Government Litigation Savings Act

I rise in opposition, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes.

This is an effort to exempt companies under $250 million. Now the JOBS Act, which was recently passed with broad support, said that a start-up company for its first 5 years would be exempt from this. This now would do away with that 5-year restriction without having had the kind of committee consideration that it seems to me it ought to have. It does it in this way, and I differ with my colleague from Pennsylvania when he says that it doesn't change the law. If it didn't change the law, they wouldn't offer it. He's not up here at 9 p.m. just to get exercise. It changes the law in a very significant way and sets a very bad precedent.

The underlying legislation to which this would be an amendment requires a cost-benefit analysis. This cooks the books. This is not content to let it be an unbiased cost-benefit analysis; but it says, it instructs the SEC to take into account the heavy burdens--and let me get the exact words--the large burden of such regulation. In other words, it's an effort to tip the scales of the very cost-benefit analysis.

And we know that, by the way, as to intent because the original version of this amendment was just a straight exemption of 250. But for parliamentary reasons, because that's not this committee's jurisdiction, it had to be redone. So if the gentleman really wanted to just exempt everybody under 250 from Sarbanes Oxley forever, as opposed to a 5-year exemption for a start-up, he had to amend it.

So he amended it in a way, as I said, that unfortunately impugns the integrity of the cost-benefit analysis because it puts a thumb on the scales. It says, oh, the cost-benefit analysis here should take into account the large burden. Well, it is already supposed to do it. Adding this is an instruction to the SEC essentially to find that they should be exempt.

We have had a rash of Chinese companies buying small American companies and converting them and people investing in them and getting taken. And the problem is that Chinese accounting is very opaque. What this bill would do is to prevent the United States authorities from applying Sarbanes Oxley to protect those investors.

I don't doubt that there is a very good company--I agree there is a very good company in his district, although he says it is above the limit. But you can't legislate for just one good company. This is part of this nostalgia for a time when we had no regulation.

Sarbanes Oxley has improved the integrity of our capital markets. It has improved the confidence of investors. We did exempt small start- ups, so for the first 5 years as a start-up, up to $250 million, they didn't have to do this. This says, in effect, by instructing the SEC to find that the cost outweighs the benefit no matter what, this gives a permanent exemption de facto for companies up to 250, which would include people who might be scamming, in the case of the Chinese companies. And as I said, it sets a bad precedent.

If we are going to have cost-benefit analysis, and I think that can be overdone, let's have it in an honest and open way. Let's not put the thumb in the scales, as this does, by instructing the SEC, in effect, to find that the cost always outweighs it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I guess I am in a position of being disagreeable to some of my friends on the committee. The gentleman from Tennessee cited the company that's about to go public, but they're already exempted.

The jobs bill that we passed and was signed into law exempts start- ups for the first 5 years until they go public, so this has no relevance to the start-ups.

It has relevance to companies that have been in existence for more than 5 years as public companies. Again, we have got an exemption already for the first 5 years. And it says, in effect, don't give us this unbiased cost-benefit analysis. We'll tell you what cost-benefit analysis does.

And as to IPOs, I will insert into the Record an article by Mr. Davidoff in the The New York Times talking about the advantages we have in IPOs these days; how the soccer team from England came here to do an IPO because our corporate governance laws are more favorable to them in allowing different classes of stock.

I'm sorry to see this continuing repudiation of the legacy of George W. Bush. I know he's not going to come to the convention. But, gee, everything's being torn down. George Bush signed Sarbanes Oxley. Oxley, by the way, is Mike Oxley, my predecessor as chairman of our committee. George Bush was very proud of Sarbanes Oxley. It's an accounting requirement, and what this does is to take another chunk out of that regulation.

Now, maybe we hear different people. My friends say the American people are crying out for an end of regulation. Every indication I have of public opinion is that people are tired of irresponsibility by a few, not everybody, but they are tired of people being scammed. And, in fact, the notion that what we need in the financial area is less regulation is an odd one. It comes from people, I guess, who just slept through the last few years, didn't see the crisis we had because Sarbanes Oxley, of course, itself came about after Enron.

So I would align myself with President Bush. I think he got this one right. I think Mike Oxley got this one right. Yes, for start-ups and for people about to go public, they have a $250 million exemption. But to give a permanent exemption to companies at $250 million and above is a mistake. And don't, please, start monkeying with cost-benefit analysis.

I yield back the balance of my time.

[From the New York Times, July 10, 2012]

In Manchester United's I.P.O., a Preference for American Rules

(By Steven M. Davidoff)

Manchester United, the English soccer team with an adoring

fan base in Europe and Asia, is filing to go public in the

United States.

But the initial public offering is not a reflection of

Americans' increasing love of soccer. Instead, it is a

reflection of American regulators' light touch.

I'm not kidding. The United States, which has long been

criticized for its harsh rules surrounding I.P.O.'s, is now

the place where foreign companies go to avoid regulation.

Manchester United may be the world's most popular soccer

club, with 659 million fans according to the team's own

estimates. In 2005, the American businessman Malcolm Glazer

and his family bought control of the team, loading it up with

hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Now, the company is

selling shares to raise money and reduce its debt, which

stands at about $655 million.

