Drywall Safety Act of 2009

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 2.

Mr. Chairman, I am here to correct a mistake I made in my haste to get the markup concluded so we could have plenty of time to get the reports done, the bill on the floor. I agreed to an amendment that I had not read carefully.

The amendment would ban any organization, any organization in America, from receiving housing counseling funds if anybody in that organization is indicted by any prosecutor anywhere for Federal election or voter fraud.

So I rise to vindicate an important principle of American law that indictment should not be a cause of serious penalty, that people should continue to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

To allow any prosecutor, anywhere in America, to tell any organization that it is ineligible for these funds, simply by an indictment, is, it seems to me, inappropriate.

I would point out that while there is an effort to claim that somehow this is specific to one organization, that may be the intent, but this bill earmarks no funds for any organization.

And it says, here is what it says about the funds: The Secretary shall make financial assistance available to HUD-approved housing counseling agencies and State housing finance agencies. So we have HUD- approved counseling agencies--these are approved now on the list from the last administration--and State housing finance agencies.

I have some confidence in them and those who are worried, my amendment says if there is a conviction and the person isn't fired, you cut off the funds.

But to cut off funds that were given by an approved HUD counseling agency because once persons anywhere in America were indicted by some prosecutor, is a violation of the basic principle of fairness.

I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time remains to me, Mr. Chairman?

I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentlewoman from Minnesota said, ``Do we want to allow funding for people who employ people who are under investigation?'' Yes. I don't want to live in a society where the mere instituting of an investigation by any prosecutor anywhere shuts down lawful activities.

Now, she said an organization that's under indictment, but the amendment

goes far beyond that. Any individual member of an organization, no matter how far flung, apparently, according to the gentlewoman from Minnesota, if an investigation begins of anybody, you shut them down.

The gentlewoman from Minnesota mentioned someone who has been convicted. Under the amendment I offered, that would end it. We would either have to fire that person or lose the funding.

No. The conviction triggers it. No question. That's what is in the amendment. My amendment says if you are convicted, it's triggered. But to say that any individual who works for any organization who's indicted, shuts it down. The gentlewoman said, Are you on the side of ACORN?

The issue is this: the gentlewoman, I think, inaccurately says, Are you for ACORN or the American people? This bill says nothing about ACORN. This bill says that approved HUD counseling agencies and State financing agencies can make the choice.

What I think the amendment says is this: Are you for the principle of American justice that says the mere institution of an indictment by any prosecutor anywhere, at any level?

Mr. Chair, I have told the gentlewoman I would not yield. Could she be instructed that that is the answer that she's going to get, and to stop interrupting?

There are some basic rules like the ones of debate. Also, the fact that I said that to empower any prosecutor anywhere, at any level. And this isn't about ACORN. We don't sit here to judge on this or that organization. The gentlewoman said we don't judge guilt or innocence. Well, the amendment tries to do that.

The amendment says: a guilty finding by statute; in the absence of a guilty finding, in a court of law. Because if there's a guilty finding in a court of law, under my amendment, then this denies funding to people.

There are a lot of prosecutors. And it's not just ACORN. There are a lot of organizations, including political parties in the State of New Hampshire, near me. The Republican Party operatives were convicted of election fraud. I don't think that means you go after everybody else. It certainly didn't mean pending indictment you do this. There ought to be a bright line between penalties for indictment and for conviction.

Now if the amendment had said a pattern of indictments, that's a different story. It might have been a better argument. But this says a single indictment of any individual by any prosecutor for any organization anywhere in American has these negative consequences.

I think we have seen enough of prosecutorial misconduct, whether it was Senator Stevens or whether it was Members on both sides of the aisle, whether it has been organizations that have been prosecuted. I don't think we want to set that principle. Remember, this is precedential. Once we set as a body the legal principle--apparently, it was in the earlier bill. It shouldn't have been. If I missed that, I apologize.

I want to now repudiate the notion that the action of a single prosecutor who may be politically motivated to indict anybody anywhere for election fraud, disables that organization, forces the organization to fire an individual who may later be vindicated.

