21st Century Access to Banking Act

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

With immense respect to my good friend, the Chairman of the Committee on Financial Services, the Congress has already passed the PATRIOT Act. The Secretary of the Treasury was required under the PATRIOT Act to prescribe regulations that set forth minimum standards for financial institutions to open a bank account. The authorizers have already spoken on this, and the law requires the minimum requirements for banks to verify the identity of a person opening the account, to maintain records of that person's identity, and consult lists of known or suspected terrorists.

I would not have offered this amendment in subcommittee and full committee, and the Committee on Appropriations would not have felt it necessary to put this in the bill, had the Treasury Department honored the PATRIOT Act. In the opinion of the Committee on Appropriations, in the opinion of the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) has objected to the Treasury Department's rule.

The gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) stated that he believes the reference to regulations adopted by Treasury are insufficient to address the intention of the PATRIOT Act to accurately identify and track individuals opening bank accounts. The law could not be any clearer. Yet the Treasury Department yielded to pressure from the banks, although the banks were required to verify identity, keep documents of records used to open the account. The Treasury adopted a rule which specifically allows the banks to shred photocopies of the person's identifying documents. So there is no record being kept.

I am quoting directly from the rule, in violation of the PATRIOT Act, the Treasury rule says that any foreign government-issued document that evidences nationality, as long as it bears a photograph, is valid to open a bank account. That is in complete violation of the PATRIOT Act. So the regulation the Treasury Department adopted does not even meet the express letter of the law in the PATRIOT Act. So we had no other choice but to cut off the funding to this regulation.

The parents of the families of the victims of September 11 have written a letter in opposition to this amendment because the parents, and I am quoting from the 9/11 Families For a Secure America, all of our members are aware of the fact that the 9/11 murderers relied upon government-issued identification to open bank accounts and charge accounts, rent cars and apartments and maintain an aura of legitimacy during the months that they planned, rehearsed, financed and carried out their conspiracy. Finally, on the morning of 9/11, government- issued IDs permitted them to board the planes they used to murder our loved ones.

For that reason, the parents of the families of 9/11 are scoring this vote. The parents of 9/11 are asking that Members vote against the Oxley-Frank amendment.

This is a straight-up national security vote because the FBI has testified, the Department of Justice also has objected strongly to this Treasury Department regulation. The Department of Homeland Security, all Federal law enforcement, uniformly objected to this Treasury Department regulation because, number one, these consular ID cards that foreign nationals would use to open bank accounts are widely known to be easily forged.

The FBI and the Department of Justice have concluded that the matricula consular is not reliable. It is not a reliable form of identification due to the nonexistence of any means of verifying the true identity of the cardholder.

So we have a situation today, Mr. Chairman, where we know the terrorists are coming back to hit us again between now and the election. The FBI agent in charge of the southern border in Texas has seen a large number of countries with al Qaeda connections that are exploiting the southern border, utilizing long-established and well- disciplined alien smuggling organizations in Mexico to transit individuals, foreign nationals through Mexico, into the United States. It was brought to my attention by Federal law enforcement authorities in Texas that they have now identified a number of individuals from Islamic countries changing their Islamic surnames to Hispanic surnames, coming across the border with all the illegals crossing the border.

So we have a situation where we are about to be hit. We have individuals using false identities, and we have a rule adopted by Treasury that essentially, according to the Committee on the Judiciary chairman and the FBI, is making it easier for individuals to create false identities and open bank accounts.

The Treasury regulation is so wide open that an Iraqi listed on the 50 Most Wanted List but who is not yet apprehended could open a bank account using an ID card printed in Arabic, issued in 2001, and the bank would still be in compliance. So the Treasury Department's already had their chance to comply with existing law, and they did not. So the appropriators had no choice.

If I could, if my subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), is available, I will be sure to yield to him.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to briefly say that the Department of Justice is on record in opposition to these regulations before they were issued, and then when they were issued the Department of Justice issued strong objections.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gary G. Miller).

(Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Had the Department of Treasury actually implemented the PATRIOT Act, the Committee on Appropriations would not have shut off funding to this regulation.

The Treasury-Transportation bill, and this is within our jurisdiction and the full Committee on Appropriations, cut off funding to implement or enforce the Treasury regulation which is on the books, and let me quote from it again, ``The Treasury regulation authorizes banks to open a bank account for any non-U.S. citizen who can produce any foreign government issued document with a photograph.''

Now that rule that Treasury adopted is in complete violation of the PATRIOT Act. That is the opinion of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. Statute 326 has not been complied with by the Treasury Department. It requires Treasury to adopt a rule that requires banks to verify identity, maintain records of the person's identity and consult lists of known terrorists.

This rule is so bad and so broad, the banks can shred photocopies of the person's identifying documents as soon as you make the deposit. So the Appropriations Committee had no choice but

to shut off funding to this regulation. And before the regulation was adopted, the Justice Department and the FBI and Homeland Security were all opposed to it. The Department of Justice was on record.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

I certainly agree under current law, but the rule adopted by Treasury, and again I am quoting from the Department of Justice, the Department of Justice objected very strongly to these last-minute changes in the Treasury rule because Treasury did change the rule at the last minute to allow these records to be destroyed and that is in the rule which is why we cut off the funding. This is the only way that we could stop the implementation of this rule which violates the spirit of the PATRIOT Act by cutting off the funding, because the Treasury ignored the PATRIOT Act's very clear requirements.

From the Justice Department today. Yes, the Justice Department is being a good team player. The Justice Department testified formally in objection to this rule July 31 when it was adopted. Quoting from the Justice Department:

``The Department of Justice believes that consular identification cards issued by foreign governments should not be among the documents that could be accepted by financial institutions.''

Once the Department of Justice made that argument, they lost that argument. Treasury adopted this very broad rule that allows anybody from a foreign country to walk in the door with any kind of photo ID and open a bank account. The Justice Department lost that argument, and obviously they have gotten on board.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), the distinguished subcommittee chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly), the chairman of the Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights.

(Mr. GALLEGLY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

(Mr. KING of Iowa asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this is a national security issue. The Congress has already spoken through the PATRIOT Act. Section 326 requires the Treasury Department to adopt rules requiring banks to verify the identity of persons opening an account, to keep records of that person's identity, and to consult lists of known terrorists.

The Treasury Department did not do that. The rule adopted by Treasury, against the advice of the FBI, against the advice of the Department of Justice, the rule that the Committee on Appropriations has cut off funding for, the rule the Treasury Department adopted, says that a bank can open an account of a non-U.S. citizen as long as that person shows any government-issued document with a photograph.

This is why the families of 9/11 have come out strongly in opposition to the gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. Oxley) amendment. This is why the Committee on Appropriations voted to cut off funding for this rule. To quote the families of 9/11, I think they say it so well: All the Members are aware that the 9/11 murderers relied upon government-issued IDs.'' The Committee on Appropriations cut off funding to this rule because the rule does not require banks to keep records. The rule does not allow banks to accept any kind of foreign government-issued identification. So it is important that Members understand that they need to vote ``no'' against this amendment in the interest of national security to ensure that Congress' intent in the PATRIOT Act is enforced. It is the only way to stop this Treasury rule from being implemented.

Mr. Chairman, I think we now have reached a second level of ignominy at this point because here we are now into a whole second bill which has not been authorized. It has not been authorized. It is not a bill that is only 9 months or 11 months late of authorization, but rather the bill for the Federal Rail Administration and Amtrak is one that is a year and 11 months late at least, if not 2 years and 11 months late.

So while earlier items which have been stricken by the points of order dealt with highway administration programs and obviously will also apply to FTA, Federal Transit Administration programs, and have already stricken the two major safety programs that I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks which had been already cut by the Committee on Appropriations to only 75 percent, cut from the President's request, a dollar figure had been cut 25 percent or giving them only 75 percent of the President's request, those highway safety programs have already been stricken from this legislation. That is also carried with the general highway administration T&I authorization.

