Jeff Merkley

The SEC has failed the public on this issue and allowed this type of conflict of interest practice to continue, and I think it is absolutely unacceptable.

I think for you to unilaterally remove it from the rulemaking agenda was an egregious affront to these core issues of our Republic.

This is an issue that goes to the core of who we are as a country that people cannot spend your money on political speech without telling you how the hell they are spending it or that you as an owner have a full right to know how your…

This is one of the most direct examples of unacceptable Wall Street behavior where Congress took a very clear stand.

So here we have Hensarling leading the charge to privatize the gains and socialize the losses, stick the taxpayer once again.

I wanted to turn to the orderly liquidation authority and the effort to eliminate that. That was a bipartisan effort to say if a bank is in trouble, the shareholders should be at risk, the bond holders should be at risk, not the taxpayers.

There is a lot of conversation here about a liquidity crisis, so we might as well ask the question whether or not there is a liquidity crisis at all.

So here we have a lot of bubble talk about liquidity, but it is really an argument that they are trying to put forward to say let us deregulate the banks once again, let us forget the fact that the last time we did this it destroyed the…

I am delighted that this bill has gone forward and is where it is right now.

It is way past time to rectify the situation, and this bill has key language that puts us on track for several major projects related to that.

Aid is not charity, it is national security.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Let me just make the point here that, right now, across the country, citizens are so frustrated by this system that is rigged against them, from Citizens United on to the actions of the House and the Senate under current leadership.

Well, it sure is a wonderful thing to have so much good done for hard working American families by having fair practices in the financial markets, and sometimes that just seems to get lost in the conversation in this Committee, so I wanted…

It is a pretty phenomenal thing, that support for fairness in financial transactions have returned so much to hard working American families who were victims of predatory financial practices.

Today, we all have that place.

In my view, these are complementary, not competing, responsibilities.

CFPB has been a strong watchdog for consumers since it started just 5 years ago.

Every now and then, there is a shining example of people really sitting down in the room who might have had historic disagreements and working out a plan.

The longer fire season is based on the hotter and drier weather, which is a big contributor to those increasing costs.

We do not want a delay. But if there is a way to include an alternative without that delay, and apparently there may not be, but that would be our hope.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said that mining activities are incompatible with the high resource values of this bioregion.

We should absolutely stop fire-borrowing. It shuts down all the other components of the Forest Service when we have these high fire years.

I want to express appreciation for the increase in funding for Collaborative Landscape Restoration.

Outdoor recreation in Oregon accounts for $12.8 billion in consumer spending, $4 billion in wages and salaries, 141,000 direct Oregon jobs.