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Congressional Daily Record
This section captures a formal floor step rather than a policy debate. It mentions legislation such as Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection relating to the withdrawal of the rule relating to "Truth in Lending (Regulation Z); Consumer Protections for Home Sales Financed Under Contracts for Deed"., members such as Jacklyn Sheryl Rosen.
Official title: LEGISLATIVE SESSION
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May 13, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextThe PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume legislative session.
The Senator from Nevada.
National Police Week
Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, this week marks National Police Week—a time for our Nation to honor the bravery, sacrifice, and service of the men and women in law enforcement, who work every single day to keep our communities safe. These heroes put their lives on the line to protect our communities.
Nevada, who serve every day with honor and integrity. Every day, they put on the uniform. They kiss their loved ones goodbye and head into situations that most of us hope we never ever have to face. Whether it is a major emergency or a domestic dispute or a routine traffic stop, they face danger every single day. They do it because they believe in service and because they believe in protecting others.
who left behind family, friends, colleagues, and the communities they served and helped to protect—heroes like Officer Jason Roscow, who served for 17 years, proudly, with the North Las Vegas Police Department and was tragically killed in the line of duty last year. Officer Roscow devoted his life to serving his fellow Americans—first in uniform for the U.S. Air Force and then for nearly two decades in law enforcement in Southern Nevada.
his fellow officers, and the entire North Las Vegas community that continues to mourn this tremendous loss.
Unfortunately, Officer Roscow is not alone. In Nevada and across the country, far too many officers have made the ultimate sacrifice to their communities. This week, every week, and every day, we honor their memory. We also honor the work that our officers do.
I want to let Nevada's law enforcement know one thing: I have your back. That means making sure law enforcement agencies have the funding, staffing, training, equipment, and mental health resources that you need to do your jobs safely and effectively. I have worked across party lines to deliver exactly that for Nevada.
to strengthen public safety and support local law enforcement. That funding included $1 million for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to procure equipment supporting search and rescue operations, to support patrols, and to support large-scale event security.
It included $3 million for Washoe County to acquire a mobile command intelligence vehicle to improve emergency response capabilities.
The bill also included more than $1 million for the city of Henderson to implement a domestic violence and sexual assault response program to better support victims and to improve public safety.
of our taxpayer dollars. Any time that we invest in fighting crime and keeping people safe, well, we are investing in ourselves, and we are investing in our communities.
because, right now, Donald Trump has proposed spending $1 billion of your taxpayer dollars—taxpayer money—on a new White House ballroom. Imagine that—$1 billion for one room that no one will go to except the President and his friends. Mr. President, $1 billion at a time when police departments across America are struggling with staffing shortages, recruitment challenges, retention issues, and the growing demands every day on officers.
Let me tell you, this $1 billion could do a whole lot to support our local law enforcement. Mr. President, $1 billion?
Hiring Program to help communities hire and train and retain more officers. Not only that, it could fund 2 years of the COPS Hiring Program and fully fund 2 years of the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program. Do you know what the Benefits Program is? It is to help support the families of the fallen officers and the officers who have been permanently disabled in the line of duty. It could fund 2 full years for the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program and, like I said, 2 years for the COPS Hiring Program.
There are a few other things that that $1 billion could do that is a lot better use than a ballroom for our public safety; $1 billion could also fund an entire year of the Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, which help our local law enforcement agencies combat violent crime, invest in crime prevention, support drug treatment programs, and strengthen public safety initiatives. These are actually investments that are keeping all of our communities safe everywhere—that are keeping all of you safe; that are keeping our officers safe.
That is why I am going to be doing a few things. I am going to be filing two amendments to the Republicans' reconciliation package that would redirect the $1 billion boondoggle of a ballroom. It would take that funding away from the White House ballroom and put it toward the programs that support law enforcement and public safety in our communities.
Remember that. With 2 years here, 2 years here, and another year here for funding for law enforcement safety, for survivors, and benefits, it matters.
give our police the resources that they need to stay safe. They are the ones who put their lives on the line to protect us,
and their safety should be a priority for all of us.
on both sides of the aisle, on solutions that support our police departments, the officers who serve, and their families because our first responders, our law enforcement run in when everyone is running out. They take that risk every day. They will never go to the ballroom. They need the help in our communities. It is the least we can do.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Lummis). Without objection, it is so ordered.
