It's taken 18 years for Congress to pass this bill. When I first came to Congress, the issue was a narrow one -- revenue bonds. Could banks underwrite revenue bonds? And with technological change, with globalization, the issue has expanded far beyond revenue bonds to an issue where the future of America's dominance as the financial center of the world is at stake.

This bill is vital for the future of our country. If we didn't pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world. That has grave implications for all of America, where financial services are one of the areas where jobs are growing the most quickly, where our technology is way ahead of everyone else, where our capital dominates the world. And it would be a shame if because Congress has been unable to act that all those advantages were frittered away as they well could be in a global world by our failure to realize the problems that our existing antiquated laws cause us.

So there are many reasons for this bill, but first and foremost is to ensure that U.S. financial firms remain competitive. Like their international competitors now, U.S. firms will be able to offer financial services to complement their business models. Had we not done this, three years from now with new technology, we could find major U.S. companies leaving the United States and locating in other countries that would have laws that would allow them to do these things.

I don't know what the marketplace will yield. Will people want to buy all their financial services from one company? Will it be on-line or with individuals? We don't know. We do know this,l that to close off one avenue of competition is the death knell for the future of a country in that area. In this case, financial services. So it was essential that we pass this bill.

So the first issue is jobs, plain and simple. Hundreds of thousands, yes millions of high-paying jobs. And I need not tell the Senate how important this bill has been to the financial capital of the world, New York.
Second, it's important to consumers. What the years have shown is that the more competition, the better. And this bill will allow more competition by allowing many more firms to compete over similar product lines. When a bank decides to go into the securities industry or a securities firm decides to sell insurance, they're looking for a competitive edge. And they may well find it. They may not. But the ability to have more competition, which this bill creates, is vital to consumers. This is a pro-consumer bill. And it's proconsumer for the same reason that our system has predominated over all the others -- competition.

So jobs is an important reason for this bill. Consumer interest and competition is an important reason for this bill.

A third is that we have to keep up with changing markets. When Glass-Steagall was passed, commercial banks dominated the financial landscape. They had 57% of all financial assets. Today, they have less than 25%. And to look at the world through that antiquated spyglass and say we must keep commercial banks from other areas because they may dominate, is to look at a world that's 50 years old.

In fact, many would argue that commercial banks are among the weakest competitors when you put them against not only securities firms and electronic firms but against mutual funds and everything else. And so we had to move this bill, thirdly, to keep up with changing markets.

And finally, we had to do it because otherwise the regulators were going topsy-turvy. And we all know it makes bad policy to have individual regulatory decisions make policy. That has been what's happened. Because of the necessities of technology and globalization, because of the changes in financial markets, individual companies were going to the regulators and asking for special permission to do A, B, C and the regulators were granting it.

Now we have an overall fabric. We have a law that will treat all companies equally, that will allow businesses, either new or existing, to plan for the future, and will create a level playing field. So there are many reasons to pass this bill.

Now my goal -- Mr. Chairman -- and I stated this at the outset -- was to modernize financial services but not take one step backward on C.R.A. we have done that. The C.R.A. provisions of the bill do not move things forward but they do not take a single step backward. And, in fact, as I have argued to the groups in my state, they will benefit from this legislation. Because their leverage in the C.R.A. process has always been when there are new mergers or new products that a bank decides to add. This is going to increase 10, 20 times. And every time the groups that are interested in C.R.A., one of the most successful banking laws we passed, will have that leverage. So instead of two or three times a year having the opportunity to make the case, they will probably have it two or three times a month. I would argue that C.R.A. groups are going to be so busy with all the new mergers and all the new services that they may not have time to keep up.

We accomplished a great deal. And I want to thank the Senator from Maryland as well as the Administration for making sure we did not take a single step backward on C.R.A.

Sunshine provisions are in the bill. Very hard to argue against them. If I'm for sunshine for business and for political people, including myself, how can you not be for sunshine even for groups that you support and believe in? I have no problem with the concept of sunshine. So we succeeded in C.R.A.

We also succeeded in terms of helping the consumer, in terms of protections. On A.T.M. fees, for instance, I am proud that banks will be required to disclose any and all charges for using an A.T.M. before a customer makes a decision to withdraw funds. I fought for years for this provision. First in the House, with Representative Roukema, and now in the Senate. And it is in the bill.

In addition, there are privacy protections in the bill. Does the bill go as far as I would like on privacy? No. But privacy is a large and complicated issue. We don't know what the balance ought to be between the ability of businesses to share information and the right of the consumer to protect his or her information. In the Senate, we did not have a single hearing on privacy. And to restructure all of privacy with huge numbers of unknown consequences on this bill made no sense. My goal again was, can we move forward? And we have. Not as far as I would like or many would like, but certainly not enough to sink a bill that has so many necessities behind it.

And, finally, Mr. Chairman, safety and soundness. The one thing that has dominated my thinking in this area is that we not repeat an S&L crisis, we not allow insured deposits to be used for risky activities. I am proud to say that the compromise between Treasury and Federal Reserve and the structure of the bill here makes sure that when insured dollars are used for anything that might be slightly risky, that the capital requirements and fire walls will make virtually certain that we will not repeat the kind of S&L crisis that we have had in the past.

And so, Mr. President, in conclusion, this is a historic day. It's a historic day for my state of New York, which I am proud to say is the financial capital of the world, and with this bill has a much greater likelihood of remaining. It is a historic day for modernizing one of the most important industries in American where we are technologically and entrepreneurially way ahead of the rest of the world and this will help us maintain our lead. And it is an historic day for those who have argued that we need to keep C.R.A. strong and keep consumer protections in the bill.

From Glass-Steagall to Gramm-Leach, from the Great Depression to the Golden Age, from isolationists to internationalists, from underdogs to champions, this bill, in my opinion, Mr. President, is an American success story for our economy, for our financial institutions, for our communities and consumers and for my state of New York. And I was proud to have played a role with so many others in ensuring its passage.

Thank you.