But the Glazers do not want to give up voting control

since, among other reasons, Manchester United fans appear

eager to buy back the team from the still-unpopular family.

In 2010, a prominent group of Manchester United fans were

said to have tried to form a consortium to repurchase the

club. The Glazers have uniformly given the same response: the

team is not for sale. Now, the Glazers are venue-shopping for

their stock.

They passed over the Hong Kong Stock Exchange because it

would not give the team a waiver to allow two classes of

shares, with different voting rights. The London Stock

Exchange also does not allow such share structures, perhaps

the reason this natural home was skipped over by the Glazers.

Manchester United declined to comment for this article.

The Singapore Exchange seemed more amenable to the Glazers'

plan to list Manchester United and keep control through a

dual-class structure. But after the exchange delayed final

signoff on the dual-class shares and the Asian markets

cooled, the Singapore plans were derailed, according to an

article in Reuters.

The soccer team has recently found a home for its stock in

the United States. Manchester United filed the papers this

month for its initial public offering on the New York Stock

Exchange, and the Glazers are taking advantage of the

country's willingness to be more flexible when it comes to

shareholder rights. Manchester United is proposing a

corporate structure that would give the Glazers shares with

10 votes apiece. Public investors would receive one vote for

each share.

While the Securities and Exchange Commission tried to ban

this type of dual-class voting stock in the 1980s, a federal

appeals court struck down the rules. Since then, the

structure has become increasingly common. Facebook, LinkedIn

and Google all have dual-class shares. The New York Times

also has a dual-class voting structure. In 2011, 28 offerings

featured dual-class structures that gave greater voting

rights to certain shareholders, according to the research

firm Dealogic.

The Manchester United offering is a case study in how the

American markets have evolved toward deregulation in the past

decade.

The company is a beneficiary of the newly enacted Jumpstart

Our Business Start-Ups Act, known as the JOBS Act, designed

to help private companies raise capital and go public.

Although the team was founded in 1878, the JOBS Act

classifies Manchester United as an emerging growth company

since it has less than $1 billion in revenue. As such, the

company, which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, does

not face the same hurdles as American businesses.

The JOBS Act builds on earlier efforts by the S.E.C. to

loosen the rules governing I.P.O.'s of foreign companies.

Under pressure from stock exchanges and other market players,

the agency has exempted foreign issuers like Manchester

United from large parts of American securities laws.

Manchester United will not need to file quarterly reports,

report material events, file proxy statements or disclose

extensive compensation information, all of which American

companies must do. Under a different S.E.C. rule adopted in

2008, Manchester United also does not need to report

financials under the generally accepted accounting principles

used in the United States, but can instead rely on

international financial reporting standards.

Because Manchester United will be a controlled company, it

does not need to follow the New York Stock Exchange rules

adopted in 2003 that require a public company to have a board

composed mainly of independent directors. The board of

Manchester United will have four directors, two of Malcolm

Glazer's sons and two executives of the company.

The legal environment, which investment bankers and lawyers

have long argued deterred I.P.O.'s, also appears to be more

conducive. This may be because securities litigation reforms

put in place by Congress and the Supreme Court have meant

fewer cases in recent years. Even after the financial crisis,

only 16 companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 were subject

to this type of litigation in 2011, the lowest number since

2000, according to the Stanford Securities Class Action

Clearinghouse.

It's all a bit unsettling.

After the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002,

critics claimed that the new regulation was driving away

foreign companies, although at least one academic study

rebutted this claim. But as regulators have slowly loosened

the rules, the American markets are attracting foreign

issuers seeking watered-down rules.

This does not mean that this deregulation is wrongheaded.

The JOBS Act and other initiatives may not have been

designed to attract the likes of Manchester United, but such

I.P.O.'s do provide work for investment bankers, lawyers and

the exchanges. They also build up American prestige by

bringing well-known foreign companies to the United States.

At the same time, the deregulation effort means lower

compliance costs for businesses. Presumably, that extra money

can be invested, bolstering the economy.

The question is whether deregulation is worth the price.

I have little sympathy for investors who buy Manchester

United shares. The risks are mainly disclosed.

The bigger question is whether lowering the bar for foreign

issuers will come back to haunt the American markets.

Even before the JOBS Act, Chinese companies took advantage

of new S.E.C. rules and started going public en masse in the

United States. While some of the I.P.O.'s have worked out,

there are now more than 100 newly public Chinese companies

facing accusations of fraud by either investors or

regulators.

The risk is that American exchanges will become more like

London's Alternative Investment Market, a lightly regulated

stock exchange that has fostered some spectacular flops. If

so, investors may lose faith in American markets, and the

United States may end up sacrificing long-term stature for

short-term gain.

Either way, the next time someone calls the American

markets overregulated, you might want to point them to the

Manchester United I.P.O.--and remind them that the English

soccer club came to the United States to avoid more

burdensome foreign rules.

This post has been revised to reflect the following

correction:

Correction: July 12, 2012.

