Bob Menendez

So that means that every borrower---- has to first have counseling before they could ever----

Let me ask, most of reverse mortgage loans are HECM loans, and the insurance provided by FHA on these loans protects lenders from losses.

Some are concerned with vesting too much authority with FHA by granting them the ability to make program changes via Mortgagee Letter in lieu of regulations. I do not share this concern.

The bottom line from my perspective and where I come from--certainly for the people of my State of New Jersey--is about protecting seniors.

I introduced S.469, allowing the FHA to implement much needed reforms, give them the authority via Mortgage Letter to reduce the amount of money borrowed to sustainable levels.

Yet in your testimony, while you support counseling, you also said counseling is not enough to protect seniors.

It is an important financing tool for seniors and clearly, in my view, is a good program.

I can assure you, something is going to happen here.

The time for granting the benefit of the doubt has passed, and workers have paid for U.S. patience with their lives.

Either get your act together and establish standards or find yourself with standards you may not care for.

The administration must act to withdraw or limit Bangladesh's GSP benefits until the government has taken meaningful, concrete, and measurable steps to ensure its workers can exercise their internationally recognized labor rights.

This hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will come to order.

I want to see a Trade Representative who, at the end of the day, is going to stand up for U.S. intellectual property rights worldwide.

Well, my concern is, it has been 6 years. Six years. Maybe had we acted, we would not have seen those people die, because standards would have been raised, conditions would have been improved, labor rights would have been observed.

How many more lives have to be lost before we act?

I do not mind piling on as it relates to India, because they are piling on U.S. companies as it relates to their intellectual property rights.

If we create, through the intellectual capacity of our Nation, products, and then they can be subverted worldwide, it is really an undermining of a significant part of our economy.

If countries see no consequences and begin to emulate India's actions on our most innovative sectors, we face serious problems.

The Jersey Shore is far too precious and important to allow oil-crazed speculators to set-up shop along our coast.

Well, that is diplomatic speak for you will not give me a direct answer that you need more money.

We can no longer abide an Iran that continues to amass or otherwise access financial resources to pursue one of the most destabilizing nuclear programs in the world.

I want to know--you know, obviously this whole purpose of reduction is to get to a certain point, which is to change the regime's calculation.

As I know that you know, I have been in the center of the focus on this issue, and we have had tremendous support from all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Come July 1st, any foreign financial institution that does business with any one of those entities risks being cut off from the United States.

I just hope--and I will be watching--to see that what you and I might describe as 'significant reduction' is in harmony versus a reduction that is to some degree a reduction, but it is not what we need to do in order to achieve our…