We are beginning a new year, and the silence in Congress is still deafening. Will there ever be a debate about what should be done to deal with climate change?

Oh, you don't "believe" in it? If you do not, please, suspend that belief system for just...

This piece first appeared in the Wilmington News Journal on December 18th.

I was in London last week, visiting three grandchildren and their parents, when the United Kingdom's Financial Services Authority released a 452-page report. The grandchildren were in school; I became interested. Specifically about the causes of the...

Much of the recent media coverage and Internet chatter about financial industry reform has focused on the Occupy Wall Street movement. If we ever end up with the kind of reforms needed, that movement would certainly deserve some of the credit.

If we look back on...

To understand why there is so much anger directed at Wall Street and Washington, you need only look at the evolution of the Volcker rule. Named for past Fed Chair Paul Volcker, the rule was a compromise he developed last year to deal with a major problem exposed by the...

The record-setting volatility in U.S. stock markets over the past two weeks is a clear distress signal. Our historically free, fair and credible markets are in danger of losing the support of individual American investors and investors from the rest of the world. With the advent of new technologies and...

Ever since the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act passed last year, there has been a running debate about the Resolution Authority in the bill. Would it actually prevent another taxpayer bailout of a bank or banks to avoid a financial meltdown? I believe there is a real possibility that the...

To say that the year-old Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is under attack in Washington is like describing Little Big Horn as an engagement between the cavalry and the Indians. What we are watching looks more and more like a one-sided massacre, and the hordes of financial...

I am a college sports fan, always have been, always will be. I love watching the games, but I haven't liked watching what has been happening to the role of sports in our educational system.

Certainly, from a very early age sports should be part of the system. Healthy...

I think there is little chance that Congress will pass a debt limit bill in time, and we will probably experience a default on U.S. debt that will drive up interest rates, cripple the housing market, and kill our nascent economic recovery.

It is way past time for all...

Three years after the great financial meltdown of 2008, leaders in the financial industry still haven't acknowledged the systemic faults that led to it. Instead, we have seen them launch a high-profile public relations and lobbying campaign to limit proposed regulatory changes, saying that higher capital requirements and too much...

Wall Street bankers, with help from key Republicans in the House and Senate, have begun a major campaign across the country to kill the regulations currently being developed to enforce Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform. A recent speech by the leader of Wall Street bankers, JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon, took...

The following are the opening and closing statements Senator Ted Kaufman delivered as chairman of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Sept. 22 on Investigating and Prosecuting Financial Fraud after the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act.

OPENING STATEMENT

Today we're going to examine the efforts of federal law enforcement to investigate...

The story of regulatory failure surrounding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is, by now, all too well known. The Minerals Management Service (MMS), the now-defunct agency that had been charged with assuring that drilling off America's coast was safe, environmentally responsible, and a reliable revenue source for the taxpayer, became...

After months of careful consideration, landmark financial reform legislation moves towards final passage. While this bill is a vast improvement over the existing regulatory structure, I believe it should go further with respect to erecting statutory walls that address the fundamental problem of "too big to fail." I will support...

Last Thursday, for one of the few times since 24 stock brokers first gathered under a buttonwood tree in 1792, we had a stock market that for 20 minutes stopped performing its essential function: discovering the prices of securities based on a balance between buyers and sellers.

Our equity...

I have spoken on the Senate floor many times about the importance of transparency in our markets. Without transparency, there is little hope for effective regulation. And without effective regulation, the very credibility of our markets is threatened.

But I am concerned recent changes in our markets have outpaced...

Since the financial meltdown in 2008, America and Congress have remained stuck at a crossroads. Not since the Great Depression of the 1930's have we experienced a financial and economic crisis of such magnitude that it forces us, as a society and lawmaking body, to reconsider the legal and institutional...

It has been well over a year now since the bursting of a massive speculative bubble, fueled by Wall Street greed and excess, brought our entire financial system to the brink of disaster.

The resulting economic crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, has had profound effects on regular,...

As President Obama prepares to announce his new strategy in Afghanistan, it is vital to note that success or failure will not be determined by our military footprint alone. With mounting press speculation regarding a possible increase in U.S. troop levels, we should consider General McChrystal's warning that "focusing on...

Mr. President, I rise today because I am deeply concerned that just over one year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a failure that helped send us to the brink of depression, Wall Street is essentially unchanged.

Congress and the SEC have not enacted any reforms....