Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, will----

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Absolutely. That has been my point.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have spoken about this amendment for some time. I have just a few minutes to summarize again. This is already in the Record. In addition to the Broder piece that my colleague, Senator Durbin, mentioned, I have the New York Times, Tuesday, March 13, ``Lobbying on Debtor Bill Pays Dividend''; two pieces by Tom Hamburger in the Wall Street Journal--``Auto Firms See Profit in Bankruptcy-Reform Bill Provision'' and ``Influence Market: Industries That Backed Bush Are Now Seeking Return on Investment,'' including in bankruptcy. Also, another piece by Robert Samuelson, ``Bad Timing on the Bankruptcy Bill.'' Mr. President, I have an amendment that I think is a real test case. It simply says, if you charge over 100 percent interest on a loan, and the borrower goes bankrupt, you cannot make a claim on that loan or the fees from that loan. In other words, the borrower's slate is wiped clean of the usurious loan, and he gets a fresh start. This amendment is a commonsense solution to the problem I have talked about all afternoon. It allows the Senate to send a message to these loan sharks: If you charge an outrageous interest rate, if you profit from the misery and misfortune of others, if you stack the deck against the customer so that they become virtual slaves to your indebtedness, you will get no protection in bankruptcy court for your claims. In talking about these payday loans, I say to my colleagues, these are poor people, low- and moderate-income people. They don't have other sources of credit. They get charged on these loans as they roll over every several weeks up to 2,000 percent interest per year. Is it too much to say that if you charge over 100 percent per year, you are not going to get the protection in bankruptcy? Is it too much for the Senate to be on the side of consumers, to be on the side of poor people? This amendment is simple: Are we on the side of poor people? Do we provide some protection--for a single woman who is raising her family, for communities of color, senior citizens, working-income people who were put under by these interest rates--or are we on the side of some of the sleaziest loan sharks? I hope Senators will support this amendment. It certainly will make this bill less harsh. It doesn't change the overall equation. This is a great bill for the credit card industry, a great bill for the financial services industry. I congratulate them. What a lobbying force; how much money and how much lobbying and how much power. A whole lot of vulnerable people have been left out; a whole lot of middle-income families have been left out. I believe my colleagues will regret voting for this bill, but at the very minimum, they could vote for this amendment that goes after these loan sharks, that goes after these payday loans. It is such is deplorable practice. It is so outrageous, making such exorbitant profit off the misery of people. We ought to be on the side of vulnerable consumers. We ought to be on the side of low- and moderate-income families. We ought not be on the side of these loan sharks. This amendment should receive 100 votes. I say to my colleague from Illinois, for all the hours I have been out here, so far I have not heard one Senator come to the floor and debate this amendment. That is unbelievable to me.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield.

Mr. WELLSTONE. May I ask the Chair if I have any time left?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, no legitimate lender charges over 100 percent interest on an annual basis. We have usury laws that deal with banks at the State level, and we should do so. But these payday lenders have carved out an exemption for themselves. These loan sharks have carved out an exemption for themselves. If Senators are concerned about poor people, we should be thinking about other ways they can have access to credit. We are not doing that at all. But we now have an opportunity to make it clear that we are not going to let these loan sharks continue to feed off of the misery of poor people. We are not going to let them engage in this kind of exploitation. To my colleagues who say, oh, no, 100 percent, or 300 percent, or 2,000 percent interest rates on an annual basis are just what poor people need, so please don't have an amendment, Senator Wellstone, that will hurt poor people; they need to be able to pay over 100 percent per year--your arguments are absurd, as much as I like you. They are absurd. Frankly, you can't get out of this vote. You are either for vulnerable citizens and families and you are against this kind of loan shark practices or you are on the side of these loan sharks. Senators, step up to the plate and vote. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will not object.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, I think this vote on the--

