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Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, held a press conference today to discuss the economic crisis and recent turmoil in the markets. Click the link to the right to hear a recording of his opening statement. A transcript is below.

Well, thank you all.

And I'll try and make this opening comments relatively brief because we have a, I think, a vote.  Hasn't started yet.

Well, as the events of the last several days certainly have shown, the economic crisis that we're in the midst of is deepening and it's going to be with us for some time.

And let me outline some steps that the Banking Committee will be taking in the coming days.

I've been in constant communication.  I hold my breath every Friday afternoon around 4:30 to wait and see if I'm going to get a call from the secretary of the treasury, as has been the case over the last several weeks.

I appreciate -- I don't say that lightly -- I appreciate the fact that the secretary and others keep us informed as these events unfold, and so I appreciate that.  We've been in touch with the New York Fed, with Chairman Cox, Chairman Bernanke and Fed President Geithner and others over these number of days.

The Banking Committee will continue its oversight of the administration's actions.  We'll continue to examine these extraordinary events that are going to affect both taxpayers and markets for a long time to come.

We've asked -- I intended to have the secretary of the treasury before the committee today, but at his request we delayed that, and we'll delay it for a couple of days.

My intention is to have him before the committee this Thursday morning, along with Mr. Lockhart, the regulator of the GSEs.

We'll have -- as a second panel that day, we'll have the representatives of some of the bank regulators dealing with the bank closures, questions (inaudible) bank failures that have come up.

And then on Tuesday my intention is to have the chairman of the Federal Reserve before the committee, along with Christopher Cox, to further examine these -- examine these issues.

We're also going to hold some hearings on what steps Congress can take in the coming weeks, in the next administration to restructure the architecture of our regulatory system so as to minimize these kind of events from occurring again.

I've also asked the majority leader to keep the Senate in a pro forma session in the months of October, November and December.  I want the ability to reconvene my Banking Committee as events unfold, to bring before the committee respected members of the administration and others as we further examine what options we ought to be taking.

And so I -- again, I know the majority leader is looking at that there.  It wouldn't just be my committee that the Senate would remain in pro forma session for, that other committees, obviously, have a great interest in the subject matter as well.  But I want the ability to be able to respond.

One of the reasons I say that, of course, is when we were out of session the administration moved forward with what is – could amount to the largest bailout in the history of the United States done during a recess period.  And so I want to make sure that these kind of events, as they're announced, we have some opportunity to respond -- to respond to them.

Let me mention two or three steps that I think are critical.

First of all, it's important to note that these events that we're talking about are not natural disasters.  They happened, in my view, because of mismanagement, deregulation that occurred, basically, an 8-year-old coffee break by the administration when it came to dealing with these problems that did not emerge a few weeks or months ago.

Members of the Federal Reserve were talking about this problem as many as five and six years ago and warning the administration of where we're headed.  There's nothing new about that in many ways.

We began back about 18 months ago.  The very first hearings we held in the Banking Committee were on this issue.  And over the year, of course, we've developed ideas and legislation to respond to what has been at the core of this problem, and that is the housing crisis, the foreclosure crisis.

Only a few weeks ago I had to go through six cloture motions in order to get a housing bill done, not to (inaudible) announced opposition, veto threats on that bill as late as a day or two before we finally passed the legislation.  It was signed at 7 a.m. in the morning to show the enthusiasm the administration had for the bill that Hank Paulson has said in the absence of which would have made the situation a lot worse today than it is.

So we've been working on these matters.

I got to tell you, as well, watching the -- particularly the Lehman Brothers issue, that just I've tried to imagine what this world would look like today had those who advocated the privatization of Social Security prevailed -- as John McCain did, of course, and still does, for that matter -- where we would be at this juncture if people's long-term financial security were wrapped up into private enterprise?  And that's, of course, what he advocated and others.

So it's not only what we were able to get done, but what we were able to stop, as well, that I think has kept us in a stronger position than we might otherwise have been.

The first order of business is still, in my view, the housing crisis, the foreclosure crisis.

In October 1, the legislation we adopted in July will kick into effect.  I want to have a hearing as well next week, if I can, on how well that is working.  I've been told informally it's working well, but I want to have a better sense that actually those provisions are going to be working on October 1 as planned.

I would like to see us expand that.  The Federal Reserve is going to be seeking some additional authority to allow the Fed to pay banks interest on reserves, I'm told, as part of a continuing resolution.

If the Federal Reserve bank is going to be using bad debt to provide collateral to extend loans or resources to financial institutions, how about doing the same for homeowners?  It would allow them to have new mortgages to be able to stay in their homes, owner-occupied residences.

If it's good enough for Wall Street, it ought to be good enough for people, the 9,000 a day who are running the risk of losing their homes.

So in addition to our insisting that the law we passed work, we may be seeking -- will be seeking additional support to reduce the amount of foreclosures that are occurring.

I have grave reservations, by the way, about what happening --what's happening to 401(k)s, mutual funds, pensions and the like as the result of what's occurring.  So while we're watching and our focus on New York and Wall Street what's happening, there are people all across this country who could find their life savings or their retirement security in jeopardy.  And I want to know what the impact on those is going to be.

Secondly, I think we ought to consider another stimulus package as part of the plan here over the coming two weeks or so to give consumers some relief out there, some hope as part of our economic recovery package.

And lastly, what I mentioned at the outset, and that is to begin to restructure the regulation of the financial sector.  I've been trying for 20 years, in some cases, dealing with credit cards, to get
reforms.

I heard this morning that my friend and former -- and present colleague, rather, John McCain is now a consumer advocate.  That's the first time I've heard him utter those words in 22 years that I've been here.  I'm delighted that he's come around to that particular point of view, and my hope would be that we could get some strong bipartisan support to engage in these restructuring that needs to be done.

But those are the steps at least we're going to take shortly. We'll keep you posted on a daily basis as to how we're progressing. But in the coming several days the hearings, the call on the Fed to extend some additional help to homeowners, as well as calling for a pro forma session throughout the fall so we can continue to work.

Let me stop there.