To eliminate an unused lighthouse reservation, provide management consistency by incorporating the rocks and small islands along the coast of Orange County, California, into the California Coastal National Monument managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and meet the original Congressional intent of preserving Orange County's rocks and small islands, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 956 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 956.

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

House Resolution 956 provides for general debate on the bill, H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. It provides 3 hours of general debate, which will be evenly divided between the chairmen and ranking members of the various committees of jurisdiction. It self-executes an amendment to resolve jurisdictional concerns among the committees of jurisdiction of this bill. The

amendment also includes the text of H.R. 1728, regarding predatory lending, which the House passed earlier this year overwhelmingly. It also makes certain revisions to the bill to ensure it complies with pay-as-you-go rules.

Mr. Speaker, for more than a year, the Financial Services Committee, of which I am a member, has held hearings and conducted a thorough oversight into the causes of last year's financial meltdown which caused our current economic troubles. After exhaustive work, the House now has before it a comprehensive package of reforms to address the numerous failures that led to the near collapse of our financial system last year.

The banking system is our Nation's circulatory system for our economy; and last year that circulatory system had a heart attack. We cannot and will not let the banking system fail, which is why this House had to take bold action last year to stabilize it. However, now we must turn and look to the causes at the root of the meltdown and make targeted reforms and repairs to address the inefficiencies and failures we found in the system.

The legislation before us is the most significant reform to our financial system since the New Deal of the 1930s. The bill creates a Financial Stability Oversight Council to monitor systemically significant institutions, counter-parties and potential threats to the financial system. This ensures that there is no place to hide by closing loopholes, improving consolidated supervision, and establishing robust regulatory oversights.

We provide for the orderly wind-down of failing firms that are systemically significant, ending the notion of ``too big to fail.'' By dissolving these firms, we end them. We kill them. We put them out of their misery, so we say ``no'' to any more taxpayer bailouts.

This legislation also makes robust consumer protection repair and reform. It puts the regulation of consumer protection on a level playing field with the regulation of safety and soundness of our financial institutions. It creates an independent agency focused solely on writing meaningful consumer protection standards and keeping watch over predatory practices that some lenders have shown a propensity to pursue.

Additionally, we increase transparency and accountability by establishing a regulatory system for the over-the-counter derivative market. Now most derivative trades will be done on exchanges or through clearinghouses. Again, we have made sure that there is no place to hide. Other important pieces of this legislation include the registration of hedge funds and the doubling of SEC funding to hire more experts and investigators. Investor protection is substantially strengthened. A Federal insurance office is created to gather information, mitigate systemic risk and provide for insurance expertise to the Federal Government.

In this legislation, we have also included two very important measures which passed the House earlier this year. First, is the say- on-pay, and the second is on mortgage reform aimed at curbing the abusive and predatory practices that led to the subprime lending problems. This legislation is critical to protect taxpayers and consumers by reining in the abuses of Wall Street, while enabling a balanced environment for the financial markets to grow and stabilize our economy.

These changes are essential to rebuilding Main Street and getting credit flowing to small businesses, creating jobs, and rebuilding our economy.

I'm proud to stand here with my colleagues today while we consider this important set of reforms. We cannot afford another collapse as we had last fall. It cost this Nation trillions of dollars and millions of jobs, and is no longer acceptable. We need to repair and restore the system so that confidence is restored by the American public and people around world. We make these necessary reforms that establish robust regulatory oversight. This bill is another step toward economic recovery, and I urge its adoption.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

As much as I enjoy listening to my friend from California, I'm afraid that I would have to say, Mr. Speaker, he hasn't read much of this bill. And the reason I would say that is that under the proposal the Republicans presented to us in Financial Services, they were going to allow this thing to linger through a chapter 11. If there was a failed banking institution, it would linger, as opposed to the proposal by the Democrats which says, and which is the bill before us, a financial company that comes within the coverage of this title for resolution shall be placed in liquidation, period. It's over. It's done. Number one.