Yes, the gentlewoman said one of the employees of the organization that has motivated her amendment was convicted. My amendment says: in that case, you either fire the person or you lose the money.

Conviction ought to be the standard. But a single indictment by a single prosecutor anywhere, I do not think that is the rule of law under which Americans wants to live.

I yield back the balance of my time.

If the gentleman would yield, he said he is sorry the other body didn't move. There's a lot of that going around

Mr. Chairman, in the absence of anyone else, I will claim this time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Alabama has very accurately stated this. He worked with us until we got an amendment that did some good, that avoided some problems we thought we would have. So I hope the amendment is agreed to.

I yield to the gentleman for 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

First, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's description of the safe harbor refers to an earlier version of the bill. In the committee, a bipartisan amendment offered by the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean) significantly increased the safe harbor so it is not a 30-year fixed mortgage only that is allowed. Variants of time, certain ARMs, it is much more flexible.

The gentleman's comments apply accurately to a provision that is no longer in the bill; but it does not apply to what is in the bill.

My second point is that I am surprised at the back-and-forth attitude some of my most conservative colleagues have toward the Federal Reserve system. On the one hand, there has been a great deal of concern, which I share, about the unlimited power of the Federal Reserve in some areas. But time and again we are being told, as in this amendment, we should yield to the Federal Reserve our constitutional power to legislate.

This amendment says we will vote, but the bill will not go into effect until the Federal Reserve gives us permission. Now I have a good deal of confidence in Mr. Bernanke, but the notion that we would cede to the Federal Reserve the power to enact legislation, where is Ron Paul when we need him? When did the Federal Reserve become the constitutional equal of the Congress of the United States?

So on that ground alone, I would oppose this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, first I guess I have to apologize to the gentleman from Georgia after listening to what he said. He chided me, mildly, in a friendly manner, for mentioning the dimensions of the safe harbor, he said it wasn't part of the bill, but I was only responding to his description of it. So I listened to him; he said the safe harbor was too narrow, it would push people into a 30- year. I responded. I thought when he raised it that it was relevant.

Beyond that, though, we do have this issue: do you tell the Federal Reserve that it will decide whether or not this goes forward? It also says, and there is a lack of balance here. If it says it will reduce the availability by any amount. Well, to some extent the purpose of

this bill is to reduce the availability of credit.

If Members believe that people got mortgages who shouldn't have been able to get them, then they ought to support a bill that will reduce the availability of credit. Frankly, the profligate availability of credit is a major reason for the current problem. So, yes, there are people who used to get mortgages who won't get them under this bill. Some lenders don't like that. There are lenders who made loans and they won't be able to make the loans under this bill, but that is precisely the point. The point is not to allow credit to be as loosely granted as it was even for qualified mortgages. People got mortgages who shouldn't have gotten them.

Now if you believe that not everyone who got a mortgage in the past should get a mortgage now, then it would seem to me you want to reduce the availability of credit. The question is: how do you do it? Do you do it in a sensible way? What is the balance? That is what we think is achieved in this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Yes, that is exactly the issue. The gentleman says, surprisingly to me, we want to increase the availability of credit.

Let's understand the problem. Too many loans were made to people who shouldn't have gotten them. In some cases it was the fault of the borrower; in some cases it was the fault of the lender; and in some cases the fault lies elsewhere. Yes, one of the important purposes of this bill is to reduce the pattern of people getting loans who shouldn't have gotten them because they couldn't repay them.

So to say that the purpose of this bill is to increase the availability of credit, is it to have more subprime loans, more borrowers who can't pay back?

Now you want to do it with balance and you want to do it in a reasonable way. I believe we deal with that. If there are questions do we go too far one way or the other, those are legitimate. We discussed a lot of those in committee. There were a lot of amendments that were adopted.

But I accept my colleague from Georgia's definition as the heart of the matter: Does this bill, if it is enacted, mean that fewer mortgage loans will be granted going forward than were granted in that period from 2002 to 2006, as the gentleman from Texas' amendment shows, when subprime mortgages shot up? I hope so. I hope that we will have fewer mortgages granted to people who couldn't have paid them.