National Flood Insurance Program
Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, hurricane season is less than 3 weeks away—3 weeks—and we have to act to make flood insurance affordable again before it is too late.
Last year, thankfully, no hurricanes hit my State. Now, no hurricanes hitting my State is good news for everyone in my State but especially for homeowners who do not have flood insurance.
Insurance Program coverage because it is too expensive and too unreliable. So this is about making flood insurance affordable again.
Between 2022 and 2024, 70,000 people in Louisiana dropped coverage. And last year, another 52,000 did. Why? They need it. They are trying to be responsible. They are being priced out. And they are being priced out of flood protection by the rising costs of a post-Biden era flood insurance program. Under President Joe Biden, FEMA implemented Risk Rating 2.0 as a new risk assessment program, even though Congress never gave approval.
Now, look at this.
premiums so high they cannot afford them. They have got a certain amount of money to pay for their mortgage, their flood insurance premium, and their property and casualty.
but having to choose between paying their mortgage, the property and casualty, the flood insurance—oh, by the way, buying food and gasoline, health insurance, taking care of their children, as well as any kind of ancillary expenses.
Now, these are some expenses here. And you can see, after the implementation of Risk Rating 2.0 to Calcasieu Parish, which is in the southwest portion of my State, Property 1 would have almost a $12,000 a year risk of insurance. They would try and decrease their risk of flooding. That is premitigation, before they decrease their risk of flooding. They get a $758 increase, and the post-risk Risk Rating 2.0 is here, and that is their percent increase.
On Property No. 2, instead of a 1,183-percent increase, there is an 867-percent increase.
and they have taken care of things, in case a terrible event happens which affects them, for example a flood.
completely out from underneath a Cypress Point home, even though they had elevated it above the base-flood elevation. That means, if your average flooding is here, they had built their house above that area—I shouldn't say “average”—of maximal flooding. What the worst case could be, they had built their house above that. Despite that, the family doing everything right, a natural disaster still wiped out their home.
This is when you want flood insurance. The family has done everything right, but, nonetheless, through an act of God, they lose it all.
But it is possible this family cannot afford their flood insurance. So if Congress has the power to guarantee reliable flood insurance that people can afford—and we do have that power—why don't we do it?
can no longer afford their insurance. And it is not just my State. Millions of Americans across the Nation rely on the National Flood Insurance Program. They are all getting pounded across the Nation by Risk Rating 2.0.
policy, and I recently followed up with FEMA, asking that they would be urgent in addressing the harm Risk Rating 2.0 is doing the National Flood Insurance Program for people in my State and across the Nation.
affordable. He understands this. The American people need to be able to afford to live, and right now, the component of their life which is flood insurance is not working.
2.0 for a year. I ask that we do it again, but let's make it permanent. The American people need flood insurance which is affordable and also reliable.
program. Now “to fund” means that if funding is ever withheld by Congress, like the Democrats have done multiple times this Congress, the National Flood Insurance Program cannot operate, and that leaves millions of Americans hanging in uncertainty.
Insurance Program. I have introduced legislation to automatically extend the program to operate during a lapse in authorization. It can still issue policies, renew contracts, pay claims, and access funding. Coverage should be there whether politicians decide to act responsibly or not.
called BRIC, B-R-I-C, short for Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, which provided costs and lifesaving grants that States across the Nation, including Louisiana, benefited from.
would release more of these funds, and I am pleased to say that a new round has just been released: $1 billion to help States impacted by natural disasters such as Louisiana.
Now, I have been fighting to get these BRIC grant dollars released. I am pleased that it is done.
mitigate the risk of flooding, building storm and flood protection in the West Shore Lake Pontchartrain or the Morganza to the Gulf, two areas of my State which are at risk of flooding.
best way to lower the cost of flood insurance is by trying to make sure you don't flood in the first place. That is why, through my work negotiating the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Louisiana has received so far $3 billion—I am sorry—hundreds of millions of dollars for flood mitigation and hundreds of millions for coastal restoration.
And here we see some of that activity. This is a bargain for the Federal taxpayer. It is easier and cheaper to prevent a flood than to provide recovery afterward.
I-10, you pass LaPlace, and you will see construction of a huge flood control structure, which I have toured last August. This has received over a billion dollars to build this. It is going to protect flooding, which indeed protects the liability of Federal taxpayers. And this is money which I have helped—a portion of which I helped—to obtain.
