As the Senator from Virginia said and others have said, a founding principle of our revolution was the idea that nobody should be subject to taxation without representation. The Senator from Virginia talked about Patrick Henry, and there are others who we know established that principle. Here in the Nation's Capital, the people of the District of Columbia pay higher taxes than those in 22 other States; yet they don't have a vote in the House or two Senators to represent them. They have also had people who served in every one of our wars, who spilled blood for this country. Yet, while they helped to protect our democracy from threats abroad, they don't have the right here, in our democracy, to cast those votes for voting representatives in the House and the Senate. This is not a partisan issue. We know it shouldn't be. We know that if every Member put on a blindfold and just said that the people of the District of Columbia deserve a vote without thinking of the political outcome, the people of the District of Columbia would have a State. As others have pointed out, two States have smaller populations, but they have two Senators who can cast votes here in this Chamber. The State of Wyoming and the State of Vermont are both smaller population- wise than the District of Columbia, but they have those rights and representatives here in the U.S. Senate. We should move forward with the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, and to hear our Republican colleagues oppose this idea, since they don't want to take it on the principle of democracy--we have heard some absurd reasons given for why the District of Columbia should not be a State. Here are a few. And if anybody doubts that Republican Members in the House or Senate have said these things, I will be happy to show it to you. We have heard from Members of Congress that people of the District of Columbia don't deserve statehood because it doesn't have a landfill. We have heard that the District of Columbia shouldn't be given statehood because it needs more car dealerships. First, they said: Well, it can't be a State because it has no car dealerships, but now it doesn't have enough of them. Others have said: Well, because it lacks a mining industry, how could it possibly be a State? And then most recently, we heard that it would be unfair to give the people of the District of a Columbia a State here because their representatives would have an unfair advantage. They would have special superpowers because they would be so close to this Capitol that they would somehow be able to get an unfair leg up on everybody else here in the U.S. Senate. These are reasons that Republican House Members and Senators have given for denying the people of the District of Columbia the right to statehood. We all know what they are. It is just a wall of excuses in their trying to obfuscate and prevent us from getting to the main issue. If you don't want to talk about the principle of democracy, change the subject. The real concern, as we know, is that the people of the District of Columbia will cast votes for representatives in the House and Senate who they think best reflect their interests, and they believe that, in the current situation, those seats will go to Democratic Members in the Senate and the House. As my colleagues have said, the District of Columbia is comprised of a majority of people of color, and the Senator from Virginia talked about the history of that having been an impediment to the admission of some other States in the past before the country did the right thing. We have the power to do the right thing. I have here a letter from 39 constitutional scholars affirming our authority to make the District of Columbia the 51st State. We should do it. Frederick Douglass once noted that the District of Columbia was ``one spot where there is no government for the people, of the people, and by the people.'' His words are a call from history--a call that demands that we reflect on this act of selective disenfranchisement that has been happening for generations and which is still happening to this day right outside of this building right now. Let us change that today. Let us change that and make this the 51st State and name it in honor of Frederick Douglass. I yield the floor.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I am on the floor to urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the resolution that we will be voting on shortly. This is a resolution to protect all of our constituents against predatory lenders--people who lend others money at loan shark rates and often in deceptive language that can be very confusing to consumers until they get the phone call, and they are told they owe unaffordable amounts on loans. And States have been working very hard to protect consumers. In fact, 45 States--States with Republican Governors and Democratic Governors, Republican attorneys general and Democratic attorneys general--45 States and the District of Columbia have passed laws to protect their constituents, their consumers from these loan shark-type loans, from these predatory lending practices. But we have seen these predatory lenders find a way around these State efforts to protect their consumers. And the tactic they used has come to be known as ``rent-a-bank.'' And the way it works is that national banks can make loans into any State, even if they are not chartered in that State. And so what has happened is, some of these lenders then go to a national bank and essentially just borrow their name, buy the rights to their name and, using that mechanism, then can make loans into all 50 States, in violation of the State law protections against these usurious loans. That is what is happening now. Now, when this whole problem began to emerge, we saw the Federal Governor take action. In fact, the minute the OCC and the FDIC and State governments caught wind of this new trick in the loan shark playbook, they took action. In fact, under President George W. Bush, the OCC--the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency--called these ``rent-a-bank'' schemes ``an abuse of the national bank charter.'' And President Bush's Comptroller of the Currency explained that the OCC was ``greatly concerned with arrangements in which national banks essentially rent out their charters.'' And that stance and that position was echoed by State legislatures-- again, legislatures from both parties, Governors from both parties who then worked to pass laws, State laws, to limit the amount that people could charge