But here we are now in the Amtrak and highway administration bill. I just want to point out that this is an area where I intended to offer two different versions of an amendment to add funding.

Mr. Chairman, I will defer my comments to a striking of the last word immediately after the Chair sustains this point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to express some of my frustration, and maybe then the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) will do the same.

We have now stricken what was already an appropriation of $900 million which was the President's request, true, but which was already low by $300 million, lower than what each of the last 2 years had appropriated after the final operation of the Committee on Appropriations and the conference committee reports for the operation of Amtrak.

It is silly to think they even could have operated within $900 million in this year without ending up in a shutdown situation, or without leaving us

with an ever-worsening deferred maintenance problem.

I want to use this time to point out that Amtrak is a hybrid program. It runs on 600 miles of the Northeast Corridor roughly, which is owned by Amtrak and is the direct responsibility of that governmental agency. That 600 miles of trackage takes more than half of all of the passengers that are being dealt with by Amtrak.

Now that is the part that we have direct responsibility for. The rest of the Amtrak lines operate on some 20,000 other miles of trackage that is run by private freight carriers and Amtrak has contracts with them and has priority to use that trackage. But we do not have specific direct maintenance of those. We have the responsibility of making certain that on the 600 miles the use of that track and that commutation that is involved will be safe, and we have some responsibility to make certain that the maintenance of that trackage does provide safety for the people who are using it.

Now Congress has said several times by appropriating, has said, keep the national rail system open; and Congress has not suggested that any particular lines are supposed to be cut out even though they are not profitable or ever may be profitable. We are waiting for an authorization; there is no authorization. But the use of Amtrak remains, and it is an exceptionally important use which moves a very large number of people, 20 million people or thereabouts, on the northeast line itself.

Furthermore, we have now eliminated by points of order that one thing that many people think is a wonderful idea for the future, namely high- speed rail. High-speed rail was already reduced by two-thirds from last year's appropriation, more than two-thirds; but it also now has been stricken and is not authorized either.

So high-speed rail, which is a process used in various parts of the world, in Japan, Europe, running 120 to 150 miles an hour, where one moves large numbers of people for relatively short distances between large metropolitan areas, manages to move people that otherwise would have to be in the air, and it is done that way much more efficiently.

Now we take out that possibility as well in the motions that have occurred.

Mr. Chairman, the Congress has appropriated $1.3 billion in the year 2003, $1.2 billion in the year 2004, an average of $1.1 billion over each of the last 5 years, some of which came under authorizations that were in effect, but the last two of which apparently occurred after there was no authorization, but we managed to get the job done; and the important thing is that we managed to get the job done. Even at the level of funding that Amtrak was appropriated for over the last couple of years, they cannot provide for the critical capital investments that are particularly needed on the Northeast Corridor where we are directly responsible for the maintenance and for the safety of the people who are using that program.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is well understood at this point that we should be appropriating at least what has been out there for the last couple of years, or we are not doing the duty that we have to the passengers who are using that system at the present time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out to the chairman that in every place, in every metropolitan area, at least that I know of in this country, that has commuter rail, those commuter rail systems are subsidized. None of them operate on a profitable basis. So the real unreality here has been always the concept that Amtrak, that our passenger rail system could operate and would operate on a profitable basis. There has been no passenger rail system that has been run in any industrialized country anywhere in the world that has operated on a profitable basis.

The rest of the unreality here is that at the same time that we are saying they should do that while leaving Amtrak with the mandate of providing a national rail system with routes which have been designated and mandated by the Congress and then blaming them for not being able to do this in a profitable way, the ultimate unreality, it seems to me, is what we started in the direction of high speed rail where we have created 10 corridors, hopefully in the belief that there may be some way of providing high-speed rail, which is extremely costly in its infrastructure development in the first place, in its capital cost, that that can possibly be done; and I do not disagree with the chairman that there are things that probably ought to be done in dealing with a rail system and in trying to make them more efficient.

