Sheldon Whitehouse

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Two points I would like to make. One is echoing what Senator Brown just said. We always hear about the debt and the pay-for from the other side when it is convenient, when they are trying to stop something the administration wants to do. When it helps regular people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, then it becomes an international incident if it is not paid for. But when an estate of $9 billion is allowed to pass tax free because of a loophole, that is OK. That is a $4 billion unpaid-for loss to the government, through its revenues. That is just fine. There is a disconnect there. If you are serious about the deficit, you have to be serious about it when it is billionaires and not just serious about it when it is regular working families. There is a one- sidedness and a convenience for their concern about the deficit. When it is their President in the White House, Katey, bar the door. By my calculation they blew $9 trillion during the Bush administration. Now they suddenly have had an epiphany about debt, but it does not quite extend to billionaires who are allowed to pass their estates through tax free. So much for the debt and the pay-for concern. The other group they are very concerned about all the time is corporations. In this year, corporations have paid less tax compared to humans than ever before, since 1983, where there was a glitch and corporations paid less taxes relative to what humans pay than now. But other than that, 1 year, 1983, more than a quarter of a century ago, corporations are paying an all-time low in taxes compared to what humans pay. If you go back, it is 70 years--1983 was just a 1-year exemption. So all this battle has driven down tax rates for corporations, tax rates for billionaires, and here we are with a deficit and they do not care about the billionaires. I will close. I see the majority leader on the Senate floor, and I do not want to take time. I will close. America is a place of which we are very proud. It is the greatest country ever. It is a place where people can get fabulously rich. Not only is it a place where you can get fabulously rich, when you get fabulously rich you can still live a relatively normal life. You don't have to live like some Third World thug behind armed guards driving around in convoys with armed SUVs. You can live a normal life as a very rich person. Everybody has a chance to get rich. Everybody has a chance to become a millionaire, a multimillionaire, a billionaire. But when they do, they have to pay their share.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we have watched with horror the unfolding disaster in the gulf. We have seen precious lives lost, hard- earned livelihoods hammered, treasured ways of life imperiled. We have seen the largest deployment of resources ever against an environmental disaster. We have seen astonishing corporate negligence. But we have seen something else too--something that ought to be a lasting lesson from this catastrophe. We have seen the revolting specter of an agency of government subservient to--captive to--the industry it is supposed to regulate. From the Minerals Management Service, which is supposed to regulate deep sea oil drilling, here is what we have seen. From the 2008 inspector general's report on MMS's Royalty in Kind Program, based in Colorado: senior executives steering lucrative contracts to an outside company created by the executives; staff failing to collect millions of dollars in royalties owed to the American people and allowing oil and gas companies to revise their own multimillion-dollar bids; staff accepting gifts and money from oil and gas companies with whom the office was conducting official business; and staff participating in social events with industry representatives that included illegal drug use and sex. From the IG report, the inspector general's report, released last month on the MMS office in Lake Charles, LA: the district manager telling investigators: ``obviously we're all oil industry,'' employees accepting numerous gifts from companies doing business with MMS, including a trip to the 2005 Peach Bowl on a private airplane, skeet shooting contests, hunting and fishing trips, and gulf tournaments; an MMS inspector conducted four inspections while negotiating a job for himself with the company that owned those platforms, and finding--guess what--no violations during those inspections. A 2007 inspector general report into the Minerals Revenue Management Office of MMS cited ``significant issues worthy of separate investigation, including ethical lapses, program mismanagement, and process failures.'' As my hometown Providence Journal wrote in a recent editorial: The Deepwater Horizon accident has made it painfully clear that, in its current form, MMS is a pathetic public guardian. Neither it nor BP was prepared for a disaster of this magnitude, and MMS's cozy relationship with industry is a big reason why. I agree with the Providence Journal. The scope, the extent, the insidious nature of corporate influence in regulatory agencies of government--this question of regulatory capture--is something we should attend to here. It is the lesson, and it raises the question beyond the Minerals Management Service: How far does this corporate influence reach into our agencies of government? The wealth of the international corporate world is staggering. The five biggest oil companies just this quarter posted profits of $23 billion--that is a 23 with 12 zeroes behind it--in just one quarter. The Republican appointees on the Supreme Court just overturned decades of precedent and 100 years of practice to give these big corporations freedom to spend unlimited funds in our American elections. Put it to scale. Consider $23 billion of pure profits just in one quarter by big oil, and compare: The Obama and McCain campaigns together spent about $1 billion in the last election. Do the math. For 5 percent of one quarter's profits, big oil could outspend both American Presidential campaigns. That may be some politician's idea of a happy day because that is who they work to please, but it is wrong and it needs to be stopped. But think, if that is what corporate influence could do in a national election, think of what those vast, powerful tentacles of corporate influence can do to a little government agency such as the Minerals Management Service: Revolving doors to lucrative jobs in the industry so you are set for life; sports tickets, gifts, drugs; constant, relentless lobbying pressure and threats of litigation; steadily inserting operatives in regulatory positions. Inch by inch, the tentacles of industry reach further and further into the regulator, until it silently and invisibly comes under industry control and becomes the industry's puppet, until it is serving the special interests and not the public interest. This is no new phenomenon. Marver Bernstein wrote about regulatory capture more than 50 years ago. He explained that a regulator tends over time to ``become more concerned with the general health of the industry and tries to prevent changes which will adversely affect it,'' to become ``passive toward the public interest.'' This, he said, ``is a problem of ethics and morality as well as administrative method,'' and he called it ``a blow to democratic government and responsible political institutions.'' Ultimately, this leads to what he called ``surrender: the commission finally becomes a captive of the regulated groups.'' If you don't want to go back half a century for a discussion of regulatory capture, look to last week's Wall Street Journal editorial page where a senior fellow at the Cato Institute writes: By all accounts, MMS operated as a rubber stamp for BP. It is a striking example of regulatory capture: Agencies tasked with protecting the public interest come to identify with the regulated industry and protect its interests against that of the public. The result: Government fails to protect the public. There is plenty of evidence that the oil and gas industry had captured MMS. When you have a captive agency, you get what we have seen: altering, deleting, or ignoring recommendations from government scientists. A draft environmental analysis for drilling in the gulf from May of 2000 included the haunting prediction that ``the oil industry's experience base in deep-water well control is limited,'' and a massive oilspill, ``could easily turn out to be a potential showstopper for the'' Outer Continental Shelf ``program if the industry and MMS do not come together as a whole to prevent such an incident.'' This unwelcome observation was deleted from the final analysis published. Oil and gas company employees filling out official inspection forms in pencil for the MMS inspectors to trace over in pen; nearly 400 categorical exclusions, shielding even deepwater drilling from thorough environmental review. Cut-and-paste Environmental Assessments were provided by the oil and gas companies. BP's Environmental Assessment listed walruses as a species of concern in the Gulf of Mexico. There are not, and never have been in the memory of man, walruses in the Gulf of Mexico. When they are writing about walruses in the Gulf of Mexico, you know, No. 1, they are cutting and pasting out of documents in Alaska; No. 2, they are paying no attention to what they write because they know it doesn't matter; and, No. 3, they know perfectly well that MMS will never catch the fact that they have