The Deal Professor column on Wednesday, about the soccer

team Manchester United's public offering in the United

States, misstated the year that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was

enacted. It was 2002, not 2001.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The gentleman says the SEC wasn't on the Madoff thing for many years. That's true. I have to say that, while I supported the Bush administration on Sarbanes Oxley, I am critical of their administration of the SEC. For almost all of that time, we had an SEC that was not inclined to enforce. And I do not think the current SEC, under a very good chairman, Mary Schapiro, with a much more vigorous approach ought to be taxed for the failures that were ideologically driven by the previous SEC.

So I don't think it is valid to say, well, because they didn't catch Madoff--the SEC during the Bush administration reflected an unfortunate philosophy of non-regulation, of ceding to the company more autonomy than they should have, and it is not a good basis on which to legislate going forward.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, a large percentage of the people in this room would be too; but, secondly, the fact is that the gentleman from Florida is who started pointing fingers. When I talked about who was in charge of the SEC, all of a sudden he is above any criticism. But he's the one who impugned the SEC. He's the one who said that the SEC sat and did nothing under Madoff. So, if you're going to accuse the agency, then it becomes relevant as to who was running it. I didn't raise the issue of who was to blame and who was at fault. I was simply responding to my committee colleague from Florida.

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Chair, I rise to oppose the amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I understand that the banks in America don't like this because they would like to continue to be a place where people can come from other countries or send their money from other countries and not have it reported back home. The problem is that in America, we suffer a much greater loss right now from Americans who evade their taxes. Most Americans don't. But taxes being parked in the Cayman Islands, which was just mentioned and elsewhere, are a problem. We passed in 2010 a bill to try and get money owed to the United States paid to the United States. That requires the cooperation of other governments.

Members are aware of the negotiations with Switzerland and other tax havens. What this says is: we the United States want you to help us collect taxes owed to us, but we won't do the same. It is the tax evaders' bill of rights. The gentleman from Florida says they're law abiding citizens. Most of them probably are. How does he know they all are? Why do people in the Cayman Islands want to put money in American banks? Maybe they are perfectly good reasons. Maybe they want to come visit their money some day.

The fact is that people who send money to other countries include people who evade taxes. What this says to the United States is we basically are going to have to abandon the effort to collect taxes owed to us in foreign countries because we are telling the foreign countries we will not cooperate with them. We have tax treaties that we're pursuing. This basically aborts that.

Americans who want to send their money elsewhere and not pay taxes, they like this idea. With regard to the American banks, people have said they'll send their money elsewhere. The notion that we should compete in a race to the bottom, the notion that we should match other countries in an absence of rules is a philosophy that gets us in trouble. I believe that if we work hard, we will get a number of countries that will work with us on this. That's the essential point.

If Members favor a vigorous effort by the United States Government to recover taxes owed to us from elsewhere, they should reject this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

In fact, we suffer more from taxes evaded in the U.S., I believe, than the money we have here. The point, however, is--and I will submit the comments from the Department of the Treasury--we will not be sending this to countries with which we don't have a tax treaty. There are strong statutory and regulatory requirements that prevent this information from being sent to countries that abuse it.

Maybe Members think that's not strong enough. If the gentleman from Florida would like to submit legislation to strengthen those statutory requirements to make it clear that some countries qualify and some don't--for example, I'm informed Venezuela today would not qualify for obvious reasons, because of the brutal, corrupt nature of that government.

So the question is, because some governments would abuse it, should we protect every tax evader who wants to use the United States as a haven from having their money reported, at the price of not getting cooperation ourselves? That doesn't mean everybody puts their money here as a tax evader. If you're not a tax evader, then there's no problem with having this reported. As far as the Pentagon being hacked, yeah, people have been hacked. If the IRS was going to be hacked, a lot more would have happened.

The fact is that the security of tax returns in America is one of the best things about our government. Administrations of both parties from time immemorial have protected the security of tax returns. We have a very good record as a government. We shouldn't just denigrate it with no basis in protecting the integrity of tax returns. People have filed tax returns and have had great privacy in them. This is the central point, because some of the banks would like to get this money and not care whether people are tax evaders or not.

The gentleman says we can do it case by case. That's an impossible task, case by case to decide. Then the IRS becomes more intrusive. Do you want to do a frisk of each individual to decide whether he or she has his returns done? Case by case is the way you destroy privacy.

Here's the fundamental point. We are making efforts to collect taxes owed to us by people who have hidden the money elsewhere, and we know that's been a problem. This would make it impossible to do that with any efficiency. As I said, there are very clear statements of policy against sending this information to Venezuela, against sending it to other places where it wouldn't be secure. This is the question: Are we going to allow American standards, in trying to impose taxes that are legitimately owed here, to be eroded by other countries?

The gentleman mentioned the Cayman Islands. I don't want the Cayman Islands to set the standard for American tax collection. The gentleman mentioned that the Cayman Islanders are sending money here. I don't want the Cayman Islanders and their desire to get shelter to be setting the standard for American tax collection practices, for the need of America to do the right thing.