We are being totally unrealistic, but we still have a very large number of commuters who are using the system as we have it, and this Congress has not managed to pass an authorization suggesting how it is otherwise to be done. So we still have the problem; we still have people who are operating every day in an ever less safe manner because we are funding as low as we are and here we have stricken the money from the legislation. The unreality here is monumental.

I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Page 70, line 3?

Well, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to return to page 68, line 16.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I want to point out, as I did in my earlier comments in the opening statement, that the IRS tax enforcement program has been underfunded by $286 million compared with the President's recommendation.

Mr. Chairman, the tax law enforcement program is an exceedingly important program. The President has requested $286 million more than the bill before us provides, and the Commissioner of the IRS has given us sworn testimony that the proper use of that money would afford us at least a 6-to-1 margin on revenue gained for the use of the $286 million.

Now, in fact, in my discussion with the IRS Commissioner, he has made it clear to me that that is an average over all of the administrative uses of the tax law enforcement program; and that, at least, if one were to use that in some areas of enforcement, that one might be able to get as much as a 15- or 20-to-1 return for the amount of money; but that in the process of trying to organize an orderly program for the enforcement, that you try to balance that program, as we have been talking about a balanced transportation program, and only enforce very hard in one area or another; but that it is possible in some areas to mix what would be enforcement gains of as much as 15- or 20-to-1 with other places, so that we really ought to put some effort into where the gain may be only 2- or 3- or 4-to-1 and end up with an average in the range of approximately 6-to-1.

Now, with that money, the revenue gained by the use of such enforcement monies, which the President requested, of just under $300 million, then we have an opportunity to gain $2 billion of revenue, which can be used in a variety of ways: to cut the debt; to take care of problems such as we have in this bill even before the charade of all of the points of order that have been added here or have been taken here; or for what I originally called the most serious problems of lack of funding for things like transit new-starts for Amtrak and other things in the Highway Safety Administration.

Besides that, one has to think of exactly where this money is coming from. The Commissioner of the IRS points out that there is at least $300 billion every year of money which is owed under the law to the Government, which is not collected, which is evaded, in essence, evaded. And every time there is that kind of evasion, since that is roughly $1 of $6 or $7 of tax revenue that the whole Government raises, that when that happens, that people, honest people who have paid their taxes, as they ought to, in what is basically a voluntary system that we have, when those people pay their taxes, then the six out of seven or so that do pay the taxes that are owed under the law end up subsidizing the one out of seven that is evading the taxes and not paying any.

So those people, that six out of seven, have to put in a sum of money which is 10 percent higher or 15 percent higher by the rate in order to make up for those who are not paying taxes at all.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. Chairman, I insist the point of order be expanded to lie against the entire paragraph; and as so expanded, I would concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I insist that the point of order be expanded to lie against the entire paragraph; and as so expanded, I would concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, of course the effect of the point of order raised is to take the money that was in the bill, $900 million, the amount requested by the administration for Amtrak, and to remove it. I regret that the people who are staunch proponents of Amtrak want to continue it the way that it is running now.

The administration opposes any more than $900 million for Amtrak without reforming it. Amtrak has not been authorized since December of 2002 when the prior authorization bill expired. I think it is important that we recognize why it has not been reauthorized. Until a couple of years ago, Amtrak was still telling us, oh, they are about to start making a profit and not to need Federal subsidies anymore.

After operating for 30 years, Amtrak has received over $40 billion in Federal subsidies. It still only provides one-half of 1 percent of all inner city transportation. Half of it is in the Northeast Corridor. In the last 5 years, the subsidies by taxpayers through the appropriations process have gone up 71 percent. In the same time, Amtrak's ridership is only up 11 percent. It is a huge gap.