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, could we have order in the Chamber? We can't hear.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I will summarize these amendments before we get into whatever debate might take place. I say to the Senator from Iowa, as he looks over the amendments, one of the amendments I am hoping will meet with his approval. Let me explain them very quickly and then go into the payday loan amendment. The first amendment is protecting the legal rights of retirees of bankrupt companies. This amendment simply clarifies companies in bankruptcy must fulfill their legal obligations as plan administrators and plan sponsors of employee and retirement benefit plans. I think Senator Sessions has some interest in this amendment, as well. Companies occasionally stop administering benefit programs during bankruptcy. This means retiree benefit plans are left without anybody in charge, which results in the failure to pay out benefits to workers such as reimbursements for covered health care costs. This often occurs toward the end of bankruptcy, either a 7 or 11, when there is not much left of the business. The company's management and bankruptcy trustees are trying to wind up the business, and the benefit programs quite often end up falling between the cracks. I have a specific situation in Minnesota but I know Senator Sessions and others can talk about this in their own States. In Minnesota, LTV Corporation shut down and 1,300 people are out of work. People have no jobs. They are out of work. Those out of work, the younger workers, are terrified they will lose their health care coverage in 6 months. Those who worked longer will lose coverage within a year. But the retirees are terrified they will not have their health care benefits any longer after the bankruptcy proceeding. The persons ordinarily responsible for the management of the benefits programs may have been laid off and those who remained refuse to administer the plan. This can happen. Or it may be a ``lights out bankruptcy'' where the power is shut off, the doors are locked, and all functions of the company cease. However, even in these cases, the firm is required to either terminate any benefit plans or to continue to administer them. This is what our amendment does. We don't impose any new burdens on the companies. The companies are already required by law to continue to administer the plans that have not been terminated or to administer plans that are part of the trust. This amendment simply results in companies fulfilling their current legal obligations without any expensive litigation on the part of the workers. We are just trying to codify this into law. Let me talk about how this helps LTV workers and retirees. Health care and other benefits for retirees at LTV are guaranteed by a trust fund known as the Voluntary Employee Benefit Association Trust Fund, also referred to as the VEBA trust funds. The trust cannot be wiped out even if LTV is liquidated in bankruptcy, but LTV must administer the VEBA for workers to get any of the benefits and guarantees. We have no reason to believe as of now that LTV will not fulfill its obligation to administer the VEBA. This amendment simply provides added assurance in case the worst happens. So it is an important amendment for a lot of retirees who are worried that somehow through the bankruptcy processes companies are not going to provide them with their retiree benefits. I will give a real-world example of the worst case scenario. In August of 2000, Gulf States Steel in Alabama locked its doors after failing to conclude a chapter 11 reorganization. Over 1,000 steelworkers immediately, and with little warning, lost their jobs. The union had ordered a VEBA trust as part of the workers' contract. That trust, made up of employee contributions, is intended to cover the costs of retiree health plans under just this scenario. Gulf States still refuse to administer the trust so the assets and income are not being used to cover the workers' health care costs. Since September of last year, Gulf States retirees have effectively had no health care coverage because they cannot access the resources of their own VEBA. Absent the changes made in the bankruptcy law by this amendment, the union will be forced to file an expensive and lengthy lawsuit to force the company to comply with the law. The lawsuit could take months--for all I know, it could take years --to resolve and will do little to address the immediate needs of the retirees. Again, as the several examples I have given indicate, I think this is almost a fix. I am hopeful there will be support for this amendment. It is certainly the right thing to do. It is one of several amendments I want to lay down. The second amendment is the payday loan amendment. I assume since we are talking about this today that there may be some time to talk about it. This is an amendment to protect the legal rights of retirees of bankrupt companies which I hope fits in with my colleague's definition of reform. The second amendment I propose is an amendment that almost passed