Those people who are lawfully investing money will not be frightened by this, and America's ability to get taxes owed to us would be destroyed by this amendment.

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Madam Chair, today in Washington, bureaucrats are able to craft and enforce rules that cost our economy billions of dollars while remaining aloof to the consequences of their actions. There remains a disconnect between those who write these rules in the comfort of the Beltway, generating reams of red tape, and the actions taken by the courts or Congress to delay or roll back those same rules.

When a regulator has overreached, they have wrongfully robbed American citizens of their benefits, of their labor, and their means of productivity. Today there is really no penalty for those who overreach. I believe regulators should be more prudent and measured when drafting and issuing rules and regulations.

My amendment simply calls agency bureaucrats to account when they exceed their delegated authority.

Section 104 of the underlying bill permits a court to award reasonable attorney's fees and costs to a small business when they prevail in a suit against an agency that has exceeded their statutory regulatory authority.

My amendment takes this as a step further by requiring any attorney's fees and costs be paid out of the administrative budget of the particular office that is found to have exceeded that authority. I believe this will give regulators greater pause before they issue regulations and will cause them to double-check to make sure that they are on solid ground. When an agency overreaches, what they are fundamentally doing is denying an American citizen their right to pursue opportunity, create jobs, or enjoy the benefits of their labor.

In a sense, they are basically robbing someone of their opportunity. Outside of the regulatory environment, when someone takes property that belongs to someone else, there are criminal sanctions if we catch them doing it. In the regulatory environment, however, the best that an American citizen can expect from the Federal Government is ``I'm sorry,'' and that's at best.

We change that in this bill. With the adoption of my amendment, we change that for the particular regulators that exceed their authority. If adopted, this amendment will give more certainty to the regulatory process, and it ensure regulators are more prudent when drafting regulations. We make sure that any damages are not paid out of the agency slush fund but, rather, out of the administrative budget of the offending office. That brings personal and government accountability to the

regulatory process, something that's desperately needed. Now they will have some skin in the game, so to speak.

I urge my colleagues to support this good amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have?

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Griffin).

Let me tell anyone who may not have ever seen a war with an agency over agency rules before, they dig in and they fight to the death anyway, whether it's coming out of their budget or not. I've seen them lose at three levels with a private citizen and go after them yet a fourth time because their pockets are bottomless and they hope they can break the back of a citizen like that.

You know, what make this country unique is we believe we get our rights from God. We believe in inalienable human rights here, and we give rights to government. Government doesn't give us rights. We give rights to our government. And we're charged with administering the rights that were given to our government here in Congress. And we give the administration, we give the agencies the right to write rules, specific rules. We don't allow them, without our authority and beyond the scope of their authority, to abuse citizens, to steal their productivity, their labor, and the benefits that they've worked hard for. And that's what the agencies have done. We have asked them not to do it. They've reformed the Administrative Procedures Act a number of times. The agencies just don't get the message. They see it as their goal and their destiny to be the boss.

Congress is supposed to have dominion over the bureaucrats, and this is one of the ways that we're going to enforce that dominion. We don't let the fox run the henhouse.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Madam Chair, my amendment stops the Securities and Exchange Commission from pursuing an agenda on climate change and keeps its focus, instead, on its core mission of protecting investors.

In recent years, we've seen the Madoff and Stanford Ponzi schemes bilk people out of over $70 billion. Many of these victims live in our districts. They are shocked and outraged that such a travesty could happen.

One would think that after such embarrassments, the SEC would do whatever it could to focus its finite resources on stopping the next Ponzi scheme. At the very minimum, it would make sense for the SEC to appear to get serious in safeguarding the public from fraud and corruption.

However, early in 2010, the SEC issued an interpretative guidance for companies to disclose the impact global climate change might have on their businesses. The SEC published this controversial guidance over the objections of dissenting commissioners. This

was done without direction from Congress and outside the traditional rulemaking process.

There are no laws in the United States explicitly addressing climate change. The guidance is inappropriate considering the SEC has bigger priorities.

I don't have to tell my colleagues that climate change is a controversial and an unresolved issue. From a securities perspective especially, climate change information on a disclosure is highly speculative, and dubious at best. If allowed to proceed, it invites all kinds of compliance costs and confusion down the road. And guess who will ultimately pay all those costs? Our constituents, the American public.

Importantly, my amendment does not stop companies from mentioning bona fide weather and environmental risks in disclosures. And if a company really wants to weigh in climate change for some reason, they're free to volunteer that information. It just keeps the SEC focused on what they're supposed to be doing, and that is protecting people and not forcing unrelated agendas down their throats.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment and reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

The gentleman's points about disclosure are on point. They simply don't apply to what this amendment does. It does not deny required disclosure of risks. Let me be clear, thousands and thousands of American families were devastated by Madoff, by Stanford, MF Global and the like. People lost their homes, people lost their cars, people lost their children's education funds, and people lost their lifelong retirement savings. I could go on and on forever, but we have a limited amount of time.

