Angie Craig: “I will speak briefly to the Feingold- Brownback amendment. There is the illusion, or at least the concern, on the part…”

“I will speak briefly to the Feingold- Brownback amendment. There is the illusion, or at least the concern, on the part of some of our colleagues that the title we have before the Senate in S. 14 somehow creates a type of regulatory gap that I don't believe exists. The chairman of the committee, in his thoughtful processes that brought us to this amendment and the time he has spent working on it with staff, would agree it does not exist. Certainly Senator Feingold and others have reason to be concerned, as do I. My constituency, my ratepayers of Idaho, for a period of time spent a good deal more than they should have on their electrical costs because of the dysfunctional markets in the State of California. Those dysfunctional markets occurred with all of these laws in place that we are talking about now changing. What is most important to recognize is, those who misused the market are now suffering. Those who misused the market are now being prosecuted. Those who misused the market to line their pockets, I trust, are having their pockets stripped of ill-gotten gold. Why? Because our President has a Corporate Fraud Task Force, we have a little organization called the FBI, we have the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and, yes, even the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office that seek to look at and have found what they allegedly suggest is postal fraud.…”