It continues to operate with substantial losses. Why? Because we do not apply business principles. We do not apply proper principles to it. Amtrak is only, I think, about 5 percent of all the rail passenger service in the country. Most of the rail passenger service is commuter rail. Amtrak functions in many areas actually as commuter rail and the subsidies are astounding. If Amtrak is operating to provide commuter rail passenger service, why is all the subsidy dumped on the Federal taxpayer? Where are the States? Where are the cities? The administration wants to create partnerships with them to have participation of the people who benefit from Amtrak and who want a subsidized rail service which is limited to certain parts of the country. Those parts of the country need to be the ones that come to the table and say we want this and therefore we are willing to pay for part of it.

Amtrak passengers in some cases on some routes receive hundreds of dollars per passenger in taxpayer subsidies. There are plenty of examples where it is cheaper to hire a private limousine and driver to pick up somebody at their door in one city and transport them to another city to the door of their destination; it is cheaper to hire them a limo and a driver and give them personal service than to have them ride Amtrak in some situations.

We are not taking a realistic look at this. We should not be bemoaning the fact that Amtrak is not being given more taxpayers' money. If you want subsidized rail travel, you need to get your mayors, you need to get your Governors, you need to get your local communities and officials willing to pay for some of the costs of what operates for many of them as a commuter rail service.

If you take the train, as I have done, between Washington and New York City, so often you will find when it leaves Washington it does not have that many people on it. When it gets to Baltimore it still does not have that many people on it. Only when you get to the outskirts of New York City do you start picking up a lot of passengers because it is a commuter rail to them.

Why are we not talking to the communities about saying, you have a role in Amtrak if you want it. Do not tell us it is all a Federal responsibility. I know that the people feel passionately about it; but we have a failed approach to Amtrak, and it is time that we recognize it. If we want to do something about rail passenger service, we need a lot more realistic model than we have with Amtrak. I support the administration's proposal, which is to say we should not be increasing funding for Amtrak until such time as we have reform legislation that brings local and State people to the table and the private sector as partners in that.

Mr. Chairman, I insist that the point of order must be expanded to lie against the entire paragraph and, as so expanded, concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, due to the points of order that have been raised, we have many amounts, of course, that have been stricken from the bill. Some of the amounts would have added money to the bill through the point of order strikings. Some would have subtracted money from the bill. The net of those is this $1.7 billion figure. We need a place to put that. I know it might be nice to put it on the national debt or such, but that would still under parliamentary procedures allow people to offer an amendment to spend it someplace else.

We have in the General Services Administration the Federal Building Fund, an unmet backlog of I believe some $7 billion in unmet Federal construction needs. Although it is not my intent to keep this money back when this bill goes to conference, it is my intent essentially to restore and to resolve the parliamentary problems and to restore it to the accounts of which it was taken.

Nevertheless, for the purpose of this bill today, I offer this amendment to take this money that has been stricken from the bill and put it in the Federal Building Fund.

I reserve the right to object, Mr. Chairman.

I was trying to grant the gentlewoman the courtesy to state her intent, but I do intend to assert my objection.

Mr. Chairman, I object.

Mr. Chairman, I object to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the presentation by the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly).

FinCEN financing in this measure is already increased by 12.7 percent over the last fiscal year. We have added significant dollars in the full committee to the FinCEN appropriations, and the FinCEN appropriations is at the level that was requested by the administration. However, for the gentlewoman from New York and other Members who are concerned, we will continue to work with them on this issue to make sure that we do not disagree, have a disagreement with the administration, and might perhaps be persuaded that there might be some different number that should be in the final vote of conference.

However, Mr. Chairman, I do not want to be constantly in this process with a long night ahead of us going back and reopening different parts of the bill that have been closed. We all know it is a slow moving process as it is. And if we start accepting every unanimous consent, we would not be completed.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that all debate on this amendment and all amendments thereto close in 1 hour and that the time be equally divided.

Mr. Chairman, that is satisfactory.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the time in opposition to the gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. Oxley) amendment to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson), a member of the subcommittee to let him control that debate.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment and in support of the language that is in this bill which was adopted in the Committee on Appropriations.

