Jack Reed

Providing the State fiscal relief in the form of additional Federal fiscal year through disaster and CDBG funding...

I want to extend my sympathies to all my colleagues whose constituencies were affected by this storm...

All America, our hearts literally go out to them and to their representatives who are doing so much to help them.

I want to recognize obviously my colleague Senator Whitehouse, who has been such a powerful force.

Despite this damage, we know the outcome for our State could have been far worse had the storm followed a slightly different track.

Your leadership helped to prevent a large cut that was being proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives.

And that is something that we have had in the United States, but this is a new aspect for Basel III for the whole community.

We do not have any legal obligation. It is not a treaty.

Indeed, but one of the problems which I think we mentioned with Basel II was that banks were--they were categorized, but they were the ones who were essentially evaluating their capital status.

Senator Shelby was just as astute when Basel II was before the Committee.

One of the flaws with Basel II was that there was a great deal of reliance on internal risk models, that banks were essentially grading themselves on their capital.

Try to prioritize changes that are the least disruptive and the most effective, and that is always good advice.

I think what you have really exposed is the complexity of these issues, and there are not just one or two.

Are our markets still fair? Is everyone playing by the same set of rules?

Most of us consider American capital markets to be the best in the world.

I would like to be able to, with the concurrence of my colleague, Senator Crapo, do additional hearings.

But our marketplace has been evolving very quickly and it is not clear that our rules have kept up.

I think, again, just to say, this is an issue that will not go away.

One of the great powers that you wield is the power of informing consumers about choices they can make.

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Cordray, for your excellent work.

I think it makes sense.

I would like to thank Senator Reed for his work on the FSS Program.

The leadership of Senator Reed.

I will soon be introducing legislation to enhance the FSS Program as it exists today...

You have to provide people the ability to move up and move forward, and the FSS Program does it.