Now other people, we hope things will go better. With the FHA piece, we hope to do even more in making credit available.

No, it says ``qualified mortgages.'' But part of the problem has been that people got mortgages with bad judgments by the people who made them.

Mr. Chairman, I rise, in the absence of any other claimant, to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I commend this bipartisan effort to address an issue that is particularly important in their district.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to reconsider my hasty action and take back my time.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler).

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

The gentleman is correct. This does resolve the PAYGO issue. It makes it clear that this is not mandating, it's encouraging and that solves the problem.

Will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate the gentleman accommodating my objection. I support the recommit, and I hope it is adopted.

Madam Speaker, I believe it was premature to ask for a recorded vote because I had not yet been given my time and maybe cooler heads will prevail.

Yes, in the absence of any other Member, I will seek the time in opposition.

We are going to support the amendment. I am puzzled as to what a rollcall would accomplish, except some missed planes.

So I will now yield back the balance of my time and promise to vote ``yes'' very loudly.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House in the motion to recommit, I report the bill, H.R. 1728, back to the House with an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

I rise in opposition to this amendment, which strips down language in the bill designed to keep tax dollars from falling into the hands of organizations indicted for voter fraud or its related crimes.

It was last week during our Financial Services Committee markup of the underlying bill, I offered a straightforward amendment to limit eligibility for the housing counseling grants and the legal assistance grants authorized by the bill to exclude organizations indicted for voter fraud or that employed people indicted for such crimes.

Plain and simple, Mr. Chair, it should sound familiar to everyone here in this Chamber, because the exact same language was passed as part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 to prohibit groups, such as ACORN, from obtaining taxpayer-funded grants.

272 Members of this body, including the gentleman from Massachusetts who just spoke, voted for that legislation, which became law last July. But not only is it legitimate for Congress to decide the threshold for accessing taxpayer funds, it's incumbent upon this body to do so in our fiduciary capacity to the taxpayers of this great country. And for far too long Congress has cavalierly distributed taxpayer money.

Every day we can go on record saying we will no longer set the bar this low. We are all saying, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. But ACORN and organizations like it have fooled us not once, not twice, but seemingly after every election. The stories of their indictments for voter fraud for violating their tax status for voter registration improprieties abound. Grand juries across the Nation have found them and their employees lacking. Yet we continue to funnel millions of dollars to their coffers.

Just last week, on Monday, the headlines out of Nevada read ``39 counts of voter registration fraud against ACORN and two of its former employees.'' It was just several hours ago, hot off the presses, that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported breaking news, an Allegheny County district attorney charged seven employees with ACORN ``with forgery and election law violations, saying they filed hundreds of fraudulent voter registrations during last year's general election.''

Can't this body do something about this, Mr. Chairman? How many felony charges does it take to see that this organization has violated the public trust?

Congress isn't the arbitrator of guilt or innocence. Congress does decide to spend the people's money. At what point do we finally say that this organization is simply not worthy of the hard-earned money of the American people.

According to recent testimony at the House Judiciary Committee, ACORN has been under investigation in States, for, among other things, violations of the Tax Code, 501(c)(3); violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971; fraudulent voter registration activities; and failure to comply with State law in voter registration drives.

And here are just a few more headlines of late: January, 2009, a voter registration worker for ACORN in East Saint Louis was indicted on two counts of voter fraud for submitting forged cards for residents at nursing homes without their knowledge.

According to the AP in October of 2008, ``a suburban Philadelphia man was charged with forgery, allegedly altering 18 voter-registration applications during his employment with an organization [ACORN] whose voter-outreach efforts have become a flash point in the presidential campaign.''

CNN reported October 28 about an ACORN worker who helped register nearly 2,000 voters for the community group ACORN, not one of them actually existing, and he was convicted last year and spent nearly 3 months in prison.