Certainly the arguments that are being heard today played out in the committee, and we decided that this was indeed an issue that relates to financial institutions, sure, but it relates to homeland security as well. The gentleman from Arizona that spoke before me, talking about the problems with porous borders, look at the latest issue of Time Magazine if they want to look at challenges of it and remember that we have adopted a great amount of legislation telling financial institutions they need to know their customer. We are talking about the financial center that is in the Treasury Department to track terrorism money. And if we do not have valid identification for the people when we are trying to track foreign assets in the United States and spot those that are using phony IDs to cover up terrorism, then why are we spending all the tens of millions and hundreds of millions and billions of dollars on homeland security if we say, oh, this is just a matter for the federally chartered, federally regulated financial institutions? We are going to put a loophole in the Federal law and all of our efforts to track foreign and potentially terrorism money are going to be undone because we can use unreliable identification. In the name of political correctness, we are going to accept the matricula consular? I think not.

I oppose this amendment. I ask that the Members reject the amendment and keep in the language that is put in this bill by the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 166, line 3 be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask that half of my time be allocated to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and the ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services, as well as a respected member of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).

Our amendment will strike ill advised language adopted in the Committee on Appropriations that, if allowed to remain in the bill, would prevent the Treasury Department from enforcing regulations implementing customer identification provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act that are critically important to combating money laundering and disrupting the financing of terrorism.

I note at the outset that the Bush administration has issued a strongly worded statement of administration position opposing the language that the Oxley-Frank-Kolbe amendment would strike from this legislation.

My colleagues are going to hear a lot in today's debate about what whether one form of ID is better than another; but as the author of the USA PATRIOT Act's anti-terrorist financing provisions and as a former FBI, agent, let me set the record straight. Today's debate is not about good or bad ID. It is about whether we are going to ask financial services customers for any ID at all. My amendment says yes; and the bill, as currently constructed, says no.

By way of background, the regulations that the bill seeks to block were issued by the Treasury Department last year under section 326 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which I authored. That provision was intended to enhance the ability of financial institutions to detect and prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism by requiring those institutions to develop comprehensive procedures for verifying customer identity at the time of account opening. Among other things, the provision requires financial institutions to consult lists of known or suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations when opening accounts for new customers.

In implementing section 326, the administration ultimately decided to give institutions the flexibility to tailor their customer identification programs to the risks of money laundering or terrorist financing posed by their products, services, and customer base. Consistent with this risk-based approach, the final regulations give financial institutions the discretion to determine which forms of identification issued by foreign governments they will accept and under what circumstances.

Make no mistake, the regulations do not mandate or require the acceptance of the matricula consular card. If financial institutions are concerned about their validity, they are free to reject the use of those cards as identification.

These regulations were finalized only after two lengthy public comment periods, which included extensive input from the financial services industry, law enforcement agencies, and a host of other interested parties, and after careful analysis and study by the Treasury Department and other financial regulators. The regulations, effective last year, are currently being enforced by Treasury and the Federal financial regulators and implemented by financial institutions across the country.

The so-called Culberson amendment throws into question the obligation of financial institutions to verify the identities of their customers and ties Treasury's hands in enforcing one of the centerpieces of the post-September

11 congressional response to the terrorist financing threat.

Indeed, when he appeared before our committee last month, 9/11 Commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, a former distinguished colleague of ours, singled out section 326 for particular praise, calling it a ``significant tool to assist fast-moving terrorism investigations.''

Failure to adopt this amendment will result in this critical tool being taken from the Government's hands. I would suggest to my colleagues that now is not the time to be unilaterally disarming in the financial war against terrorists.

The Bush administration and the Treasury Department have registered their strong support for this amendment, arguing that denying access to the mainstream financial system serves only to drive consumers into the underground financial economy, making it virtually impossible to track their financial activity and frustrating the Government's efforts to enforce antimoney laundering and antiterrorist financing laws. In the words of Secretary Snow, if the section my amendment seeks to strike becomes law, ``it will be a step backwards in the financial war on terror.''

