outside order, apparently became comfortable with and never objected to the repo 105 transactions. and while lehman could never find a u.s. law firm to provide an opinion that treating the repo 105 transactions as a sale for accounting purposes legal, the british law firm, link ladders, provided an opinion letter under british law that they were sales and not merely financing agreements. and so lehman ran the transactions through its london subsidiary and used several foreign bank counterparties. mr. president, the s.e.c. and justice department should pursue a thorough investigation, both civil and criminal, to identify every last person who had knowledge that lehman was misleading the public about its troubled balance sheet. and that means everyone, from the lehman executive, to its board of directors, to its accounting firm, erns and young moreover, if the foreign bank counterparties who purchased the now-famous repoes 105, were accomplice knit the scheme, they should be held accountable as well. mr. president, it is high time that we return the rule of law to wall street, which has been seriously eroded by the deregulatory mind-set which captured our regulatory agencies over the past 30 years. a process which i described at length on my speech on the floor last thursday. we became enamored by the view that self-regulation was adequate, that rational self-interest would motivate counterparties to undertake stronger and better forms of due diligence than any regulator could exprf that market fundamental -- perform and that market fundamentalism would lead to the best outcomes for most people. transparency and vigorous oversights from outside accountants were supposed to keep our financial system credible and sound. the lure of deregulation, instead, led to the biggest financial crisis since 1929. and now we're learning, not surprisingly, that fraud and lawlessness were key ingredients in the collapse as well. since the fall of 2008, congress, the federal reserve, and the american taxpayer have had to step into the breech, at a direct cost -- only the direct cost -- of more than $1.5 trillion. because so many experts have said we had to save the system. but exactly what did we save? first, a system of overwhelming and concentrated financial power that has become dangerous. it caused the crisis of 2008 and 2009 and threatens to cause another major crisis if we do not enact fundamental reforms. only six u.s. banks control assets equal to 63% of the nation's gross domestic product. six u.s. banks control assets equal to 63% of the nation's gross domestic product. while oversight is splintered among various regulators who are often overmatched in assessing the weaknesses of these firm. second, a system in which the rule of law has been broken again, big banks get away with what has been extraordinarily bad behavior, would not be tolerated in the rest of society, such as the blatant mitch use by lehman. mr. president, what lesson must we take from the examiner's report on lehman and from other misleading examples of conduct on wall street. i see three. first, we must undo the damage done by decades of deregulation. that damage includes financial institutions that are too big to manage and too big to regulate. as former fdic chairman bill isakson called them, a wild west attitude on wall street and colossal failures by accountants and lawyers who misunderstand and disregard their role as gatekeepers. the rule of law depends in part on manageablely sized institutions, participants interesting in managing the law and gatekeepers more than a paycheck to they're clients. second, we must concentrate law enforcement and regulatory forces on restoring the rule of law on wall street. we must treat financial crimes with the same gravity as other crimes because the price of inaction and a failure to deter future misconduct is enormous. third, we must help regulators and other gatekeepers not only by demanding transparency but also by providing clear enforceable rules of the law -- rules of the road wherever possible. that includes studying conduct that may not be illegal now but that we should nonetheless consider banning or curtailing because it provides too ready a cover for real financial wrongdoing. the bottom line is that we need financial regulatory reform that's tough, far-reaching, and untainted by discredited claims about the efficacy of self-regulation. when senators leahy, grassley and i introduced the fraud enforcement and recovery act, fera, last year, our central objective was restoring the rule of law on wall street. we wanted to make certain that the department of justice and other law enforcement authorities had the resources they need to investigate and prosecute precisely the sort of fraudulent behavior allegedly engaged in by lehman brothers that we just learned about recently. we all understood that to restore the public faith in our financial markets and the rule of law, we must identify, prosecute, and send to prison the participants in those markets who broke the law. their fraudulent conduct has severely damaged our economy, caused devastating and sustained harm to countless hard-working americans, and contributed to the widespread view that wall street does not play by the same rules as main street. fera, signed into law in may, ensures that additional tools and resources will be provided to those charged with the enforcement of our nation's laws against financial fraud. since its passage, progress has been made, including the president's creation of an interagency financial fraud enforcement task force. but much more needs to be done. many have said we should not seek to punish anyone. as all of wall street information a delirium of profit making and almost no one foresaw the subprime crisis caused by the dramatic decline in housing values. but this is not about ret bas -- retribution, this is about addressing the continuum of behavior that took place, some of it fraudulent and illegal. and in the process, addressing what wall street and the legal and regulatory system underlying behavior have become. as part of that effort, we must ensure that the legal system tackles financial crimes with the same gravity as other crimes. when crimes happened in the past, as in the case of enron, when aided and abetted by among others, merrill lynch and others, not prevented by supposed gatekeepers at arthur andersen, there were criminal convictions. if individuals and entities broke the law in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis, such as lehman brothers, which