October 15, 2007

Statement of Chairman Dodd on Treasury Department’s Deal with Major U.S. Banks

“When I met with Secretary Paulson in August, he pledged to use all the tools at his disposal to help ensure our capital markets function smoothly. Treasury’s effort to organize large financial institutions to ensure the orderly sale of subprime securities may be necessary to prevent a broader crisis in the financial markets, consistent with that pledge. I share the Secretary’s view that our first obligation must be to maintain the orderly operations of the financial system. I await more details about how this unusual effort will operate before saying for certain that it fulfills that obligation. “Moreover, the Treasury Department ought to be putting just as much energy into bringing together the large subprime servicers and figuring out how to save the homes of millions of American families threatened with foreclosure as they have done in the effort to protect the financial markets.”