A couple votes coming up including one for President Trumps nominee for the National CreditUnion Administration board. You are watching live Senate Coverage here on cspan2. The presiding officer the senate will come to order. A senator madam president . The presidin officer senator from kentucky. Paul palm i ask that the folling be granted floor privileges, calem case, lucy, carlin gupta, and gab brie ella mastra. Thpresiding officer without objection. Under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired. The question is on the nomination. Is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote . Hearing none, the yeas are 58, the nays are 35. The notion nomination is confirmed. Under the prious order, the motion to reconsid be considered made and laid upon the table and the predent will be immediately notified of the senates action. A senator madam president . The presiding officer the senator from north dakota. Mr. Thune i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived. The presiding officer without objection. The clerk will report the motion to invok cloture. The clerk cloture motion , the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisns of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, dhereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination o Kyl Hauptmann of maine to be a member of the National Credit union administrati board, signed by 17enators. The presiding officer by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. The question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of Kyl Hauptmann of maine to be a member of the National CreditUnion Administration board should be brought it the a close. To a close. The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. Te s vote are there any senators wishing to vote or change their vote . Seeing none, the yeas are 56, the nays are 37. The motion is agreed to. The clerk will report the nomination. The clerk nomination, nional credit Union Administration, Kyle Hauptman of maine to be a member. Mr. Tton madam president. The presiding officer the senator from arkansas. Mr. Cotton the senate has just voted to conclude debate on the nomination of Kyle Hauptman to be on the board of the National CreditUnion Administration. We will soon confirm him. This is a happy moment for kyle and his family and the country but for me i have to confess its a bittersweet moment. Thats because kyle isnt only a nominee to a federal board, in my view, he is my trusted economic advisor, he is a staff director for me on the Economic Policy subcommittee of the Senate Banking committee and he is a good friend. So i voted to confirm kyle with enthusiasm. My enthusiasm is mixed with addness to see a sadness to see a close and trusted aide go. It is americas gain. The ncua and millions of people who rely on Credit Unions will be well served by kyle who brings a collegial spirit and rare knowledge of Financial Markets. His expertise comes from years of work from wall street where he focused on the same money markets where Credit Unions obtain their financing. Unless anyone think that kyle doesnt understand what struggling American Families can face, as an analyst on the asia desk at lehman brothers, kyle lost his job and savings during the financial crisis. Which means he has a deep and gutlevel understanding about how decisions made by bankers and bureaucrats has serious consequences for everyone else. He has put this knowledge of the Banking System and its implications to good use. He has shepherded legislation through congress on topics as wide ranging as Consumer Fraud and block changing. A Money Laundering bill that kyle and i worked on for months that it will pass in this congress before the years through. That is not all aisle accomplished. As the Top Committee aide, he has worked diligently to hold hearings and work compromises with other staff members. He is a friendly, if fasttalking guy, always ready a joke and smile and his congeniality helped to smooth over many partisan spats so the business of the American People can move forward. As important, kyle has served as a valuable liaison between me and Credit Unions in arkansas and surrounding states. Most Credit Unions in arkansas are very small with maybe millions of dollars under management, not billions of dollars. But what our Credit Unions lack in size they make up for in their mission. They exist by keeping their money safe, providing credit at rental rates of return. So while our credit union may not always manage vast fortunes, they do manage vast dreams. They safeguard the savings and extend opportunity to a Customer Base in arkansas that looks an awful lot like the rest of america. Disets have used Senior Citizens have used it for many years. He is well acquainted with Credit Unions, but you dont have to take my word for it. Listen to the Arkansas Credit Union association which submitted a letter in support of kyles nomination. I will quote at length. This is from the groups executive director. On behalf of the Arkansas Credit Union association, ill say that we probably feel the same way you do. That hell be difficult to replace but the ncua is lucky to have him. Ive gone to washington for a couple of decades on behalf of arkansas Credit Unions which are mostly small. Our largest credit union has just over 100 billion in assets which is considered small even by Community Bank standards. The rest are much smaller where you can count on the one hand the number of a. T. M. s they have. I encountered a lot of congressional