The job of the SEC is to protect those people. The job of the SEC is to protect honest people from dishonest corporations and persons. It's not to impose other agendas on the American public. It's not to talk about the environmental stewardship of corporations. If a corporation dealing with securities does not disclose a significant environmental risk, then they're going to be liable for that failure to disclose. But it's not the SEC's job to talk about their stewardship.

The SEC knew for a decade--a decade--a full 10 years--over 10 years-- that Madoff was stealing from people; and they refused to take any action for over a decade, and over $70 billion evaporated. People's lives were devastated. People died. People died. There are dead people because of what Madoff did. And the SEC didn't lift a finger. They were too busy doing other things.

Now, here we intend to put SEC back on the job and focus on what they're supposed to do: protect honest people from dishonest people.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I have endured about all I care to, and I think a large percentage of the people in this Chamber and a lot of people in this country have endured about all the finger-pointing and blame that they can endure. I don't care who shot John. I don't care who was in charge of the SEC before. The point of this bill is to keep the SEC focused on protecting investors.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Very poetic, but it's off point.

The amendment wants SEC to focus on protecting honest people from dishonest corporations and people, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I appreciate the comments; and, once again, I implore my colleagues to support this good amendment to keep the SEC on task.

Their job is to protect investors from dishonest people and dishonest corporations; and with the passage of this amendment, we will do that.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The Florida International Bankers Association has reported to me that, over the past several months, they have seen as much as $300 million leaving United States banks for overseas banks.

Why is this money leaving the United States, and what can we do to stop the hemorrhaging?

The adoption of this amendment will stop the hemorrhaging of hundreds of millions of dollars--soon to be billions of dollars if this amendment is not adopted. This is according to the studies on earlier, scaled-back proposals by the Internal Revenue Service.

For nearly 100 years, the United States has had in place a policy that encourages foreigners to put their money in our banks in the United States. We have told them that the United States is a welcoming and safe place for their deposits. Earlier this year, apparently clueless about the financial conditions we were in as a Nation, the IRS finalized a new rule to take effect in January 2013 that basically sends the message to law-abiding foreign depositors that U.S. banks don't want their money. Under this rule, the United States would no longer provide these law-abiding depositors with the confidentiality that they've had and that they need.

The new IRS rules would impose cumbersome new reporting requirements for law-abiding foreign depositors and for foreign depositors who live in nations where corruption is rampant. They will simply withdraw their money from the United States institutions and put their money to work in other nations around the world. This is bad for the United States economy.

There has been strong bipartisan opposition to the IRS proposal. The entire Florida delegation--all 25 members, every Republican and every Democrat--wrote the Treasury last year, asking them to withdraw the regulation. Bipartisan letters have gone to the Internal Revenue Service urging them to withdraw the regulation, and bipartisan legislation has been filed in the House and in the Senate to stop the regulation.

Each day Congress refuses to act, deposits are leaving the United States for Singapore, Panama, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, and elsewhere. This money will not return to the United States once it leaves. Most importantly for our communities, this capital will not be available to our small businesses and families when they need it to build in America. The new regulation will harm the U.S. economy, and we must stop its implementation.

Ironically, this same regulation from the IRS was rejected about 8 years ago when the bureaucrats at the IRS thought it was a good idea then. A strong bipartisan effort in Congress led to the IRS withdrawal of the rule, and we must do that again today.

If you share my commitment to economic recovery and believe that the United States should be a welcoming place for foreign depositors who want to put their money to work in the United States, then I urge you to join in support of this amendment. Please vote ``yes.''

I reserve the balance of my time.

This is not just about banks. This is about jobs, this is about mortgages, this is about the economy, and this is about our communities prospering. Information can be shared today on a case-by- case basis. If the IRS suggests to you otherwise, it's just not true.

There's a common misperception. Let's not forget how fortunate we are to live in the United States of America.

Too often, too many people forget this, it seems. We live under a stable government and a relatively stable economy compared to some of the other countries we receive deposits from. Many nonresident deposits come from countries where the governments themselves are very unstable, where their personal security or their property are major concerns. It's very probable that the depositor's personal bank account information could be leaked to unauthorized persons in their home country--to governments, criminals, or terrorist groups--which could make the depositors and their families targets of extortion, kidnappings, and other potentially fatal criminal activities. Imagine living with that over your shoulder every day.

Assurance from the IRS bureaucrats that your information is safe won't calm those fears. Our Pentagon has been hacked. I asked the Secretary of the Treasury if we would stand personally liable for any breaches that would cause a loss of life or harm to people whose information was betrayed. They said they would not be willing to do that.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I don't know how many deadbeat taxpayers are in Venezuela or Cuba or Iran, but I think it's ludicrous to think that we would want to put American investments in other countries. We're looking at, according to the Mercatus Center at George Mason, a possible capital flight of $88 billion, and this is opposed to maybe, at the high side estimating, we'll recover $800 million from tax cheats, hopefully. That's just not a good percentage. That's not a good investment. That's bad business in any sense of the word.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of a good commonsense bill that will help our economy recover and help America stay strong.

Madam Chair, I support the amendment offered by Mr. Connolly.

