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.

I thank the Chair. How much time do we have?

I'll yield myself 2 minutes.

The American public has stated, and I said so on the floor the other night, that it's looking for Congress to do three things: first, make sure that we have no more bailouts; secondly, make sure that whatever legislation we do does not create anymore impediments

to job creation; and thirdly, let's make sure that we don't lead to a bigger, more expensive, more expansive government.

Well, we have seen over the past several days now that the legislation before us would do the wrong thing on each point. It'll create more bailouts. It will hurt job creation. And it will create larger government. Now, to the underlying portion of this bill here dealing with credit rating agencies, we all know that it was bipartisan action taken by this Congress back in 2006 when we passed the bipartisan Credit Rating Agency Reform Act. And what did that do? That formalized the registration process of credit rating agencies to become nationally recognized statistical rating organizations.

What are we about to do here? Throw that out the window before it's fully implemented, before we fully have had the opportunity to see it roll out and be played out as Congress intended it to in a bipartisan manner. We're about to throw that out. To what end?

Well, as the gentleman from Texas just pointed out, to the end that you will allow for less competition in the CRAs, credit rating agencies, with, furthermore, unintended consequences that will be detrimental to the market and investors. What does that mean to people back at home? That means that it will be harder for them to make the evaluations that are necessary for the industry. That means it will be harder for credit to be obtained in the marketplaces, and what that means for businesses, of course, harder for them to get the credit they need to expand and create jobs.

This amendment here is necessary to counter all the aspects of this bill so that we can work hard to make sure that we create jobs in this country, make sure that businesses that need credit can get the credit they need, make sure that businesses that need to be able and want to expand are able to expand.

This amendment is a positive amendment. I support this amendment.

I reserve my time.

I still reserve.

I believe that it's our right to close. It's our amendment.

Then I will yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) my remaining time.

I claim the time in opposition.

I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Chair, if there is anything that the last few months have taught us, it is the American people telling us that we don't need more government to overreach in big government solutions when targeted reforms are more appropriate and effective.

When thinking about how to draft a legislative response to the recent financial crisis in regards to this issue of derivatives, we must ask ourselves one seminal question: What are we actually trying to resolve here. The vast majority of the OTC derivative marketplace had absolutely nothing to do with the crisis. It provides critically important risk management tools for virtually all large companies and many small- and medium-sized companies as well.

When you think about the AIG situation, even the problem there with the derivatives had much more to do with the extremely bad bets on the housing market along with failed prudential regulators who were supposed to be overseeing them than they had anything specifically to do with the derivatives themselves.

So quite honestly, Madam Chair, we don't think it's appropriate to set up a truly cumbersome and Byzantine dual regulatory regime that would require the CFTC and the SEC, two entities that have not shown the ability to cooperate in the past, that they have two very different missions and reasons for being to approach very different marketplaces and derivatives and to do so now in the same manner.

The Democrats' underlying bill sets these two entities up to perform as prudential regulators, setting capital requirements, margins, and other prudential requirements when they were never envisioned to play this role. When you think about this, also, the SEC has failed miserably as a prudential regulator when it tried to do the consolidated regulator for investment banks.

The proposal contains in the underlying bill an overly broad definition, new capital and margin requirements and broad authority for regulators to determine which transactions are standardized and subject to mandatory clearing and exchange trading.

These are unnecessary government burdens that could impair the usefulness of derivatives as an innovative risk management tool, thereby increasing the exposure to the marketplace and the participants in them, which all gets to the last point.

I will yield myself 15 more seconds to make the final point.

All of these points in the underlying bill will lead to one thing: a loss of credit and therefore a loss of jobs in America today and in the future as well. The American people have spoken loud and strong: Do not pass any legislation that is going to create hardships for the creation of jobs in this country, and this underlying legislation with its language on derivatives would do just that.

With that, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas).

I yield myself 3 minutes.

I appreciate the underlying amendment that we're discussing here right now. Let me just point out that the Republicans have submitted a substitute to address this overall issue. Republicans, however, have done so in a targeted approach addressing actual problems, and it's really the more sensible approach to the whole derivative reform issue.

The centerpiece of the Republican alternative is something also found in the chairman's bill, which is a trade repository where all OTC trades would be required to be reported to. The repository then will provide valuable transparency, something we are all trying to achieve, to the entire OTC marketplace and will give the regulators the ability to analyze the appropriate data for their purposes as well as provide aggregated data to the broader marketplace.

We don't set up a Byzantine regulatory regime over the many market participants. While we don't do that because we don't preassume, without any relevant supporting data, that these entities needed to be micromanaged in this manner, we do require that the regulators review the data and regularly report back to Congress if an entity who is not already regulated by a prudential regulator, whether they should be more heavily regulated due to its size or its scope or its activities in the OTC marketplace.

So the Republican substitute does not have broad requirements for mandatory clearing, but it does codify the commitments that the private sector has already made. And they have done so working responsibly and cooperatively with the appropriate regulators, and they do so to engage in an ever more and greater amounts of central clearing now and into the future as well.

But when you think about it, these changes all take time. And they need to be done in a responsible manner. If you were going to force central clearing through some sort of central counterparties and have adequate counterparties for risk they are unfamiliar with, it could exacerbate the systemic risk.

So central clearing should be opened up over time to as many participants as possible, again, in a responsible manner so as not to do more harm than good, which is what we are all trying to achieve at the end of the day with the amendments and otherwise.

We also require margin requirements between dealers and major market participants, and that would address a major issue with the AIG-related problems that I discussed earlier.

In regards to the capital requirements, prudential regulators--look at them for a moment. Prudential regulators are really required by our substitute to take the swap activities of supervised entities into account when setting capital requirements for those entities. Let me step back for a minute and say that again.

What you're basically saying here in the AIG situation is what we should have had occur there is prudential regulators should have been looking at those swap requirements when they set the capital requirements over at AIG or other like situations. But again, it is not appropriate to set these bank-like cap requirements on nonfinancial entities, so our Republican substitute would not do so.

Finally, we generally agree with the overall chairman's regard to segregating----

I yield myself 30 additional seconds.

Finally, we agree with the chairman in regards to segregating margin for OTC swaps, although we exempt various margining for segregation requirements based on input from both the buy and the sell side.