as interest rates on loans. In fact, just last year, in the State of Nebraska, voters passed a ballot initiative with more than 70 percent support to cap interest rates at 36 percent on consumer loans. That is the same cap we have in my State of Maryland and the same cap that more and more States are adopting across the country. So States are taking measures to protect their constituents, their consumers, against these end-runs around their laws designed to prohibit these predatory practices. But last October, in the middle of the pandemic, when many working families were plunged into economic uncertainty and turmoil, the former administration--the Trump administration-- gave these ``rent-a-bank'' schemes a free pass to exploit these loopholes again, to create an end-run around those State protections for their consumers. In the last administration--the Trump administration--the OCC unveiled what they called the true lender rule. Well, it is a nice- sounding name, an innocent name, but the consequence of that is to unleash the full force of predatory lending on working families. And it reneges on and reverses decades of both State and Federal government policy to prevent this end-run on usury caps. What we have seen is predatory lenders move quickly into the space when the Trump administration opened the door to it. One online lender recently told its investors that it was going to get around California's new interest rate cap by making loans through ``bank sponsors that are not subject to the same proposed State level rate limitations.'' So what you do is you go to a national bank, and you essentially rent their name. And by doing that, you create a loophole that allows you to avoid the State laws that have been put in place to protect against this kind of predatory lending. And we are seeing that now emerge like wildfire around the country. I do want to be clear, there are many innovative fintech partnerships. These are lenders who use the internet. There are many who are not exhibiting these kind of predatory behaviors. And we should craft a rule that allows legitimate lending consistent with State laws through those fintech practices. But the way this rule was written during the Trump administration, it opens the door to all the bad actors. It opens the door wide to the predatory lenders to exploit this loophole. And that is why we are on the floor today, because this resolution is designed to stop the predatory lending practices that were unleashed by the OCC rule. It is to shut the door on that Trump administration OCC rule that now has allowed predatory lenders to rush through it. And what we are seeing now are rates of 100 percent, 200 percent-- whatever they want. I mean, the sky is the limit. Some of these interest rates would make loan sharks blush. So we just saw, in fact, one OCC-regulated bank that has been helping a short-term lending company pilot an online ``rent-a-bank'' installment loan program that runs at 179-percent APR. And the OCC rule is being litigated in court right now to defend a $67,000 loan to a restaurant owner at a 268-percent APR rate that violates the State law where that restaurant is. So this is a perfect example of where a small restaurant owner took out a loan--$67,000--deceptively portrayed, only to discover that it was 268 percent APR. And when the restaurant owner says, ``Wait a minute, I thought the limit in our State was 36 percent,'' all of a sudden they discover that the Trump OCC opened the door to this end-run against their State law protections. That is why we have State attorneys general from red States and blue States, from Nebraska and North Carolina, who have called these ``rent- a-bank'' schemes a ``sham'' and urged us to act. They wrote to us here in the Senate, saying: The most efficient course to prevent unrestrained abuse and avert immediate and ongoing consumer harm would be for Congress to invalidate the [True Lender] Rule pursuant to its remedial oversight powers under the Congressional Review Act. That is what we will be voting on soon. North Carolina's attorney general, Josh Stein, just also said in a separate statement: We need every tool at our disposal to uphold state law and stop [predatory lenders] from coming back into our state[s]. I hope that we will act right now to stop what is a rush by many of these predatory lenders to exploit the opening created by the Trump administration's OCC. Then let's take a pause. Let's take time to craft a proper rule that allows legitimate lenders to make loans in ways that do not violate the State protections for the consumers and do not, at the end of the day, wreak havoc with families who get sucked into unsuspecting terms through deceptive practices. So I urge the U.S. Senate to vote to pass this resolution to protect consumers around the country. I yield the floor.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I will be back a little later to debate the resolution. For the information of my colleagues, we expect a vote on passage of the joint resolution of disapproval around 5:30 p.m. today.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, if I could just actually say one more thing, this has been something that the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee has been working on. We held a number of hearings on this. And I do just want to thank my friend and colleague, the chairman of that committee, Senator Brown from Ohio, who has been a stalwart in protecting consumers. I don't know if he has been to the floor yet, but I just wanted to thank him and other members of the committee for their efforts and also thank the Biden administration, which just sent down a statement of administration support for overturning the OCC rule and for voting in favor of this resolution. I yield the floor.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 57, S.J. Res. 15.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I have 9 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on the Judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Rules and Administration The Committee on Rules and Administration is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure The Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight The Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, today I missed the vote on passage of S. 914, as amended, in order to attend an event related to vaccine distribution in Baltimore City with Vice President Kamala Harris. Had I been in attendance, I would have voted yes on this important, bipartisan bill.