pray god out sovereign king you have given us the gift of another day thank you for the opportunity to serve you by serving others as our lawmakers labor for liberty empower them to promote the welfare of this land give them the wisdom to look to you for support and blessings lord made they not trust in human efforts alone but humbly acknowledge that you almighty god preside over the destiny of nations working in our history and thereby find strength to face the future with optimism and thanksgiving let your goodness and mercy sustain them throughout life's seasons remind them that you never asked them to do more than you will provide the strength for them to accomplish we pray in the will read a communication to the senate washington d c a pro seven two thousand and eight to the senate under the provisions of rule one paragraph three of the standing rules of the senate i hereby appoint the honorable jim webb a senator from the commonwealth of virginia to perform the duties of the chair senators during that period time will be allowed to speak for up to ten minutes at three o'clock the senate will resume consideration of the h r three two two one which is the vehicle that we've used to move the housing legislations previous announcer be no votes today mr president thanks to senators dodd baucus shelby grassley and their staffs we've had some really good bipartisan work on this housing bill this bill will help communities homeowners and the home building industry this bill is not a silver bullet but it's an important first step so i hope we can pass it quickly on overwhelmingly so we can send it along to the house of representatives we have one pending amendments i have asked my staff to see what they can do to work with the republicans to see if we can come up with votes tomorrow morning on those amendments that are germy parmenter has had a chance to look at those a number of them are clearly germane and i hope we can vote on the tomorrow morning mr president there's an important week not only because we're going to finish the housing bill this week but also because general petra soon or when will our troops come home and i think they should be asked is iraq made america safer when the surge began more than a year ago present bush labeled the strategy quote return on success as a surge succeeds according to the president our troops would come home we're already hearing that general petraeus has recommended freezing troop levels  we've just seen what happened week or so ten days ago in basra how sautter was attacked by the iraqi armed services are now a key the leader of iraq didn't notify the american troops or anyone else and simply took off after took off after al saud or that attack was basically a failure the police didn't please these at least a thousand iraqi soldiers just lay down asked to come in and they did us years and they did we lost a significant number of soldiers were wounded center bush said this is what it's all about this shows th success is present our troops in iraq face a civil war this growing more violent by by the day and that meant to peace among iraqi factions betrayed by the news every day yesterday five a battle as we see in the papers today is intensifying between al killed in a green zone our soldiers are now being killed in the green zone of course for a smarter strategy in iraq is growing among defense and military experts colonel john genteel west point history professor misheard two tours of duty in iraq has said directly about the transaction iraqi reported headline news today in the wall street journal among other things he said and i quote we've come up with is false narrative is incorrect explanation of what is going on in iraq we've come to see counter insurgency as the solution to every problem and we're losing the ability to wage any other kind of war and  more so every day our troops are serving their second third fourth fifth and some are believed to be headed to war iraq for the sixth time is taking a tremendous toll on them and their families and overalls status our military were not ready for an unexpected crisis could arise overnight someplace other than arac each additional tour results in substantially higher rates of post traumatic stress disorder oneto twelve percent of the soldiers coming back post traumatic stress disorder for tours approaching thirty percent  present i my office last friday was leaving and a young man and his wife were there with a baby young man married is very pretty lady his wife mother his child when he was fifteen she was nineteen he joined the army went to iraq and how you doing so not very well and these were his words my cognitive abilities are gone having trouble thinking that's of post traumatic stress disorder is all about among other things the military is and should dire need of recruits is present i can remember when i practice sly did some criminal defense work and one of the things we would try is some of these young men who are in trouble see if we get them in the military answer was no they had criminal records it's not the case anymore if you have haven't graduated from high school military will still take you if you have committed a felony or serious crime the military will still take you in fact mr president one out of every eight of our new recruits that's thirteen percent have received a waiver for past criminal rather missed contact conduct some of these are felonies that these people are going in the military after having to medal but even with these no high school or high school diploma and even involved in serious crimes we're still having to struggle meeting our requirement our recruitment goals but mr president as has we as been reported in all