Margins should be treated as such, especially if a dealer's counterparty wishes it to be so, and should not be commingled with the dealer's funds. Many of the problems associated with the Lehman bankruptcy, I am told and I understand, are related to this very issue. And so requiring margin segregation, we believe, would be an appropriate response to that issue and that problem and would solve it for the future.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I rise once again to point out that the underlying legislation was misdirected by setting up a Byzantine process and addressed a problem that really was not the underlying cause of the financial situation we have today.

I will also point out before I yield to the ranking member that the amendment that's before us today, it does one thing that's better than the underlying bill, which is to say that there should not be a margin requirement on end users, which is better in the sense that they will not have to post those, which will maybe address the issue of overall job creation in the future.

But I will close on this point: The underlying bill is still problematical to the larger issue of saying that if you create a system like this and address a problem of the OTC market in such a Byzantine manner and create additional burdens on it than are unnecessary, we will create fewer jobs in the future.

Madam Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the ranking member.

Madam Chair, I rise to claim time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the work of the chairman with regard to clarifying some of the definitions here. I think this goes to the overall issue of the complexity of the issues that are before the House tonight on this matter and on the broader matter of the derivative regulations that we are discussing with the previous amendment and this amendment as well. It goes to the point that I raised just a moment ago in my previous remarks, that if we are going to try to answer to the American public to the three most important questions that they are asking of Congress--no more bailouts, no more legislation that destroys jobs, and no more expansive, larger and spending government--we have to look to what we're doing in the derivative area as well.

In the derivative area that we see in the underlying legislation, what we have done is create a Byzantine piece of regulation combining the two, working with two entities that have never worked together in the past before, setting in the underlying legislation margin requirements that potentially end users--although I recognize the previous amendment just addressed that point--margin requirements on them which basically, at the end of the day, if we think about it in basically simple terms, means it will be more costly in this country to do business. It will be more difficult for entities to hedge their risk. And if businesses can't hedge their risk, the other fundamental purpose of this legislation that we hear from the other side to end the idea of systemic risk will be thwarted as well.

So think about that. We will be thwarting one of the basic functions that they say is the underlying legislation to end systemic risk because we cause hardship on companies to hedge their risk on the one end, and not addressing one of the major problems this country is faced with today, high unemployment. We must do a better job than that.

As I stated before, Republicans have offered a better solution to all of those issues. We have offered a solution with regard to the bailouts, to end taxpayer-funded bailouts. We have offered a solution to end the prospects of less jobs in this country. And we offered a solution respectively to the whole derivative market, as I set forth before. The centerpiece of that solution is something that was actually found in the chairman's bill, and that was the repository idea. We can get all the transparency that we need right now through a trade repository where the OTC trades are reported. We can get the accountability and the transparency that the American public looks for as well through the initiatives that are in the Republican substitute. But we can do so in a manner, therefore, that will not impose additional risk or cumbersomeness or a Byzantine structure, and therefore not affect the hedging abilities or the cost of doing business of companies in this country. We can do so in a manner that will not hurt the creation of jobs.

When you think about it, we will have probably discussed three different areas, three different titles of this bill that actually will be hurting jobs. What are they? We haven't talked about the first one too much, CFPA, the Consumer Financial Products Agency. It has already been documented that that will cost literally a million jobs. The wind- down authority, we have already talked about that previously, that will also cost jobs. And here, if you do not handle the derivative situation correctly, that potentially can cause job loss in this country as well. We suggest that the Republican substitute should be considered in this area as in other areas as well.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time and commend the gentleman for his work on the underlying amendment that we have here before us today.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes, the balance of my time.

The American public, quite honestly, if they watch what goes on tonight and have watched in the days before and after, really are not looking for anyone to be pointing fingers of blame at this administration or at the last administration. This should not be a partisan issue. The other side always wants to point back several years to the Bush administration.

We could point back that it was the Democrat majority for 2007, 2008 and now 2009 that has been running this House and that, during that time, we have seen the catastrophe in the financial markets, and that it was during their tenure that we saw the catastrophe of unemployment soaring through the roof. Yet pointing fingers at the Democrats and at the fact that they have done the job that they have done and that we have seen the results of their legislation over the last 3 years will not solve the problem.

What we need to do, however, is pass legislation that will end the pattern of elimination of jobs, that will end the pattern of the bailout mentality, that will end the pattern of expansive government. That's why we come here tonight to offer Republican solutions to a lot of these things, and it's why we ask the majority party to consider some of those proposals as we go forward.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise and seek to claim the time in opposition.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McMahon).

At this time I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price).

I presume I am to close?

I thank the Chair.

The gentleman from Massachusetts says the government is not interposing or getting involved here. Of course they are, and that's what the whole fundamental purpose of the underlying bill is, is to set up this whole Byzantine arrangement of new regulations specifically in this area. Yes, I have read the amendment; and, yes, I recall it coming through committee and the problems that were raised there. When you centralize risk and clearing entities, as made mandatory by the underlying bill, it's important that we ensure that there is some independence in the clearinghouses from the dealers who play such a large role, like he says. But that's why in committee I offered an amendment that would have required that the majority of the directors of the derivatives of the clearing organization must not be associated with swap dealers. This goes much further than what's already on the books right now.

The SEC has a current policy of limiting a position of 20 percent ownership of a single broker dealer in an existing exchange. This amendment goes way farther than that, saying that that 20 percent applies in the aggregate. Yes, I read the amendment.

You have to remember that dealers are among the most likely sources of investment capital to establish these new clearinghouses. If you are going to come up tonight now with a really overly restrictive limit on ownership, as we have in this amendment, you are going to have potentially some negative consequences. Some of those will be in competition.

At the end of the day, what will you have? The amendment could very well exacerbate risk by forcing more derivative transactions that are out there, and who knows how many will be out there after this legislation passes, to fewer and to fewer and to fewer clearinghouses, basically concentrating risk and doing the opposite of what the American public wants, to avoid risk burdens and additional bailouts.

Madam Chair, I claim time in opposition.

I yield myself 1 minute.

This probably is the most critical amendment that we will consider today that addresses the derivative portion of the legislation to the chairman's question of whether we should say ``yes'' or ``no'' to the claim for more power to these entities.

I would say we should tell them ``no,'' and the reason is because neither the administration nor the majority nor the chairman has provided any substantial evidence whatsoever of any specific OTC derivatives, how they cause a financial crisis.