allegedly deceived everyone including the new york fed and the s.e.c., there should be civil and criminal cases to hold them accountable. if we uncover bad behavior that was nevertheless lawful but that we cannot prove to be unlawful, as may be exemple tied by the reason -- exemplified by the recent report of actions by goldman accident is -- goldman sachs with respect to greece, we remembered punish them so that certain behavior cannot go unpunished again. this will not be easy. as the "wall street journal" said last week, give wall street a rule and it will find a loophole. this confirms what i heard december 9 of last year when i convened an oversight hearing on fera in the judiciary committee. s that hearing made clear, unraveling sophisticated financial fraud is an enormously complicated and resource intensive undertaking because the nature of both the conduct and the perpetrators. rob kazomi, head of the s.e.c.'s enforcement division, put is this way during the hearin hearing -- quote -- "white-collar crimes are distinguished from other crimes for the primary reason is that often people are plotting their defense at the same time they are committing their crime. they are smart people who understand they're crossing the line and so they are papering the record or having veiled or coded conversations that make it difficult to establish wrongdoing." in other words, wall street criminals not only possess enormous resources but also are sophisticated enough to cover their tracks as they go along, often with the help, perhaps unwittingly, of their lawyers and accountants. assistant attorney general lana brewer, kazami and assistant f.b.i. director kevin perkins all emphasized at the hearing the difficulty of prowfg these cases -- proving these cases from the historical record alone. the strongest cases come from the help of insiders, those who have firsthand knowledge of not only the conduct but also the motive and intent. that's why i've applauded the efforts of the s.e.c. and the d.o.j. to use both carrots and sticks to encourage those with knowledge to come forward. at the conclusion of the hearing in december, i was confident that our law enforcement agencies are intensely focused on bringing to justice those wrongdoers who brought our economy to the brink of collapse. going forward, we need to make sure that those agencies have the resources and the tools they need to complete their job. but we are fooling ourselves if we believe that our law enforcement efforts, no matter how vigorous and well-funded, are enough by themselves to prevent the types of destructive behavior perpetrated by today's too big, too powerful financial institutions on wall street. mr. president, i'm concerned that the revelation abouts lehman brothers are just -- revelations about lehman brothers are just the tip of the iceberg. we have no reason to believe that the conduct detailed last week is somehow isolated or unique. indeed, this sort of behavior is hardly novel. enron engaged in similar deceit with some of its assets. and while we don't have the benefit of examiner's report for the other firms with a business model like lehman's, law enforcement authorities should be well and away in conducting investigations as whether other use similar accounting gimmicks to hide dangerous risk from investors and the public. at the same time, there are reports that raise questions about whether goldman sachs and other firms may have failed to disclose material information about swaps with greece that allowed the country to effectiveleffectively mask the t of its debt just as it was joining the european monetary union, the e.m.u. we simply do not know whether fraud was involved. but these actions have kicked off a continent-wide controversy with ramifications for u.s. investors as well. in greece, the main transactions in question were called cross-currency swaps that exchanged cash flows denominated in one currency for cash flows denominated in another. in greece's case, these swaps were priced off-market, meaning that they didn't use prevailing market exchange rates. instead, these highly unorthodox transactions provided greece with a large upfront payment and an apparent reduction in debt which they then paid off through a period -- through periodic interest payments and finally a large balloon payment at the contract's maturity. in other words, goldman tax allegedly provided greece with a loan by another name. the story, however, does not end there. following these transactions, goldman sachs and other investment banks underwrote billions of euros in bonds for greece. the question being raised include whether some of these bond offering documents disclose the true nature of these swaps to investors and, if not, whether the failure to do so is material. these bonds were issued under greek law and there's nothing necessarily illegal about not disclosing this information to bond investors in europe. however, at least some of these bonds were likely sold to american investors so they may, therefore, still be subject to the applicable securities law. while qualified institutional investors, q.i.b.'s in the u.s. are able to purchase bonds like the ones issued by greece and other securities not registered with the s.e.c. under the securities act of 1933, the sale of these bonds would still be governed by other requirements of the law. specifically, they presumably would be subject to the prohibition against sales of securities to u.s. investors while deliberately withholding material adverse information. the point may not be so much what happened in greece but yet again the broader point that financial transactions must be transparent to the invested public and verified as such by outside auditors. a.i.g. failed in a large part due to its credit default swap exposure but no one knew until it was too late how much risk a.i.g. had taken upon itself. why do some on wall street resist transparency so? lehman could well share the answer. everyone will be listening. the less investors know, the better off for the firms which find themselves in the downward spiral. at least until the final reckoning. who's to blame for the state of affairs where major law firms conclude that hiding the truth is okay? well, there's plenty of blame to go around. as i've said previously, both congress and the regulators came to believe that self-interest was regulation enough. in the now immortal words of alan greenspan -- quote -- "those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself especially, are in a state of