I thank the Senator from North Carolina for her leadership. These are truly the bottom feeders of the credit industry in America.

I wish to thank the Senator from North Carolina for her leadership on this issue involving title loans and payday loans. I know she led the fight in her home State of North Carolina before she came here to the Senate. I wish to ask the…

So I further ask, through the Chair, the Senator from North Carolina is saying, if we want to protect military families from this outrageous conduct by these lenders, then should not we protect all American families who might be in similar…

I am happy to come to the Senate floor and join in support of the Cardin-Lugar amendment. I am an original cosponsor along with Senators Feingold, Whitehouse, and others. It is very straightforward, as Senator Lugar explained, and Senator…

Human rights protections from law enforcement abuses are embedded in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

It is logical to begin our oversight with Mexico and Colombia, which have received the bulk of U.S. rule of law assistance.

The insatiable demand for illegal drugs in the United States keeps the drug cartels in business.

This is the first Congressional hearing to focus specifically on U.S. rule of law assistance to foreign drug enforcement efforts.

I think it is disingenuous of this Committee, and perhaps of Congress, maybe the American people, to stand in critical judgment of the situations in Mexico and Colombia without first conceding that our own failure when it comes to drug…

Given the substantial assistance our Government has provided to the Colombian military, I think we have a special responsibility to ensure perpetrators of human rights violations are brought to justice.

We have a special responsibility not just to stand in criticism of what is happening in those countries but to acknowledge our own shortcomings and failures.

before we stand in criticism or in judgment of Mexico, we must accept judgment on ourselves.

This amendment relates to the fees charged by credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard to the retailers and businesses that accept the credit cards. So if you are a customer of a shop and you purchase something, you present a…

I urge my colleagues, if they are listening to small businesses across America, struggling to survive, trying to add new employees, give them a helping hand by voting for the Durbin amendment so they can have reasonable charges for the use…

This amendment does the following things: It directs the Federal Reserve to ensure that debit fees on debit cards are reasonable and proportional to processing costs; it stops Visa and MasterCard from imposing any competitive restrictions…

I have an amendment which has been filed and is at the desk, and a modification of that amendment, which I wish to explain for a moment. It is an amendment related to interchange fees. Interchange fees are the fees charged to commercial…

America was alarmed to learn that Times Square was closed for business because of the potential of a bomb threat. A vehicle was discovered with smoke coming out of it. Some alert people on the sidewalks and vendors called it to the…

When we wrote the health care reform bill, we relied on the best experts we could find. We were dealing with one-sixth of the American economy, which is the sum total of the cost of health care in our Nation, and we did our very best to…

childhood obesity is a growing concern in the U.S. and I am pleased that the President and First Lady have decided to tackle this issue with the goal of solving the problem in a generation. Today, one in three children is overweight or…

I wish to join my colleague from the State of Oregon in speaking on behalf of nurses across America. We know that with the baby boom generation, we are going to need more nurses than ever, and with these nurses, we will have the…

There was a time not that long ago--about a year and a half ago-- when, under the previous President, I was brought into a meeting just a few steps away from the Senate floor with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, and the…

The bill we have before us here--that Senator Dodd and the Banking Committee brought forward--has the strongest consumer financial protection law in the history of the United States. It has an agency with independent authority to protect…

Is it not true that last week, on three different occasions, the Republicans filibustered this bill to stop us from even starting the debate on this bill, and it was only when we reached the point after the Goldman Sachs hearing--when…

Now that we have been through this experience where we have lost $17 trillion in American value in this economy--$17 trillion accounted for in the savings accounts of ordinary Americans in Illinois and Oregon, $17 trillion in businesses…

this May 7 is National Public Gardens Day, a day for us to celebrate the important role public gardens play in our communities and throughout our Nation. Across this great country, more than 500 public gardens are keeping our Nation…