Program has less money to pay out. I know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case, this money for this levee could prevent billions of dollars in recovery.
Morganza to the Gulf levee project—tremendous local support, the locals putting up hundreds of millions of dollars to build. But I have been able to
get $615 million through the infrastructure bill and other mechanisms, including a funding package recently signed into law by President Trump.
partially completed—not completely, but partially—when Hurricane Ida came, there were 10,000 homes that did not flood that would have flooded if the flood control structure built at that time had not been built. Put differently, it wasn't completed, but enough of it was built that it prevented 10,000 homes from being flooded that would have flooded had it not been started.
This is how you save money for the Federal taxpayer. This is how you preserve communities. A mother will rest more easily knowing that the home in which she lives will stay safe and dry, even if the rains come, the winds blow, even if the hurricane hits the shore. And the funding that I am delivering gives her that peace of mind.
But there is more to come. I tell folks I wake up every morning and think about how to make life better for the people in my State and my country. And I can tell you that reliable, accountable, affordable flood insurance is part of that. That is what I am working toward as I continue taking Federal investment back to my State for flood prevention to help protect the Federal taxpayer from paying excessive dollars in the future.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Madam President, today, I rise to oppose the resolutions, these three CRAs.
ignored the limits of the CFPB's authority. Consistently, they ignored their own limits because power—power—was more important than doing the right thing for small businesses across this great country.
highly prescriptive, established new regulatory requirements, and were all issued without formal rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act's notice and comment process.
This is not speculation. Multiple Biden CFPB policies have been struck down in courts—let me say it differently. Court after court after court struck down nonsense after nonsense after nonsense.
rejecting the Biden CFPB's last-minute attempt to impose price controls on overdraft fees. These are those junk fees that you heard President Biden talk about during his State of the Union presentations and speeches. It is utterly ridiculous to lump all these things together.
administration's approach to the CFPB and the playbook that they used time and time again, putting onerous pressure on small businesses that merely—my words—confiscated millions of dollars from private businesses without actually ending in a finding. This happened over and over and over again. Weaponizing the Federal Government against private businesses is just wrong.
another example of Agency overreach. This guidance creates serious privacy concerns. Imagine a debt company being able to peer into your medical records to determine which debt should be and which debt should not be a part of their process. I don't want a debt company looking at medical records—certainly not my medical records—and making a determination on what they can and cannot do. That is just utterly ridiculous but consistent with the Biden administration's approach to the CFPB.
We ought not bring that back. We ought not ever bring that back. That means more third parties would have more patient-level health and financial information, increasing the risk of misuse, overcollection, and data breaches. Don't forget the data breach we saw at the CFPB. We don't want more information in the hands of people who can't handle the information they had before.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Iran
Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Madam President, there is a debate right now about the cost of the Iran war. Now, this administration won't or can't give us a straight answer, but Coloradans can.
They are paying $4.50 a gallon for gas that not too long ago they were getting for 2.50 a gallon. That is $25 more every time they fill up their tank.
Shoppers are seeing their grocery bills go through the roof. Since January alone, the price of berries—strawberries, blueberries—has doubled. Today, the average family of four spends over $1,000 a month just on groceries, and that number keeps climbing the longer the war drags on.
Just yesterday, President Trump admitted he doesn't “think about Americans' financial situations.” He doesn't think about the financial situation of Americans when making the decisions on the war in Iran— well, finally the truth. The American people know this, and they have seen how the policies of this administration are costing lives overseas and exaggerating a cost-of-living emergency here at home.
spending on the war—there was no plan at the beginning; it doesn't seem we have a good off-ramp—American families are struggling just to deliver their basic needs. To the administration, these might be just numbers on a spreadsheet, but to the rest of us, these are our family members, these are our neighbors, it is all of you.
Last week, I met an Uber driver named Kareem. It costs him $68 every day to fill up his tank with gas. Kareem's expenses now exceed his take-home pay. He had to find a second job just to support his first job. He told me he worries every day about having enough money to feed his children.
It is not just the President's war that is increasing costs; this comes on the heels of numerous Republican efforts to gut and eviscerate our healthcare subsidies and our healthcare system and to, in whole terms, slash the social safety net.