last Congress. I hope it will pass this time. It will curb a form of predatory lending which targets low- and moderate-income families. I apologize for having to read. Usually I don't do that. But I am not a lawyer. I find some of these proposals and some of the language of bankruptcy to be technical and not all that easy. This amendment would prevent claims in bankruptcy on high-cost credit transactions in which the annual interest rate exceeds 100 percent. I know my colleague from Iowa doesn't much like the payday loan amendment. I know that. I have heard him speak about it. That is what I am talking about, these payday loans and car title pawns. Payday loans are intended to extend small amounts of credit-- typically $100-500--for an extremely short period of time--usually a week to two weeks. The loans are marketed as giving the borrower ``a little extra till payday,'' hence the term payday loan. The loans work like this: the borrower writes a check for the loan amount plus a fee. The lender agrees to hold the check until an agreed upon date and give the borrower the cash. On the due date, the lender either cashes the check or allows the borrower to extend the loan by writing a new check for the loan amount plus an additional fee. But calculated on an annual basis, these fees are exorbitant. For example, a $15 fee on a two week loan of $100 is an annual interest rate of $391 percent. Rates as high as 2000 percent per year have been reported on these loans. I am just saying I don't think that crowd ought to have claims under bankruptcy that are resolved for these high-cost transactions with the kind of exorbitant and outrageous interest they can charge. Car title pawns are one month loans secured by the title to vehicles owned by the borrower. Typical title pawns cost 300 percent interest. Consumers who miss payments have their cars repossessed. In some States, consumers do not receive the proceeds from the sale of repossessed vehicles--even if the value of the car far exceeds the amount of the loan! For example, a borrower might put up their $2000 car as collateral for a $100 car title loan--at an outrageous interest rate--and if the borrower defaults, the lender can take the car, sell it, and keep the full $2,000 without returning the excess value back to the borrower. Such schemes are almost more lucrative if the borrower does default! Often, the borrower is required to leave a set of keys to the car with the lender, and if the borrower is even one day late with a payment he might look out the window and find the car gone. I don't think these kind of lenders ought to be given special treatment. Nobody needs to charge this type of interest rate for a loan. Indeed, this industry is grossly profitable as a result. An investors report by Stephens Incorporated on the industry stated that an operator of a payday lending establishment could expect a return on investment of 48 percent in nine months to a year and could expect profit margins to be in excess of 30 percent! As a result, the payday loan industry has exploded in growth in states with favorable regulatory systems and many more states have changed their laws to allow this type of lending. California has seen 1,600 payday loan store fronts spring up since the legislature made the business legal in 1997. Wisconsin went from 17 store fronts in 1995 to 183 in early 1999. Stephens Inc. reported that there were 6,000 storefronts making payday loans in 1999 across the country, but estimates the potential ``mature'' market as being 24,000 stores nationwide generating $6 billion in fees. With these kinds of profits, only your conscience will keep you out of this business. I say to my colleague, these sleazy debt merchants expanding their tentacles into our cities and towns is the mirror image of the retreat of mainstream financial institutions from these same communities. Poor people are forced to get their loans from these loan sharks. As banks merge and close branches, their former customers--often unable to access the new, consolidated locations--have little choice but to deal with the seamy underbelly of the financial services industry. That is what I am talking about. And the Stephens report notes, that even with the market saturated, lenders need not expect losses in profits which is further evidence that the payday lender truly has a captive customer base who has little market power to drive prices down. We are talking about the exploitation of vulnerable citizens and poor people who are charged outrageous interest rates, and we should do something about it. This was a close vote last time. I expect to win the vote on this amendment this time. The worst part is that many borrowers are unable to pay the loan when it comes due. They then extend the loan, for another fee and then extend it again. Often such borrowers may end up carrying several payday loans and rolling them over from week to week as the fees skyrocket. Additionally, there is a perverse incentive for the lender to encourage the borrower to defer payment on the loan, because