The congressional waiver provision in this underlying bill is a farce. It requires the President to ask Congress its permission to issue a regulation and then wait for both Houses of Congress to approve the waiver. Give me a break. That could take months in the best case, but the more likely scenario is that it would never happen at all--and everybody knows that.

By adopting this amendment, we can ensure that the President can truly issue regulations when needed. Under this amendment, the waiver provision in the underlying bill will be changed so that if Congress doesn't act within 7 days on a waiver request submitted to it by the President, the waiver would be granted.

Let me be clear: under this amendment, Congress would still have the opportunity to object to a regulation when necessary. This amendment simply ensures that Congress' failure to act doesn't prevent the President from issuing needed regulations.

The majority claims that the congressional waiver provision in the underlying bill will ensure that the President can still issue important regulations. If the majority really intends to give the President that flexibility, they will adopt this amendment.

I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this amendment.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I strongly oppose the amendment offered by the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. McKinley), which would make a very dangerous bill even more devastating to the American people. If implemented, this amendment would broaden the scope of this legislation to impede the issuance of even more rules than are impeded by the underlying bill itself.

By lowering the threshold at which a ``significant regulatory action'' is measured from rules that have an annual cost to the economy of $100 million or more to just $50 million or more, the legislation would prevent the implementation of important rules whose benefits far outweigh their costs.

One of the things that we do not zero in on with regard to this legislation overall--and we saw it in our committee--is the cost- benefit analysis. I think it's very, very significant, when you think about the fact that there are certain regs which save lives, many which protect our constituents with regard to their pocketbooks, all kinds of things. Sometimes when you just look at the cost of a business coming in and complaining, as opposed to balancing it with regard to benefits, sometimes I think things get out of balance.

The amendment clearly illustrates why Cass Sunstein believes a moratorium on the issuance of regulations is such a bad idea. As he stated at an Oversight Committee hearing last September, he said:

A moratorium would not be a scalpel or a machete, it would be more like a nuclear bomb, in the sense that it would prevent regulations that cost very little, and have very significant economic or public health benefits.

This amendment only increases the size of the bomb we are dropping.

Just one example of a pending regulation that would be halted by this amendment is the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed rule implementing a section of the Dodd-Frank Act to reduce the purchase of ``conflict minerals''--minerals whose sale by combatants in the Democrat Republic of Congo is known to fund the human rights abuses perpetrated by these combatants.

Dodd-Frank requires the SEC to issue a rule directing publicly held companies to disclose whether any of four metals--gold, tantalum, tungsten or tin--used in the products they produce came from Central Africa, where trade in these commodities has funded years of civil war. The SEC issued a proposed rule in December 2010, but has delayed finalizing the rule in response to fierce business opposition and business lobbying. This proposed rule is estimated to cost industry $71 million per year.

The benefits of this rule cannot be quantified, simply cannot. By ensuring

that publicly traded companies in the United States track the supply chain of minerals and disclose whether their purchases are financing armed groups responsible for committing atrocities--killing people, rapes, hurting people--this proposed rule will save lives and help prevent sexual and gender-based violence. Adopting this amendment would prohibit the issuance of this regulation intended to help quell international violence and help end a humanitarian crisis.

We simply cannot put financial profit, as I said a few minutes ago, above our moral obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us. So, ladies and gentlemen, I urge Members to oppose this incredibly dangerous amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I hope that the body will vote against this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise to claim time in opposition.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I strongly oppose the amendment offered by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), which would make an already ambiguous bill even harder to implement. The amendment proposes to define the term ``annual cost to the economy'' as including ``any expected change in revenue of businesses'' caused by such regulation, including any change in revenue as a result of preparing for the implementation of the regulation.

Imagine the consequences of this amendment. If it would cost a business any additional funds to ensure that baby formula does not contain toxic substances, that business could block a regulation requiring those safety measures. Is that really how we want to run our country?

The truth is that businesses routinely blame regulations for costs they already incur. For example, power companies routinely blame the EPA for the fact that high-cost coal plants struggle to compete in today's market with lower-cost natural gas plants. Despite the fact that many of these coal plants are shut down because they are uncompetitive, some repeatedly blame EPA regulations for forcing their closings.

The intention of this amendment appears to be to give businesses a veto over any regulation they oppose just by claiming that it's implementation somehow affects their bottom line. Since it would be virtually impossibility for OMB to confirm or deny such claims, they would be irrefutable.

Now, I do believe that the cost of regulations imposed on industry should be one of many factors considered when we compare the overall costs and benefits of a rule. But these costs should not be the overriding factor to be considered, as this amendment would require.

The amendment is just another example of the misguided effort to put business' profits before the health and safety of the American people. Therefore, I urge Members to oppose this unworkable and harmful amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I stand on my arguments, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chairman, Federal securities law requires financial disclosures by public companies for the benefit of shareholders and investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission provides detailed guidance on how to interpret and comply with these disclosure requirements, which are intended to ensure that potential investors fully understand a security before they purchase it.

The SEC recently provided guidance on existing rules that require companies to disclose the impact that business or legal developments related to climate change could have on a company's bottom line. They want investors to know about this.