The gentleman from Massachusetts says that his amendment is about due process. But I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, the American people are smarter than that. They deserve better than such an oratory sleight of hand. His amendment is about our duty as stewards of the taxpayers' dollar and mine.

Others say this is about the importance of the underlying grant program. But there are plenty of legitimate law-abiding nonprofits who have never seen an indictment that could still apply for these grants.

The bottom line is this: either you're against allowing organizations that engage in or employ individuals under investigation for voter fraud to receive tax dollars, or you aren't.

Mr. Chair, our votes on this amendment make our positions crystal clear to the people we serve. Are we on the people's side or are we on ACORN's side? We owe it to our constituents who are already tired, frustrated, and outraged by this cycle of spending and bailout and taxing and borrowing to at least show them that we aren't going to pick their pockets to fund groups that are about abusing their trust over and over again.

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

Mr. Chair, I would just end by saying I urge the people of this body to oppose this amendment, because as we stand in our fiduciary duty before the taxpayers, we need to make our vote clear--and our vote will say we either stand with the taxpayers of this great country, or we stand with ACORN.

Mr. Chair, I would yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama.

Will the gentleman yield?

Will the gentleman yield to answer your point?

Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

That's right. There is. But I'd say to the Members, there's an unprecedented number of homeowners that are delinquent on their mortgages and entering foreclosures. In fact, the Mortgage Bankers Association estimates that at least 11 percent of the mortgages now are delinquent and will probably go into foreclosure. This is creating really a desperate situation across the country.

Unfortunately, as all desperate situations, this situation has created opportunities for scam artists to take advantage of homeowners in desperate situations through so-called foreclosure rescue schemes. My amendment is designed to at least offer some protection to those homeowners from being victimized in this way.

It's just amazing that, whether it was in Katrina or other natural disasters or gas shortages, that people seem to take advantage and act their worst during times of struggle and crisis.

This amendment allows mortgage servicers to work together with the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, which is a congressionally chartered organization, to make delinquent borrowers aware that they may be targets of fraud and inform them on how best to protect themselves.

The amendment is funded by dedicating 10 percent of the funds authorized under section 404 to this much needed form of housing counseling.

Many scam artists use publicly available information about defaults and foreclosures starts to contact troubled borrowers. In States with judicial foreclosures, lenders file a foreclosure action in a local court. In States where there's nonjudicial foreclosure regimes, lenders file a notice of default with the county recorder. All these records are available to the public and provide raw material for fraud artists to prey upon troubled borrowers.

In a classic loan modification scam, borrowers are duped into paying up-front fees for a loan modification that never occurs. In some cases, borrowers are told that in order to complete a mortgage refinancing needed to avoid foreclosure, they must sign over the title of the property. Another scam promises homeowners they can stay in their home as renters and buy back their properties at a later date.

On February 10, 2009, the administration released the Home Affordable Refinance Program and a Home Affordable Modification Program. Unfortunately, with the introduction of these new programs, unscrupulous persons or companies have yet again found new opportunities to defraud unsuspecting borrowers.

In fact, April 6, about a month ago, Treasury's FinCEN announced guidance to financial institutions on filing suspicious activity reports regarding loan modification and foreclosure rescue scams.

Madam Chair, let me take this opportunity to express my support for an amendment offered by my good friend and colleague from New York, Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Like the gentleman, I have heard concerns about how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have established new, nationwide requirements relating to the guarantee of mortgages for condominiums. These new rules require condominium buildings to place 70 percent of the units under contract before any one mortgage will be guaranteed. Fannie and Freddie had previously required 51 percent of condo units to be under contract.

In areas of the country experiencing a severe glut in the condominium market and large numbers of foreclosures, restrictive requirements may be appropriate. But in parts of our nation that have not experienced the same degree of foreclosures, like rural Missouri, this one-size- fits-all approach is hindering the sale of condominiums to creditworthy borrowers.

Congressman Weiner's amendment would give Fannie and Freddie the flexibility to consider the health of a local or regional housing market when determining pre-sale thresholds. This flexibility is very important to realtors, bankers, and prospective homeowners in Missouri and especially those near the Lake of the Ozarks.