Number two, with respect to this comment or his comments and general comments about job creation and the debacle that occurred last fall, it came under the watch of President Bush, who has the worst track record for job creation of any President since the job creation records have been taken. Also, we've lost trillions of dollars because of the types of casino-like approaches that were taken in and on Wall Street and other places that cost millions of investors thousands and thousands of dollars each and cost so many jobs.

I would like to now yield 4\1/2\ minutes to my friend from Kansas (Mr. Moore).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to my friend from Florida, a member of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Klein.

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, how much time does each side have?

I yield myself so much time as I may consume.

I just want to respond to my two colleagues from the Financial Services Committee. After all the hearings we had, after all the witnesses that we heard from, it's almost as if they forgot everything they heard. The Wild West mentality that permeated Wall Street permeated the investment community and the banking system and brought this country to its knees last fall. And as a consequence, trillions of dollars of wealth were lost, and millions of jobs have been lost, and it was based on a belief within the Bush administration and the Republican Congress that participated with it that you don't need regulation, these markets will take care of themselves. Well, what they ended up doing is, we had three of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever, Madoff, Petters and Stanford, under that regime, under that administration. And that's just wrong.

Our bill has nine sections to it, Mr. Speaker. The first is on consumer protection. The second is on investor protection. The third is on hedge funds. The fourth is on credit rating agencies, the fifth on derivatives, the sixth on life insurance companies, and the seventh on dealing with banks that are so big or financial institutions that have so many components to them that they are a threat to the system. And we force those institutions to either raise all their reserves and their capital or sell different parts of their company if they are a threat to the system, and if they finally fail, we put them out of their misery. We don't let them linger like the Republicans would have us do, and bail them out some more. We are done with those bailouts.

The last sections of the bill, one is ``say on pay.'' Executive salary got completely out of control and was part of the gambling that was going on. And so now we allow the shareholders to have some opportunity to say what their executives should be paid. And the final piece deals with subprime mortgages where people were allowed to just get into mortgages that had teaser rates and were impossible to repay. And we now require that financial institutions have skin in the game.

These are nine sections of reasonable regulation to restore confidence in the system and stop the kind of failures that we saw in this last administration that cost this country trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars and millions of jobs. And we're not going to let that happen again.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the committee, Mr. Frank.

I yield the gentleman 1 more minute.

I just want to respond to my friend from Indiana, who continues to call this a bailout. All it does is put big institutions that fail out of their misery, just like we liquidate banks who have failed. Big financial institutions on Wall Street, whether they are insurance companies or credit companies or banks or stockbrokers, are placed into liquidation and finished.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I would like to ask again how much time each side has.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I have one.

Mr. Speaker, I say to my good friend from West Virginia she continues to use the word ``bailout,'' but as it's clear in the bill, this is not any taxpayer-funded money. The continued use by my Republican colleagues of the word ``bailout'' is simply wrong and misleading because what is stated in the bill is the creation of a fund based on assessments paid by the biggest financial institutions in the world, $50 billion and bigger in terms of assets, so that those institutions, if they fail, will have a liquidation fund to put themselves out of their misery. That's what this is all about, to just be finished with it.

Now, one thing I would like to say about my Republican colleagues. They've forgotten. They've talked about two sections of the bill: consumer protection, which is absolutely essential in this bill, as well as dealing with huge financial institutions that are risky to our financial system and could create a domino effect like we had last fall.

The seven other sections of the bill--hedge funds, credit rating agencies, derivatives, life insurance, executive pay, and subprime-- those were bipartisan sections of the bill. So this bill covers a lot of topics to rein in our financial system and restore it and strengthen it as we go forward.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, my friend from California wanted to compare the 170-page proposal that they have versus the 1,300 pages of the bill that we have. I would just say to him, in his proposal, he doesn't deal with hedge funds, he doesn't deal with credit rating agencies, he doesn't deal with derivatives, he doesn't deal with excessive compensation to executives, he doesn't deal with life insurance. He doesn't deal with a whole range of things. He just deals with one thing: Let's put them in bankruptcy. Let's do a chapter 11. Let's let these things go on forever in a chapter 11.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we can't afford this anymore. The status quo, which is more or less what the Republicans are proposing--they should call their bill ``Let's Protect Wall Street'' because that's all it does. It doesn't change anything.