These disclosures help investors understand how climate change affects a company's operations and their potential investments in the company. This amendment seeks to prevent this guidance from taking place. It seeks to keep investors in the dark.

Rules discussed in the SEC's guidance are clearly needed, and the SEC's guidance will help publicly traded companies understand how key areas of climate change--such as new legislation or international accords--could affect what they need to disclose to the public. This guidance is also intended to help companies explain how the physical impacts of climate change could affect their performance.

In issuing this guidance, the SEC did not opine on the science of climate change. The guidance seeks to help companies assess the possibility that events related to climate change may materially affect their bottom lines and trigger public disclosure requirements. This guidance is prudent and serves to benefit both the investor and the company.

Ironically, with this amendment, my friends on the other side of the aisle who proclaim the value of transparency are acting to hurt investors by denying them important information. This amendment would also harm Wall Street by preventing the SEC from issuing clear guidance to help publicly traded firms understand what they need to disclose on this topic to ensure full compliance with the law. It provides them certainty.

So I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

When we had the SEC come before our committee, I made it very clear that I thought more could have been done with regard to Madoff, and I think it was extremely unfortunate what happened. But, again, that does not mean that we shouldn't provide clarity over all subjects which may affect investors. And that's what we're talking about here.

I'm going to rely on my argument, but I'm going to also yield to my good friend, Mr. Frank from Massachusetts.

Madam Chair, how much do I have remaining?

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Let me be clear, the SEC has the responsibility to disclose the information that investors need, and this is one of those areas. We want to protect investors with everything we have. I think this amendment flies in the face of that, and I would hope that the body would vote against the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

On first read, Madam Chair, this amendment may sound like a good idea. However, it's true effect would be to put the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in charge of deciding whether any agency in the entire executive branch can make policy decisions.

The amendment says that no policy decision issued by any agency after the end of this year can take effect until that agency's guidelines on scientific integrity have been approved by the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

I agree that agencies should have strong guidelines on scientific integrity. In fact, agencies are already required to have such guidelines in place under a memo issued by President Obama. However, it's not realistic to expect that the Office of Science and Technology Policy could approve guidelines for every agency by January 1, 2013.

The amendment would undermine the integrity of science in the Federal Government by jeopardizing the ability of agencies to use our best science to

protect Americans' health and safety. Specifically, the amendment would block any ``listing, labeling, or other identification of a substance, product, or activity as hazardous, or creating risk to human health, safety or the environment.''

Under this amendment, for example, the FDA could not alert the public about a defective drug, the Department of Homeland Security could not implement safety measures to screen for terrorists, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could not recommend an evacuation zone if there was a nuclear accident.

This amendment, I'm sure, is well-intentioned, but the way it has been drafted makes it dangerous. I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, after hearing the arguments of the other side, I'm going to rest on what I've already said. I think I've made it abundantly clear why this is not an appropriate amendment.

With that, I hope that the House will vote against it. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I strongly oppose the Posey amendment because it makes even worse an already deeply problematic provision.

Under title I of this bill, a court is required to award attorney's fees and costs to a ``substantially prevailing small business'' in any civil action to challenge an agency's compliance with the moratorium. That provision further states that a small business can be substantially prevailing in the meaning of the bill even in the absence of a final judgment in its favor ``if the agency that took the significant regulatory action changes its position after the civil action is filed.''

There are two problems with this. First, it doesn't matter if the agency's change in position had absolutely nothing to do with the civil action. A court would still have to award attorney's fees to a small business that challenges an agency's compliance with the moratorium in court, even if the change in policy had nothing to do with the lawsuit.

Bad as this provision already is, the Posey amendment makes it worse by requiring that any award of attorney's fees and costs be taken out of the defendant agency's budget. Agencies are already straining under diminishing financial and staff resources, thanks in no small part to the budget priorities of this House during this Congress. Further debilitating agencies by taking fee awards out of their budgets--even under circumstances when their change in position had nothing to do with the underlying lawsuit--further damages agencies' ability to do what Congress tasked them with doing, namely, protecting public health and safety.

What this amendment says is, if an agency has a regulation which, in its judgment, it must issue to protect the public health and safety and a small business sues to stop that, and even if the small business doesn't prevail, if there is any change in the agency's position, and even if that change in position has nothing to do with the subject of the lawsuit by the small business, it must pay attorney's fees. And, under this amendment, it must pay attorney's fees out of its own budget. That is dangerous because it will debilitate the agencies that we task with protecting the public health and safety.

Second of all, it is self-defeating. If you are the agency and you know if you are going to change your position in any way you're going to have the pay the attorney's fees out of your own budget, better don't change. Fight the lawsuit. Don't give in. Fight the small business because you may win; while, if you change your position in any way, if you compromise, if you say, you know, they don't have that great of a case but we can accommodate them by making a small change-- no, then you have to pay attorney's fees out of our own budget. So don't accommodate them. Don't comprise with them. Don't make the change. Fight them to the bitter end. That doesn't help the small business, and it certainly doesn't help the American people who need these agencies to police the marketplace and to protect the public health and safety. So it defeats its own purpose. It is just wrong on so many levels.