cut and pasted because they are not looking at it either. MMS adopted wholesale for its oil and gas drilling ``best practices'' proposals of the American Petroleum Institute, and then they made most of those best practices only suggestions. There has been virtually no enforcement. According to the MMS Web site, between 2000 and 2009, civil penalties averaged less than $130 per well per year on our Outer Continental Shelf, and only three criminal referrals were made to the Department since 1990 in the last 20 years. Add it all up and there is no real question: MMS was a captive regulator. So the question is, After all those years of corporate control of government in the Bush years, how far-reaching is the insinuation of corporate influence? We know big PhRMA wrote the Bush pharmacy benefit legislation. We know big oil and big coal sat down in secret with Dick Cheney to write their energy policy. But down below the decks, down in the guts of the administration's agencies, how far were the tentacles of corporate influence allowed to reach? How many industry plants are stealthily embedded in the government, there to serve the industry, not the administration or the public? Well, how is it looking? It is not looking good. The Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, gave up its watchdog role years ago and became the lapdog of the big Wall Street financiers, raising leverage limits, refusing to investigate Bernie Madoff, and helping to precipitate the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression. Twenty-nine miners were killed in a West Virginia mine with a safety record that President Obama called ``troubled.'' The Mine Safety and Health Administration has been described as a ``revolving door'' with industry, staffed by people with mining companies' interests at heart, even at the expense of worker safety. The Bush head of MHSA, for instance, oversaw the rewriting of regulations in 2004 that allowed conveyor belt tunnels to double as ventilation shafts, a practice that contributed to a fatal 2006 Massey mine disaster. Who knows how far it leads? Think of the timber rights the taxpayer gives up every year, the grazing rights, the multibillion-dollar contracts to big government contractors, the oil and coal leases on land, the carnival of public wealth at which these big corporations feed. The vital question is this: Are these assets of our Nation still in the hands of servants of the Nation or have the servants of the Nation quietly and insidiously become the servants of the big private corporations that want to profit from that public wealth--corporations for whom every dollar of a sweet deal, every avoided expense allowed by a cozy regulator, every corner cut in safety or environmental protection, goes straight to their bottom line and right into their pockets. The big multibillion-dollar corporations, is this who we want safeguarding our national assets? Is this who we want controlling agencies of the U.S. Government? Winston Churchill once said in a phrase I like that history turns on sharp agate points. What is the sharp agate point on which the history of this gulf catastrophe should turn? What lesson of history, if left unlearned after this disaster, are we condemned to repeat? I hope the lesson we learn is this one: that we can never, never again let agencies of the Government of the United States of America fall so under the influence of the corporations they are supposed to regulate. This government of ours, founded in a revolution pledging the lives and fortune and sacred honor of those early patriots; this government of ours, which has raised for more than two centuries the promise of freedom in human hearts; this government that lifts its lamp aloft to brighten the darkness of chaos and despair in far distant corners of the globe; this government, whose finely tuned balance, crafted by the Founders, has seen us through Civil War and World War, through westward expansion and Great Depression, through the light bulb and the Model T and the Boeing 747 and the iPod; this government of ours, formed by Washington and Madison, Jefferson and Adams, and led by each of them, and later led by Abraham Lincoln and by Harry Truman and by Theodore Roosevelt and by Franklin Roosevelt and by John Fitzgerald Kennedy; this American Government of ours should never be on its knees before corporate power, no matter how strong. It should never be in the thrall of corporate wealth, no matter how vast. This American Government of ours should never give the American citizen reason to question whose interests are being served. Never. In this complex world of ours, government must protect us in remote and specialized precincts of the economy. In those remote precincts, few people are watching, but big money is made. We must be able to trust our government, both in plain view in front of us, and in corners far from sight, to be serving always the public interest, not doing the secret bidding of special interests, of corporate interests because that is where the big money is at stake. Have we now learned, have we now finally learned, with the financial meltdown and the gulf disaster, the terrible price of all those quietly cut corners? Have we now learned what price must be paid when the stealthy tentacles of corporate influence are allowed to reach into and capture our agencies of government? I pray let us have learned this. Let us have learned that lesson. I sincerely pray we have learned our lesson and that this will never happen again. But let's not just pray. In this troubled world, God works through our human hands, grows a more perfect union through our human hearts, creates a beloved community through our human thoughts and ideas. So it is not enough to pray. We must act. We must act in defense of the integrity of this great government of ours, which has brought such light to the world, such freedom and equality to our country. We cannot allow this government that is a model around the world, that inspires people to risk their lives and fortunes to come to our shores--we cannot allow any element of this government to become the tool of corporate power, the avenue of corporate influence, the puppet of corporate tentacles. I propose a simple device in this country of laws--not men, of rule of law--and that is to allow our top national law officer, the Attorney General of the United States, to step in and clean house whenever an agency or element of government is no longer credibly independent of the industries and businesses it is intended to regulate. When a component of government is deemed no longer credibly independent of the corporations or industry it is supposed to regulate, I suggest that the Attorney General be allowed to come in and clean up, hire and fire and take personnel action to ensure the integrity of the personnel; to establish interim regulations and procedures to ensure the integrity of the process; to audit permits and contracts and ensure they were not affected by improper corporate influence, and if they were, to rescind them where they are not in the public interest due to that improper corporate influence; to establish an integrity plan for that component of government, all subject to appropriate judicial review where private rights are affected. Then the Attorney General can get back out, with his or her job done, sort of like an ethics trusteeship or receivership. I will conclude by saying that the damage to America from the corporate takeover of the SEC was nothing short of catastrophic. Just in my State of Rhode Island, 70,000 Rhode Islanders are unemployed. Many have lost their homes, retirement, health insurance. The toll is devastating. The damage from the corporate takeover of the Minerals Management Service has also been catastrophic. Who knows what potentially catastrophic damage lurks in whatever other agencies of government that have silently succumbed to corporate takeover but just have not yet exploded in disaster. If the financial catastrophe and the gulf catastrophe and whatever other catastrophes lurk have any meaning at all, it is that business as usual is no longer enough to stem the tide of corporate influence-- insidious, secret corporate influence--in agencies of the U.S. Government. It is an institutional problem--relentless, remorseless, constantly grasping and insinuating corporate influence. It will never go away. It will only worsen as corporations get bigger and richer and more global, and there has to be an institutional mechanism in place to resist it so that it no longer takes a catastrophe to call the failure of governance of an American regulator to proper attention. I think this is the right way. If a colleague has a better idea, I am more than willing to listen. But one thing I know is that after an economic catastrophe and this environmental catastrophe, this much, at least, is clear: We can no longer wait for catastrophes to root out improper corporate influence in our government, in this government of our United States. We have to, at long last, address the problem of insidious regulatory capture of agencies of our government, captive to the industries they are supposed to regulate. I thank the Chair and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 20 minutes.