To amend the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to provide for additional monitoring and accountability of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1242) to amend the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to provide for additional monitoring and accountability of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert additional material.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 1242, the TARP Accountability and Disclosure Act of 2009. This bill would require the Department of the Treasury to establish an electronic database for tracking all TARP funds. The bill would create a database available to the public on the Internet that will track in real time the spending of funds in the Federal Government's Troubled Asset Relief Program called TARP. If UPS can track millions of packages clear across the world on any continent at any time, we can certainly track where $700 billion in taxpayers' money has gone. In fact, we have a duty to do so.

When TARP began, the Treasury Department never required the financial institutions it funded to explain what they did with the money. And over a year later, we still do not know. It is past time for us to have a system so that the American people can tell in real time, enhancing its value as a regulatory tool and also as a preventative oversight tool. Taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are being used. I believe that in order to ensure transparency, we should require the use of the technological tools that are available today.

Currently, TARP data are presented in filings in over 25 different agencies, including filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Web sites, Federal Reserve registration data, the FDIC data, over-the-counter trades, and Commodities Futures Trading Commission data. The data sources are not only housed in different agencies but are in incompatible systems and formats, making the material unusable. These agencies are unable to share the data with each other and to learn from it.

The bill, which I have coauthored with Representative Peter King and 42 of my colleagues, requires all relevant TARP data, including regulatory filings and public records, to be collected by the Department of the Treasury and put in a consistent standardized format so that TARP funds will be transparent and traceable. This bill would also provide the ability to monitor inconsistencies that may indicate waste, fraud, and abuse at both the corporate and individual officer levels. By using tools that currently exist, individual filings and transactions can be pulled together to create a single view of an institution and provide better management and regulatory oversight.

The basic data elements would include but not be limited to the following: the capture and standardization of every transaction the institution is involved with, wherever possible; news releases, press releases and other sources of public data; counterparty filings; securities transactions; UCC filings in certain cases; and transaction data, including mortgages, debt issuance, and fund participation.

In the simplest terms, my bill allows the question to be answered, Where has the money gone? And this is a question that pundits and taxpayers ask every single day. Recently, Elizabeth Warren, who is one of the oversight regulators, stated in testimony that she has no idea where the TARP money is. This bill would change this. This would put safeguards in to ensure that proprietary information about financial services companies is not disclosed, and this bill does not put any additional burden on industry. It merely puts in a usable form information that is already required by regulators.

There is broad support for this bill from close to 40 groups from across the political field, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the NAACP, and the Heritage Foundation.

I would like to place into the Record the list of supporters from respective organizations.

Groups that have publicly endorsed the bill (or if a

501c(3) support the ``idea or policy goals'' of the

legislation since they cannot directly support a specific

bill):

United States Chamber of Commerce; Center for Democracy and

Technology; OMB Watch; Project On Government Oversight;

Taxpayers for Common Sense; OpenTheGovernment.org; Institute

for Policy Innovation; Competitive Enterprise Institute;

NAACP; Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund

(MALDEF).

National Puerto Rican Coalition (NPRC); The Hispanic

Federation; Information Technology Industry Council; Heritage

Foundation; Americans for Tax Reform; Center for Fiscal

Accountability; 60 Plus Association; Alabama Policy

Institute; American Shareholders Association; Americans for

Limited Government.

Americans for Prosperity; Caesar Rodney Institute; Center

for Individual Freedom; Center-Right Coalition of Florida;

Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending & Taxes; Council for

Citizens Against Government Waste; Grassroot Institute of

Hawaii; Illinois Alliance for Growth; Illinois Policy

Institute; Institute for Liberty.

Maine Heritage Policy Center; Mississippi Center for Public

Policy; National Taxpayers Union; Oklahoma Council of Public

Affairs, Inc.; Pelican Institute for Public Policy; Pioneer

Institute for Public Policy Research; Rhode Island Tea Party;

Small Business Hawaii; The Aarons Company; Kentucky Progress;

Citizens' Voice for Property Owners.

As we have seen from this time last year, the lack of transparency in terms of how the funds are spent makes this bill necessary. The American people, Members of Congress, and regulators are demanding transparency. It is time that we gave it to them. They are entitled to it.

I would like to thank Members on the other side of the aisle, Mr. King and others, who have been supportive, and particularly Chairman Frank for his leadership and Steny Hoyer for his support. I urge my colleagues to support it. It's past time for us to have a system so that the American people can tell in real time how their tax dollars are being used. I would add that I also believe that it would build confidence in the system, hopefully a confidence that will be managed in an appropriate way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I would just like to say that the program's effectiveness was testified in support of by economist Mark Zandi, who said, While TARP has not been a universal success, it has been instrumental to the stabilization of the financial system and bringing an end to the credit recession, but there are still serious criticisms of the program that should give us concern about its effectiveness, its cost, and how it can be improved. This bill that brings online transparency would move us in that right direction.

I am strongly in support of it, as well as many of my colleagues.

Having no further speakers, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here today in support of H.R. 1242, which amends the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to provide for additional monitoring and accountability of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, TARP. I support this legislation because I believe that increased accountability will enhance the effectiveness of the TARP funds.

I would like to first thank my colleague, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, for introducing this valuable piece of legislation. The TARP funds are designated for financial institutions that have complex internal systems and handle a large volume of information from various sources. The nature of the TARP fund recipients makes understanding how TARP funds are used difficult. Moreover, data is currently being submitted in filings to many agencies and databases, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Federal Reserve, the Fed, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC, Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and Over the Counter Trade data. That the data is housed in separate agencies and in distinct formats makes it difficult to oversee and interpret the usage data.