Let us be very serious and understand that that is what the PATRIOT Act is all about. This is an effort to repeal part of the PATRIOT Act that has worked so successfully in protecting American citizens.

Finally, let me express my frustration with this kind of back-door legislating in appropriations bills. This is simply not the way we should be operating in this House.

My colleagues have a simple choice before them: vote for our amendment and give our financial regulators the ability to track, seize, and freeze terrorist funds or vote against us and drive terrorist money laundering even further underground. The choice is clear.

Support our fight against the funding of terror. Support the Oxley- Frank-Kolbe amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), a subcommittee chairman of the Committee on Financial Services.

(Mr. BACHUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think there has been a very broad misunderstanding about the destruction of those photographs and/or records. The law clearly requires that the financial institutions keep those documents for 5 years. That is not a change in policy. Treasury has recognized that for a number of years. The law has recognized that for a number of years. Financial institutions have recognized that for a number of years. It is simply not accurate to say that those records are destroyed immediately by the banks. They are required by law to keep those records for 5 years.

If the gentleman will continue to yield, let me just quote from the letter from the Department of Justice: ``The Justice Department supports the administration's determination to permit the acceptance of matricula consular cards by financial institutions under circumstances where financial institutions reasonably believe they can properly identify the new customer.''

That is from the letter of the Justice Department.

That letter was dated today. The Justice Department clearly supports the Oxley amendment.

I thank my good friend from California for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, let me say, this bill was drafted in our committee. I was the lead sponsor of the legislation. We have fully determined the efficacy of using these matricula consular cards. By the way, it is not the only form of identification. As a matter of fact, matricula consular is not even mentioned in the statute, nor is it mentioned in the rules and regulations from Treasury Department.

I would invite the gentleman and the gentleman from Texas to introduce a bill and to have it referred to the appropriate committee, the Committee on Financial Services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, for my part in closing, I first want to say it has been a pleasure to work with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), my ranking member.

I do not think any of us take a back seat, I know I do not, in fighting terrorism. And our committee was in the thick of passing the PATRIOT Act, and one of the proudest moments I have had as chairman was the section 326 and what we did in the Act, and to see the President sign that was indeed a real honor.

This provision that we had is important in the fight on terrorism. And I regret some of the arguments that indicate otherwise because our committee had it right the first time, and what I regret, frankly, is the Committee on Appropriations stepping into an area that the authorizing committee has the knowledge and the expertise in.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against section 143, on page 27, lines 10 through 17.

Mr. Chairman, the second sentence of section 143 would prevent any State or agency from enforcing the U.S. Department of Transportation hours-of-service regulations for operators of utility service vehicles. This provision imposes a new duty on the Department and the States and agencies. This section is legislative in nature and is in violation of clause 2 of rule XXI.

Mr. Chairman, I raise a point of order.

Mr. Chairman, page 32, line 26, through page 33, line 5, I would make a point of order against the last proviso of the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Program paragraph. The proviso begins on page 32, line 26, and ends on page 33, line 5. This proviso would require Amtrak to repay its loan and interest in full to the Federal Railroad Administration within 30 days; it is legislative in nature and in violation of clause 2 of rule XXI.

Mr. Chairman, I must confess I share the frustration of the gentleman from Massachusetts. We produced out of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure a bipartisan bill a year ago that has never been brought to floor action.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, there is an ongoing debate that I find somewhat ironic. There is, on behalf of some of my colleagues, an almost theological belief that the United States should be the only industrialized country in the world that does not have subsidized passenger rail service, that it is not an integral part of our transportation system. We have Amtrak today because the private sector that had rail passenger service from the 1830s until 1970 and was mammothly subsidized by the Federal Government to do so, reached the point where it was not particularly profitable for them to do it. Then the private rail roads with Congress and the Nixon administration, created Amtrak so that there would be a rail passenger alternative.