Last week in Denver, I met a guy named TJ. He told me his marketplace premium went from 30 bucks a month to $500 a month. These are real numbers. This happened right at the time when he was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer. TJ couldn't afford his marketplace plan, so he was forced to drop it. He had to move in with his parents just to stay afloat.
neurological condition they picked up from COVID. Last year, in the middle of an endless health battle, her husband was diagnosed with cancer. Their marketplace premium doubled. They couldn't afford for both of them to stay on insurance and have healthcare at the same time, so her husband put off his chemotherapy so that she could get a badly needed treatment.
Let me say that again. In the wealthiest Nation on Earth, a man with cancer was forced to go without healthcare to make sure his wife got a fair shot at beating her sickness, just so his wife could get that chance. That is shameful.
Her words are going to stay with me. This woman told me that she has come to terms with death and with the severity of her husband's cancer, but what she can't accept is the daily battle to afford her healthcare when the cost of staying alive might well turn out to be bankruptcy.
These Coloradans aren't outliers. Over 1 million Americans—1 million Americans—had to drop their health insurance plans in January after this Congress—the Republicans—refused to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that eliminated a big chunk of those subsidies. So 1 million dropped off. Of the Americans who stayed on with their insurance, over 3 million missed their monthly payment in January. So 1 million dropped off, and 3 million have stopped payment as of January. So we could have up to 4 million people newly uncovered. How long before those 3 million people lose their health insurance? We don't know.
It is not just people in big cities; farmers across America, farmers across Colorado were already being crushed by a cost-of-living emergency. Now soaring food and fertilizer costs are making a grave situation a crucial one.
how he is going to make the whole year work, he can't plant. Think about that, because the unknowns make it impossible to plan.
and, as I said, 60 percent more for diesel. With just a few weeks remaining in the planting season, 70 percent of farmers and ranchers in America are saying they can't afford their operating costs.
whatever they are selling, and the worsening drought conditions, the climate change-caused drought, it is no wonder that so many Colorado producers are choosing to fallow their land instead of farming as they have always done.
You don't need a crystal ball to see what comes next. Fewer crops are suddenly going to mean higher prices. That will be good for those few farmers who did take the risk—probably an exceptional risk—to go forward with planting with such unknown outcomes.
We are hearing stories like this all the time. It doesn't matter if we are meeting farmers or teachers or restaurant owners, rural or urban, Republican or Democrat, we are hearing the same thing: Costs are too high, and Americans need help.
is making it far worse, and the President's response has just been to spend more—not on you but on this war. The President recently requested $1.5 trillion—$1.5 trillion requested to fund the Department of War, what used to be the Department of Defense.
Madam President, $1.5 trillion—that is money we don't have, money we are going to have to borrow and add to our ballooning deficit. To put that in perspective, $1.5 trillion is the equivalent of borrowing roughly $18,000 for every American family. We are passing $18,000 per family on to the children of those families.
Now, you ask yourself: Do we really want to take on the cost of that war when we have no clear path to victory? we don't know what the off- ramp looks like?
And that doesn't even cover the full cost of the Iran war. The White House budget director told Congress that a separate funding request is coming. We are being told to expect up to $200 billion just for operations and to replenish our stockpiles from the war in Iran—$200 billion. With that money, we could fully fund pre-K for every kid in America; we could have free community college all across this country; we could get much closer to universal healthcare coverage.
I think our Nation's priorities have somehow gotten backward. We have money for ballrooms and bombs and tax breaks for billionaires but very little for hard-working Americans, the people that make this country work. It is just plain wrong.
The President sometimes treats billions like a rounding error. Coloradans don't have that luxury. Every dollar counts, and hard- working families are paying the price.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Ms. WARREN. Madam President, Senate Democrats are on the floor today to fight back against President Donald Trump's actions to raise the cost of living for American families.
day one. Instead, he is deliberately raising them. His war in Iran sent gas prices soaring. His chaotic tariffs are jacking up the costs of everything from coffee to housing. And as we will discuss today, his attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cost families at least $19 billion in just 1 year alone.
The CFPB is the financial cop on the beat for American consumers. Since 2011, it has been working to catch financial crooks, putting over $21 billion right back into the hands of hard-working families that had gotten cheated.
down on hidden fees and shotty credit reporting practices that raised the cost of loans for families, the CFPB has taken action to shield consumers from getting tricked or trapped by giant banks and big corporations.