Derivatives are something that the companies use to try to hedge the risk. Clearly, we must make sure there's transparency and accountability--and I have already spoken about that--and we can do so in a way, however, that will not hamper their ability to control costs, not to manage risks, compete in the global marketplace. This would all hurt that.

And when you talk about the end users in this and what they're doing, remember it was the end users, large and small, the public and private American businesses, they, they were the victims, not the cause, of the financial crisis.

Derivative dealers and their customers, the end users, they're in the best position to determine what are the appropriate margin requirements, not giving more authority to the SEC or the CFTC or any other financial regulators.

I reserve my time.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman who also distrusts regulations as we have seen and the SEC and their handling of the SEC situation and the OTS and the regulation of the AIG situation, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus).

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I rise to offer amendment No. 1.

Madam Chair, I yield 30 seconds to my colleague from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas).

I will now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

If the gentlewoman will yield, as the gentlewoman knows, there was a clerical glitch at the last minute so that we missed by a very narrow margin a submission time for the Rules Committee. And what I am glad to have the chance to do now is to agree with the gentlewoman, who has been working diligently on this, that this language will go if we have anything to say about it, as we will, into the conference report.

So the answer is yes.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We are trying here to prevent fraud in the various programs. In the subprime mortgage bill, which we are reenacting here, which the House voted on, we put in some very strict restrictions against people who had a pattern or a history of fraud. But the gentleman from Maryland pointed out quite correctly that it was overly rigid, that it excluded, in the case of someone he knew, someone who many, many years ago had been involved in an unrelated situation where culpability was uncertain, there was a criminal conviction, and what this does is to provide some needed flexibility for minor offenses that were long ago.

I thank the gentleman for calling it to our attention. We were pleased to be able to make this change.

Madam Chair, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller), who is an important author of much of this bill.

Madam Chair, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), a major shaper of the best parts of this bill.

Madam Chair, I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to one of the strongest advocates of fairness and equity, and critics of lack of action to stop the foreclosure process, the gentlewoman from California, the Chair of the Housing Subcommittee, Ms. Waters.

What is the time remaining on both sides, please, Madam Chair?

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), who hasn't had enough floor time this week.

If the gentleman would yield, with regard to the permanent audit team, they may be the largest institutions, and that is a somewhat separate question, but for those who don't have a permanent audit team, not only would it be better for the regulated entity, it would be better for the CFPA. As any agency, they will have limited resources. If you have a bank that has $13-, $14-, $17 billion in assets and has had a good record, as most of those banks have had in consumer affairs, it would be a great waste of regulatory resources to be doing that when they would have the option, instead, of simply sending a CFPA member to join the other team.

So, yes, I would hope that the CFPA would take full advantage of this authority with those banks.

Madam Chair, I yield myself just 10 seconds to say that one of the Members whose business experience and general good judgment has been a very major asset for us is that of the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean). She has had a very significant and positive impact on this bill.

I will now yield her 2 minutes.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

I will yield myself my remaining time.

How much is that?

I sympathize with the loss my Republican colleagues feel that we don't give a bailout for them, but this bill clearly repudiates it. First, they just today, as they did yesterday, made an issue out of the fact that we do include some bankruptcy, but their whole issue was bankruptcy. As the gentleman from Colorado said, there is nothing in their bill that prevents this from being extended ad infinitum under bankruptcy. Technically, we do have some time limitations, but that's part of bankruptcy.

Here is what we do say. If, in fact, the FDIC would decide with a failed institution to keep it going, it would do it without any funds. On page 397, there is established a separate fund to facilitate and provide for the orderly and complete dissolution of any failed financial company that poses a taxpayer threat.

Page 399, the fund shall be available to cover the costs incurred by the corporation as a receiver, repay such funds, cover the cost of systematic stabilization actions, not for the entity.

Then in 288, the corporation, such action--they shall only get involved if they think it's--they can only spend the money if it is necessary for the purpose of financial stability and not for the purpose of preserving the covered financial company. Yes, we are saying that in some cases, in a very

complex institution, you may not be able to wipe it out in a year. That's what was pointed it to us. If you wiped it out prematurely, you may find yourself costing more money, not to the institution, in severance pay and other things for employees. This is very clear.

By the way, as to the permanence of this, the authority to borrow here is sunsetted in 2013. Yes, there will be a fund of assessment from private financial institutions. I know the Republicans do not want us to discommode the major financial institutions for this.

We levy on them for money that can be used. If a major institution fails, then the money can be used to manage that failure in a reasonable way. The biggest difference is that we try to stop the failure and they do nothing to try to stop it.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Well, when a Member says he is reserving his time to close, is it permissible to split it? I just, for the future of the bill, want to know that. I had assumed the gentleman was closing, and I thought only one Member closes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, I offer this statement to indicate that I agree with the interpretation of the Gentleman from North Carolina regarding his interpretation of the secured creditor haircut portion of the Manager's Amendment. Apparently, there are some people who feel that, even with the improvements to this provision in the Manager's Amendment, there are some who might interpret this incorrectly, and I would agree with the Gentleman that very explicit language reaffirming this interpretation could usefully be added at conference time.

Madam Chair, working with the chairman of the Agriculture Committee has been very constructive, and we have enjoyed that working relationship, and I am very proud that our committees have avoided the kind of jurisdictional disputes that too often plague this place.

We have a couple of issues here: One, should there be an end user exemption, et cetera? Two, whether you agree or not, it certainly shouldn't be one that could be manipulated. So this is to make sure that this is there.

Finally, I do want to respond to the gentleman from New Jersey. Apparently, they discovered that jobs are being lost. In fact, the reason that jobs are being lost now and were being lost at an even greater rate last year is the economic disaster that came from a lack of regulation. So the argument that by putting in place regulations that will prevent the enormous economic disaster, which officially began with the recession in 2007, will somehow cause job loss is bizarre-o-world. Job loss was brought about by the lack of regulation, which we are trying to correct.

It is true that the Republican position is: Leave business alone. Let them continue to do whatever they think is right. Don't have any regulation.

That's how we got into this mess.

Madam Chair, I disagree with the premise that the large financial investment houses and large financial institutions have earned the degree of trust that our voting against this amendment would require.

We were fairly careful, and there were many who were critical because we were too willing to separate out end users, legitimate end users, and not sweep them all in; but for that to be justified, there has to be integrity in the administration of the process. That is what the last amendment by the gentleman of Minnesota did, and that is what this amendment does.