I would ask that letters from Central Bank of Lake of the Ozarks and from Lake Ozark Property, which explain how the rules are hindering business in Missouri, be submitted.

I commend Congressman Weiner for offering this amendment and look forward to working with him and with Financial Services Committee Chairman Frank to ensure the language can be retained in a conference with the Senate.

I urge my colleagues to support passage of this amendment.

Central Bank

of Lake of the Ozarks,

Osage Beach, MO, April 20, 2009.

Re Legislative appeal

Hon. Ike Skelton,

House of Representatives, Rayburn House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congressman Skelton: I would like to bring your

attention to a couple of issues that have negatively impacted

the economy and the lives of thousands of condominium owners

at Lake of the Ozarks. These issues have to do with the

changes concerning the financing of condominiums implemented

by two of the GSEs (Government-Sponsored Enterprise): Freddie

Mac and Fannie, Mae.

For as long as we can remember, we have been operating

under a Master Agreement that contained special waivers

approved by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which allowed us to

make condominium loans on new condo projects. These waivers

had been predicated on the resiliency of our condominium

market at the Lake of the Ozarks and Central Bank of Lake of

the Ozarks' history of quality underwriting on loans sold to

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. While our condominium sales have

slowed too in response to economic conditions, neither Fannie

Mae nor Freddie Mac have incurred any significant losses on

the portfolio of condominium loans our bank has sold them. In

spite of this stellar performance, both Freddie Mac and

Fannie Mae have now eliminated the waiver that allowed us to

finance condominiums in new projects already under

construction and for condominium projects that have an on-

site nightly rental desk. By taking these actions without

regard to the specific performance of local markets they are

sure to make the issues of a handful of states a national

crisis.

While it is undeniable that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have

incurred unprecedented losses in the so called ``sand

states'' of Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona, our

market has remained stable but that stability is now being

threatened by these shortsighted, ``one size fits all''

restrictions.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have implemented presale

requirements of 70 percent on new condominium developments.

This single change in midstream for many projects that are in

various stages of development will cause catastrophic damage

to an otherwise stable market. You talk about changing the

rules in the middle of the game and tanking a segment of the

real estate market. This means that consumers who want to

purchase a new condo in a new development cannot get 30 year

fixed rate financing. If the consumer cannot purchase, then a

developer cannot sell, and if a developer cannot sell, then a

bank cannot be repaid for the commercial loan, and everyone

involved loses. This change will work to make a regional

crisis a national crisis. The Freddie and Fannie Account

Representative abilities to negotiate agreements that are

common and customary to local markets have been eliminated.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have removed the ability to lend

in established condominium projects where there are nightly

rental desks that are diminutive in size and impact the

project very little. This will decrease the marketability and

value of the units in those projects where consumers cannot

get 30 year fixed-rate financing.

The consumers, condominium owners, and developers are

losing out on the opportunity to purchase, refinance, and

sell condominiums in a very favorable interest rate

environment. We think the President of the United States,

Department of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and Congress are

working hard to create a favorable market to sell real estate

and stabilize the market. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae policy

changes, as they pertain to the condominium market at the

Lake of the Ozarks, have done just the opposite. They have

managed to take a market segment of the real estate market at

the Lake of the Ozarks and bring it to a standstill.

The primary reason we have been given for the removal of

these waivers by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is because of

problems they have experienced with condos in the ``sand

states''. This is a prime example of Freddie Mac and Fannie

Mae painting every market and bank (underwriter) with a broad

brush and then making decisions that have a negative impact

on good markets and banks (underwriters) with a long history

of outstanding performance.

We need your help. Please contact the people in charge at

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and ask them to get in touch with

us to address these issues.

Thank you for your time and help in this matter.

Very truly yours,

Gregory J. Gagnon,

President & CEO.