But the Trump administration is hell-bent on destroying the Agency. Let me count the ways: They tried to fire the entire staff. They tried to end all funding for the Agency. They told CFPB employees to stop working to protect consumers—literally, to stop working. They turned loose lenders who had been caught cheating Americans. They rolled back commonsense guidelines to protect consumers. And they pretty much have advertised that there is no financial cop on the beat, inviting scammers to do their worst to families that are already struggling to make ends meet in Trump's economy.
administration has hurt American families by rolling back commonsense CFPB rules, and we are going to hear how Congress can make it right.
administration has abandoned consumers and is making life more expensive for them.
their votes on behalf of the consumers that they were elected to represent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. WARREN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Madam President, I rise today to join my colleagues in defending the consumer protections that the Trump administration is working so hard to unravel.
of deceptive and abusive and irresponsible financial practices. And I saw firsthand what this meant in North Minneapolis and in other communities around Minnesota. I saw what happened when families lost their homes, when properties went vacant, when whole blocks went vacant. It has taken years for my communities to recover.
aftermath of this crisis to be the strong advocate for consumers. In a financial marketplace that too often is rigged in favor of the big financial institutions with so much power and influence, the CFPB was charged with standing up for the little guy, and it worked. When people got ripped off, when they were faced with consumer fraud, the CFPB was there to enforce the law.
The CFPB has done its job. It has actually worked. It has returned more than $21 billion stolen from consumers.
undoing all of this good work and dismantling this Agency that was created by Congress, by us, to protect the people.
So, today, I want to talk about just one example of what this means. This is a true story about how these predatory lenders, these predatory land contracts, and contracts for deed have created such a serious problem in my home State of Minnesota.
S.J. Res. 149, which we will be voting on today, would ensure that consumer protections apply to these predatory land contracts.
of. This is a real story about a father. He worked as a long-haul truckdriver, and he rented an apartment in the Twin Cities for years. But it was just too small for his young children, and they were sleeping sometimes three to a room, all together. But he honestly didn't make enough money to qualify for a mortgage.
his children to grow, how there was this great backyard for them to play in, and he could do so using a contract for deed.
move into this home. And even though these contracts can seem like a mortgage, they lack the critical protections in a standard mortgage.
unsuspecting buyers. For example, with a land contract, a single missed payment—a single missed monthly payment—can mean that a family forfeits all of the money that they have paid in years of payment, and then they face eviction. They have been able to build no equity at all. In actual fact, what happens is that they lose everything.
So here is what happened with this Minnesota truckdriver.
shifts available to work on, and he struggled to make those monthly payments.
talks about how “his family” then found themselves “at risk of losing not only the house, but about $100,000“ that “they have paid” in, “including” their entire “down payment.” And “he never understood the disadvantages and” the tricks of this “contract for deed.” But, at this point, “it [was] too late to get out of it.”
traditional mortgage. And I want to be clear. I know that the President represents farming interests. I don't know if it is this way in your State, Madam President. But in my State, contracts for deed can be legitimate tools for financing real estate transactions.
what happened here. A set of bad actors specifically targeted Minnesota's Muslim families, who, under the tenets of their faith, were limited in paying interest with traditional mortgages.
only to be sucked into these contracts that are so-called “interest free,” and they found themselves intentionally in situations designed by the seller where there is no way they can succeed. They lose their homes, and they lose all their money with no recourse.
This is not a rare problem. Over 8 million Americans have used contracts for deed to purchase their home. They deserve the same basic protections as anyone with a mortgage.
colleague Senator Lummis, and we dived into this, and we developed some bipartisan solutions for establishing just even basic reporting requirements around this.
And I want to thank Senator Lummis for that partnership.
Here is what happened. In August of 2024, the CFPB took action on these predatory land contracts. I stood alongside the Director in Saint Paul, where they issued an advisory opinion affirming that financial products should be subject to the same consumer protections as traditional mortgages.
But now, the Trump administration is tearing up that work. They are tearing up that advisory opinion. Rather than cracking down on the people who are ripping off families, the President is making it easier for bad actors to get away with predatory practices like this, by stealing money from Americans and from Minnesotans.
constituents to get swindled, to make it easier for bad actors to take away people's homes.
for them to afford their lives and making it harder for these bad actors to rip them off.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Moody). The Senator from Rhode Island.