When we lose trillions of dollars and people's livelihoods, and retirement funds, and pension plans, and jobs are lost, and they come in here and say, Oh, theirs is 1,300 pages, that's got to be bad because ours is 170 pages, when people's lives have changed, the debate on this floor and the debate about American futures is more than that. This is about restoring confidence in a financial system that was allowed to be the Wild West under George Bush and under the Republicans. This is no longer going to be the case. We are going to have reasonable regulation that people can rely on; certainty will be restored and confidence in the system regained.

There are nine sections: Consumer protection; investor protection; dealing with derivatives; dealing with credit rating agencies; dealing with executive compensation; dealing with hedge funds; and specifically, and most importantly, dealing with those financial institutions that have become so risky that they are going to cause a collapse of our entire banking system, which we cannot allow. So we require those institutions to post themselves $150 billion so they can be liquidated without any cost to the taxpayer.

Their proposal is nothing but bailouts. Their proposal is nothing but protecting Wall Street. We've got to change that. This bill changes the future of our financial system in a way that we haven't seen since the New Deal. We need to restore confidence. That's what we do.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have to say at the outset that I have a slightly different take than was just offered by my Rules Committee colleague, the gentleman from Golden, Colorado. As our economy, Mr. Speaker, and our jobs market continue to struggle and families face the coming year with deep worries for their own financial futures, I believe that our responsibility here in this institution as Members of Congress is very clear. We must reform our financial regulatory system to prevent the kind of catastrophic breakdown that occurred last year. We both can agree on that. We know that what happened last year, I mean, a year ago right now, many of us were sensing that our economy was in peril, and we could have seen a major meltdown.

We need to ensure that that doesn't happen again, the threat that we went through does not happen again. We must do so in a way that preserves access to credit for families and small businesses, promotes job creation, ends taxpayer-funded bailouts, and allows us to begin to pay down this horrendous national debt that we're all facing. Unfortunately, the proposal that is before us this evening fails on all counts.

At a time when we need to reform and streamline our regulatory regime, the Democratic majority proposes to make it more complicated and less accountable, more unworkable and less transparent. The majority wants to keep the taxpayers on the hook for a permanent system of bailouts. Now, my friend said we were going to ensure that we no longer had bailouts. Clearly, from our perspective, this will continue the pattern of bailouts; and they're attempting to use repaid TARP funds as what is little more than a slush fund that will create a wide range of additional Federal spending.

The net effect of the underlying bill that the Democratic majority has put forward will be to reduce consumers' access to credit, destroy jobs, and leave our deficit spiraling out of control. This is not the solution that the American people were hoping for from this institution. They understand while the circumstances leading up to our current economic crisis involved incredibly complex and arcane regulations, policies and institutions, the lack of accountability and transparency was the core problem.

They understood that a lack of accountability, a lack of transparency, that that really was the core problem that led up to the crisis. Financial institutions took on unsustainable levels of risk and used highly questionable practices that fed into a bubble that we all know inevitably burst.

Individuals took on an enormous amount of debt that they simply could not afford, and we all know that the Federal Government did the exact same thing. The result was frozen credit markets, declining growth, and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. We're still trying to climb out of this hole, as we all know. The task at hand is not about increasing regulation or diminishing regulation. It is about making it smarter, more accountable, and more effective.

The Democratic majority's so-called reform bill takes us in the opposite direction. By adding multiple layers of new bureaucracy and making agencies like the Fed even less accountable than before, they threaten to compound the very problems that led to our current situation.

What's more, by further tangling this Byzantine mess of regulators and superregulators, they will further tie up credit that families and small businesses desperately need. This is credit that enables small companies to grow, expand, make payroll for current employees, and create positions for new employees. This is credit that enables responsible homeowners to make purchases and help get our housing market back on track. By exacerbating the credit crunch, today's underlying bill threatens further job destruction and stymied growth.