staffers. Kyle is the best i have dealt with. International financial firms, you might think he may not understand the needs of our members who are mostly low or moderate income families, yet its quite the opposite. He has gone above and beyond to listen and respond quickly and empathize with our concerns. His knowledge of Financial Markets is an asset, not a liability. Im aware that ncua board homes are not like senate staffers, ill no longer be a constituent but rather someone working for the institutions kyle will be regulating. I think you will agree hell continue to be fair, professional and serious about his work. Madam president , i can tell you i very much do agree with every word of that letter and similar letters we have received about kyle and his work on behalf of arkansans. Washington can sometimes be a confusing place so kyles insistence on keeping our arkansans in the loop has been a great blessing to many of the people we serve. I remember the countless emails from Small Business owners praising kyle for his help in understanding and receiving assistance through the cares act in march in april and may at the height of the danger and the uncertainty about the coronavirus pandemic. That was all of kyle and im confident he will bring the same customer mentality to his work at the ncua. That is because kyle is driven by a sense of mission, to help his fellow americans achieve their financial goals and the american dream. That dream is based on freedom. Alongside his hero, the great apostle of opportunity, jack kemp, kyle know there are no limits to what free men and women and Free Enterprise and free society can accomplish where men and women are free to follow their dreams. Credit unions allow millions of measures to follow their dreams. So while im sad to say farewell to kyle as a trusted aide, ill take constellation in the fact that hes going to serve our fellow americans in the cause of freedom and i know that hell serve them well. Thank you, kyle. Godspeed. I yield the floor. And i note the absence of a orum. The presiding officer the clerk will calthe roll. Quorum call quorum call quorum call mr. Toomey madam president. The presiding officer the senator from pennsylvania. Mr. Toomey madam president , i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be suspended. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Toomey thank you, madam president. Madam president , i ask unanimous consent that brett doyle, a member of my staff and the congressional oversight commission, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the congress. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Toomey thank you very much, madam president. Madam president , i rise this afternoon because while we were away for our thanksgiving break, there were some very important developments on an important piece of legislation that we passed earlier this year, the cares act, and specifically what i am referring to is the decision that was made by the treasury secretary, secretary mnuchin, to not extend the 13 free lending facilities that we dramatically expanded in the cares act. By way of reminder, let me just summarize these facilities. When the economy first began to close down back in march and april, one of the things that started to happen was a collapse of our credit markets. Ill get into that in a little bit. In response to that, we in Congress Passed the cares act which, among other things, appropriated just under half a trillion dollars, 500 billion, for the fed im sorry. For the treasury to use to capitalize specialpurpose vehicles which would be set up as entities from which the Federal Reserve would lend money. Buy securities, provide liquidity to the marketplace. Those were scheduled to end, those facilities by the end of the year, and in keeping with the written statute and certainly the intent of congress, secretary mnuchin announced that these programs will, in fact, end as they are supposed to. I commend him for making the right decision, and i commend chairman powell for agreeing to a subsequent request from the treasury secretary to return the unused money. As it happened, the program, the concept worked so well that the mere announcement and the mere creation of the capability of the on the part of the fed to provide this liquidity was enough to restore functioning Capital Markets. So it was an extraordinary amount of trust that we put in both treasury secretary mnuchin and chairman powell, giving them extremely powerful, unprecedented emergency and temporary tools, and i commend them both for working together with those tools for achieving the intended purpose, and for putting them away once the purpose had been achieved. Now, some of our democratic colleagues have been extremely critical of this decision on the part of secretary mnuchin not to extend these programs, and so i want to address some of the arguments and why secretary mnuchin, in fact, did exactly the right thing. And lets go back and take a hard look at what we were facing in march of 2000. Unprecedented turmoil in the credit markets that were threatening the ability of virtually every business, state, and municipality in america to obtain credit. A real threat to the financial plumbing, so to speak, of our entire economy. Credit markets were on the verge of shutting down. There was a mass flight of investors out of any kind of financial instrument and into cash. People were trying to sell everything they had. Prices were dropping like in a freefall. In many instances, there