shock, disbelief." the time has come to get over the shock and get on with the work. what about the professionals, accountants and lawyers who are supposed to assure that their clients obey the law? indeed, they often claim that simply being -- by giving good advice to their clients, they're responsible for far more compliance with the law than our government investigators. that claim rings hollow, however, when these professionals now seem too often focused on helping their clients get around the law. expert like professor peter henning of wayne state university law school, looking at the report on the repo 105 transactions, are stunned that the accountant, ernst and young never seemed to be troubled in the least about it. of course, the fact that lehman executive was blowing a whistle on the practice in may 2008 did not change anything. attorney cause some discomfort in the ranks. while saying he was confident he could clear up the whistle-blowers' concerns, the lead partner with lehman and ernst and young wrote that the letter and off-balance accounting issues were adding stress to everyone. as professor heng notes one of the effects of sarbanes-oxley act was to empower the at ants to ensure that the transactions were counted properly. indeed it was my predecessor, then senator biden, who was the lead author of the provision requiring that the c.e.o. and c.f.o. attest to the accuracy of financial documents an statements. under the penalty of criminal sanction if they knowingly or willfully certified willfully false statements. i don't believe this is a failure of sarbanes-ox lymph a law is not a failure because some people violate it. i'm deeply disturbed that the apparent failure of some accounting professors to change their ways and undertake the profession's role as the first line of defense against accounting fraud. in a few years time since the enron related death of the accounting firm enron anderson, one might hope that technically correct is no longer a standard if the cumulative effect is misleading. apparently that standard as a singular defense is creeping back into the profession. the accountants and lawyers are not the only gatekeepers. it was hiding them from regulators thereby allowing it to delay rating downgrades that could increase its capital requirements. the reapo requirements to leverage from 17.3 to 15.4 for the first-quarter of 2008, according to the examiners report, it was bad enough that the s.e.c. focused on a misguided leverage when lehman's gross leverage ratio is much higher and indicative of it. the s.e.c.'s failure to uncover to forge the accounting provides a clear association of the lack of rigor of supervision of lehman and other investment banks. the s.e.c. in years past allowed the investment banks to increase their leverage ratios by permitting them to determine their own risk level. when that approach was taken, it should have been coupled with absolute transparency on the level of risk. what the lehman example shows is that increased leverage without the accountants and regulators an credit rating agencies insisting on transparency is yet another recipe for disaster. mr. president, last week's revelations about lehman brothers reinforce what i've been saying for some time, the volley of radical deregulations have given us financial institutions too big to fail, too big to manage and too big to regulate. if we have any hope of returning the rule of law to wall street, we need regulatory reform that addresses this central reality. as i said more than a year ago, and i quote -- "at the end of the day this is a test of whether we're have one justice system in this country or two. if we don't treat a wall street firm that defrauded investors of millions of dollars the same way we treat someone who sold -- stole $500 from a cash register, how can we expect our citizens to have faith in the rule of law? for our economy to work for all americans, investors must have confidence in the honest and open functioning of our financial markets. our markets can only flourish when americans again trust that they are fair, transparent and accountable to the law." end quote. the american people deserve no less. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. a senator: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: thank you, mr. president. before i speak to the top take brought me to the floor tonight, i want to acknowledge the president's remarks on the situation with lehman brothers and others on -- on wall street. i know that the senator's on a mission and nothing would make him happier, nor me happier, if the story of lehman brothers is a stories that told for the last time much less written. -- written for the last time. and i listened with great interest to the narrative that's now unfolding with that interest is also a sense of horror and outrage and anger that the senator carries. a crime is a crime as pointed out whether it's $500 from a cash register or literally the billions of dollars -- in fact, the trillions of dollars of net worth we've seen lost from the americans -- american families. so i want to commend the presiding officer for his leadership and i think you put it well when you pointed out if you're too big to exist -- excuse me, if you're too big to exist too bad. never again should this happen. so i wanted to acknowledge the presiding officer. let me turn to a topic that brought me to the floor tonight. i want to speak about a bill that's born from the four thinking ideas of our constituents. a bill that will help spur our nation's new energy economy and create jobs. to that end, i will introduce the solar united neighborhoods act or sun act. last year i began traveling across colorado as part after workforce tour to listen to coloradans and hear their innovative policy ideas to create jobs. these ongoing efforts not only make me proud to be a coloradan, but help he identify ways that the federal government can help or in some cases get out of the way in supporting economic development and investing in colorado. the s.u.n. act comes from directly visiting with coloradans and one of the several job creation proposals after i hosted an energy job summit in colorado. we brought together leading clean energy stakeholders from the world of business and public interest and government. many of our top elected officials were there including energy secretary steven chu, senator michael bennet and congressman perle. and they were there to urge job growth in the clean energy economy. further legislation was developed from the cre