The bill also creates this $150 billion fund paid for with new taxes to continue to bail out failing institutions. Now, if that $150 billion turns out to not be enough, who's on the hook for more bailouts? Well, surprise, surprise. It's the U.S. taxpayer.

The Democratic majority was given the opportunity to remove these bailout provisions from the bill in committee, but they chose to keep them in place. And if that weren't bad enough, this bill will take the bailout dollars

that are repaid to the taxpayers and put them into a slush fund for more government spending rather than paying down the national debt. The Democratic majority has apparently forgotten that they voted last fall to consider the taxpayer first as bailout dollars are repaid rather than putting it off into some other fund. The path charted by this legislation is utterly reckless at a time when prudence and accountability are more needed than ever.

But, Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to say that we, as Republicans, have an alternative. We have a very viable alternative. We put forth the proposal that reforms our financial regulatory system without threatening access to credit or job creation. We enhance rather than diminish accountability for agencies like the Fed. We tackle the issue of fraud and give shareholders greater rights when it comes to executive compensation. We put an end to the bailouts once and for all, and we return repaid bailout dollars to the Federal Treasury where they belong. Our alternative accomplishes the goal of guarding against future crises without imperiling our recovery. This is what the American people are demanding of us.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues--while we're considering this as a general debate rule, I'm urging my colleagues to reject this because we can do better. Reject taxpayer-funded bailouts, reject the credit crunch for small businesses with families, reject greater job losses, and reject a new slush fund for even more wasteful spending.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. Speaker, at this time I'm happy to yield 2 minutes to your Illinois colleague, the gentlewoman from Hinsdale, a hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee, Mrs. Biggert.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am very privileged to yield 2 minutes to the senior Republican Californian on the Committee on Financial Services, my friend from Fullerton, Mr. Royce.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I'm very happy to yield 2 minutes to my good friend from Roswell, Georgia (Mr. Price).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to a very hardworking member of the Committee on Financial Services, my friend from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished chairman of the Republican Conference, the gentleman from Columbus, Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 2 minutes to our great new colleague from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Paulsen.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to yield 1\1/ 2\ minutes to my friend from Mesa, Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire again how much time remains on each side.

Let me just say to my friend, if I might, Mr. Speaker, that we are winding down. If the gentleman has no further speakers, we are prepared to close.

At this time I am happy to yield 2 minutes to my very good friend, the former Rules Committee member from Charleston, West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).

Mr. Speaker, I yield my friend an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, at this juncture I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Savannah, Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 2 minutes to a hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee, the gentleman from Wantage, New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

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

Mr. Speaker, this has been a very interesting debate as we talk about where we are economically and the challenges with which we are trying to contend. It's a very serious time. The American people are hurting. People are losing their businesses, their homes, their jobs all across this country. They want us to get our economy back on track, and they want us to ensure that we do this in a very, very responsible way.

Well, Mr. Speaker, my colleague Mr. Garrett has just put before us the 1,279-page bill that is to be considered under this measure, and I have to say that as we look at it, it is voluminous. And I will admit I haven't read every single page of that bill and I doubt that there are many of our colleagues who have.

The fact of the matter is we have a 170-page alternative. This one, by the way, is on both sides of the pages, and ours is on one side, Mr. Speaker. It's 170 pages, and it's a proposal that clearly will ensure that we don't proceed down the road towards bailouts. It will make sure that we don't jeopardize our economic growth. It will make sure that we create greater transparency and accountability, and that is a key priority that I believe the American people want us to pursue.

We all hear David Letterman's regular Top 10 list. I was just handed a Top 10 list as to why we should support the 170-page bill that provides transparency and accountability and will work to get our economy back on track without increasing taxes or permanent bailouts, and to oppose this 1,279-page bill.

Number one: This one creates a permanent TARP-like bailout authority.

Number two: It imposes a massive tax during a credit crisis and weak economy.

Number three: It expands the powers of the Federal Reserve.

Number four: It creates a credit czar with the authority to restrict access to credit and impose taxes on consumers and small businesses.

Number five: It undermines the ``safety and soundness'' regulation of financial institutions.

Number six: It rewards trial lawyers at the expense of investors.