Russell Clay,

Vice President, Mortgage Department Head

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

I appreciate the gentleman offering this amendment. I think it does make the underlying bill better. Income verification is an important criteria in determining whether somebody qualifies for a mortgage or not and has the ability to repay. Providing a low-cost way to be able to do that, I think, is an important step in this process. And I commend the gentleman.

With that, I yield back my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

The gentlewoman offers a thoughtful amendment. Prepayment is an important option for mortgage holders. I appreciate her amendment, and we support that.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the spirit by which the gentlewoman is introducing this amendment, but what we are all trying to do with disclosure, I think, is simplify it in a way that consumers actually understand the terms and conditions of the contract.

I have worked with Representative Biggert and Congressman Hinojosa to ensure that HUD, for example, and the Fed work together to have a simple

disclosure that is uniform and universal so that when people are taking credit out, they understand the terms and conditions of that and it's the same terms and conditions that they're presented when they get to closing.

Now, what the gentlewoman's amendment says is that all products offered or discussed or referred by the originator must be put in this spreadsheet. What does that mean? Well, that means that in order to cut down on the amount of paperwork that an originator is going to want to do, they're not going to discuss very many options and they're going to be asked to make assumptions of what are the benefits of a particular product over the other product.

One of the things that this bill does is it moves in a direction to begin to simplify that disclosure process, and now we're kind of truncating that with this new disclosure; so now we are going to add another piece of paper.

I would submit to you that a lot of people took on mortgages that they didn't understand the terms and conditions of. I don't know that there was any predatory lending necessarily going on. In some cases there may have been. But in many cases the disclosures are very hard to read, they're multipages, and the terms and conditions, unless you read many, many pages, you didn't understand.

One of the things that I believe is the best way to do that is that on a one-page form you have all of the more important conditions of this loan so that the person that's taking out that mortgage understands what they are getting. But I think we are going down a road here of what's going to happen in this legislation, if this amendment is passed is, we are going to tell the American people the government knows best what mortgage you should take out because we're going to make it so onerous for originators to display their products and to sit down and counsel with their prospective borrowers that they are going to only give them one choice. And, in fact, I think in many ways that's what this bill does.

It begins to say, you know what, the Federal Government is going to tell you what kind of mortgage that you should have. That's not the role of the Federal Government. The role of the Federal Government here is to make sure there are fair and ethical practices going on and not for the Federal Government to force originators of mortgages to be telling borrowers what kind of mortgages they should take out because they're afraid that they will fall under some of the provisions of this bill.

So I am very much opposed to this. I think it goes down the wrong direction. We are working in a bipartisan way to simplify disclosure for mortgages and we should stay that course.

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

Mr. Chairman, somehow adding more forms doesn't sound simpler to me, and basically that's what we are doing here.

In the underlying legislation, we're working together for a simple, uniform form. And by the way, what would happen in that case is, as the lender is talking about different products, they would have that simplified one-page disclosure for this product and that product, and then it's up to the consumer to be able to say, I'm going to look through this information and make a determination.

And if the gentleman would like to answer this question: Do you believe that a lender that maybe has 15 or 20 products available to him for an individual borrower is going to display 15 or 20 products to you if he's going to have to do a spreadsheet that's 15 or 16 columns wide?

I yield to the gentleman.

That wasn't the question. The question was, do you think that someone is going to offer 15 choices if they're going to have to do a spreadsheet that's 15 columns wide?

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the answer to that question is going to be ``no,'' because the people that are offering those are going to offer one or two choices because now they've got additional paperwork and they're going to have to be drawing assumptions of the cost/benefits.

If we go back to the underlying bill, which says you've got to make a disclosure, and it's going to be in a simplified form hopefully, and with government that's a stretch to simplify anything, but if we do get HUD and the Fed together to come up with one form, then we're going to be able to offer them products where we have a uniform disclosure. So they're going to be able to draw their own conclusions and not rely on the lender or the originator to make some kind of assumptions on a spreadsheet.

I do not object, but I would like for the gentleman to clarify what his amendment does.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

I am sorry I didn't make the question clear to the gentleman, in his UC, he was trying to fix a PAYGO issue.