was no buyer. There was no price at which one could sell an investment. Of course, that meant that a borrower couldnt sell a bond, couldnt issue commercial paper. This was the freezeup in our Financial Markets that we were right on the verge of. And very desperately afraid that if this happened, if our Financial Markets came to a grinding halt and you could neither borrow nor lend, either in the Capital Markets or in the private lending markets of banks, then that would almost assuredly accelerate the downward spiral of our economy and could lead to even a severe depression that could last potentially a very long time. You dont have to take my word for it. A very wellstated summary of what was happening was from the Financial Stability director. So a Senior Executive at the Federal Reserve who in his testimony before the congressional oversight committee, heres what he had to say and i quote. The conditions that prevail during march were unprecedented, far worse than during the onset of the financial crisis in late 2008 or even in the days after 9 11 when the Municipal Bond market was briefly closed. Interest rates soared, Mutual Fund Investors pooled over 41 billion of assets out of the markets in less than three weeks and market functioning deteriorated to the point that buyers and sellers had difficulty determining prices. Ultimately this meant that state and local governments were effectively unable to borrow with most new issues canceled for lack of investor demand. Madam president , that was the problem that congress was seeking to address. A complete freezing up of our Capital Markets, the inability to borrow or lend. That is the lifeblood of business, which is the source of employment in this country. If we hadnt done anything at that moment, who knows how many millions more americans would have lost their jobs, how many more millions of businesses would have gone under. The economic devastation is very, very hard to imagine had we not done anything. Fortunately we did do something. Congress decided that that problem could be fixed by providing enough liquidity until the crisis passed. Wed make sure that operations of this liquidity exercise would extend no later than the end of 2020 and thats what we did in the cares act. And just last week every republican member of the Senate Banking committee sent a letter to secretary mnuchin and secretary powell reaffirming that that was congresss intent, a shortterm temporary facility to restore functioning private markets. Well, i am pleased to be able to report that these emergency facilities absolutely achieve the intended purpose, again, the purpose to stabilize our credit markets, restore the normal flow of credit to borrowers and allow private capital to resume funding our economy. It worked better than we hoped. Markets didnt just improve. We didnt just see liquidity return, we saw record volumes of new debt issuance, Municipal Bonds, highyield corporate bonds, volumes were off the chart in response to these facilities, credit spreads at which these instruments were issued were very tight, Interest Rates are near record low. On the banking side, regional banks are reporting that their commercial borrowers drew down lines of credit so they would have the cash they need to get through a very difficult period. In fact, many of them have been able to start paying that cash back. And according to various surveys of businesses across america, unmet demand for credit among creditworthy borrowers is almost nonexistent. In other words, creditworthy corporate borrowingers, if borrowers, if their credit is strong, they are able to access the facilities they need, the credit they need. Thats exactly what we hoped would happen by virtue of setting up these facilities. Despite that, some have said that we cant end these facilities, they are called the 133 facilities because that is a section of existing law under which the fed is authorized to conduct activities. They suggest you cant end these because the markets depend on them for their normal smooth functioning, the markets now depend on these facilities. That is what we were told, madam president , as a reason why the treasury had to extend these, presumably indefinitely, but in fact what we saw proved that the naysayers were completely wrong. In fact, it was on november 19 that secretary mnuchin announced he would not extend these programs and how did these Financial Markets respond . With a yawn. There was no adverse developments whatsoever. They continued their smooth liquid functioning because by november 19, in fact many months prior to november 19, the markets had recovered on their own. They were functioning on their own. They were no longer in need of this fallback facility that we created because we did need it back in march. Equity markets hit alltime record highs, municipal debt and corporate debt, volumes very high, yields low, the markets functioning very, very smoothly. So clearly clearly those of us who when advocating that we actually follow the law and end these programs were right that the markets were not actually depending on them anymore. Other people said, well, you shouldnt end the 133 facilities for other reasons, i one of which was who knows what risks may be out there, what bad things might be on the horizon for our economy which would cause us to want to have these facilities. Madam president , thats a very bad reason for giving indefinite Lending Authority to the fed to make direct loans to businesses in america. First of all, theres never