Some people now think that somehow the private sector is going to step in and run a national system so that we would not be actually the only country without passenger rail. Even most Third World countries have rail passenger service as well as all the developed countries that surpasses the United States. I find that somewhat ironic because this Congress year after year after year puts billions of dollars into the air passenger service which in its long illustrious history of being force fed by Federal subsidies, starting with airmail, dealing with air traffic control and the construction of airports, in its entire history has a net profit of zero. And we continue, appropriately, to put billions of dollars into it because it is an important part of the Federal transportation infrastructure.

Now there are those that want to pull the plug on Amtrak. We passed out of our Rail Subcommittee and then our Transportation and Infrastructure Committee a year ago with broad bipartisan support, there may have been one or two people who voted against it, in the largest committee in Congress, maybe one or two, but I cannot remember them, that bill has been languishing for 1 year because the Republican leadership cannot somehow bring it to the floor and allow the will of Congress to be worked.

So we have this travesty today where we have a program that is not authorized despite the fact that the authorizing committee did its work a year ago.

This embarrassing charade, and I am embarrassed for the majority party that we are going through this, is not going to be sustained. As George Will pointed out in his column of June 2003 when we were going through the last shutdown charade, that support for Amtrak is strong enough among all regions, ages, education levels, and income groups. A CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll put it, at the height of last year's funding crisis, at 70 percent American public support. No indication of anything that that is not even stronger today.

So ultimately we will bump along, we will go through this, we will fund Amtrak. Unfortunately, the inability of this Congress to move forward to meet the other body in a responsible fashion and put a reasonable authorizing bill on the floor means Amtrak is going to continue to be hamstrung. You will not kill it because the public will not let you. When we will have a crisis like 9/11 where if we did not have our rail transportation system, the east coast would have been shut down in gridlock from Alexandria to New Haven. Ultimately, this bill will fail, but it continues to cut away at the ability of the new administration in Amtrak to move forward, to build on the strong ridership increase and to build the private and public partnerships with State and local government that will be necessary, ultimately, to have a successful program.

I as a Member of Congress am embarrassed that we are going through this again. As somebody who cares about a balanced transportation system, transit, air, road and rail, I am embarrassed because we need this as a critical component. We will get there, but today's failure makes it harder, more expensive, as Congress is increasingly marginalized.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I had hoped to deal with just the notion that somehow Amtrak had promised that it was going to turn a profit. I sat in committees and watched people browbeat the previous administration; but what people made clear is that it was going to be necessary to fund the capital requirements of Amtrak.

There is a planned infrastructure improvement over 5 years, reconstructing interlockings; installation of almost a million concrete ties to improve efficiency; 423 miles of track undercutting; new rail, 352 miles; rebuilding of major bridges; cable signal replacement. These are things that will improve the efficiency of the operation.

Congress has never fully funded the capital requirements, making it inherently inefficient and chipping away at it. The Amtrak administration has requested a reasonable capital budget to be able to move it forward to meet the mandate that Members of Congress had for more efficiency.

I would respectfully suggest when we look at the funding that we lavish on the capital for airlines, what we do for highways, only a portion of which comes from the user fee, only a portion of which comes from the user fee, that we are selling this important element short at a time when, if we would enhance it, it would actually reduce demand on the roads. We would also reduce demand in congested airports when now a third of our flights are 350 miles or less. We are not thinking this through in a proper fashion.

I appreciate the gentleman's yielding to me because I wanted to make that point about its capital investment, which is critical if it is ever going to operate the way my friend on the other side of the aisle knows I would like to see, but we cannot starve Amtrak first.

Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against section 161, which begins on page 37, line 23, and ends on page 38, line 25. Section 161 would require the Department of Transportation to develop and implement a procedure of competitive bidding for State-supported passenger rail routes, to require Amtrak to provide service in some routes and a compensation determined by the Secretary and to allow the Secretary to reprogram up

to $2.5 million from Amtrak operating funds to support this effort. This is clearly legislative in nature and is in violation of clause 2 of rule XXI.