Senate Proceeding on Dec 8th, 2011 :: 0:00:00 to 0:20:00
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Rear Adm. Barry Black: senate here on the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. king and judge of the universe,

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Speech By: Rear Adm. Barry Black

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: you rule with righteousness and govern with justice. you have been good to us, restoring our strength and directing our footsteps. today, guide our senators

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: in their labors. in these difficult days, empower them to produce dividends of character and grace. we pray not for tasks fitted to their strength but for strength

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: which fits them for their tasks. in the hard decisions of this day, guide them by your word and spirit. we pray in your loving name.

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication

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to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., december 8, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jon tester, a senator from the state of montana, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye,

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president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, leadership time is reserved.

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Harry Reid: the majority leader. mr. reid: that was a quick prayer. i missed that. mr. president, following leader remarks, the senate will be in executive session to consider the nomination of richard cordray to be director of the consumer financial protection bureau. at 10:30, there will be a cloture vote on the cordray nomination. if cloture is not invoked, the senate will resume consideration

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Speech By: Harry Reid

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Harry Reid: of the motion to proceed to the middle-class tax cut. as a reminder to all senators, cloture has been filed on the motion to proceed to s. 1944. unless an agreement is reached, that vote will be tomorrow morning. mr. president, shortly the senate will vote in the confirmation of richard cordray to lead the consumer financial

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Harry Reid: protection bureau. again, consumer financial protection bureau. i stress consumer. by now, we all know my republican colleagues will filibuster mr. cordray's nomination. they have said they will. this is not an up-or-down vote, but republicans' effort to not allow a vote. they are stopping a vote on this

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Harry Reid: very, very qualified man. they're not blocking this nomination because of any fault, real or perceived, in this candidate. he has bipartisan support and is eminently qualified. he has a long history of protecting consumers against unfair practice by financial predators. he currently serves as chief of enforcement at the bureau.

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Harry Reid: before that, mr. cordray served as ohio's attorney general. a very important scrob in a very, very heavily populated state. while there, he recovered billions of dollars from pension funds on behalf of retirees, investors and others, and he took action against fraudulent foreclosures and predatory lending. he is qualified.

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Harry Reid: he is a man of diligence. senate republicans know that he's qualified. they are blocking his nomination, not allowing a vote because they don't like the federal agency he would lead, an agency that has been established by law. this is the first time in senate history a party has blocked a qualified candidate solely because they disagree with the

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Harry Reid: existence of the agency that's being created by law. republicans are doing this to undermine the system of law we have in our country. democrats fought to pass rawlt reform last year to protect against the greed of big banks. without a director, the consumer financial protection bureau doesn't have the tools it needs

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Harry Reid: to get the job done, and it's shocking that despite the economic crash in our rearview mirror, it's easy to look back and see what happened because of wall street greed. republicans in spite of that would leave consumers without a watchdog to guard against the greed of wall street. that's would the chair announce the

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Harry Reid: business of the day? the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, bureau of consumer financial protection, richard cordray to be director of bureau of consumer financial protection. the presiding officer: under the

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Harry Reid: previous order, the time 10:30 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. mr. reid: i ask that a quorum be called and that the time be equally divided between the two sides. the presiding officer: without objection.

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the clerk will

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Speech By: Mitch McConnell

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Mitch McConnell: quorum call: mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. mcconnell: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. this morning, the senate will vote on whether the consumer financial protection bureau should be able to put a in place before concerns about

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Mitch McConnell: its accountability to the american people are addressed. let me just stress at the outset that that's all today's vote is about. all today's vote is about is accountability and transparency. it's a debate about whether we think americans need more oversight over washington or less. republicans made our position

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Mitch McConnell: clear more than seven months ago when 44 of us signed a letter saying we won't support a nominee for this bureau no matter who the president is until three commonsense conditions are met that would bring some transparency and accountability to the cfpb. that letter now has 45

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Mitch McConnell: signators. the president knew about these concerns months ago and he chose to dismiss them, and now he is suddenly making a push to confirm his nominee because it fits into some picture he wants to paint about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are here in washington. so once again, democrats are using the senate floor this week