If you let people who have a financial interest in there not being clearing be in charge of clearing, it would take an extraordinarily selfless group of people not to give in to temptation.

While people on Wall Street have been giving varying descriptions, some good and some bad, no one has yet compared any of them to Mother Teresa. The fact is that if you reject this amendment, you are giving people who have an incentive to make these things not work well control over them.

Madam Chair, I rise to take the time in opposition to the amendment.

The gentleman from New Jersey has fairly laid this out. Here is the difference: We have agreed that end users should have an exemption from these requirements, but there is an exemption to the exemption.

If an end user is engaged in an activity that can cause financial problems, then we want them not to be exempt from regulation, but here is the difference. The bill that is in there now, and it differs from the Agriculture bill, says if the end user is causing financial losses and problems at a particular counterparty, then you should not have the exemption.

The alternative is to say no, let's not step in if this or that or many counterparties are in problems until it could become a systemic risk. We don't want to wait for systemic risk. I don't want to wait until people are at the edge of the cliff to start to pull them back.

It is clear to many of us that a lack of regulation of derivatives was the problem. I support an end user exemption. But when an end user is employing that exemption in a way that puts counterparties at risk, I don't want to have to wait until a cataclysm impends. I would like there to be the ability to step in and stop it at that point.

For the end user, it is very simple. They can avoid this regulation by being careful about what they do with the counterparties. This does not take it away; it simply says to the end user, please be careful and use some prudence before you engage in a transaction with a counterparty who will be at risk and could begin the kind of chain that we hope would not happen.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I have only one more speaker, and I have the right to close, so I reserve.

Madam Chairman, I apologize to the body. I do have an additional speaker, so I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).

Now I am going to close. I reserve.

Madam Chairman, how much time have I remaining?

I'm afraid my friend from New York has greatly overstated the case. There is no debate here--there is elsewhere--about whether or not there should be an end user exemption.

As he knows, our bill gives an end user exemption. The gentleman from Minnesota and I worked hard to do that, and we are not trying to take it away. In fact, both versions of this say that an end user exemption can be forfeited for certain economic circumstances.

So the question is not whether there should be an end user exemption. Yes, there should be. It is what should trigger that not to be there. The amendment says a systemic risk. We say, given the volatility of this instrument, derivatives, given the uncertainty, that waits too long to say no. That allows caution to be absent for too long a time. We should not wait until the car's about to go over the cliff to test the brakes. We say let's stop a good ways back. And it's entirely within the control of the end user.

What this says is, if you are an end user, do not impose on your counterparty the likelihood of significant loss, because a loss here and a loss there and a loss in another place cumulates to a problem. And if they say, well, it's too hard to tell, that's exactly our point. Don't make it hard to tell. Know who you're dealing with. Don't engage in transactions with counterparties when you aren't in a position to gauge their financial responsibility. Don't use the exemption you have from our regulation that applies to the financial speculators to engage in imprudent transactions, not just imprudent for you, but imprudent for the other guy, because what we've learned is it is important these are mutual events, and that's precisely the issue. Yes, there should be an end user exemption, but end users who disregard prudence and engage in transactions with people who don't have the money to back that up are potentially inflicting a harm on the system.

Now, the proponents of the amendment agree that we should take away that exemption if the system is harmed, but they wait too late to avert disaster.

I offer amendment No. 7.

Madam Chair, this amendment was something that was requested very much by the regulators who administer this approach, and it would allow them, but not mandate, that margin or collateral requirements be set.

Once again, we have accepted here an exemption for end users over the objection of many who think we have gone too far. But we are dealing here with an inexact science, and we would have the regulators be able--under this amendment, not required, but able--to set margin requirements. It would allow them to be set, margin or collateral requirements, in noncash. That's very important. It would not require people who are using this to hedge commercial risks to sell things to come up with the cash. And if, in fact, they were doing this in a prudent way and they posted noncash collateral, there would be no great problem because this noncash collateral could be still used for its other purposes.

So the question is should we say that the regulators, the CFTC and the SEC, should be denied what they have asked for, which is the right to impose the margin or collateral requirements in those cases of lighter regulation where they think this is important to avoid the kind of imbalances we had before.

The purpose is, of course, to prevent again the situation where one party or the other makes commitments it is unable to live up to. And this is a requirement--this is an empowerment of the regulators to act where they think there's a problem to prevent this from happening.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I will yield myself 1 minute to say I'll accept the way the gentleman from New Jersey put it. Should we give the regulators more power? That is the constant theme dividing us.

We look, many of us, at what happened over the past 15 years and say there was too little regulatory action, partly because some regulators who had the power wouldn't use it, like Mr. Greenspan at the Federal Reserve and some in the SEC, but partly because there was not sufficient regulatory powers. This is discretionary with the CFTC and

Again, the question is whether we should decide now that there will never be such a requirement. As to it costing a lot of money, the amendment specifically says that they should be allowed to use noncash collateral. That means they could pledge certain of their own assets, which could mean no cost.

It also says that the regulators shall impose the requirements commensurate with the risk involved in the transaction. Once again, we give incentives here for people to minimize risk, and I think that's the appropriate market approach.

We are, as I said, mandating these to be imposed. We are allowing them to be a noncash collateral, and we said they should be commensurate with risk.

The opposition argument is never. There will never be such a thing. There are no imprudent end users. There is no need ever to have them. The failure of trades in an individual case can be a problem for an individual company. They can cumulate. And that is the question: Do we say that we are willing to go forward with this issue with no power in any regulator to say that particular trades are being conducted in an imprudent fashion?

Because if they are conducted in an imprudent fashion, there is no power here because any margin requirement must be commensurate with risk. We have stricken the notion. The gentleman from Minnesota raised that point. There was at some point some language that we had that said it had to be greater than zero. We said, no, it does not have to be greater than zero, it is commensurate with risk.

And that is the issue. We are being asked to say we have complete confidence that there will never be the kind of imprudent trades that could begin to cause trouble in the system, and therefore, we will deny the regulators the power even to consider this.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

I rise today in support of the Peterson-Frank amendment to H.R. 4173, The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009.

Madam Chair, while much of the attention of this financial reform package is focused on the mortgage and credit crisis of last year, this amendment is the product of years of public debate about the regulation of derivatives markets in the United States.