the print press and the electronic media today we're losing our combat hardened leaders those with experience sergeants captains it was a good report on the radio this morning about what are we going to do for colonels and generals fifteen years from now if all the captains are leaving we recognize it's general petraeus responsibilities arac but these hearings these meetings with general petraeus he's going to have to understand that we've taken our eye off the ball in other crucial areas of the world afghanistan pakistan north korea or iran all through the middle east america's now number one enemy bin laden remains free our kind is growing stronger because iraq  men and women of our national guard don't have the manpower or equipment to do his job and protect us here at home because iraq our moral authority is lost in the eyes of many foreign allies are unwilling to stand by our s to have to respond to some of these questions when will our troops come home as iraq war made our country safer these are the questions that matter american people deserve a fair assessment  order the leadership time is reserved under the previous order the senate will proceed to appear to morning business until three pm with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each  mortgages and teaser mortgages here in the united states and it's gone into financial systems in many countries and they are facing similar problems to the ones that our financial system faces here  i believe there are a lot of steps that are important that we take the macro level of the federal reserve and the what what the treasury can do what the government regulated  government sponsored entities can do but it's my also farm belief that this problem is one that we're going to have to save community by community neighborhood by neighborhood and family by family and that's why i have an amendment filed today on amendment forty four thirty six to avoid these problems in the future as i listen to a lot of homeowners and  one of the real problems we have is right now there is not a clear and simple disclosure of payments and interest rates for adjustable rate loans with the so called teaser rates that teaser loans with interest rates and payments that jump up to an affordable levels play a played a really large part in the current sub prime mortgage crisis many pretentious borrowers either didn't understand what they're getting into or were falsely assured that everything would be ok that's part of relief to families in neighborhoods suffering through the current housing finance crisis i want to ensure that we don't face another crisis in the future because we did not correct the problem now for those of us who have taken out a mortgage loan to buy refinance a home you know what this pile of paperwork you face and all the legal jargon well i am a recovering attorney and i have had the experience of having that stack of papers and i have to choke a horse put down in front of me and the real estate agent whoever's there says just sign this sign their sign their son their sign their sign their sign this about forty minutes later you are dizzy from signing and nothing nothing in those papers clearly tells you what you're getting into that's really what why when you passed the original truth in lending act applied to home mortgage loans we knew then that most people didn't take the time or have the ability to read and understand the fine print mortgage loan documents but regrettably the consumer protections in the original truth and lending act were written long ago and are widely outdated woefully outdated they were written when most everyone bought a home with a thirty year fixed rate mortgage about this is a good thing there are many more loan tools easier than ever before but while more choices can be a good thing an educated consumers are consumers who don't have assistance in understanding that information may not understand what they're doing is falling into a trap and i want to see the disclosures laid out simply so that nobody is caught and trap like one of my constituents willie clay of kansas city missouri and his family were caught i shared with a story on the floor a month ago when we first introduced the safe back security against foreclosure in education act relief bill which is  forms the basis of the dodd shelby bill before us and well it was one as he lives in a working class kansas city neighborhood of modest ranch homes cal ruskin heights it was a vietnam era war vietnam war paratrooper living largely on disability payments a refinanced mortgage in two thousand and four for a total of one hundred one thousand you can see it was a man of modest means it was not a speculator gambling on the housing market he was not an investor buying a vacation home he just wanted to live in a decent home he was looking for a little extra money to pay off his medical bills car loans and some credit cards and he agreed to a sub prime adjustable rate loan with an initial fixed rate of eight point two percent after seven years everything went fine they made the payments on a disagreement then last initial fixed rate ended and the loan reset to a variable rate and given the condition of the market at the time his new interest rate became eleven point two percent and then was set to rise again in march to twelve point two percent with more rises coming when he told the kansas city star if the rates go up i can't afford it well and his wife i know would have to give up their homes and moved into an apartment their mortgage and it is far too confusing far too confusing under the system we have now he said when he said i don't have the education to understand it they didn't explain it to me i thought