Political Quotes

“earlier today, I voted against the interchange fee amendment, Senate amendment No. 392 offered by the junior Senator from Montana and I would like to explain why. Before I do that, I would like to acknowledge two important points about Senator Tester. First, I appreciate the fact that he made significant changes to his amendment in an attempt to reach a middle ground on this issue. And the concern he has for small community banks and credit unions is beyond question. Having said that, I did not reach the same conclusion he reached that we should delay the regulatory process with regard to interchange fees. Most of the concern raised has been expressed against the Federal Reserve's December 2010 draft interchange fee rulemaking. It was a draft proposal. Let me repeat that: it was a draft proposal. The Federal Reserve received 11,000 comments on the draft rulemaking. The final rulemaking, due any day and scheduled to take effect in July, will reflect those comments and suggestions. We need to let the regulatory process work. If the final rule doesn't work as Congress intended, we have a number of options to fix it, up to and including a congressional resolution of disapproval. If the Senate had approved the Tester amendment, it may have been ``fixing'' a problem that doesn't exist. The Federal Reserve's rulemaking was required by a provision contained in the Wall Street reform bill Congress passed last year.…”