It began with the price volatility we saw in energy futures markets, first with natural gas, then for crude oil. We examined in our committee the influx of new kinds of traders in these markets, like hedge funds and index funds. We looked at the relationship between what was occurring on the regulated markets and the even larger unregulated, over-the-counter market. More aptly, this probably should have been called the under-the-counter market because trillions of dollars in transactions affecting commodity prices were being conducted out of sight and out of reach of market regulators.

Last year, the House of Representatives responded, approving bipartisan legislation to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission greater authority over these ``dark markets'' in an attempt to restore the price discovery and hedging utility of unregulated markets. Unfortunately, it was only after the House passed this bill that we learned the real consequences of what can happen in unregulated markets with the near collapse of our financial system.

As Warren Buffett correctly pointed out in his 2003 annual letter to shareholders, the large amount of credit risk concentrated in the hands of the relatively few meant that ``the troubles of one could quickly infect the others.'' Last year's collapse proved him right.

Madam Chair, the House Agriculture Committee acted very early on this year to get a handle on these swaps and minimize the very real systemic risk to the economy that they posed. A key part of that legislation was a requirement that swap contracts be cleared.

The clearing requirement has served the futures market well for decades. It increases transparency and effectively manages risk, not just for the public, but for all participants in the market.

Equally important, Madam Chair, our committee said that exemptions to the clearing requirement should be available because not every swap is appropriate for clearing and not every market participant should have to bear the burdens of clearing.

These two key principles of required clearing and exemptions are carried over from that previous work from our committee and are expanded upon in the Peterson-Frank amendment.

Madam Chair, our target for greater regulation and oversight is not the end user but their swap dealer or major swap participant counterparty. End users did not get a bailout of billions of dollars. End users are not responsible for what happened in the markets last year.

Under this amendment, swaps will be centrally cleared if a clearinghouse will accept the transaction and when regulators determine clearing is necessary. Cleared, listed swaps must be traded on an exchange or registered swap execution facility. And all swap trades must be reported, with counterparties adhering to recordkeeping and reporting requirements.

This amendment will hold swap dealers like large financial institutions accountable to new standards for capital, margin, business conduct and other requirements to reduce their ability to again place our financial system in such dire straits.

In addition, Madam Chair, this amendment contains many strong provisions regarding market transparency and makes progress solving some of the jurisdictional issues that have plagued financial regulation in the past. The amendment strengthens confidence in trader position limits on physically deliverable commodities as a way to prevent excessive speculation trading. And it will call for international harmonization by requiring foreign boards of trade to share trading data and adopt speculative position limits on contracts that trade U.S. commodities similar to U.S.-regulated exchanges.

Madam Chair, we have come a long way to get here. The situation I described earlier with AIG might make you wonder if we could have ever allowed such a reckless trading environment to have existed and that those involved would have learned their lesson. But believe it or not, the big banks on

Wall Street don't think that they did anything wrong. In fact, they'd like to keep doing what they've been doing. They already got their bailout, and they wouldn't mind topping it off by avoiding any new regulation or oversight. To me, that is an unacceptable outcome.

I urge my colleagues to approve the Peterson-Frank amendment to finally bring real accountability and oversight to the over-the-counter derivatives market.

Could I ask how much time I have remaining?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I'm now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Iowa, the chairman of the General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee that deals with this issue and is a leader on this issue for us on the Agriculture Committee, Mr. Boswell, for 3 minutes.

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

Madam Chair, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean).

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes).

Madam Chair, our committee has spent a lot of time on this, and I want to thank all the Members for the many, many hours that they put in working on this, also the members of the banking committee. I also want to especially thank my ranking member, Mr. Lucas, and his staff, Kevin Kramp, Bill O'Conner, and Josh Mathis, for engaging with us in a cooperative process to bring this together.

I want to thank Chairman Frank and his staff, Peter Roberson and Luranne Stewart, for working with us in a spirit of compromise that allowed us to reach an agreement in a relatively short amount of time. And I want to thank Ranking Member Bachus and his staff, Kevin Edgar and Jason Spence, who, despite their concerns with the legislation, were willing to thoughtfully contribute to our discussions. So we appreciate that.

Finally, I want to thank my own staff, Andy Baker, Rebekah Solem, Matt Forbes, and Clark Ogilvie, for their hard work and long hours to bring this amendment to fruition.

This is a good amendment and I encourage Members to adopt it.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

This amendment puts forth a process where we can obtain some clarity regarding limited exception to clearing requirements. Specifically, it requires the CFTC to define the terms ``commercial risk,'' ``operating risk,'' and ``balance sheet risk,'' which are used in the statute to define what types of risk a company may hedge and remain eligible for limited exception to clearing.

I understand how some could be concerned that balance sheet risk could be interpreted more broadly to encompass financial risk, but not commercial risk. That is why I introduced this amendment directing the regulator to define these terms.

By providing for the agency to define these terms, the burden will be placed upon them to ensure the companies seeking the limited exception to the clearing requirement do not abuse that exception. And if we think the CFTC gets it wrong, between the Agriculture Committee and the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee, we have lots of opportunities to haul them up here and show them the error of their ways.

This amendment is supported by the Commodity Markets Oversight Coalition and many other groups. I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished chairman of the Financial Services Committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Madam Chair, I have no further speakers, so I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment, and I do so reluctantly because what the gentleman from New York is trying to accomplish is simply restore one piece of the bill to the way that it came out of the House Agriculture Committee.

Defining the term ``major swap participant'' has been one of the most significant challenges since Treasury first coined the term in its own derivatives reform proposal last August. We were trying to define it in ways that would generally exempt end users while ensuring we are capturing the financial players to whom we believe the new rules and regulations should apply.

We often heard from some in the end user community who wanted an absolute, guaranteed exemption that they never would be considered a major swap participant. We wouldn't do that because we don't know what the future will bring and because one of these end users could, one day, get so large with regard to their swap activity so as to have an impact on the financial system.

So, through painstaking work, we crafted the definition that is now in the Peterson-Frank amendment. Now, most end users feel that definition is adequate because they are supporting that amendment, but they would be more comfortable with the definition we had in the Ag Committee reported bill. I believe the new definition we crafted accomplishes our goal of protecting end users.

And so while I thank the gentleman for his appreciation for our work product in the Agriculture Committee, I most reluctantly oppose this amendment.