if the interest rate went down your payment went down if the interest rate went up your payments stayed the same when it was now facing a mortgage fifty mortgage payments fifty percent higher than when he started he was trapped in his own because there was a twenty five hundred dollars prepayment penalty which prevented him from getting out well this isn't just willy claes family's crisis the entire neighborhood is suffering through this housing crisis there are more than five hundred foreclosures in his zip code alone on willis block there are already several empty houses foreclosed homes are dragging property values down for everyone it's becoming a self perpetuating downward spiral that's why i've felt so strongly about how we need to help these suffering families and neighborhoods and that's why we introduced the original security against foreclosure and education at the eve re education focused on language meant to prevent this problem in the future and that's a subject of the amendment that will be before us when we return to the bill the amendment representing disclosure acquirements from the say fact that we're not transferred to  substitute updates the truth in lending act to modern times as bond amendment will apply and adjustable rate mortgages with an initial fixed or teaser rate this is the kind of loan with a clay head and millions of americans across the country hold for these types of adjustable rate loans with teasers lenders or borrowers will be required to provide in large prominent the loan spics the interest rate initial fixed payment the date on which  will expire the lender or broker will also need to provide an estimate of what the payment would be when the loan resets from its initial teaser rate to a floating adjustable rate for many  this jump could be quite large and borrowers should be aware of it if they're not made aware of it then they shouldn't be permitted to do it what we're saying is put the critical dollars and cents items in large type on the first one or two pages don't bury i said a whole bunch of legal mumbo jumbo that we lawyers and my colleagues who are still lawyers love to write to make sure that we  we cover every possible contingency well with a bond amendment requires lenders to disclose that there is no guarantee the loan can be refinanced before the initial fixed rate expires too many of the of the people in this trap now i have said have told me and told others they were told no problem to refinance well yes there is a problem and a lot of borrowers were caught when they found out they couldn't refinance they knew they did not know that how high their rates could go after the teaser rate expired but any concern they had they could not afford their loan in the future was put to rest by the broker with the reassurance that there was no problem no problem or refinancing alone before the teaser rate expired for many this turned out to be true but when the credit market seized up and loan standards were a they the rest were caught in the squeeze they are now so the amendment that i will ask this body to pass requires a disclosure that there's no guarantee no t the bar will be able to refinance alone when the teaser right rate expires the bond amendment also requires disclosure of any prepayment penalty the amount and its expiration date that prepayment penalties are saying that caught with a clay and his family prepayment penalties can be good for the lender getting certainly the lender can turn provide a lower interest rate people need to be aware of what they are getting into and how it will be costly to get out and that is the theme of this entire amendment it does not block adjustable rate mortgages it does not block national facially it allows prepayment penalties an opportunity to refinance quickly the advantages in the mortgage business have been good for consumers allowing a new generation of home buyers to share in the american dream it just requires plain disclosure of the loan terms so that people will know what they're getting into now some may ask why we need to be prescripti regulators also failed here and they continue to fail neither hud or the fed require disclosure of these terms in the past neither sought to increase disclosures when the sub prime crisis started and  proposal takes this on the american consumer cannot wait while the bureaucracies slow to move before further delays and equivocates on what must be done now what must be done are simple straightforward disclosure of the most basic loan terms rate payment new rate new payment penalties and guarantees these are basic consumer protections that i expect will help prevent a few your home loan crisis of north dakota this present i know that the subject is housing and we will have a fair amount of discussion about the legislation on the floor of the senate today tomorrow and later this week when we begin voting to start just for a moment by talking about what got us into this mess because it seems to me of what we're doing at the moment is trying to evaluate what we do with the with the difficulties that exist and  difficulties that confront us and don't deal with the underlying cause we will have missed something very important now the other day i came to the floor and i talked about what was happening in the mortgage industry and what was happening of course was  amount of greed unbelievable speculation and the result is this this lexicon of sub prime loans proliferate across the country and then it collapse that we have investment banks that are about to go have the federal reserve board commune with a safety net saying we'll have the american taxpayers bail out the investment banks all of this is going on while the federal