of the additional fee that the lender can charge for deferring the loan for another week or two weeks. It is fine for these unscrupulous loan sharks to extend the loan. According to an analysis by brokerage firm Piper Jaffrey as reported in the Washington Post, ``established customers'' of one payday lender engage in 11 transactions per year and could end up paying $165 to $330 for a $100 loan. The following from the June 18, 1999 New York Times is typical of the horror stories associated with payday lending, quote: Shari Harris who earns around $25,000 a year as an information security analyst, was managing money well enough until the father of her two children, 10 and 4, stopped paying $1,200 in child support. ``And then,'' Ms. Harris said, ``I learned about the payday loan places.'' She qualified immediately for a two-week $150 loan at Check Into Cash, handing it a check for $183 to include the $33 fee. ``I started maneuvering my way around until I was with seven of them,'' she said. In six months, she owed $1,900 and was paying fees at a rate of $6,000 a year. ``That's the sickness of it,'' Ms. Harris said. ``I was in a hole worse than when I started. I had to figure a way to get out of it.'' Madam President, I could go on and on. I think my colleagues know what this is about. Let me just simply say, there is no question that these high-interest-rate loans take advantage of low- and moderate- income working people. On the face of it, paying 300 percent or 500 percent or 800 percent for a $100 loan or $200 loan is unconscionable, but that is exactly the issue. These folks may not always have a choice. Often borrowers turn to payday lenders and car title pawns because they cannot get credit any other place. So these borrowers are a captive audience, unable to shop around to seek the best rates, are uninformed about their choices, and unprotected from coercive collection practices. There is no way the borrower can win. At best they are robbed by high interest rates, and at worst their lives are ruined by a $100 loan which spirals out of control. These loans, I say to my colleague from Iowa, and others, are patently abusive. They should not be protected by the bankruptcy system. And because they are so expensive, they should be completely dischargeable in bankruptcy so debtors can get a true fresh start and so more responsible lenders' claims are not ``crowded out'' by these shifty operators. Why should unscrupulous lenders have equal standing in bankruptcy court with a community banker or a credit union that tries to do right by their customers? Lenders should not be able to take advantage of their customers' vulnerability through harassment and coercion. My amendment simply says, if you charge over 100 percent annual interest on a loan, and the borrower goes bankrupt, you cannot make a claim on that loan or the fees from that loan. In other words, the borrower's slate is wiped clean of your usurious loan, and he or she gets a fresh start. Additionally, such lenders will be penalized if they try to collect on their loan using coercive tactics. I say to Senators, I am going to repeat this one more time today. And I assume tomorrow, before the vote, I will have a chance to summarize. The amendment says, if you charge over 100 percent annual interest on a loan, and the borrower goes bankrupt, you cannot make a claim on that loan or the fees from that loan. These borrowers are going to be wiped clean of the lender's usurious loan, and they get a fresh start. Additionally, what this amendment says is that these lenders are going to be penalized if they try to collect by using coercive practices. I do not know how anybody can vote against this amendment. But that has happened to me before on the floor of the Senate. I have said that. Amendments do not always get adopted. This amendment should be adopted. This amendment is a commonsense solution to the problem I have described. It allows the Senate to send a message to loan sharks. We say this to these loan sharks: If you charge an outrageous interest rate, if you profit from the misery and misfortune of others, if you stack the deck against the customers so they become virtual slaves to their indebtedness, you can get no protection in bankruptcy court for your claims. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and, as I have found out, Democrats, you should support this amendment. If a lender wants to make these kinds of loans, under my amendment, the lender can do it. But if he wants to be able to file claims in bankruptcy, he or she could charge no more than 100 percent interest. I do not believe any of my colleagues would come to the floor to claim that 100 percent interest is an unreasonable ceiling. This amendment is in the spirit of reducing bankruptcies. I believe it will significantly improve the bill, and I urge its adoption. I have just one other amendment to discuss. Amendment No. 35

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, I have three amendments at the desk. I ask unanimous consent, they be reported separately.