Number seven: It kills jobs by undermining the ability of Main Street companies to manage risk.

Number eight: It empowers regulators to impose wage controls on workers and enterprises.

Number nine: It continues ``business as usual'' at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

And number 10: Our Republican substitute ends the bailouts, restores market discipline, and protects consumers, small businesses, and taxpayers.

Reject this rule. Reject this legislation. We can do better. We have it in our hands right here, Mr. Speaker.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, few people in this House apparently recognize, or in the country, the enormous significance of January 21, 2009. That is apparently the day in which a number of extraordinary things happened. It's the day on which bailouts began. According to my Republican colleagues, there weren't any before. Bailouts, you may think they started under George Bush, the bailout of General Motors, of AIG, of Chrysler, and the TARP bill. Some people may think they happened in 2008. No. Apparently, they started on January 21, 2009. That's also the day, of course, that the war in Afghanistan, which was going wonderfully, began to go bad. It's the day in which a surplus magically became an enormous deficit. It's also the day in which we had a recession.

My Republican colleagues talk about job loss. Job loss was, of course, I thought, begun with a recession that started in 2007 and got worse and worse during 2008 and is only now beginning to moderate.

And not only did all those bad things happen on January 21, 2009--the bailout began, the TARP sprang full-blown, the deficits came, the war in Afghanistan turned south, but it was also the day in

which we had one of the worst outbreaks of illness in American history, mass amnesia on the part of the Republican Party, who forgot everything that had happened before.

Every single bailout now going on in America started under the Bush administration. In some cases, some of us thought we had to cooperate because the lack of regulation, the ideologically driven opposition to any regulation of derivatives, of subprime mortgages, of excessive leverage by banks; all of those things were Republican policy. And now, Members have said, that's their answer.

Leave it to the market, because if you try to regulate, you will kill the economy.

Well, Members who are impressed by that don't have to wait and listen to my Republican colleagues say it. Go back and read the Congressional Record from 1900 when they were saying that about Theodore Roosevelt and the antitrust, actually 1902, 1903.

Read what they said when Franklin Roosevelt set up the SEC during the 1930s. Yes, we believe that there should be some regulation. We are told, leave it to the markets.

Leave it to AIG to sell as many credit default swaps as they want to without any ability to pay them back; leave it to people unregulated to sell subprime mortgages to people who shouldn't have them. Leave it to the rating agencies to then say to AIG, Hey, those are a great deals, buy them, or insure them, rather, through the people who bought them.

Do nothing about executive compensation. Do nothing about a salary structure that incentivizes excessive risk. Don't let the shareholders have a say. Now, one of my colleagues said, I guess the gentleman from Texas, that it is a bailout fund. No, there is not.

He talks about a bailout fund as if it were a reality. Here is the deal: we did have bailout starting with the TARP bill in September, which I voted for when the Bush administration, I think, said, look, as a result, not--they didn't say this--but as a result of lack of regulation, we were in a terrible crisis.

We, in this bill, end those. The authority that the Federal Reserve, George Bush's appointees to the Federal Reserve, they were all his, used to give money to AIG, that's abolished in our bill. Section 13.3 will no longer allow them to do what they did with Bear Stearns or do with AIG.

It will allow a facility to be set up, and here we agree--the Republicans said the same thing in their bill--to provide for some liquidity for solvent institutions, but there is no more of the Federal Reserve doing what they did with AIG and Bear Stearns.

We do take a fund, not from the taxpayers, as we were asked to do by the Bush administration, and as I went along with, along with the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate--because I didn't think we had an option at that time to avert disaster--but we now with some time will assess the financial institutions for that fund. The fund is not used to bail out any failing institution.

The bill specifically says the money only comes to put that institution to death. There is nothing in here that allows a failing institution to be continued with Federal money. There is a dissolution fund, not a bailout fund; and it does say that it may be that to dissolve this in an orderly way, as opposed to Lehman Brothers, where you just had a flat bankruptcy, that you need to put some money into it, maybe pay off some of the States that would otherwise be hurt because they got into investments they shouldn't have gotten into. That's the only fund, so there is no bailout. The institution has died.

