Financial Modernization: "It is my goal to report a financial services modernization bill from the Banking Committee by the end of February. That is an ambitious objective. I believe it is possible. I hope that we can do it on a bipartisan basis. I certainly am committed to work to try to achieve that goal. But it is absolutely essential, in my opinion, that we move forward; that we seize the consensus that existed at the end of the last Congress."

Community Reinvestment: "I intend, under my chairmanship, to have the Banking Committee take an extensive, deep look at community reinvestment. In the short term we will try to find a compromise that will allow us to move forward on financial modernization. In the long term we will take a look at the whole CRA law, how it has been used. I am asking the Federal Reserve Bank to undertake a major study and survey, protecting the confidentiality of banks that participate in the survey, to try to build a database so that we have something to work from in this area."

IMF Reform: "We passed a major IMF reform bill when we provided $18 billion to the International Monetary Fund. That bill set out changes in policy that have to be implemented by the IMF. They objected to the changes, but my position was, `It's great, if you don't want to make the changes, you don't have to take our money. But if you're going to take our money, you're going to spend it the way we want it spent, and in fact, you're going to spend all the other money you commingle with our money to meet the criteria that we set.' I don't think that's unreasonable, given that a lot of Americans work awfully hard for $18.2 billion. We will hold a major set of oversight hearings on IMF. We will ask the IMF to appear before the committee and explain to us what they have done in implementing our policy. We intend to see those changes made or we intend to move to take the money back."

Financial Institutions Regulatory Reform: "We had a regulatory reform bill related to financial institutions, the so-called Shelby-Mack bill. I have talked to Senator Shelby and Senator Mack. They would like to move the bill in the form that it existed -- in the last Congress. And I have committed to them to work hard to try to see that bill quickly adopted by the Senate Banking Committee and see it move to the floor for consideration."

Securities Regulatory Reform: "Senator Dodd and I in 1996 had a major security regulatory reform bill that basically changed every security law in the country, to try to modernize and reduce cost, and expand availability of securities and services related to the securities industry to American consumers. Senator Dodd and I believe it's time to do that again, and we hope to do that in the first six months of this Senate."

Public Utility Holding Company Act: "Last year we passed the Public Utility Holding Company Act. It was a relatively non-controversial bill. It would be my goal to quickly pass it out of the Banking Committee and then to challenge the Energy Committee to pass a similar bill, so that we could marry them up and have an opportunity for the first time to consider the deregulation of electric power generation."

HUD Oversight: "I think it is always good for the legislative committee to constantly do oversight in an area like HUD, which has been an agency that has in the past had many problems, that has often needed continual encouragement to comply with the law, and has been an agency, under both Republicans and Democrats that has had problems with fraud."

Financial Derivatives: "We intend to look at financial derivatives. We believe that financial derivatives are in the jurisdiction of the Banking Committee. We are concerned about the action of bank regulators in our recent problems in New York with financial derivatives."

General Oversight: "I intend to make the Banking Committee a major oversight committee in the Congress....Its first manifestation is the fact that we will have an Oversight and Investigation vice chairman of every subcommittee, so that we will have a person who is charged with oversight of all of the government agencies and all the programs and all the implementations of law within the jurisdiction of that subcommittee."