Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) gave a floor speech today, fighting to stop any delay on his Debit Card Interchange Amendment. The Senate is expected to vote on S.575 – Debit Interchange Fee Study Act of 2011 (introduced by Senator John Tester’s (D-MT)) later this week. Watch Senator Durbin’s speech below.

Senator Durbin made a last ditch effort to convince Senate members to vote “no” on Senator John Tester’s “Debit Interchange Fee Study Act” which would delay implementation of Durbin’s Interchange Amendment by up to 18 months.

Senator Durbin’s short speech was impassioned and the Senator implored members to vote “no”, stating:

After giving the big banks billions of taxpayer money, what do they do?

They send us a big wet kiss in the form of multimillion dollar bonuses
for all their officers. Smiling all the way to the bank with the taxpayers money. We don’t owe them a thing.

The members who come to the floor this week who vote with those big banks and those credit card companies need to ask themsevlves: “when are you ever going to stand up for consumers and retailers and merchants and small businesses across America.”

Is somebody going to speak up for them in this chamber?

That’s what this debate is about and I hope that my colleagues will stand tall and say “no” to Wall Street and to the credit card companies.

Stand by the retailers and the merchants to give them a chance for transparency and competition. give them a chance for a reasonable fee for what is actually transpiring in this [interchange] transaction.

Watch the full video replay below.