Jeff Merkley

This is about fundamental fairness, the idea that--it is exactly as you say.

I am not pleased to be able to introduce the Rebuilding Equity Act in order to try to capture this concept and see if we can take this forward in the Senate.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your testimony and, more importantly, your work on these many strategies to try to help address the challenge of refinancing, and particularly families underwater.

I appreciate that, that separate fund.

It is housing that brought us into this recession, and certainly, depending on how we manage it, it is either going to lengthen the time that we are in the economic ditch or it is going to help us find a path forward.

I am going to continue with a different question because I will be running out of time...

So here, we have homeowners who saw the Government respond vigorously and generously on helping major financial institutions, and little tweaks in the law could save a family $8,000.

I, quite frankly, was shocked by the numbers that you presented, that the monopoly strategy in HARP 2 results in the difference between--I think it was between $15,000 and $4,000 in refinancing.

I believe that the UDI rule is currently stalled at OMB. Any insights on how we can get that rule accomplished in order to have these benefits?

I am really hoping we can try to solve this problem because when patients are told, 'Well, we are partway through your cancer treatment, and we cannot get the drugs.'

I am working with some other folks to develop a bill, if necessary, to basically put a deadline on getting this rule accomplished.

It does seem like using a flawed design as a foundation for approving another device under 510(k) is something that we need to wrestle with.

Last, I wanted to raise the issue of drug shortages and drug scalping.

Maybe we should raise it in a hearing like this and shine a light on it?

Thank you, Professor, and I will not ask you more on this. I will just note that we have plenty of challenges with, for example, prepaid debit cards that then have all sorts of hidden fees.

We should add some investor protections, and we do require three different levels of information, depending on how much a company is raising.

It looked to me like a path, really, a paved path to predatory activity that would damage a lot of folks

There is a big sense in America that while CFTC fiddles, the American consumer is getting burned

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is with great pleasure that I welcome Dr. William Lambert from Oregon to our panel today.

The technology is available, and it is the right thing to do to protect public health.

There is no reason why almost all oil- and coal-fired plants can't comply with these new standards.

These standards which EPA has been instructed both by Congress and by the courts to produce will provide enormous health benefits for millions of Americans.

Sometimes we structure deals that continue to benefit really big investors and we miss opportunities to help out working families.

I thought, you know, here are all these families out there who have a chance to buy a home at historically low prices.

I want to renew my call to Mr. DeMarco to share his study.