Mr. WELLSTONE. The majority leader is correct. I was here in the beginning of the debate last week and I offered one. I have offered three now. I have a number of other amendments to offer, but I have offered three; correct.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, again, I say to my friend from Iowa, there are three amendments I have on the floor. I assume we will have debate about payday loans. I say to my colleague from Iowa--I know what he believes--I do not believe these loan sharks should get the same protection under this bankruptcy bill, and I am hoping to get his support. The first amendment that I talked about earlier, which clarifies that the companies in bankruptcy must fulfill their legal obligations as plan administrators and plan sponsors, is an amendment that we may or may not have to debate. I am hoping to get full support for it. The third amendment I have offered is an amendment--and I say to my colleagues, I think Senator Dayton will either be down here later today or tomorrow to speak about these amendments, both on the protection of retirees and also this trade adjustment assistance amendment to the bankruptcy bill. Madam President, this is a hugely important amendment. Both Senators from Michigan are cosponsors of the bill, and they may want to speak on this amendment. Again, I say to my colleague from Iowa, it may very well be that Senator Baucus may come down, and we may have a colloquy on this and talk about other ways of trying to accomplish the same goal, but I offer the amendment today as a basis for the discussion that we are going to have. This amendment goes to why all too many people find themselves in bankruptcy. We have a situation where many taconite workers in Michigan, and certainly in northeast Minnesota, have now lost their jobs, and some are losing their jobs. The problem is, when it comes to trade adjustment assistance, which is a lifeline program, where these workers, whether they are in their 30s or 40s or 50s, are provided with some financial help, be it income, be it being able to go back to school, be it money for relocation--we do not know yet, we are going to be talking to the Secretary of Labor on Wednesday about this--but we are very concerned that the taconite workers are not included. In other words, the flaw to trade policy right now, which affects trade adjustment assistance, is that these taconite workers are not viewed as being in competition with slab steel or semifinished steel that comes to the market. We have had an import surge of slab steel and semifinished steel. And when it comes into this country, with this import surge, all of the trade legislation will say to steel workers: You will be eligible for trade adjustment assistance when you are competing with foreign steel and, for whatever reason, there is an import surge. But in this highly integrated industry, the shame of it and the flaw to this is that taconite workers are not covered. The reason I talk about this as an amendment to the bankruptcy bill is, look, if you lose your job--next to medical bills, the other two reasons most people file for bankruptcy is loss of job or divorce. In the iron range in Minnesota there is a tremendous amount of economic pain. Senator Dayton and I are in a rush to try to get as much help to these workers as possible, just as any Senator, Democrat or Republican, would be doing the same for people in their State. I have introduced this amendment. There may come a time when I will have a discussion with Senator Baucus as to other ways we can approach this. There is a meeting with Secretary Chao on Wednesday. Senator Dayton is very engaged in this as well. We are doing it together. This may be an amendment on which we may not have an up-or-down vote because we might be able to move it forward with some other way of getting at it. It is a huge problem. These workers are out of work, and they are not eligible for the trade adjustment assistance. The same import surge that is affecting them affects other workers. We are just desperately trying to work out a fix to get them some help. It may be that I could do that with Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley and others in another way. This is not some trump political thing I am doing. It is very painful to see people who are so desperate and who fall between the cracks and are not getting the help they need. Those are the three amendments I have. I know there are other colleagues who are coming to the floor. I will wait to see what kind of response there is from the other side. I am hopeful we can at least have this one amendment incorporated into this bill that will provide retirees with some protection. I am hoping the amendment will be accepted. I believe Senator Sessions may also be engaged on this question. I am hopeful. On the payday loan, I wait to hear from my colleagues from the other side. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. May I ask a question of my colleagues?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I appreciate that. That is very gracious of Senator Daschle. Just to clarify a couple of things, this is the third time we have really had debate. On Monday and Friday, we know a lot of Senators are not around. I came back. It seems to me, if I may express my dissent, that the majority leader asked for a list of amendments prematurely. We all know that Senators, to protect themselves, list a number of amendments they may not use, and now that is being used as an argument for filing a cloture motion. I work with the majority leader. We all disagree at times. I think it violates the spirit of what we talked about. I remember coming to the Senate floor and having a discussion that we would have substantive debate on the bankruptcy bill and Senators could offer those amendments. We are just now starting that process, and now we are talking about filing for cloture. We have had 2 days on this bill. We all know on Monday and Friday people do not come. I am here, but a lot of people do not come. The majority leader asked for a list, and people listed a lot of amendments to protect themselves. In my humble opinion, the majority leader is using that as a pretext for premature filing of cloture, which goes against what I thought we were going to do with this bill. I will finish. I know both leaders look as if they are more than ready to respond. We have a lot of amendments. People come out with amendments, and we go at it. If it takes 2 weeks to do a bill, we have done that on many bills. I do not understand why we are not doing that on this bill.