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act, which I have filed as amendment No. 4324 to the package currently under consideration by the Senate. This amendment would close a loophole in Federal law that allows foreign manufacturers to evade accountability when their products injure Americans here at home. It would do so by requiring foreign manufacturers to meet the same standards as domestic manufacturers. It is a simple reform. It is much needed. It will protect American industry against unfair competition or having to, in effect, subsidize dangerous foreign products. It will foster American jobs for that reason. It will keep American consumers safe, and it will help Americans who are injured make sure they get an adequate recovery for their injuries from the foreign manufacturer who caused them the harm. What happens here in America when a foreign manufacturer is able to avoid responsibility for a defective product that causes an injury to an American? When they are able to avoid responsibility, one of two bad things happen. One or the other has to be. One is that the injured American gets no recovery. Their injury goes unredressed. They cannot find the accountable company, and they just have to suffer without compensation. The second alternative is that an American company, under the theory of joint and several liability, has to make good for the harm caused by the foreign company. It becomes a cost to the American company. This actually came up in the hearing on the bill when an Alabama contractor explained how he had to make good on the claims of homeowners whose homes he built when, without knowing it, he had used defective Chinese wallboard in the homes and they emitted sulfur that was bad for the health of the home occupants, that corroded piping, and that caused an immense amount of work that had to be redone to have his customers be satisfied customers. It became his problem when the Chinese wallboard company was nowhere to be found when their defective product caused all this harm down in Alabama. These are things that should not happen, and they are bipartisan concerns. I want to say I am proud and grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Senator Sessions and Senator Durbin to achieve these goals. Both Senator Sessions and Senator Durbin were original cosponsors when I first introduced this bill on a stand-alone basis. Thirteen other bipartisan cosponsors have since signed on to that bill, and I am very grateful for all their support. Let me describe for a few minutes the specifics of this particular amendment. There are two legal hurdles that currently face an American harmed by one of these foreign manufacturers. As my lawyer colleagues know, someone who gets injured and brings a lawsuit must bring the responsible party into the proper court. This requires the injured party, one, to serve process on the defendant, to file the papers in the lawsuit with the defendant, and two, to establish personal jurisdiction over the defendant, consistent with the due process clause of the Constitution. No service of process, no jurisdiction, no lawsuit, no recovery, no assistance for the injured American. The problem is that service of process on a foreign manufacturer is often extremely costly and extremely slow because it often must be done abroad rather than here in the United States. For instance, when an American seeks to serve a defendant in a country that is a signatory to what is called the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extra Judicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters, the complaint must be translated into the foreign language, transmitted to the central authority in the foreign country, and then delivered according to the rules of service in the home country of the defendant, which may not be hospitable to foreign litigants. Even more complex procedural hurdles face an American seeking to serve a defendant in a country that has not signed the Hague Convention. But let's say you get through all that expense and all that hassle and all that delay. Even when an American does serve process successfully on a foreign manufacturer, personal jurisdiction then can prove an insurmountable hurdle. This is because Supreme Court decisions interpreting the due process clause make it hard to exercise jurisdiction over foreign companies, even those whose products have injured Americans. So something clearly needs to be done to bring the way we treat foreign manufacturers into line with the liability and responsibility of domestic manufacturers. They should not have this advantage over our domestic industry. This amendment provides a simple solution to both of these problems. It requires a foreign manufacturer that wants to import products into the United States for our consumers to use to register an agent in the United States who will accept service of process for cases in the United States. By designating such an agent, the manufacturer would consent to the personal jurisdiction of the courts in the State where the agent is located, and no further complicated service of process would be required. This is not dissimilar, for example, to the way a corporation from outside my home State of Rhode Island must register to transact business in our State--a requirement that exists in many States around the country. I suspect it exists in the distinguished Presiding Officer's home State of Colorado. Finally, let me make clear to whom this applies and how. The big foreign manufacturers that ship billions of dollars of products into the United States and whose names we would all instantly recognize already can be held accountable somewhere in the United States by virtue of their having American operations or by virtue of the size of their imports. They can usually be found. And for companies such as that, complying with the new law will be as simple as designating someone in their U.S. headquarters to be that agent for service process. It will be a 5-minute task to comply with this law. For foreign companies that have set up manufacturing operations somewhere in the United States, they will get the same treatment as domestic companies under this bill. Their domestic operation will be a location where they can be served. It is the foreign manufacturers that take advantage of our marketplace, but when their defective product injures someone and can't be found, that are the real targets of this amendment, they don't want to be held responsible anywhere. Who are they? Well, to give a few examples, they are the ones who make the drywall I talked about, full of sulfur, that corrodes wiring and makes the residents sick. They are the companies that make cheap toys with lead paint on them that is poisonous to children or metal plumbing fittings that rupture under routine use because they are so shoddy or those that contaminate medical supplies that are sold into the United States with unthinkable chemicals. These companies may look perfectly legitimate when they sell their products, but when you try to find them once you have been injured by them, it is like grasping smoke. They disappear, and they avoid all accountability when their products hurt our fellow Americans. It is these companies that this amendment will fully bring within the scope of the American legal system. It is important that we do this, because they should play by the same rules our American companies do with respect to service of process and availability for redress. The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act applies to major product categories including consumer goods, drugs, cosmetics, and chemicals through the Federal agencies that already regulate those product categories and through the components of the Department of Homeland Security that oversee our Nation's imports. The amendment empowers those agencies to use their expertise in these fields to set appropriate thresholds; for instance, to exempt small foreign manufacturers from having to register an agent, and allows a working period to ensure that no disruptions in imports occur during the implementation period of this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I think it is important. By leveling the economic playing field, it will allow American manufacturers to compete fairly with foreign manufacturers, thereby protecting American jobs. By holding foreign manufacturers to the same standards as American manufacturers, it will protect our consumers and American businesses without raising any trade issues. It will eliminate this terrible situation of a foreign product causing an injury to an American for which that American can get no relief or a foreign company causing an injury to an American but because they can't be found, having an American company that worked on the installation of the product, that sold the product, that is for some reason jointly and severally liable for that injury having to carry the cost that belongs on the foreign manufacturer and would be their cost if only they could be found and served and brought to account in an American court. Both of those things are rankly unfair, and this is the best solution to put an end to those two injustices. I think it is an important and a much needed fix to a quirk in our laws. We should pass it as soon as possible. I hope very much it can become a part of the legislation to which it is now a pending amendment. I thank you very much. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. First of all, Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished assistant majority leader for his continuing work on this issue. It protects small businesses and consumers from gouging by the credit card companies and the monolithic monopoly power they bring to bear. I was pleased to vote for and support this amendment on the floor, and I wish the assistant majority leader much success in the conference committee to get that in the final bill.