David Vitter

Let me ask the other four Commissioners, without naming names of staff, do you know of such instances?

What are you going to do about those specific instances?

We do have a crisis of government and a crisis of leadership, as evidenced by this discussion and the leadership style of the Chairman.

We are in a time following the Japanese disaster, we are in one of the two most sensitive and important times regarding civilian nuclear safety in our lifetime.

The SEC did take action in June, and I thank you for that. It was very long in coming, going back to well before your tenure, but the SEC finally took positive concrete action.

I certainly share Senator Shelby's and others' concerns about this significant chance, rated at a 50-percent chance, that there will have to be a taxpayer bailout in the next year.

Should the unthinkable happen, I will do that. Should the unthinkable happen, I will deliver fresh, healthy gulf seafood to Senator Sessions' office as well as Senator Shelby's. We have been in contact with Senator Shelby's office and…

So again, I just want to be clear. When you talk about a total number of TARP repayment, this is not included.

I will speak for up to 10 minutes, but I would first defer to the Senator from Michigan for a unanimous consent agreement. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.

There were elements of Dodd-Frank which in my opinion pushed that sector in the wrong direction, further protecting or advantaging the GSEs.

I wanted to focus in my questions on the housing finance agencies and market and the need to bring reform there, including a return of the private capital and the private market into that now very Government-dominated sector.

If the Super Committee hits the minimum target only, they are going to be doing that by going after the low hanging fruit.

I think another factor is the CRA-type mandate Congress has put out there, which also has not changed.

It seems to me in the last decade the implicit guarantee by Fannie and Freddie was certainly closely related, a major or a significant cause of the decline in underwriting standards.

I'm going to be watching from my family room in Metairie, Louisiana, because I have a Saints game party there, and I'm absolutely going to be there for the big game.

It's our daily challenge to viewers. A chance to show up our staffers by coming up with a better caption for the photo that we post on our blog every day.

I think it simply adds a new category on the other end of the spectrum, which is too small to cope.

That is not true. It reduces the deficit. It doesn't balance the budget within the 10-year window, which is my strong preference--the Toomey budget does do that--but it gets us going in the right direction. It reduces the deficit, and it…

Well, first of all, I voted for that budget as well as the Toomey budget. The Toomey budget, which was my first choice and preference, balances the budget in 10 years. That would be my first choice. The Ryan budget gets us way down the…

Will the Chair inform me when I have consumed 12 minutes? The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Yes.

I think that equation needs to be flipped over. I think that the public should be in the driver's seat.

The commission recommended that Congress dedicate for this purpose 80 percent of the Clean Water Act penalties, as Senator Vitter mentioned earlier in his discussion of legislation.

Our citizens have already been victimized. Our economy has been victimized.

The impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill come, as I mentioned, on top of longer-term degradation of important habitats and resources of the Northern Gulf of Mexico.

I think I represent all Gulf States in saying that we strongly support the recommendations of the National Oil Spill Commission.