I thank the gentleman.

I rise in opposition to this amendment. This issue of authority for regulators to set margin requirements for end users was one issue that we could not agree upon during our negotiations, so I think it's appropriate that we resolve it here.

First, I want to remind Members that in the underlying Peterson-Frank amendment that we've adopted with regard to swap dealers and major swap participants and their security-based swap counterparties, regulators will have full authority to set margin requirements appropriate for the uncleared swaps that they hold. So that authority will be in place with regard to the banks.

Because swap dealers and major swap participants are so heavily involved in the swap market and are interconnected with potentially hundreds of different counterparties, we believe it's important that we regulate their margins for the protection of their end-user customers and the financial system as a whole.

However, I don't think that we need the regulators putting margin requirements on end users in order to protect the swap dealers and major swap participants. I think they can look out for themselves.

The so-called end user community of energy companies, manufacturers and on and on, did not, as has been said, cause the problem. They are concerned about potential impact of this amendment, and so I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment, and I do so reluctantly because I know the concept of what the gentleman is trying to accomplish has been endorsed by CFTC Chairman Gensler.

First, let me explain what's already in the Peterson-Frank amendment. If clearing mandate applies to a swap or class of swaps, then the swap dealers and major swap participants not only have to clear such trades but also have to execute them on or through a futures or securities exchange or a swap execution facility. Now, banks hate this because it will expose their trades among themselves to the light of day. It will provide greater price transparency and will narrow their spreads and cost them money, all to the benefit of the end user. For the end users, we provide an exemption from the clearing mandate and, consequently, from the execution mandate.

Mr. Stupak's amendment would preserve the clearing exemption but impose an execution mandate on end users, the idea being that the more swaps that can go through a swap execution facility, the greater price transparency you receive, the better deal an end user can make.

In theory, this all makes sense; however, the end user community doesn't buy it. They question whether the price information that will come out of the swap execution facility will actually be beneficial to them, and they also know that there will be costs to bear because the facilities won't perform this service for nothing. End users don't know whether the benefits will outweigh the costs. I have a real problem telling people that are in the business what's good for them when they don't believe it.

So I have here a letter from various groups who like the Peterson- Frank approach. Among them are the American Gas Association, the Public Gas Association, Public Power Association, Wind Energy, Edison Electric, Electric Power Supply Association, Independent Petroleum Association, Natural Gas Supply Association, NRECA, the Chamber of Commerce, 3M, Cargill, John Deere, Caterpillar, Medtronic, Zimmer, Ecolab, and others.

So I ask my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Madam Chair, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett).

Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).

Madam Chair, I recognize the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) for 3 minutes.

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

I rise in strong opposition to the manager's amendment. I think the manager's amendment illustrates the contradictions between the statements we've heard from the other side and the actual substance of the legislation. I just want to point out three or four conflicts between what it says and what they say it says.

The changes in the majority's $150 billion permanent bailout fund actually contradict the will of the majority of the Financial Services Committee by undermining the orderly and expedient resolution of failed firms. The body will recall, members of the Financial Services Committee, that we adopted an amendment in the committee that eliminated the conservatorship authority and limited the receivership to 1 year. Chairman Frank has basically said this is going to be a death panel; we're going to put these companies to death. And in committee, they were going to be given 1 year, but the manager's amendment comes back and extends the term limit for doing this to 3 years, 3 years in which these failed companies or counterparties or creditors won't be put to death, as the chairman said, but they will be subsidized out of this, I guess, $150 billion fund, or what could actually turn into another $50 billion if the Treasury asks the Congress to fund it with taxpayer money and adds an additional $50 billion.

This is another example of why we need the Republican substitute. Instead of picking which politically important firms we are going to let survive and which less connected firms we are going to let disappear and fail, in the Republican substitute, we utilize a fair, transparent, rules-based bankruptcy process to resolve and to liquidate these failed financial firms, not to keep them going at the expense of what could be billions of dollars. We think that the Republican alternative is the only real option for eliminating taxpayer bailouts.

The chairman of the Financial Services Committee is also fond of saying that this legislation puts an end to the too-big-to-fail policy, which led to the bailout of our GSEs, of AIG and of other financial firms. Despite this claim, the reality is quite different.

If you will look at page 45 of the manager's amendment, it specifically excludes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the dissolution provisions of the underlying bill. In other words, if they fail, they are excluded. We don't wind them down. Why?

Well, these two companies were at the center of the subprime lending problems that caused the financial market meltdown. Taxpayers have already pumped more than $100 billion into these failed GSEs, and they are likely to lose $300 billion more. It is unconscionable that we are going to exempt these two firms--our GSEs--from this dissolution authority.

Finally, the last aspect I will mention--and this probably is as disturbing as anything--we are raiding this TARP program, rather than ending it, for another $4 billion. The manager's amendment diverts $4 billion from TARP to a number of other programs that the law was never intended to support. TARP was intended to be a temporary plan to restore the health of the credit markets and to protect the economy from systemic risk caused by the collapse of firms that the government, really, allowed to become too big to fail.

We heard promises all last fall that the money would go back to the taxpayers. Instead, now we are talking about surpluses. We are talking about money that hasn't been used. It is almost like this is a ``walking around'' fund, and we're just going to take money out of it and use it on this pet project or on that pet project or on this good idea or on that good idea. Here is the first of those things, and it is $4 billion. Again, we are not giving it back to the taxpayers, and those promises made last September are now being broken.

The President himself has said that he is extending TARP until October 10 of this year. What he is doing is turning it into a permanent bailout agency, into a kind of petty cash drawer for politically favored interests. Here we see

the first one of those things--$4 billion. Part of it is $4 billion to help move this legislation across the finish line.

Let me close by saying we need to end TARP. That's the solution. We need to end it now. We need to require all repayments to go directly towards paying down the debt. That's the bottom line. End TARP right now. Require that all payments be used to pay down the debt. There is no surplus. There are only deficits and debts.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this irresponsible breach of trust and this attack on our promises that we made last year.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the balance of the time.

Let me say with AIG, the counterparties and creditors of the largest financial institutions were paid off dollar for dollar. I think we have all read that in the paper.

What this legislation does, it allows, in, quote, resolving this, it allows once again the creditors and the counterparties to be paid off. That is a bailout.