Here is another difference, though. The Republican bill does zero, proudly, does zero to prevent those institutions from getting to that point. The bill that we are putting forward says the regulators, as a systemic risk council, will monitor institutions and will monitor activity. If we see an institution getting to that point, we step in and say, raise your capital, stop selling CDSs, stop selling mortgages, giving mortgages to people who shouldn't get them, divest yourself of this or that.

Mr. Speaker, I know that some of my conservative colleagues who have aligned themselves with people who came to be the new American patriots want to emulate the people who revolted against George III, but there is another monarch who comes to mind when I come to think of them. When in the 19th century the Bourbons were restored after the French Revolution, it was said of them that they had forgotten nothing because they learned nothing.

That's my Republican colleagues. They have learned absolutely nothing from the fact that a total absence of regulation caused this enormous financial crisis.

Do we care about jobs, yes. We don't want, as their bill would do, their substitute to allow an AIG to continue to do what it did to allow subprime mortgages to continue, to allow executive pay to have that perverse incentive. Yes, we are trying to prevent another job loss like the one President Obama inherited from President Bush.

Will the gentleman yield?

I didn't offer it. It was offered by President Bush. I did vote for it, but it was President Bush's offer. I give credit where credit is due.

I thank the gentleman from Colorado and thank him for his work both on the Financial Services Committee and on this rule, and certainly I support the rule and the underlying bill, H.R. 4173, Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

And we think about the name, Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This is self-descriptive, exactly what Americans have been looking for for the past year. Our current economic crisis is the worst in decades, and it certainly didn't happen overnight. It happened over the last number of years because of a failure of regulation and oversight.

The one thing I'll agree with Mr. Dreier from California is that it's not a question of more or less regulation. It's smart regulation. It's the right type of regulation. It's the right type of people in those agencies that know what they're doing, that have the proper training, they're probably paid, and they're not outsmarted by some people who are trying to scam the system. That's what Americans have been asking for. That's what Americans are looking for Congress to do.

And finally, after a tremendous amount of work--and again, a lot of it has been through good work by Democrats and Republicans--I'm very sorry to see that this moment it's becoming a partisan issue. But the good news is this bill is good quality, is one of the most important things that has been done in our economy and our financial system in over 50 years, and it will be an answer to not only figure out what went wrong in the past and learn from those mistakes, but also anticipate what can go wrong in the future. There are a lot of very smart people out there that have learned how to scam the system, and we as Americans need to make sure that we are anticipating what those kinds of problems may be so we can avoid those problems from happening again.

Under the bill before us today, we've created a regulatory structure that will protect consumers and ensure that investors have the appropriate information to make knowledgeable investment decisions. There's no guarantee in investing, and every person has to take personal responsibility for themselves in making those decisions, but at the same time, you can't be fraudulently misled. You can't have a lack of information, a lack of context. And it's important to have an agency that will stand up for the consumers or abusive other financial institutions that are out there.

This legislation also restores responsibility and accountability through Wall Street. Regulatory loopholes and gaps in regulation have been closed to make sure that there is common sense, transparency, and adequate oversight. Financial institutions that were previously unregulated--and we've already heard the stories of who they are--will now be brought under government supervision. Derivatives and other complex financial products that we've never even heard of--credit default swaps and other things--will now be tightly regulated to eliminate unnecessary risk taking by financial institutions. And executive compensation at these institutions has also been modified to discourage risky speculation for short-term gains that have negative effects on our overall economy.

This bill also makes sure the American taxpayer, all of us, won't have to bail out Wall Street banks by putting in place resolution authority that will allow these firms to fail without damaging the financial system and the entire economy. No more ``too big to fail'' or we have to rescue them because, if they fall, the whole economy fails.

We cannot let it get to that point, and that's exactly what this bill does. It stops it before it gets to that point.

We've also learned that both quality and the quantity of staff at regulatory agencies, as I said before, are very important. We want to have qualified technical staff, and we want to know that if someone blows the whistle and calls something out that the staff at these agencies will respond quickly and efficiently to make sure that that doesn't continue.