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I stand in opposition to the resolution offered by the Senator from Alaska. The text of the resolution asks Senators to second-guess scientists and public health officials by voiding the scientific finding that carbon pollution may endanger public health or welfare--like there is any legitimate dispute about that question. The text of this resolution would halt all efforts by EPA to address carbon pollution, including the necessary and long- overdue fuel efficiency standards that EPA negotiated with States and the automobile industry, to everyone's satisfaction. Mr. President, that is the text of the resolution. But the point of the resolution is far simpler: to delay--delay action on energy legislation, delay action by EPA to protect public health and, more importantly, to delay action in this Congress on energy reform and to preserve the status quo by taking off the pressure of facts and science and law that is now driving the process. They want to trump that with pure politics. What you will hear from many colleagues who support this resolution is that they want Congress to act to address carbon pollution and not the EPA. But with all due respect, many of the resolution's supporters want nothing to do with comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation. What they want is for EPA to go away. If they can delay EPA's work to address carbon pollution or stop it in its tracks altogether, they take the pressure off of anybody to do anything serious about a new energy policy or our addiction to fossil fuel. This is about delay on change in our energy policy. Congress could be spending its time now setting the country on a new energy course by placing a price on carbon and investing in low-energy and clean-energy alternatives. Transforming our energy base will not happen overnight, but the longer we delay, the harder it will be. That is what Congress could be doing. Instead, we are spending time arguing about whether the Clean Air Act should be used to fight air pollution. Outside these walls, in the real world, this question has to seem absurd. What else would the Clean Air Act be used for? This issue has been all the way to the Supreme Court, and it is established law that the Clean Air Act applies. Then why are we debating this legislation? We are debating this because the big polluters--the same industries that brought us the April 5, 2010, mine disaster in West Virginia and the explosion on the rig in the Gulf of Mexico--like things the way they are. They like the status quo. Under the status quo, while the rest of America was struggling to pull out of a recession earlier this year, big oil raked in record profits--$23 billion in just the first quarter of 2010. Under the status quo, when workers pay the costs of mining and drilling with their lives, when our environment pays for devastating oilspills, when our children pay the cost of dirty air with childhood asthma, big polluters don't have to pay the full cost of the pollution they have caused. That is the status quo they want to preserve. In 2009, the polluters spent $290 million lobbying Congress or 10 times what the clean energy companies spent. This year, they have lobbied Members of the Senate to support this Murkowski resolution. They will keep on lobbying for delay and against energy reform, that is clear. The question is, How will we respond to that big oil industry pressure? Will we fold before these big companies and their corporate lobbyists and delay again action on energy and climate change or will we stand up to the special interests and work to enact comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation? This is not the first time I have spoken on the Senate floor in opposition to an effort to delay EPA action. But it is the first time I have done so against the backdrop of an environmental catastrophe. This time, when I say polluters want to delay action on climate change and energy reform, we understand in a very real way the risk that delay poses. Despite the multimillion-dollar ad campaign by BP telling us not to worry because they are ``beyond petroleum,'' hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil now pour into the Gulf of Mexico from a BP well that exploded 2 months ago because they were big polluters and badly prepared. Polluters have a powerful voice in Congress. Make no mistake about it; if they are successful in getting Congress to keep EPA from addressing carbon pollution, they will take all the pressure off for clean energy jobs legislation. But the tragedy along the gulf coast makes clear that we must do something. Today's vote will make clear who in this Chamber is on the side of delaying action on real energy reform and who is fighting for the American people, for jobs, and for the environment. America is already years, if not decades, behind in the race to lead the global clean energy revolution. As far back as the 1890s, scientists documented the ``greenhouse effect'' of increased carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. The first congressional hearings on climate change were held three decades ago. In 1994, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change recognized human-caused climate change. The issue has been out there for decades, and now it is time to take action. We have to move swiftly to address climate change and to have America in front in the global race for clean energy jobs. In the meantime, we have to allow EPA to use its legal authority to reduce carbon pollution and encourage the deployment of clean energy. The EPA isn't just inventing this authority, it is following the law of the land. Congress enacted the Clean Air Act in 1970 under a Republican President. For four decades, EPA has used the Clean Air Act to make our air safer to breathe. Over that same time, guess what. Our economy grew--many times over. Some argue that the Clean Air Act isn't meant to clean up carbon pollution. Well, the Supreme Court disagreed. Congress wrote a very broad definition of ``air pollutant'' and specifically, in 1990, defined carbon dioxide as a pollutant in the Clean Air Act amendments. Despite this broad authority, EPA was indeed idle for many years, but not of its own accord, and not when it was sued. In fact, the Bush EPA fought the application of the Clean Air Act to carbon dioxide every step of the way and to the bitter end, right up to the doors of the Supreme Court, where they lost. Despite the heavy hand of the Bush administration holding EPA back from doing its legal duty, the Supreme Court--one of the most conservative Supreme Courts in generations-- ruled in 2007 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions were ``pollutants'' under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court held that if the Agency thought this pollutant could ``reasonably be anticipated'' to endanger public health or welfare, the EPA had to act. Yet here we are, and some Senators still want delay. For delay, they are willing to vote for a resolution that disregards science. For delay, they are willing to vote for a resolution that undermines the Clean Air Act. For delay, they are willing to vote for a resolution that tosses aside a Supreme Court decision. And for delay, they are willing to vote for a resolution that ignores the will of the American people, largely for the benefit of big oil and other corporate polluters. Should we have a national discussion on how to control carbon? Yes. Should we debate how to move to cleaner sources of energy? Absolutely. But rather than have an honest discussion about how to do this, supporters of this resolution want to delay doing anything at all. The attorney general of my State of Rhode Island, Patrick Lynch, with 10 other attorneys general and the corporation counsel of New York City, sent a letter to the Senate leadership yesterday urging us not to vote for the Murkowski resolution because it ``would be a step backwards undoing the settled expectations of States, industry, and environmentalists alike.'' In closing, that is exactly the point of this resolution. It is a deliberate step backward. It is a delay tactic. It is a last attempt by polluters to hold onto the dirty energy economy that has treated them so well--$23 billion well so far this year. Under this dirty energy economy, we spend $1 billion a day on foreign oil from countries that do not wish us well. Companies such as BP can cut corners on worker safety and the environment and then expect the government to come in and clean up their $30 billion mess. Twelve percent of our children in New England downwind from the polluters suffer from asthma and pulmonary disease. These kids matter. This issue matters. We can delay no longer. I urge my colleagues to say no to delay, say no to taking all the pressure off the polluters, and vote against the Murkowski resolution so we can get to work to forge clean energy reform in America.