Political Quotes

“I rise to further discuss the reasons for my votes against two amendments relating to credit rating agencies, amendment No. 3991 creating a new credit rating agency board and amendment No. 3774 which eliminates references to requiring credit ratings from certain financial laws. First, I want to emphasize that I agree with my colleagues that erroneous credit ratings on asset backed securities played a central role in the financial crisis and that we need to improve the regulation of credit ratings. Credit rating agency reform is an extremely important area of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 passed by the Banking Committee. It has 40 pages of carefully constructed credit rating reforms to improve regulation, transparency and accountability. Let me highlight some of these strong provisions, as they would improve the SEC, reform rating agencies and empower investors. The SEC will have a new Office of Credit Ratings to regulate and promote accuracy in ratings, staffed with experts in structured, corporate and municipal debt finance. The office's own examination staff will conduct annual inspections and the essential findings will be available to the public. The SEC will have expanded authority to suspend the registration of agencies that consistently produce ratings without integrity. The SEC will also have more authority to sanction ratings agencies that violate the law, including managers who fail to supervise employees.”