H.R. 1242 will require the Treasury Secretary to create a database that will facilitate the monitoring of TARP funds. The bill provides guidance to the Secretary for the structure of the database and what data should be included. The information collected by the database will be collected on a daily basis and reviewed to ensure compliance with the Emergence Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Data submitted by TARP recipients will be combined with third party data such as indexes, media reports, press releases, and non-governmental financial information to ensure that the information available is comprehensive. The database will be required to have accurate data structures to allow for cross-referencing, filtering of data content, and geospatial analysis capabilities. The database must be made available to oversight bodies such as the Special Inspector General, the TARP Oversight Panel, the Government Accountability Office, GAO, and law enforcement. Additionally, the Secretary of the Treasury must provide the public access to the database, while protecting information that is prohibited from disclosure under current law. Importantly, this legislation begins the implementation of these measures soon after the enactment, allowing for oversight to begin promptly.

Mr. Speaker, the list and diversity of organizations that support this legislation is long. The public demands accountability with regards to taxpayer dollars and this bill provides the necessary reforms to ensure that TARP funds are used properly. The dynamic database outlined by this legislation provides a valuable tool for oversight. By establishing a mechanism for oversight and investigative agencies to review TARP fund usage, we are enhancing accountability.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of H.R. 1242, the TARP Accountability and Disclosure Act. As the lead Republican sponsor of this legislation, I have worked closely with Representatives Maloney and Cantor as well as Financial Services Committee Chairman Frank and Ranking Member Bachus to bring this important bill to the House floor.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, EESA, created the Troubled Assets Relief Program, TARP, which authorized the Treasury Department to buy $700 billion worth of troubled assets from financial institutions. This money has also been used by Treasury to purchase preferred stock from banks and other financially troubled companies, such as AIG, General Motors, and Chrysler, and in support of programs such as the Targeted Investment Program, Asset Guarantee Program, and Consumer and Business Lending Initiative Investment Program to name a few. While Congress did subsequently place additional conditions on how it could be spent, it has been rather difficult to follow and account for this vast amount of money.

It is also important that not only our government but also the American People know exactly where their taxpayer dollars are going for programs such as TARP. The TARP Accountability and Disclosure Act requires the creation of a database system within the Department of Treasury and provides for additional monitoring and accountability that will provide true transparency of how the TARP funds are used. This system would serve as an efficient mechanism for oversight, audits, and investigations. H.R. 1242 will also require that this database be made publicly available, allow for the daily collection of information and for the filtering of data content. Finally, it will prohibit the disclosure of information that would already be prohibited by any federal or state law or regulation including proprietary information.

So, why is this necessary? Well, not only is this information reported to over 25 different federal agencies, including the SEC, Federal Reserve, FDIC, and Commodities Futures Trading Commission, but the data is located in various systems and formats that are incompatible with one another. The TARP Accountability and Disclosure Act would require all relevant TARP data collected be put in a single standardized format so these funds will be transparent and traceable.

I am pleased to report that this legislation is supported by many organizations including the Chamber of Commerce, the Center for Democracy and Technology, OMB Watch, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, and the NAACP.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this bipartisan bill authored by the lady from New York and the gentleman from New York (Mr. King). You know, this bill is really pretty simple, and it's really

just about transparency, disclosure and sunshine. Last year, $700 billion of taxpayer money was made available in order to provide a rescue plan for the financial system, which was troubled at that time. We all know that much of this money has gone out, but what we don't really know is what it has gone to do, what it is actually being used for, where it is being employed.

Now there are those who will say that, well, because there are dollars, if you put dollars into a given financial institution, they're fungible and you don't really know which dollar went to what, and I understand that that argument has some legitimacy. But the point of this bill is, Let's disclose and let's make available what we do know. There is a lot of information out there, as the gentlelady from New York suggested, which is in multiple agencies and multiple places, and it's just simply not available to Members of the House or to Members of Congress so that we can make an effective determination of whether this money has, is, and will be used in a manner consistent with its original objective which was to stabilize the financial system.

This bill, what it really does is, as it says, to make available, ongoing, continuous and close to real-time updates of the status of funds distributed through a standardized electronic database. That's something which technology today enables us to do, and it's something which the taxpayers and the Members of Congress have the right to see in order to better evaluate the use of these funds. So I stand in support of this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, due to the death of a family member, I was absent from the House for the week of November 30 and thus not recorded for any votes that week. Had I been present, I would have voted in the following way on bills considered by the House:

On rollcall vote No. 911, on H.R. 3029, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 912, on H.R. 727, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 913, on H.R. 3667, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 914, on H. Res. 494, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 915, on H. Con. Res. 129, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 916, on H. Res. 861, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 917, on H. Res. 897, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 918, on H.R. 3634, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 919, on H.R. 515, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 920, on H. Con. Res. 197, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 921, on H.R. 1242, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 922, on H.R. 3980, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 923, on the Motion on Ordering the Previous Question on the Rule for H.R. 4154, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 924, on H. Res. 941, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 925, on approving the Journal, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 926, on H. Res. 28, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 927, on the Motion to Table the Appeal of the Ruling of the Chair, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 928, on the Motion to Recommit H.R. 4154, I would have voted ``nay'';

On rollcall vote No. 929, on H.R. 4154, I would have voted ``yea'';

On rollcall vote No. 930, on H.R. 3570, I would have voted ``yea''.