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, here in this historic Chamber it is appropriate to recall those who came before us and risked their lives to create the great Republic we serve in this Senate. Today, I would like to talk about a group of men who, 238 years ago, on this date, engaged in a daring act of defiance against the British Crown--the first bloody act of defiance in the conflict that became the American Revolution. For many, the Boston Tea Party is considered a first act of defiance. Growing up, we were taught how, on December 16, 1773, Bostonians poured shipments of tea overboard into Boston Harbor to defend the principle, ``no taxation without representation.'' I think almost every schoolchild in America has heard of the Boston Tea Party. Conspicuously missing from those children's education is the story of the brave Rhode Islanders who dared to challenge the British Crown more than a year before those Bostonians threw tea into the Boston Harbor. Today I would like to take us back to the real beginning of America's fight for independence and share with all of you the story of the British vessel, the HMS Gaspee, and to introduce some little known names, heroes from history, who seem now to be lost in history's footnotes. In 1772, amidst growing tensions with American Colonies, King George, III, stationed the HMS Gaspee in Rhode Island to prevent smuggling and enforce the payment of taxes to the Crown. But to Rhode Islanders, the Gaspee quickly became a symbol of oppression. The patronizing presence of the Gaspee was matched by the patronizing and domineering manner of its captain, LT William Dudingston. Lieutenant Dudingston was known for destroying fishing vessels and confiscating their contents and flagging down ships only to harass, humiliate, and interrogate their sailors. But on June 9, 1772, an audacious Rhode Islander named Captain Benjamin Lindsey took a stand. Aboard his boat, the Hannah, Captain Lindsey set sail from Newport to Providence. When he was hailed by Lieutenant Dudingston to stop for a search by the Gaspee, the defiant Captain Lindsey continued on his course. Gunshots were fired, and the Hannah sped north up Narragansett Bay with the Gaspee in full chase behind. Outsized and outgunned, Captain Lindsey drew courage and confidence from his and his crew's keen familiarity with Rhode Island waters. He led the Gaspee into the shallow waters of Pawtuxet Cove, where the smaller Hannah cruised over the sandbars and the heavier Gaspee ran aground. The Gaspee was stranded in a falling tide, and it would be hours before high tide would again set her free. Captain Lindsey took advantage of this favorable situation. Arriving triumphantly in Providence, Captain Lindsey visited John Brown, whose family helped found Brown University. Knowing the Gaspee's helpless state, the two men rallied a group of patriots at Sabin's Tavern--one daren't speculate on the form of refreshment they took there--in what is now the east side of Providence. The Gaspee was universally despised by colonists who had been bullied in their own waters, and the vulnerability now of this once powerful vessel presented these patriots an irresistible opportunity. On that dark night, 60 men in longboats with muffled oars, led by Captain Lindsey and Abraham Whipple, moved quietly down the dark waters of Narragansett Bay. As they encircled the Gaspee, Brown shouted a demand for Lieutenant Dudingston to surrender his ship. Dudingston refused and instead ordered his men to fire upon anyone who tried to board. The fearless Rhode Islanders took this as a cue to force their way onto the Gaspee and forward they charged in a raging uproar of screams, gunshots, powder smoke, and clashing swords. It was amidst this violent struggle that Lieutenant Dudingston was shot by a musket ball. Right there in Rhode Island, right then, the very first blood of the conflict that would lead to the American Revolution was drawn. Victory was soon in the hands of the Rhode Islanders. Brown and Whipple took the captive Englishmen back to shore and returned to set the abandoned Gaspee afire. She burned prodigiously through the night, until the flames reached her powder magazine. Then, with a convulsive explosion, she was flung in pieces across the bay. The site of this historic victory would later be named Gaspee Point. Too few people know of this bold undertaking which occurred 16 full months before the heroes of Boston painted their faces and threw tea into the Boston Harbor in the event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. I hope the tale of the Gaspee will work its way into the history books. It preceded the Tea Party. It was more significant than the Tea Party. It was more violent than the Tea Party. And I think it set the stage of conflict that led to our independence and the freedoms we enjoy today. So I hope Americans will think not just of the date of the Boston Tea Party but will remember June 9, the day the Hannah led the Gaspee across the sandbars of Pawtuxet Cove, stranding her, and those 60 Rhode Islanders came down by oar to attack, burn, and destroy the Gaspee and engage in armed conflict with her crew. I do know these events are not forgotten in my home State. Over the years, I have often had the chance to march in the annual Gaspee Day's parade through Warwick, RI, as every year we recall the courage and the zeal of these men who risked it all for the freedoms we enjoy today, drawing the first blood of our later Revolutionary conflict. I hope the young pages I see in the Chamber who, I assume, have all heard of the Boston Tea Party--I see heads nodding, yes, they have--and may not have heard of the Gaspee--I see heads shaking, they have not heard of the Gaspee--at least a small audience of young people today has been educated that it was Rhode Islanders first, Rhode Islanders more energetically, Rhode Islanders more aggressively, and Rhode Islanders more defiantly than anyone else at the early stages of the Revolution. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Daniel Garbe, a State Department fellow, and Jeffrey Moulton, a military fellow, who are working in Senator Ted Kaufman's office, be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of the Senate's consideration of H.R. 4899, the supplemental appropriations bill.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about important funding in the supplemental appropriations act that will help my State of Rhode Island recover and rebuild from the recent devastating flood which left homes destroyed, businesses closed, and thousands and thousands out of work. The help in this bill is very important to us. Residents of our Ocean State were in a tough spot long before the rain started to fall. Our economy had been in severe recession for 28 months. Unemployment has remained over 12 percent, putting us in the top 5 States for unemployment for 12 months. Homelessness is on the rise. We are in the top 10 States for foreclosures, and our State budget is simply a disaster. The historic back-to-back floods in March hit an already hard-hit State. Rhode Island saw more rain during this disaster than any month on record ever, over 16 inches, with over 5 inches of rain falling on March 30 alone. The devastation wrought by these storms exceeds anything in living memory. Meteorologists who have reviewed it are calling this the most damaging storm to hit the Ocean State since 1815. It is too soon to estimate the full economic impact of the March flooding, but it is clear that the economic damage to Rhode Island will be prolonged and severe. The peak storms of March 30 and 31 brought commerce not only in Rhode Island but in the region to a halt. Route I-95, the main artery that connects the major cities of New England and the middle Atlantic States, was closed for 2 full days. It flooded out following a surge of the Pawtuxet River. The river, which has a flood level of 9 feet, crested at its all-time high, almost 21 feet, on March 31. It is hard to overstate the importance of I-95 to Rhode Island's economy because not only is it a regional artery, it is probably the single most heavily traveled local commuter and commercial artery for our State. Similarly, even Amtrak service through Rhode Island was suspended for 5 days due to the flooding out of the Amtrak rails. At the height of the rains, Providence Street, a main road in West Warwick, looked more like a river than a road. This picture shows local emergency workers rescuing people who have been flooded into their homes and apartments, driving them through the flood in a boat with jet skis. It is not often that one sees local emergency workers driving down the roads of Rhode Island towns on boats and jet skis. But that is what it took to get residents out who had been trapped by rising flood waters. A few days later, this was the scene at Angelo Padula & Sons auto salvage yard in West Warwick. The waters have receded, but we can clearly see the damage left behind. All of these cars were covered and filled with water. We can see the mud from the river heaped all over them. I don't know whether it can be seen on television, but hanging in the fencing is leaves and grass and other bits of trash, because the river was over all of this. This fence was a strainer, picking leaves, trash, and other debris out of the flow. This was completely under water when the river was at its height. When it came back, it left the devastation of this auto and salvage yard. According to local news reports, the floods destroyed 1,200 cars in this salvage yard as well as 16 cars in a sales lot and thousands of dollars worth of car parts. The damage to the surrounding neighborhood and the other businesses near Councilman Padula's yard was equally severe and devastating. This legislation will enable the Army Corps of Engineers to examine the factors that led to the severe flooding in our State. It will help Rhode Island apply effective mitigation measures to forecast the risk of and prevent future flooding. Our communities are now hesitant to rebuild for fear of another flood. We must take steps to prevent a disaster such as this from happening again. People have to know where the danger area is. When you get two back-to-back floods in a matter of weeks that both blow through the 100-year flood line, one of which blows through the 500-year flood line in places, something is wrong with the measurement of the flood risk. The people who have been subjected to these floods know that. As one local business owner said in a recent report on WRNI, our local NPR station: What happens if it floods again in 2 months? We need this knowledge. We need the support from the Army Corps to get in there and tell us what the real present flood risk is. Clearly, the previous estimates were badly wrong. This bill also contains funding for community development block grants and economic development assistance grants for long-term recovery efforts that will help restore and rebuild Rhode Island communities. As I traveled around the State for days following the flood, the sheer magnitude of the damage was unprecedented. The Federal response came quickly. The President issued a disaster declaration almost immediately. Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano was on the ground within days. FEMA quickly came in to set up emergency assistance centers and begin processing disaster assistance applications. They set up offices all across the State. They did a phenomenal job of getting people into the State, of reaching out across the State and making sure they were widely spread and available to victims of the flood. So far FEMA has processed more than 25,000 claims and, in a State of a million people, that is a big number. I thank them for their hard work. Of course, FEMA delivers a particular specified product that is defined by law and regulation. They haven't been able to help everyone. People have fallen through the cracks, and so many Rhode Islanders remain frustrated. I recently held one of my community dinners in Cranston for people to come and ask questions about flood aid. I heard from a number of people who feel as though they have fallen through the cracks in the wake of this disaster or feel that the help they have received is not enough. Small business owners, for instance, have been limited to receiving low-interest loans from the SBA to recover from their flood damage. But for many of the small businesses which were already struggling through the terrible economy I described before the floods even came, the prospect of taking on more debt in order to repair flood damage is not feasible. They need grant support. What is important about this legislation is that CDBG and EDA will allow the local municipalities to design appropriate programs to catch the people who were not those 25,000 satisfied customers of FEMA but are the people who, because of the nature of the program and the nature of their flood damage somehow managed to fall through the cracks. For our towns and cities in Rhode Island, again, this could not have come at a worse time. I have already shown you some of the damage that was sustained in West Warwick. That is a town that was already experiencing hard economic times. Now the town's already stretched budget has been pushed to the limit by the overtime shifts and the emergency repairs and all of the extra effort required to deal with the flood and its aftermath. By lowering the State and municipal cost share from 25 percent to 10 percent, this appropriations package will be a big relief to the people of West Warwick. Frankly, the city of West Warwick and others will have the ability now to design packages to help their residents and their small businesses that were not adequately compensated by FEMA to try to get them back on their feet. So it is two good things for the municipalities: It is a reduction from 25 percent to 10 percent in their share, and it is an opportunity to create a plan that will help serve their constituents. In Cumberland, RI, Hope Global, one of the town's largest employers, was completely washed out by the flood. This is a picture of Hope Global I have in the Chamber. This is their loading dock. Normally, there would be no water there at all. There would only be a parking lot there, and a truck would back up to this level. This would be several feet off the ground. As it was, I floated through those loading docks in an inflatable boat at Hope Global. They are an enterprising company. Cheryl Merchant, who is their CEO, is an astonishing woman. She had all of the equipment in that factory jacked up on temporary pallets of one kind or another, so when the flood came in, it did not damage the machinery because it had been jacked up. When the floodwater went back down, they put the machinery back down on the ground. They got their electricity going again. They plugged back in, and they were running in no time. Before their executive offices were cleaned up, while everything was still a wreck, the machinery was already spinning and the Rhode Islanders at Hope Global were already back at work. That was a great thing. But now they face the problem of, do we stay? Should we go on? Should we find a location where we do not face this kind of a risk? One of the important decisions Hope Global needs us to make is to reduce the threat of future flood damage. Can there be a berm that protects them from the river overflowing, as it did here? They would like to see that berm constructed along the riverbank for their protection, and we are hopeful the funding in this appropriations package will help Cumberland to assist the Army Corps in getting that done quickly. I will close by pointing out that the motto on the Rhode Island State flag is ``hope.'' That is our symbol. That is the phrase, the word that has seen us through tough times in the past. The flooding has destroyed homes. It has closed businesses. It has put careers on hold. But the people of Rhode Island have stood up remarkably well. However, the job of rebuilding roads, rebuilding bridges, rebuilding sewage treatment plants, rebuilding public facilities, homes, and businesses is a colossal and daunting task for a State already 28 months into severe recession. Rhode Islanders are a resilient bunch. We will recover and rebuild. But this will certainly help us to get there. Since this appropriations package was passed unanimously in committee, I hope for quick passage on the floor. I see the very distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran of Mississippi, who represents a State that has seen its own share of flooding and difficulty recently. I know how sympathetic he is to our concerns and how effectively and helpfully he has worked with Jack Reed, my senior Senator, who is also on the Appropriations Committee, who has worked to see that this gets done. So I want to take this moment, as I conclude my remarks, to pass on my gratitude to the chairman, Senator Inouye; the ranking member, the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran; and my senior Senator, Jack Reed, for all of their work in pushing this funding through the Appropriations Committee to where it is now on the floor. Our State is lucky to have had their support, and I look forward to continuing my work with Senator Reed to make sure Rhode Island rebuilds. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I wanted to discuss very briefly an amendment that I have filed with respect to the independence of compensation consultants. As we all know, executive compensation has been a significant issue in this country. Much of executive compensation is set on the advice of compensation consultants. I had an interesting meeting earlier this year with the Obama administration's ``pay czar,'' he is called, and he said when he was in the process of trying to work out how he should try to restructure executive compensation, he tried to find an independent compensation consultant to advise him. He found he could not find a single compensation consultant in the country who met his standards for independence. This amendment would ask the Securities and Exchange Commission to set standards for independence for compensation consultants, so that when, consistent with this legislation, the compensation committee of a board has to evaluate which compensation consultant to hire, they get an independent seal of approval from the SEC, and they can know they are doing the right thing; and, of course, we can assure that we have independent compensation consultants and not people who get paid in order to encourage higher salaries for CEOs in our country. I had a brief discussion about this with the chairman. He expressed some interest in it. I understand we will be continuing to work together to try to get this language incorporated into the final bill. I expressed my appreciation to him for his consideration. I believe it matches the language on the House side, so maybe it is something we can do in conference. But, clearly, this question of compensation is an area where the chairman has been a leader, and I look forward to working with him.