reserve board that that did its best imitation of a potted plant for five or ten years on these issues began reducing interest rates and then anteing up thirty billion dollars so that the american taxpayer could inherit the risk so j p morgan could buy bear stearns all of this is occurred in recent months so what started it well a lot of things started but let me give you some examples this is from advertisement on radio and television is that it's from zoom credit and i don't know zoom credit company never heard of them but here's what they said when they advertise their services to unsuspecting buyers they said credit approval is just seconds away get on the fast track and zoom credit at the speed of light zoom credible pre approve you even if your credits in the tank zoom credits like money in the bank zoom credit specializes in credit repair debt consolidation bankruptcy slow credit no credit who cares and so that's what they were advertising let us give you a loan you've been bankrupt you can make your payments you've got bad credit come to zoom credits that sound like a business model makes sense to anybody not to me millennium mortgage don't know this company here's what they were advertising twelve months no mortgage payment that's right we'll give you the money to make your first twelve payments if you just call in the next seven days we pay it for you our loan program may reduce your current monthly payment by as much as fifty percent and allow you no payments for the first twelve months so they're saying come on get your home loan from us you don't have to make a payment for twelve months we'll make it for you but they didn't say is that all goes on the back of that loan and it's going to increase the price of that house countrywide this was the biggest mortgage company in america and now it's it's it's gone belly up so it's been acquired by bank of america countrywide here's what countrywide said you have less than perfect credit you have late mortgage payments if you've been denied by other lenders they call us america they're advertising on this one one quarter of one percent that's right twenty five have one percent interest rate a two hundred thousand dollar home loan a monthly payment of forty one dollars and sixty six cents you want to borrow half a million dollars pay one hundred four dollars and sixteen cents a month is that a business plan from a mortgage company doesn't look to me like it is this by the way i think came off the internet today the reason i mention it is nothing has changed they're still doing it this says first premier mortgage one hundred percent loans you get conforming loans will offer conforming loans a perfect credit by the way isn't retired or isn't risk is missing required so on the internet today you can even go to first premier mortgage perfect credit isn't required you've got less than perfect credit we've got loans that allow you to qualify for a competitive interest rate you can consolidate everything and so don't worry of the perfect credit is not required to borrow from this company this is florida mortgage corp this is monday april seventh two thousand and eight that's today go to the internet today here's what they tell you each month you receive a loan statement will we've got a thirty year fixed mortgage that's available to you thirty year fixed mortgage and by the way no income verification what's that mean says come to us borrow some money we'll give you a thirty year fixed mortgage you can pay up to two point seven five percent interest rate and by the way no income verification we want to verify your income to give you a big old fat home mortgage is that unbelievable not credit score driven this is on the internet day nothing is changing this is on the internet today as well option arm consultants dot com well they make this sound like this is a really terrific loan the mortgage even lower your mortgage payment by fifty percent or more a month you can control up to two or three times as much real estate as other fixed mortgages is saying hey come over here get a mortgage from us that way you can speculate on more real estate but none of these none of these have indicated to the borrower what the terms really are these are all seductive approaches that that say come and get a mortgage from us you don't need good credit you can have bad credit you can be bankrupt come in borrow money from us what they don't tell them is are going to throw all those extra charges on the back of that mortgage they don't tell them when it resets later they won't be able to pay the mortgage payment and so that's what's happened i think that i've heard the largest reset of mortgages going to occur in the fourth quarter of this year but what has happened is millions of families took out these mortgages were they wrong yes they were wrong but was the advertising for this deceptive i believe it was and so millions of families took out a mortgage without understanding the consequences of it they said come on get a mortgage from us twenty five hundreds of one percent interest rate we'll pay the payments for the first twelve months not describing to them of course what the reset is going to be on interest rates three years from now or two years from now so what happens well what happens is they stick these mortgages they call them sub prime and by the way one half of the folks have got put in sub prime qualified for regular mortgages why they get put in sub prime because it was much more profitable for the big investment banks in the mortgage banks and so what they did is they stuck all these sub prime loans together with other loans and they put them like that it's like you make sausage as i said it's like packing