It's also important to hold individuals who committed misdeeds to account. Many financial players committed abusive and fraudulent acts, from Wall Street to local mortgage brokers, and we have to hold these people accountable. Americans, all they ask for is a sense of fairness. They want to know if they play by the rules, that people who sell them products are also playing by those same rules.

And unfortunately, there haven't been enough prosecutions for those who committed some of these very bad acts that brought us to our knees. That's unacceptable. People that commit these types of criminal fraudulent acts must be punished.

Yet simply punishing these bad actors is not enough. We have to learn from the past and anticipate the future and make sure our financial structures are adapted accordingly. The reforms made by this legislation are essential to creating a functional, sustainable financial system that families and our businesses can count on.

We cannot and will not, as Americans, allow what happened last year to happen again. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Congress, to the passage of this bill, to the President signing it, and to Americans knowing that they will have confidence in their financial system. I thank the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I regret that due to illness, I missed 30 votes on December 9, 2009 through December 11, 2009. Had I been present, I would have voted in the following manner:

On H. Res. 955, Providing for consideration of H.R. 4213, the Tax Extenders Act, on ordering the previous question, I would have voted yes.

On H. Res. 955, Providing for the consideration of H.R. 4213, the Tax Extenders Act, on agreeing to the resolution, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 3951, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2000 Louisiana Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana, as the Roy Rondeno, Sr. Post Office Building, on Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4213, Tax Extenders Act of 2009, Table Appealing of the Ruling of the Chair, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4213, Tax Extenders Act of 2009, on passage, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 3603, To rename the Ocmulgee National Monument, on Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended, I would have voted yes.

On H. Res. 956, Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4173) to provide for financial regulatory reform, to protect consumers and investors, to enhance Federal understanding of insurance issues, to regulate the over-the-counter derivatives, markets, and for other purposes, on agreeing to the resolution, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 86, To eliminate an unused lighthouse reservation, provide management consistency by bringing the rocks and small islands along the coast of Orange County, California, and meet the original Congressional intent of preserving Orange County's rocks and small islands, and for other purposes, on motion to suspend the rules and pass, as amended, I would have voted yes.

On H. Res. 961, Providing for consideration of the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 3288) making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, on ordering the previous question, I would have voted yes.

On H. Res. 961, Providing for consideration of the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 3288) making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, on agreeing to the resolution, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 3288, Making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, HUD, and related agencies for FY 2010, on agreeing to the conference report, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4017, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 43 Maple Avenue in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, as the Ann Marie Blute Post Office, on motion to suspend the rules and pass, I would have voted yes.

On H. Res. 962, Waiving a requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII with respect to consideration of certain resolutions reported from the Committee on Rules, on agreeing to the resolution, I would have voted yes.

On H. Res. 964, Providing for further consideration of the bill (H.R. 4173) to provide for financial regulatory reform, to protect consumers and investors, to enhance Federal understanding of insurance issues, to regulate the over-the-counter derivatives markets, and for other purposes, on agreeing to the resolution, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, Frank of Massachusetts amendment No. 1, as modified, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, Sessions of Texas amendment, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted no.

On H.R. 4173, Lynch of Massachusetts amendment, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, Murphy of New York amendment No. 6, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have noted no.

On H.R. 4173, Frank of Massachusetts amendment No. 7, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4174, Stupak of Michigan amendment No. 8, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, Stupak of Michigan amendment No. 9, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, Kanjorski of Pennsylvania amendment No. 12, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, McCarthy of California amendment, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted no.

On H.R. 4173, Peters of Michigan amendment, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, Marshall of Georgia amendment, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, Schakowsky of Illinois amendment, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted yes.

On H.R. 4173, Minnick of Idaho amendment, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted no.

On H.R. 4173, Bachus of Alabama Substitute Amendment, as Modified, on agreeing to the amendment, I would have voted no.

On H.R. 4173, The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, on Motion to Recommit with Instructions, I would have voted no.

On H.R. 4173, The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, on passage, I would have voted yes.