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the chairman. I guess as the old song goes, what a long, strange trip it has been to get to this vote. But I appreciate very much the chairman's efforts and the ranking member's efforts that have allowed this vote. I thank the cosponsors who have helped me work so hard on this legislation: Senators Cochran, Merkley, Durbin, Sanders, Levin, Burris, Franken, Brown of Ohio, Menendez, Chairman Leahy, Senators Webb, Casey, Wyden, my distinguished senior colleague from Rhode Island, Jack Reed, Senator Udall of New Mexico, and Senator Begich, who is now Presiding. I am very proud of that support and very proud of the support of over 200 consumer groups for this legislation, including AARP, Consumers Union, National Consumer Law Center, Public Citizen, and Common Cause. That is a blue ribbon group of consumer supporters, and it is just the tip of the iceberg of a large organizational push to correct an inequity in American society that arises out of an inadvertent loophole that the Supreme Court created 30 years ago. This vote presents all of my colleagues a clear, stark choice. Whose side you are on will be defined by your vote on this amendment. If you are on the side of the big out-of-State banks that are marketing into your home State and that are forcing your home State citizens to pay 30 percent and over interest rates even though those interest rates might be illegal under your home State laws, then you will cast your vote against this amendment and in favor of those big out-of-State banks charging that exorbitant interest. If you support it, you are taking the side of your home State citizens who are being gouged right now by banks over which they have no control because they are pitching their business into the home State from elsewhere and the home State laws, because of this peculiar Supreme Court loophole, have been held not to apply. If you vote in favor of this amendment, you are voting in favor of your home State's laws. This is not a reach of Federal authority. This is traditional federalism and States rights to honor the laws of the States whose citizens sent us here and who wish to protect them from abusive interest rates. If you vote in favor of this amendment, you are also voting in favor of your community banks, your local State-chartered banks, which don't take advantage of this loophole, which don't create their headquarters in a faraway State that gives them zero consumer protection restriction and allows them to target their marketing against the laws of the home State. The home State banks have to play by the laws of the home State, and this would level the field for your home State banks. So it is a pretty clear and stark choice: Are you for your home State citizens, are you for your home State's laws, are you for your home State's banks or do you want to take your stand today with the big out- of-State banks whose interest rates are unregulated, whose behavior is in conflict with 200 years of American history and every civilized legal tradition dating back into the mists of time? Every major religion has limited usury. Every civilized legal code has restricted the ability of one individual to harm another by charging them exorbitant interest rates when they are in need. This is the aberration we are facing right now. We have the chance to fix it. We have the chance to fix it in a way that is justified and proven by 202 years of history in the United States and thousands of years of tradition before that. I urge my colleagues to stand up for their fellow citizens against these out-of-State banks. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wanted to share with my colleagues an update on where we are with the bipartisan amendment on which I have been working so hard. I see Senator Sanders of Vermont is here, and he is one of my cosponsors, as is the Presiding Officer, Senator Udall of New Mexico. The amendment, as you know, would allow States to protect their citizens from exorbitant interest rates that are charged by out-of- State banks. There is a trick to this. Years ago, the Supreme Court made a decision saying when a bank is in one State and a consumer in another, the transaction between them is governed by the laws--and here they had to pick one State or the other--the bank's State. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but it opened a loophole that crafty bank lawyers figured out, and that is that you could move and redomicile a bank's headquarters in the State with the worst consumer protection laws in the country. Then, from that State, you could market back to other States which have consumer protections, which have interest rate limits honoring the tradition of usury restriction that was at the founding of this country and that lasted for hundreds of years but goes back to all our ancient religions and which is a constant in human civilized legal codes. This overruled all of that, allowing them to sneak right by it because they have either gone to or perhaps even cut a deal with their home State to have the worst consumer protection and be able to take advantage of people in other States. It is the proverbial race to the bottom. I am confident if you called up on the Senate floor as the government's policy proposal the way it is right now, you would not get a single vote. Who would vote for the notion that the consumer protection policy of the country is going to be set by the worst State and have that be a situation in which the worst State is usually getting rewarded by the industry for being the worst State? It is a bad situation. This amendment has gotten a lot of attention. It has gotten a lot of support--it has bipartisan support. It is a very practical thing we can do for American consumers. This is a pretty esoteric piece of legislation in a lot of ways, this Wall Street reform bill. This does things like trying to rebuild the Glass-Steagall firewall. Until I got in the middle of this debate, I couldn't tell what that was. This changes the leverage limits and puts restrictions on what banks can do. That is pretty esoteric stuff. This deals with the regulation of derivatives and collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps and things that nobody ever heard of until we were drilled into this legislation--esoteric, preventive stuff. But this piece of the bill, this amendment would enable all of us to go home and tell our constituents: You know those 30 percent penalty rates that your out-of-State credit card company drops you into if you make a mistake, if you are late in a payment, for no reason at all? We have done something to protect you against that--consistent with the traditions of our country, our laws, consistent with the doctrine of federalism and States rights, consistent with the Founding Fathers' delegation to the States, the ability to protect consumers in this way. We have restored the States rights. They are no longer trumped by an out-of-State corporation. Now they have the sovereign right they should to protect consumers. I think it is a meritorious piece of legislation. I think it is an amendment that deserves consideration on the floor. It is beginning to appear that it may not actually even get a vote, notwithstanding that it is pending. We may be edged right out. I want to explain why. People who have been watching this debate have seen long hours of nothing happening on this floor. There has been a lot of delay. There has been a lot of delay allowing us to get to amendments. Why is that? We are up against a time restriction on this bill. It is a practical time restriction. The leader needs to make sure we pass the supplemental Defense appropriations bill that funds our troops. What could be more important than, when we have troops in the field, overseas, serving our country, putting themselves in harm's way, that we provide them the resources they need to be successful? We have to do that. We have to do something to increase the strength of our economy. In Rhode Island we are at 12.6 percent unemployment. We have been in the top three States for unemployment every single month of the Obama administration. I think we are in the 28th month of severe recession. So we know how bad this economy is and how much more we need to do to try to bolster it. So we need to get to the next jobs bill, the jobs and tax extenders bill, to make sure we are providing the necessary support to our economy. We have to get to those things. Because of all the delay that our friends on the other side have built into the process we are now getting into the end point where we are starting to be squeezed for time. Now that we are squeezed for time, they are refusing to give time agreements to amendments like mine that would actually make a difference. They do not want to vote in favor of out-of-State corporations and against their home State's ability to protect their home State's fellow citizens. But they do want the out-of-State corporations to win. They don't want to vote in their favor, but they want them to win. If that is your position, the perfect thing is to delay and delay until it gets to be here at the end, crunch time, then take the amendments that worry you, the amendments that will get after the big banks, the amendments that will be fair to consumers, and refuse to give time agreements and vote agreements on those and basically run out the clock. That is the position we are in right now. It appears there is no willingness on the other side of the aisle to give this a vote--not just at a 50-vote margin, even at a 60-vote margin. They don't want to be on record supporting these out-of-State credit card companies that are gouging their own citizens. They just want them to win, and they figured out this way to do it. The only alternative is