sawdust in sausage that they used to do in the old days it put some sawdust and sausage you gather you know slice them and dice them and then you ship mouths and you sell them to hedge funds and investment banks and everybody's fat and happy like cogs  of everybody's making lots of money especially the big shots until all of a sudden they understand that in these little pieces a sausage they bought they didn't understand what was there there were sub prime mortgages there that could never ever be repaid and the whole thing started collapsing and it collapsed to the point of bear stearns losing tens of billions of dollars of value in two weeks but not to worry this is a no fault the economy at least no fa capitalism for the folks at the top and so the fed comes in and says j p morgan you buy bear stearns and we'll put up thirty billion dollars and risk for the american taxpayer now i just want to ask this question of the federal reserve board of the treasury secretary if these companies are too big to fail and that was the proposition with respect to the bailout of bear stearns if investment banks are too big to fail then why are they too small to be regulated if we are going to designate companies as too big to fail is there not some responsibility some obligation on the part of the american taxpayer on behalf of the american taxpayer to have affected regulation i know regulations a four letter word for some but the fact is somebody should have been looking over the shoulder of these mortgage companies somebody should have been looking over the shoulder of the investment banks and yes the hedge funds all unregulated largely and as a result the tent comes collapsing down and guess what the american taxpayers told you pay the do you bear the burden and even while they're told that it goes on today go to the internet and see the deceptive advertising on the internet  same kind of loans so we have a housing bill on the floor the united states senate what i want to do is describe how we got here and if we don't do something about that if we just sit around here like potted plants and say well it's ok it's ok for us to decide that there are institutions that are too big to fail including investment banks so we can't let them go broke they're too big to fail because the consequences for the american economy would be catastrophic if these institutions are too big to fail then we have a reasonable expectation that there be effective regulation and i'm going to offer at least one amendment that deals with that subject and that amendment will deal with the federal trade commission fact is the federal trade commission does not have the ability at this point in any meaningful way to go after this kind of deceptive advertising on mortgages those that took these mortgages in some cases if they took them in order to flip the property and speculate it's their fault but in most cases and i would say especially many and most cases these are folks that didn't know what the terms were these were cold calls by a telephone call into the home to say what's your mortgage payment we've got a better deal for you without disclosing all of the terms those homeowners are victims and many are now losing their homes my amendment will give the authority to the federal trade commission commission to do a rulemaking under the administrat practices act so that they can develop rules about deceptive advertising and take effective an immediate action against those that are engaged in this practice that's just something that must be done if we just come to the floor of the united states senate and pass what is called a quote housing bill unquote and ignore the other pieces of this puzzle and we will have made a very big mistake we need to give the federal trade commission the capability and the opportunity to go after the companies that were engaged in deceptive practices predatory lending we have to do that now mr president i want to mention as well my understanding is another amendment has been noticed and another memorably offered on the floor of the senate  to this bill dealing with the extension of renewable energy credits the production tax credit for example or the solar investment tax credit i just want to say this that a mammoth that's going to be offered apparently is a one year extension  production tax credit to incentivize wind energy let me tell you what we did with with the oil and gas in one hundred sixteen this country put in place robust aggressive permanent long term tax incentives for people to go look for oil and gas well look what it did we produced a lot of oil and gas guess what we've done for renewables wind solar and others in one thousand nine hundred two we had a tax credit for renewables the production tax credit solar investment we've extended it short term five times we've let it expire three times and every time it expires investment simply drives up this is wind energy this is a starter start stop doesn't make any sense at all and look i will vote for anything that extends the production tax credit and we do all renewable energy tax credits for a year or two years but the one year amendment look i'll vote for it but that's not what we should be doing i've introduced an amendment that's as a country say to the renewable energy industry here's where we're headed count on it invest on it for the next ten years here's what we intend to and set of eyes why don't we just stutter step around with a baby step in one direction saying start stop start stop go this way with a one year extension the production tax credits well that'll help for one year but that's not what we ought to be doing and it'll do nothing for solar by the way we are way behind on solar