Mr. WELLSTONE. To be clear, I am not arguing they are not. I am just saying----

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the managers are not on the floor. I will wait to offer my amendment until there is a manager on the other side. I want to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business and then be allowed to lay down my amendments.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will return to the bankruptcy bill. We marked up an education bill in the HELP Committee. There were a number of us who said we will vote for the bill out of committee in part because I do think Senator Jeffords, Senator Kennedy, and others did yeoman work in trying to work together, and in part because there are some parts of this bill that are very important. For my own part, for several years now, I have been trying to get us to adopt legislation which deals with children who witness violence in their homes. There has been, thank God, more of a focus on the violence against women--sometimes men, almost always women. Every 13 seconds during the day, a woman is battered. Home should be a safe place. There has not been a whole lot of focus on children who witness this violence and the ways in which it affects their work in schools. All too often, these children fall between the cracks. An amendment was adopted to bring together out of the schools some critical support services for these children. I want to repeat what I said during the committee markup, which is, if this bill, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, comes to the floor before we have had an honest and thorough discussion of the budget and before we have some idea of the context of the tax cuts to the budget, then I will be in strong opposition. I hope Senators on our side and on the other side will be as well. Let me explain. First, I find the President's tax cut proposal to be Robin Hood in reverse. Anytime over 40 percent of the benefits go to the top 1 percent and anytime one-third of the children in our country are living in homes that do not get a dime from this, and over 50 percent of African American children live in families that do not get a dime, and 56 percent of Hispanic children live in homes that do not receive one dime from this ``tax relief'' because it is not refundable, then something is terribly wrong with such a piece of legislation. I do not think it meets any standard of fairness. That is part of the problem. But there is another part of the problem. I hope Democrats will be strong on this because the fact of the matter is, here is where you draw the line: If you are saying that we are going to have Robin-Hood- in-reverse tax cuts with over 40 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent, but we are not going to be able to afford prescription drug costs for elderly and other families, then I think Democrats draw a line there. If we are going to have Robin Hood in reverse, with over 40 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent, but, as a matter of fact, we are not going to realize the goal of leaving no child behind, and, as a matter of fact, we are going to have a tin-cup budget for education, and, as a matter of fact, we are not going to expand the title I program where only 30 percent of low-income children are able to get any help right now, and we are not going to make the kind of commitment to the IDEA program, children with special needs, funded at only 14 percent when it should be funded at the 40-percent level, or we are not going to make the commitment to decent, affordable child care so children can come to school, kindergarten ready, or we are not going to make a commitment to expanding health care coverage for citizens in our country when so many people go without health security, either because they have no coverage or they can't afford their coverage--it seems to me this is the place where Democrats can draw the line. We don't need to have acrimonious debate, but we do need to have substantive debate, I argue passionate debate. Frankly, I put all of my faith in people in Minnesota and around the country, when it comes to the question of priorities. To me, what we have is distorted priorities. We have a tax cut program, Robin Hood in reverse. Over 40 percent of the benefits are going to the top 1 percent. There is no standard of fairness when it comes to tax relief for people, tax relief for families. Moreover, nobody should kid anybody; this will erode the revenue base and make it practically impossible to make any of the investments that we say we are going to make when it comes to children, when it comes to education, when it comes to health care, when it comes to affordable prescription drug costs. The vast majority of the people in the country, if they understand this is the choice, want to see us do more by way of investing in education, investing in children, investing in health care, investing in their families, investing in our communities. This will become the axis of the debate of the Senate and I think American politics. I believe it is very important the Democrats draw the line in a very firm way. I say to my colleague, Senator Grassley, I have some amendments I am ready to introduce to the bankruptcy bill. I asked unanimous consent I be able to proceed. I assume that is all right with the manager.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am more than pleased to provide copies. Many requests are unreasonable, but this is not.