To amend the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to provide an exception from the continuing requirement for annual privacy notices for financial institutions which do not change their policies and practices with regard to disclosing nonpublic personal information from the policies and practices that were disclosed in the most recent disclosure sent to consumers, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3506) to amend the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to provide an exception from the continuing requirement for annual privacy notices for financial institutions which do not share personal information with affiliates, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

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

I want to congratulate the gentleman from Minnesota, Representative Erik Paulsen, a member of our Financial Services Committee, as well as the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee that I chair. I was pleased to introduce H.R. 3506, the Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Act, with him and our colleague, Representative Peter Roskam, who originally introduced this bill in the 110th Congress when he served on the Financial Services Committee.

In the last Congress, Mr. Speaker, this legislation was included in a bank and thrift regulatory bill I introduced, which was later included in a comprehensive regulatory reform measure this House approved by voice vote. But as is too often the case, the Senate failed to act.

The legislation we consider today will help minimize confusion consumers have about their privacy rights regarding two conflicting provisions of two prior laws. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act specifically prohibits subject companies from sharing personal information with third parties. Yet the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act still requires these firms to provide annual privacy notices that allow consumers to opt out of having their information shared with third parties. Since this practice is already prohibited by law, these annual notices only confuse the consumers that receive them.

H.R. 3506 will amend the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to exempt from its annual privacy policy notice requirement any financial institution which meets several criteria and are already prohibited by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act from sharing personal information with third parties. Waiving the privacy notice requirement will reduce confusion for consumers who may incorrectly think, by receiving the notice, that the companies have the right to share their personal information with third parties.

This should not be confused with the privacy policy financial institutions must provide to consumers when they open an account, which will be unaffected by this bill.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3506, and I reserve the balance of my time, Madam Speaker.

I want to thank the gentleman, Madam Speaker, for his very kind comments.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, again, I commend the gentleman from Minnesota for his work on this bipartisan legislation, and it is bipartisan legislation. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3506.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3506, the Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Act.

This bill will help reduce the burden and confusion of privacy notice requirements by providing exemption from sending an annual privacy notice for those institutions that do not share nonpublic customer information with unaffiliated third parties or those that do not change their privacy policies at all.

Under current law, banks and other financial institutions are required to send out an annual privacy notification to their customers informing them that nothing has changed, and they still do not share privacy information. This is often quite very confusing to customers.

Essentially, under my legislation, financial institutions are relieved of an unnecessary and redundant regulatory burden which will help lower costs and reduce junk mail that the customers receive in the mail every day. It will also lessen confusion to customers because they will no longer receive letters informing them that their bank's privacy policy has not changed at all.

Madam Speaker, it's important to note that this legislation only applies to those institutions that do not share personal financial information with third parties and do not change their privacy policies. This means that the privacy policy that banks must provide to consumers when they open an account remains completely unaffected. The bottom line is that nothing in this legislation in this bill allows for the disclosure of private information and companies are still prohibited from sharing any personal information with third parties.

Similar legislation has passed the House in previous Congresses with strong, bipartisan support; and I want to recognize the bipartisan manner in which that legislation was again handled this year.

Madam Speaker, I especially want to thank Chairman Frank and Ranking Member Bachus for their assistance with the legislation and their willingness to bring this legislation and assist me in bringing it to the House floor.

Finally, I want to thank the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore) for his hard work on this legislation. He has done exemplary work throughout his 12 years here in this body, and we are going to miss his spirit and commitment of working in a bipartisan manner, and I appreciate his friendship as well.

I ask for a ``yes'' vote on this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, in closing, this bill is a win/win. It reduces an unnecessary and redundant regulatory burden for consumers, and I ask for adoption of the bipartisan legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.