In AIG, it was a bailout of creditors and counterparties. That's what is provided for here.

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Parliamentary Inquiry

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, although I'm not opposed to the amendment as such, I am opposed to what the underlying bill does.

Chairman Peterson and I think most on our side have a disagreement with that underlying regulation. Unfortunately, the amendment is a step in the right direction, but we feel like even with the amendment substituting the original language that we still have our objections, and it's those objections I wish to speak on. Although we don't, or at least I don't personally, plan to oppose the amendment itself, as the gentleman from Oklahoma said, we do believe that it is some improvement.

But the regulation of the derivatives market created in the underlying legislation we think creates unnecessarily burdensome requirements on thousands of American companies that have used derivatives to manage price fluctuations and hedge against business risk, and they've done that successfully and safely.

The underlying legislation, even with this amendment in it, is going to empower our government regulators to institute what appears to be a fairly complex and sweeping new regulatory regime to govern, as I said, a sector of the marketplace that has functioned well and I think helped most American companies and has not contributed to the financial crisis but actually helped moderate it. And I think the derivatives market has allowed companies in many cases to insulate themselves from uncertain market conditions.

Several in the majority have alluded to the failure of Lehman Brothers as a reason for the needed reform of the over-the-counter derivatives market. And we do propose some reform, and I'm going to discuss those in a minute. The gentleman from New Jersey also discussed them. So there are some points on which we do agree with Chairman Peterson and even Chairman Frank.

But Lehman, I don't believe, can be used as an excuse to inject the government into a derivatives market that is used primarily by thousands of small and medium size and even large companies to hedge against business risk, and as I've said, have done that safely.

The reality is that Lehman's portfolio, including its derivatives positions, without any government assistance was unwound with relative ease. It was unwound. The real problem with Lehman's derivative business was the lack of segregation of collateral, a problem that is addressed by our Republican substitute.

The comprehensive Republican substitute we plan to offer provides a commonsense approach to oversight of the over-the-counter derivatives marketplace without what we consider an excessive overreach by the Federal Government and its regulators into the capital market, a theme that, unfortunately, we think is being repeated many times in this legislation.

The substitute promotes strong transparency of over-the-counter derivatives activities conducted by all market participants. It also addresses the two derivative problems identified by the majority and the administration, and that was AIG and Lehman. The isolated behavior of these two large corporations and a few others like them was, as I said, an isolated behavior, and that type of behavior would be detected under the Republican substitute, the trading activity and positions they took.

The Republican substitute also holds dealers accountable to improve operational inefficiencies with the over-the-counter derivatives marketplace, provides vital transactional information to regulators on a real-time basis, and ensures the Treasury Department cannot become a de facto regulator. Additionally, our substitute does not punish those Main Street end users of derivatives.

Finally, in conclusion, our substitute addresses another need in the derivative marketplace, which is to provide timely and accurate information to market participants and regulators in order to ensure market transparency.

Madam Chair, we have to curb abuses of the past and promote responsible approaches to oversee the use of over-the-counter derivatives. We all agree on that. However, we believe the underlying bill, even with this amendment, is fundamentally the wrong approach and is a very expensive way to address the problem.

So I urge my colleagues, even though we don't oppose this amendment, to oppose the underlying legislation. And this is just one more reason, and that is that we increase the cost of any end user of derivatives. As we said last night, John Deere said it would cost them about $1 billion. Cargill said that they probably wouldn't complete a new facility in Kansas City if we impose these costs.

Madam Chairman, the end users of derivatives are the ones that utilize these derivatives. And these weren't large, national companies. They were small businesses. They set the collateral requirements. They set the margin requirements, and they did so safely. They didn't cause the financial meltdown. They were the victims of that meltdown. And they established those collateral requirements and the margins. They did so in an appropriate way. In fact, you know, what the chairman said, the SEC and the CFTC ought to do this. You know, actually, they didn't act in a very responsible manner leading up to this meltdown last September.

Let me simply say this: Requiring greater margin and capital requirements on companies that never got in trouble leads to fewer jobs. It's going to lead to greater volatility in food and energy prices, and a loss of capital investments.

I'm just going to give you two pieces of testimony before our committee.

Steve Holmes of Deere and Company said, ``We have a number of contracts that extend well into the future. If these existing contracts are not permitted an exemption from clearing and collateral requirements, we would have to terminate the transactions at a significant cost.'' That would cost John Deere workers their jobs.

John Hixson of Cargill, Inc., said, ``For us, we've estimated it (collateral

requirements) would cost approximately $1 billion depending on market conditions--an additional amount of money we'd have to borrow. We've built a brand new oil seed facility. Our largest in the U.S. is in Kansas City. So we have to choose: whether you put the money in margin, or do you continue and build that plant? That's the type of thing we'd have to decide,'' marginal requirements or jobs.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 962 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

I also ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 964.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 964 provides for consideration of amendments to H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. The rules provide for consideration of 36 amendments and authorizes the chairman of the Financial Services Committee to move amendments en bloc. In the case of amendments reported from the committee, the question of their adoption in the House shall be put en gros and without division of the question. The rule provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions and allows the Chair to reduce to 2 minutes the minimum time for electronic voting and also authorizes the Clerk to make technical and conforming changes to amendatory instructions.

Mr. Speaker, as we have seen over the past year, our financial system is broken, and we can no longer afford to maintain the status quo. We face a recession. I call it a Republican recession based on the Wild West practices of Wall Street and the Republican Congress and the Bush administration.

As a result of this Republican recession, we are talking about people losing their investments and retirement savings last year when the stock market reacted to the heart attack our banking system suffered and the countless jobs that were lost throughout the recession. This bill makes critical reforms to our financial system to address this Wild West era of lax regulation that the Bush administration encouraged.

When Wall Street operates like the Wild West, Main Street suffers, and that is precisely what we've seen for the last few years. The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act preserves our economic system, restores confidence and takes reasonable steps to prevent future meltdowns. It establishes a robust regulatory oversight regime creating transparency in areas previously hidden from the public.

In this bill, we address consumer protection, investor protection, regulation of hedge funds, credit rating agencies, insurance, derivatives, executive pay, mortgage reform, and we eliminate ``too big to fail.'' Loopholes are closed, consolidated regulation is improved, and transparency is increased so there is no place to hide.