energy because the solar projects take longer to develop three five years and if you had this on off switch turn on and off every year to all you have done is dampen and injure the opportunity to really make renewable energy a significant part of this country's energy life so my hope is those who have announced the extension of i want to work with them but i'm just saying i think that what we have done since one thousand nine hundred two is a pathetic a neat response for a country that keeps saying it believes in renewable energy but never does nuff to manifest that in public policy and if we're going to have an amendment on this that's boost that amendment and let's decide to make this a real incentive we did it permanently nearly a century ago for oil and gas and now in the last three decades for renewable we've turned it on five times short term off three times what kind of a signal event it's not a signal mr president on and one other subject i to say a word about something i discussed last week and i want to show you the photograph of a twenty three year old excuse me a twenty two year old young man his name is efraim differently he's the c yes he's the president of a firm that was awarded three hundred million dollars in taxpayer contracts to provide weapons to the afghan fighters in afghanistan our department our our state department our military said the american taxpayer shall pay for weapons to be given to the afghanis the fighters in afghanistan well that's probably not the bait but one i think most people would say if they're fighting for freedom in afghanistan let's help them so we're going to help them providing by providing guns and bullets and other kinds of weapons and aid a contract is given to a company in miami florida that had been a shell company for some years three hundred million dollars was given to that company turns out the company is run by a twenty two year old man named ephram devore raleigh and by the way his vice president was a massage therapist named david packard who's a former miss sewer and between the two of them they got three hundred million dollars in taxpayer contracts i'll tell you who gave it to him the army sustainment commanded it and i want the general urge of the army sustainment command to come to the congress and explain do you give three hundred million dollars in contracts to what had been a shell company now run by a twenty two year old and a twenty five year old massage therapist who apparently has since quit the company and in exchange for being granted immunity will talk to investigators what did they do with the money well the afghan fighters and i've got some photographs of it that in fact i'm going to see if we get the photographs of what the what the product looks like that they provided the afghan fighters as i'm waiting for those charts this is the building in florida where the office of this company was it got three hundred million dollars three hundred million dollars there's there's the office just an office inside this building no markings on the door this twenty two year old president says he's the only employee at this point but they got three hundred million dollars now here's here's a sample of of what showed up from that three hundred million dollars they sent ammunition to the afghan fighters so often because three times i have offered on the floor of the senate an amendment and i will again that would establish a truman committee to investigate waste fraud and abuse in this kind of contracting we have shoveled more money out the door we've sent pallets of hundred dollar bills on c one thirty s eighteen billion dollars in cash to iraq we have such unbelievable waste and fraud and abuse that the greatest in american history and yet there is nothing that represents the kind of oversight that the american people should expect of us three times i have offered the establishment of a truman committee let me describe what the truman committee was franklin delano roosevelt was in the white house at the time senator truman from missouri on the floor of the senate he proposed a bipartisan select committee to investigate waste fraud and abuse in the pentagon and it passed they did sixty hearings a year for seven seven years they were started with fifteen thousand dollars appropriations and they saved fifteen billion dollars for the american taxpayer if ever we need that kind of a committee it is now three times i have offered that on the floor of the senate three times every vote on the democratic side of the aisle has been to say yes we needed every vote save one on the republican side of the aisle objected and opposed and we have not been able to get this done i use this example because it was on the front page of the new york times research just last week about it a company that gets three hundred million dollars that appears now to have been completely wasted american taxpayers dollars once again just poured down a rat hole i used this example to say we ought to be embarrassed to not have the kind of oversight that we should and i'm proud to say that everyone on this side of the aisle has voted three times to establish a select bipartisan committee called the truman committee we know this works we've done it before i've held up on the floor so many examples of little white tile that halliburton was ordering for the troops  subsidiary kellogg brown and root embroidered on the tile henry says well that will triple or quadruple the cost supervisors it doesn't matter it's a cost plus contract the taxpayer will pay for that i mean that's a small example and there are so many large examples whistleblowers have told us that eighty five thousand dollar brand new trucks are left beside