to call up the bill, what is called postcloture, which means I have to be technically something called germane. Right now we are working with the Parliamentarian to argue as strongly as we can that we are indeed germane. It is an open question whether we are indeed germane, and I hope it gets resolved in our favor before the bill comes up in its regular order postcloture. That is the situation. If people are wondering why this amendment does not appear to be on any list, is not going anywhere, it is because there is a blockade of it on the other side. They are taking advantage of the time crunch that they created with all the delays that led us to this time crunch to squeeze out the amendments where they do not want to vote for the big banks, they don't want to vote for the big credit card companies, but they do want the big banks and the big credit card companies to win. So it is the squeeze play at the end to try to drive these impactful amendments that will make a tangible, immediate difference in the lives of Rhode Islanders and the lives of their home State citizens, the ones paying that 30-plus percent interest rate that until very recently would be a matter to bring to the authorities of this country, not a matter that the Senate tried to defend. So that is where we are. I will continue to work with the Parliamentarian to make sure we are germane postcloture, and I will continue to argue to try to get a vote. But forces are arrayed against us at this point, and I want to be perfectly candid about it. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

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

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

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, may I ask for regular order with respect to my pending amendment, No. 3746.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to say a few words on the amendment I have pending and that we will be voting on in the next 2 days that will restore the historic power of States to control interest rates they charge to their citizens. One of the things I hear most about when I am home in Rhode Island is from folks who can't understand why their credit card interest rate suddenly jumped to over 30 percent. For a long time, the tricks and the traps in those long credit card contracts pitched people into these penalty rates. I think a lot of people don't read all the fine print and aren't sure exactly what it means. We have individual consumers up against the craftiest lawyers the credit card industry can hire, and the result is when they trigger one of these traps and they get caught by one of these little tricks, they end up being kicked into a very high penalty rate. Recently, after the credit card reform bill passed a year ago, we saw the credit card industry actually not even waiting for the tricks or traps to be triggered. They just began to spontaneously raise people's interest rates; again, very often over 30 percent. The Presiding Officer and I are both of an age where we can remember a time when interest rates of that level would have been a matter to refer to the authorities, not a commonplace business practice of our biggest industries. When we think of the pain and the suffering and the economic stress families get put under when they fall into these burdensome, exorbitant penalty rates--I think we should do something about it. My amendment would allow us to do just that. It doesn't take any new risks. It doesn't create dramatic new policy. It does things that my friends on the other side of the aisle have been supportive of over the years. It honors the independent authority of States to make decisions to protect their citizens. It supports consumers--the little guy--against the huge corporations, and it puts our local banks on a level playing field with these big out-of-State banks. We got here because of an unusual loophole that the Supreme Court opened 30 years ago. We did not have a debate on the Senate floor saying: What should our policy be? Should we take away the rights of States to protect their consumers, to protect their citizens from exorbitant out-of-State interest rates? We never had that discussion. This happened inadvertently. It happened as a result of a Supreme Court decision back in 1978 that said when a bank in one State and a consumer in another State have a transaction, it will be the laws of the home State of the bank that govern. It didn't look like a very big deal at the time. It didn't take the crafty bank lawyers long to see that it opened a very tricky loophole, and they could move to the States in this country that had the worst consumer protection legislation, and from there--from those outposts of the worst consumer protection--they could market into other States. The fact that the other State they were marketing into had good consumer protections and protected those State's citizen didn't matter. It didn't help because of the Supreme Court decision. I submit if, as a Senate, we were to have debated that proposition, there would not have been many votes for the outcome. The notion of the policy of the United States on protecting consumers from interest rates should be that the rules of the worst State in the country trump every other State is a rule that nobody in their right mind would vote for. But because of this inadvertent Supreme Court loophole and because of the crafty work of these big national banks and their lawyers, we are now in that exact situation--a situation that none of us would ever have voted for and that we shouldn't tolerate now. So I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to vote for this amendment. I wish to thank Senator Cochran from the other side of the aisle for cosponsoring it, and I wish to ask his colleagues in the Republican caucus to join him in supporting it. This bill we are looking at right now is very esoteric and technical. It is preventive medicine. It engages in things such as trying to rebuild the Glass-Steagall firewall, trying to promptly regulate collateralized debt obligations, trying to put appropriate leverage limitations on banks. That is all pretty arcane stuff. The American people want this reform, and it should happen. But here is a deliverable they can take right home. They will see a difference as soon as their States respond. They can be protected from these outrageous 30-percent interest rates as a result of this bill. It is not a big Federal Government that is coming to do this; it is the State governments, State by State. Indeed, if a State wants to have no consumer protections and have its citizens vulnerable to these predatory and exorbitant credit card deals, fine. They can do that. There is nothing in my amendment that requires a State to do anything. It just empowers them with the same power they had at the founding, with the same power they had for 202 years, until 1978 came along and this peculiar Supreme Court decision. So I think it will be a good argument to go home with, and as voters in this country look at what Congress has done leading up to the November elections, to be able to say: You know what. Those 30-percent rates we never saw when we were children and that our parents never had to pay, the rates that you as a head of a family are now having to deal with with these credit card companies from out of State that you can barely reach on the phone, and if you do, you get pushed from phone tree to phone tree, we have done something about that. We have helped you. We have put you in a position where the States are sovereign again over these big national corporations rather than vice versa. Right now, we, the big credit card companies, are sovereign over our States. That is not the way things should be in America. That is not the way the Founding Fathers set it up. It is not right for consumers. It violates the principle of the States being laboratories of democracy, and it completely eviscerates consumer protection. So I urge my colleagues to support it and to put themselves in a position to be able to go home to their voters and say: We did something tangible for you. We didn't create bigger government. We let your existing State government make the decisions that for two centuries they were capable of making to protect you from the worst practices of the out-of-State credit card companies. The alternative is to have to go back and explain why people are still paying 30 percent when you have the chance to do something about it; why you chose the big out-of-State corporations and exorbitant interest rates over your own home State's protection of your own home State's citizens. I think the position my colleagues would want to be in on that one is with your home State, with the doctrine of federalism, with the traditions of the United States of America, and with your consumers, rather than on the other side with the big out-of-State banks that charge these exorbitant rates. So I hope I will have support, and I look forward to working with anyone who has questions. I yield the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I offer a modification.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Amendment No. 3884 to Amendment No. 3739

Mr. WHITEHOUSE

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 17, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Gulf Coast Catastrophe: Assessing the Nation's Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.''

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate May 17, 2010, at 5:30 p.m.