But, Mr. Speaker, yesterday we heard repeatedly from the other side that this bill puts the taxpayers on the hook in addressing ``too big to fail.'' Well, taxpayers were put on the hook by the lax regulation of the Bush administration which cost this country and each and every citizen trillions and trillions of dollars and millions of jobs, 4 million jobs during the last year of the Bush administration.

In this bill, with those institutions that are so big that they would create a domino effect such as we saw last year, we liquidate or close those firms at no expense to the taxpayer. And I put in precisely a provision that any moneys get paid to the taxpayer first.

Unlike our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we do not want these firms to reorganize. We want to put them out of their existence, for no one is too big to fail. There is no guarantee for these institutions, and precisely what we do is provide preventive measures before this comes about, divestiture, increasing capital, a whole variety of preventive measures before bringing about a liquidation. But, ultimately, if an institution that affects the financial system grows so large or is so complex, ultimately, it is the liquidation.

This bill is about more than just reforming our financial system, though. It is about people's lives and the jobs lost and restoring confidence to a broken system. None of us wants to ever face anything like we did last year, and this bill will help ensure that the Wild West mentality and lax regulation promoted by the Republican Party, which led to huge frauds and robberies, like those committed by Bernard Madoff, Petters, and Stanford and their various Ponzi schemes, doesn't happen again. It is not a coincidence that those kinds of frauds on a scale unlike anything we had ever seen before occurred under the Bush administration.

We are reforming our regulatory system so it is able to fix problems before they become a threat to our economic system. The changes this bill makes are essential to rebuilding Main Street and getting credit flowing to small businesses, creating jobs, and rebuilding our economy.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the rule and the underlying bill.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Madam Speaker, first to respond to my good friend from California, he talked about getting the best quality product at the best price. Part of the problem that we had, Madam Speaker, is the fact that you didn't know if you had the best quality product because the way things were done under the Bush administration and the lax regulation that occurred, you didn't know whether there was money in the Bernie Madoff account. The whole approach here is to make sure that these things are scrutinized and that people know what it is that they're getting into when they invest or when they buy a product.

I yield to my good friend.

Reclaiming my time, I would say that my friend is mistaken because the bill proposed by my friends on the Republican side does nothing but protect Wall Street, not make it transparent and to avoid hidden bombs that might go off from time to time.

I would like to yield now 3 minutes to my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Polis).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree).

Madam Speaker, I would just say to my friend from the Financial Services Committee two things as to his amendments. It was in January of 2009, the last month that George Bush was in office, that we had the highest job loss throughout this whole period. Since that time, it has been shrinking. So under the Bush administration, tremendous job loss in 2008, up to 4 million jobs. And those job losses have been shrinking ever since.

I would also say to my friend from the Financial Services Committee, we had this debate in the committee on the language issue. As he knows, my grandparents are from Ukraine. My grandfather came over here, was a successful businessman, but even over a 40- or 50-year period, he had difficulty with the written language. And where we have seen so much fraud and so much con artistry is with people who have difficulty with the language being taken advantage of. And part of this bill, the consumer protection bill, is so that we avoid that kind of fraud and scheming because of people who can't speak the language.

With that, I would yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my friend from Illinois (Mr. Quigley).

Madam Speaker, to my good friend from Texas, I think it is easy to know who to blame, and that is the policies of the Republican Congress and the President, George Bush, because things fell apart, jobs were lost, trillions of dollars lost, and companies fleeing as a result of those policies, which we are trying to repair and correct.

Madam Speaker, I would like to inquire as to how much time each side has remaining.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

I would just remind my friend from Minnesota that he has an amendment that was made in order, and he and I cosponsored an amendment in the Financial Services Committee, an amendment which has become part of the manager's amendment.

I would also remind him that we create in this a fund assessed against the banking institutions to deal with their liquidation. There is no bailout. As much as my friends on the other side of the aisle would like to be on message and continue to repeat that, there is no bailout.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Driehaus).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time both sides have remaining?

I would like to first say to my friend from California--and this does cut both ways--the House of Representatives in 2005 did pass legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was bipartisan. I am referring to an article from September 9, 2008, in the FinancialTimes.com, which interviewed Mr. Oxley, who was the chairman of the Financial Services Committee at the time. The bill was never acted on.

In that article he fumed about the criticism of his House colleagues. ``All the handwringing and bedwetting is going on without remembering how the House stepped up on this,'' he says. ``What did we get from the White House?''--remember, George Bush was in the White House--``We got a one-finger salute.''

That was from the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

No, I am going to yield 3 minutes to my friend from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Madam Speaker, I would ask my friend from Texas how many more speakers he might have, because we have no other speakers, and I will close.

Yes.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself so much time as I might consume.

``Just say `no.' '' That is the Republican mantra. ``Just say `no'; we like the status quo.'' We are opposed to any movement to get this country back on track.

They oppose health care. They oppose the Recovery Act. They oppose everything, because they like the way it is. They like it so that their friends on Wall Street can continue to reap billions of dollars and record profits.

This is to look, their opposition is solely to look after their friends so their friends can continue to make money at the expense of average Americans, average Americans who lost jobs last year because of the credit crunch on Wall Street which resulted from the lax regulation and the gambling-type approach taken by the Bush administration and the Republican Congress before that.

The recession that we faced, which is as great as anything we have seen since the 1930s, has got to be pinned on my friends in the Republican Party in this Congress and on President Bush.

Really, in the last fall, we saw millions of jobs lost. We are not out of the woods, but that trend has reversed so that we are losing fewer and fewer jobs each month. But there is no recognition of that, because my friends don't want to take any credit for ruining the economy last year to the tune of trillions of dollars to this country, to its taxpayers, and millions of jobs to the people who work every day.

Now, my friends say that this is a job-killing bill. The only thing killed in this bill are failing financial institutions which would affect the economy, just like that domino effect last fall.

We protect consumers. We protect investors. We look at hedge funds. We deal with credit rating agencies. We look at the derivatives and try to rein them in so that they have to post and there aren't dramatic losses as a result of that. We look at insurance, executive pay, but, most importantly, we take a look at institutions that are so big that they, in a prior administration, couldn't fail. Under this bill, we either take them apart or put them out of their misery. There are no bailouts as we had under George Bush.

We are trying to end this recession, and you do it by restoring confidence in the financial system. I urge an ``aye'' vote, and I would urge passage of this bill.

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

The previous question was ordered.