the road to be torched because they didn't have a wrench to fix a flat tire on matter the american taxpayer bought those trucks and they'll buy the replacement trucks on a cost plus contracts it is unbelievable a woman a bun a teen greenhouse came to testify before the policy committee which i chair and i held almost all of the hearings that have been held on these issues the policy committee doesn't have subpoena power but you'd be surprised at how many whistleblowers want to talk about what's happening but a teen greenhouse became the highest ranking civilian official in the corps of engineers judged to be outstanding b she said the awarding of these contracts in the pentagon for reconstruction the log cabin contract the real contract all of these contracts is the most blatant contracting abuse she has seen in her career for that this courageous woman was demoted she paid for it with her job but she would not be silenced and now her career is behind a curtain over in the pentagon no one will comment it's under investigation this woman had the guts to come forward and describe this unbelievable waste fraud and abuse that's going on american people should not stand for this we should not stand for it and i intend again to offer the amendment that would establish a bipartisan committee to aggressively investigate happening i mean i've been speak for hours about this subject because i've i've had somewhere around fifteen or seventeen hearings on this subject i've had whistleblowers come to tell me that they were at a camp that was serving five thousand soldiers a day food under the contract but they were billing for ten thousand soldiers i've seen the reports that halliburton was billing for forty two thousand meals a day and they were serving fourteen they were over by twenty eight thousand meals it's just unbelievable when you see the evidence of waste fraud and abuse and so little interest in pursuing it mr president there is much more to say about this but i i did want to say that this story in the new york times yesterday ought to once again be a wake up call there is a commission that has been established which is the outside of this body and the senator from virginia senator webb and senator mccaskill and others have worked hard to establish the commission but and i think that is a step forward evaluating and looking at waste fraud abuse but that is not in my judgment a substitute for it certainly is a complement to but not a substitute for the congress having it select committee with subpoena power without subpoena power in a select committee to investigate things like a company getting two hundred million murs to rehabilitate one hundred forty clinics health clinics in iraq the money's gone are only twenty places that they've rehabilitated health clinics otherwise the money's all gone so what happen to the money we had testimony from a very courageous iraqi the other day who said eighteen billion dollars american money has disappeared at least disappeared within his eyesight because he was in charge of corruption anti corruption in the iraqi government he was in charge of the anti corruption unit in the iraqi government they tried to kill him three times he finally left because he said the corruption was so unbelievable and so he was so on able to stop it he said eighteen billion dollars of american taxpayers dollars he believes most of american taxpayers dollars has been wasted so this present i'm going to later this week speak at greater length about the waste fraud and abuse issue because we have to stop ignoring it we have to start confronting it that i would say my colleague senator reid has been very strong and very assertive in wanting to address this all of my colleagues on the democratic side have voted three times to establish the truman committee let me just mention one additional point three weeks ago i met a man named herman w is one of the great authors in american history he wrote the book the caine mutiny war and remember it's and he's i believe ninety one years old and he has unbelievable command of a lot of things i was so hundred forty five and back because i spent my life studying that history i was part of it in the military but he said i've written about of that's know everything about that period and he said you know what you ought to do in the congress i'm reading about all these things you ought to do something that establishes a truman committee have you ever heard of the truman committee i said mr look i have i've offered a memo to do just that three times and then we talked about what the truman committee had accomplished when a democratic president was in the white house and a democratic senator wanted to put together that kind of investigative committee people were concerned about it but fact is that got done and the american taxpayer was served this war in iraq has lasted longer than the second world war this amount of waste fraud and abuse is the greatest in the history of this country i'm convinced and we are near doing what we should divide the oversight and it's not the fault of this side of the aisle not the fault of the majority leader he has been aggressive and so have we  so the senate working here this week on this home mortgage foreclosure bill it would aim to slow home foreclosures and stimulate housing sales democrats republicans are alternating on amendments and the leaders we're told are working off the floor to come to an agreement over the number of amendments if they can agree then they'll be a vote tomorrow on limiting debate and amendments on this package which could end up taking the rest or most of the week once they're completed with this the senator's plan to begin dealing with a bill