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Mitch McConnell: to stage a little political theater. they are setting up a vote they know will fail so they can act shocked about it later. this is what passes for leadership at the white house right now. the president has made his choice about how to deal with this issue, and we have made ours, and what we said is that until this or any other

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Mitch McConnell: president addresses these legitimate concerns, we cannot and will not support a nominee. here's what we said in that letter seven months ago. first, replace the single director with a board of directors that would oversee the bureau. second, subject the bureau to

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Mitch McConnell: the congressional process. third, allow other financial regulators to provide a check on cfpb rules so they don't imperil the health of institutions and lead to unnecessary bank failures. look, everybody supports strong and effective oversight, but that has to include the

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Mitch McConnell: overseers as well. unelected bureaucrats must be held accountable to the american people, and that's exactly what our proposal would do. so really, it's up to the president. republicans have outlined our concerns, they a we're not going to let the president put another unelected czar in place, unaccountable to

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Mitch McConnell: the american people, and frankly, his refusal to work with us on this only deepens our concerns. the cfpb requires reforms before any, any nominee can be confirmed. it's time the president takes these concerns seriously. so i look forward to hearing from the president on this issue

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Mitch McConnell: so we can put in place the kind of oversight and accountability the american people expect in an scope. until then, i'll vote against this nominee for the cfpb and any others, this or any other president sends until he works to fix the problems, until he brings transparency to this

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Mitch McConnell: bureaucracy, and accountability to the american people. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

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Richard Shelby: quorum call: a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. shel call be dispensed with, i ask unanimous consent. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. shelby: mr. president, i rise today in opposition to the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of richard cordray to

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Speech By: Richard Shelby

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Richard Shelby: be the director of the bureau of consumer financial protection. earlier this year, i and 44 of my colleagues sent a letter to the president expressing our concerns with the unaccountable structure of the bureau. it is now, mr. president, seven months later, and the president

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Richard Shelby: has yet to respond. the majority has called for a vote that they know will fail today. it is evident that the white house and the majority have decided to place politics ahead of good policy. they have chosen to fabricate a political issue rather than do what is in the best interest of

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Richard Shelby: consumers. nonetheless, they claim that this debate is about consumer protection. mr. president, there's no disagreement, however, that consumer protection is -- as the senator knows, needs to be enhanced. the only real point of

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Richard Shelby: contention is whether the new bureau of consumer financial protection will be accountable to the american people. if you believe regulators never fail, then the current structure of the bureau is just fine. yet we all know that regulators do fail, and that their

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Richard Shelby: failures harm consumers. members of the majority i believe have repeatedly made this point, where their criticism of the fed's failure to regulate some prime mortgages and the o.c.'s preemption of state consumer protection laws. mr. president, i strongly agree

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Richard Shelby: with our majority that our regulators failed to do their job in the lead-up to the financial crisis. but the lesson we should learn from the financial crisis is not that we need more unaccountable regulators. instead, mr. president, all of our financial regulators need to be held more accountable. just as banks should be held

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Richard Shelby: accountable for their failures, regulators should also be held accountable for theirs. after all, if regulators know that congress can hold them accountable, they will have a far stronger incentive to do their jobs, and that will be good as we all know, for consumers. that is why if the bureau is

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Richard Shelby: reformed, the bigs winners will be the american consumers. today, mr. president, however, the majority will show that they're now more concerned with insulating bureaucrats from accountability and rewarding political allies than looking out for consumers. the administration and the

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Richard Shelby: majority will try to argue here that the bureau already is accountable. indeed, they will say it's more accountable than any other financial regulator. but let's look at the facts. the facts tell a different story. first, it is necessary to appreciate the amount of power placed in the hands of the

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Richard Shelby: director of this bureau. no bureaucrat will have more power over the daily economic lives of americans than this director. the director in effect will decide which americans can access credit to buy homes, purchase cars, and pay for college.

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Richard Shelby: the director will regulate not only financial companies but also tens of thousands of main street businesses. and also the director will unilaterally decide how the bureau spends its up to $600 million budget. mr. president, despite the vast