Could you explain how your unanimous consent request addressed that PAYGO issue?

Thank you.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

So instead of being mandatory, it's discretionary.

I have an amendment made in order by the rule.

Mr. Chairman, we all agree that we want to increase credit and get the housing market moving again. My amendment is a simple amendment and addresses that specific issue. It simply says that the Federal Reserve ought to be able to provide written certification to the appropriate committees in the House and the Senate that this bill will not reduce the availability or increase the price of credit for qualified mortgages.

As we are considering ways to free up credit in the market, this legislation may just be the wrong thing at the wrong time. When the Federal Reserve testified before our committee on the impact of this legislation, the witnesses had reservations regarding the impact of this bill on access to credit. In fact, they felt that there was a significant possibility that the adoption of this bill would actually decrease the availability of credit.

My amendment would ensure that prime borrowers will not be punished with increased rates. It simply requires that the Federal Reserve certify that the provisions of this bill will not reduce the availability or increase the price of credit for qualified mortgages. This certification will protect responsible borrowers that played no role whatsoever in the meltdown of the mortgage market.

It is clear to me and others from the language in this bill that a routine, vanilla, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is being put forward as the mortgage of choice. If that is going to be the case moving forward, and originators are not going to be comfortable offering other types of mortgage products because of the narrowness of the safe harbor provisions and the risk-retention provisions, then we need to ensure that qualified borrowers will have access to those types of mortgages.

Many of us are concerned because of the other provisions in this bill that it is going to become more difficult for qualified borrowers to have access to affordable credit. So if the proponents of this bill don't believe it will restrict credit or raise the cost on borrowers, then they shouldn't have any trouble voting for this amendment. The amendment simply stipulates that the Federal Reserve will certify that that would be the case.

But if they don't think that the bill will pass this review from the Federal Reserve with flying colors, then I think it would be time for them to reconsider whether or not this legislation is what we need at this time.

I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the chairman of the committee for requesting from the Rules Committee that amendments be made in order. I appreciate that because I think these are getting to important issues.

The gentleman talks about the expansion of the safe harbor provisions, and they are. But that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the Federal Reserve, or some entity, ought to stipulate that the cost of credit won't be greater, or the availability of credit won't be less, if this bill is adopted. That is the heart of the amendment.

My friend from Massachusetts talks about being surprised by various protestations about the role of the Federal Reserve. Well, I would be the first to stand with him if in fact he wants to support maintaining, or returning the Federal Reserve to stipulating only about monetary policy. But the fact of the matter is that the Federal Reserve has jurisdiction over this area. In fact, the Federal Reserve has put forward particular rules regarding mortgages. And, in fact, many of them address the very issues that are being addressed in this bill today.

So again, the heart of my amendment says if in fact this bill will not decrease the availability of credit or will not increase the cost of credit, then it's fine. Just move it on forward. But if it will decrease the availability of credit, or increase the cost of credit to folks out there across this land, then we ought not move forward with it. We ought not punish those individuals who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a challenging situation finding credit. I once again urge adoption of the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire as to the time available on each side?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the comments of my friend, the chairman of the committee. But I would point out that the heart of this amendment gets to whether or not through this bill we are going to increase the availability of credit and decrease the cost of credit. If we are not going to do those things, then it seems to me that the American people ought to be very suspect about the nature of the bill.

The amendment simply says that the Federal Reserve, the entity in the Federal Government that has jurisdiction over this area, would simply have to say that we will not decrease the availability of credit and we will not increase the cost of credit, especially at this time, at this time when so many of our fellow citizens across this land are having extreme difficulty finding credit, realizing their dream and being able to either stay in their home or find a home in which they will be able to gain credit to purchase.

It is a simple amendment, Mr. Chairman. It gets to the heart of the matter. Are we as a Congress going to increase the availability of credit and decrease the cost? Or are we going to simply decrease the availability of credit and, therefore, decrease the ability of the American people to realize their dream? I urge adoption of the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

My amendment addresses qualified borrowers.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.