that would  deal with public lands parks and wilderness areas the house not in session today when they meet tomorrow a number of bills dealing with health research and treatment legislative work tomorrow beginning at two eastern and we have live coverage always of the house on c span or once again stands logic on its head they have announced that they would continue putting oil into the strategic petroleum reserve underground either putting about seventy thousand barrels of oil underground right now at a time when one hundred one hundred ten dollars a barrel they are busy putting seventy thousand barrels a day underground it just it just makes no sense at all the strategic petroleum reserve which is where we store underground that for that mount of oil that we want to use  in an emergency we want to save for an emergency it is ninety seven percent full so the strategic reserve is ninety seven percent filled at a time when oil is at a record high this administration is taking sweet light crude oil which is a subset of oil and the most valuable subset of oil and putting seventy thousand barrels of oil a day underground and they have just announced that beginning in august of this year they will continue to do that and we know that in addition to that they want to increase almost double that to be around one hundred twenty thousand barrels a day underground for the second half of the year because they're going to use some five hundred million dollars that they had received when they sold reserves because of supply disruption caused by hurricane katrina so here's where we are we've got oil prices that are like a roman candle just going right through the roof and instead of doing things that would put downward pressure on  gas prices the administration is taking o l as royalty and kind of oil payment off of the gulf of mexico oil wells and sticking it underground in the reserve and taking it out of the supply i mean that absolutely makes no no sense at all know i followed a car once down a road in north dakota an old beat up car with a back bumper kind of hanging by just one engine and he had a bumper sticker and the bumper sticker said we fought the gas war and gas won and i thought well that's not too unusual i mean the other side always wins but at least this administration this congress ought to insist that we not put oil underground and stick oil in the reserve when it's ninety seven percent full and we have to pay one hundred ten dollars a barrel for and you take oil out of supply which puts upward pressure on gas prices i mean i don't understand who's advising them but whoever it is i hope perhaps they could find someone with a little deeper reservoir of good judgment and just for the moment suspend putting oil underground in the reserves i have a piece of legislation i've been reduced that does the following would suspend immediately the putting of oil underground in the reserve unless all comes back below seventy five dollars a barrel but as long as it's over seventy five dollars a barrel and the spro is ninety seven percent full that's at least stand up on the side of the the average family out there that is trying to figure out how to get a bank loan to fill their gas tank let's at least see if we can do something to put downward pressure on gas prices rather than allow the administration to announce on friday they wan continue to put upward pressure on gas prices now the secretary of energy says well this doesn't matter much this is just a small amount it's seventy thousand barrels a day what he doesn't understand i think is it's a sub said this is this is sweet light crude the most valuable subset of oil we've had testimony before the senate energy committee that clearly this is putting upward pressure on gas prices we don't know how much one one expert said ten percent but but why should we sit idly by and have the administration pursue a policy of taking all off the market and putting it underground especially sweet like crude there's not a debate about whether it increases gas prices it does the debate is simply how much does it increase gasoline prices and why should we have anyone in this town busy doing things that increase gas prices about standing up for the driver have to stand up for ordinary families for a change so i just to i wanted to say that i noted the press release put out by the oil industry not the oil industry put out by the energy department as a matter of policy they are wrong dead wrong and one way or another going to deal with this i chair the subcommittee that funds the department of energy and i'll have a chance as chairman to write the chairman's mark and that will be a couple of months from now but i'm glad i fully intend to deal with this in that chairman's mark but i hope before then we can stop seventy thousand barrels of oil a day from going underground so we're waiting for senate to come back to the floor here and continue their work on this bill that deals with the home mortgage foreclosures we expect work to continue through much of the week and once this measure is completed the senators might begin work on a bill that deals with public lands parks wilderness areas areas like that the house not in session today they're back tomorrow with a number of bills dealing with health research and treatment we have legislative work in the house beginning at two o'clock tomorrow and our coverage on c span begins then five thirty this afternoon on c span our companion network we have a live live program from the american enterprise institute dealing with the death penalty and we'll hear from danny bonaduce who is the u s judge on the u s of appeals for the sixth circuit so that's five thirty eastern time on c span