I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time do I have remaining?

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

Again, we oppose the bill to start with because we shouldn't have a moratorium on rules that are intended to protect the public health and safety that may be necessary.

But second of all, this amendment is self-defeating because if a small business sues the agency, two things. Number one, let's assume that the agency thinks that the small business' suit has some merit, not enough to win the case, but some merit. Under this amendment, the agency cannot compromise, cannot say, You're right; we'll make this change, because the moment it makes a change, even a minor change, then it is no longer the prevailing party. The small business, under the definition of the bill, is the prevailing party and will get attorney's fees, and the attorney's fees come out of the budget--maybe the small budget--of the agency. So rather than yielding in any way, rather than compromising with the small business, fight them. Fight them tooth and nail. That's what this amendment says to the agency. It is, on its own terms, silly and self-defeating, and I urge its defeat.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk made in order under the rule.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 4\1/2\ minutes.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of my amendment, which would exempt rules to protect nuclear power plant safety from titles I, III, and V of the bill.

It is rare that the premise of an entire week of legislative work on the House floor is wrong, but, here we are here. We are told this is ``regulatory week,'' during which House Republicans are supposedly working to see that the yoke of oppressive government regulation is thrown off and the American entrepreneur is freed to grow his or her business and increase jobs. In thinking about this view, I am reminded of a famous line in Shakespeare's MacBeth, ``It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.''

We have heard, and will continue to hear, a lot of sound and fury this week on the House floor, but just like all the other regulatory bills the House has passed this year, what we pass this week will die in the Senate as well. So all of that talk will signify nothing. Like health care repeal, on which we have taken 33 votes, this, too, is a tremendous waste of time.

More importantly, there is no evidence to support the position that overregulation is the major cause of our slow economic growth and high unemployment rate. According to the Economic Policy Institute, ``economy-wide studies do not find a significant decline in employment from regulatory policies.''

The real culprit of our slow growth and high unemployment is reduced aggregate demand. Do not just take my word for it--this is what economists and business are saying. The Wall Street Journal surveyed dozens of economists last July, and it found that the ``main reason U.S. companies are reluctant to step up hiring is scant demand.''

The National Federation of Independent Business found that when business owners with declining sales were asked the cause, 45 percent said declining sales. Only 10 percent said higher taxes and regulations.

If all of this is true, why are we here making it harder for the government to enact protective rules and regulations to protect the public health and safety?

Bruce Bartlett, a senior policy analyst in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, suggests an answer. He has said:

Regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans

that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue

an agenda supported by the business community year in and

year out. In other words, it is a simple case of political

opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high

unemployment.

Let us look at what the bill that this canard has brought us would do. To me, it seems like Frankenstein. It's put together from various different pieces that do not fit together, and it is very frightening. For example, the underlying bill would block all and any major efforts to protect public health, safety, the environment and so on until the unemployment rate falls below the arbitrary figure of 6 percent; and the bill would impose needless costs on the government and make protecting health and welfare that much more difficult by putting impediments to agreeing to consent decrees and settlements. What all this means is that the most potentially dangerous industries, like nuclear power, the safety of the American public would be put at serious risk by this bill.

My amendment would attempt to make this Frankenstein bill slightly less of a horror show by exempting the issue of nuclear power plant safety from three sections of the bill.

The dangers of nuclear power are well known. One accident can doom millions of people. Because of the almost unimaginable disaster that could happen at a nuclear power plant, regulations to prevent accidents or meltdowns in advance are critically important. The underlying bill would make it harder for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to adopt such rules or policies, thereby putting millions of lives at risk.

Hampering the ability of the NRC to require safety measures like those necessary to prevent a meltdown in the event of an earthquake or an act of terrorism could be devastating. My amendment would free the NRC from the burdens of this bill and allow it to promulgate those rules and regulations necessary to protect us from the disaster of a nuclear catastrophe such as those that occurred at Chernobyl in Russia or at Fukushima in Japan.

I urge everyone to approve the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

Madam Chair, first of all, we're dealing with nuclear regulatory authority, with nuclear power plants, and we're not dealing with small businesses. We are dealing with very large businesses. Secondly, we're dealing with permits for construction or modification of a nuclear power plant.

Because of the disaster at Fukushima, hopefully, we learned from experience, it may very well be that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will want to put out new regulations or modify old ones in light of what we have learned from what the Japanese didn't do right, and this would say that they could not promulgate any such regulation as long as unemployment is above 6 percent. As long as unemployment is above 6 percent, we must continue to risk all of our lives. That makes no sense.

Second of all, yes, we want to do environmental streamlining. Well, what this bill says--and this would apply to this, too--is that if an environmental

impact statement takes longer than a certain number of days, forget about it. But it's the sponsor, not the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the sponsor that controls the timing of the EIS.

So if you've got a terrible project which you know is an environmental disaster, all you have to do, under this bill, is to slow-walk the EIS because you control it, and then you don't have to worry about any environmental consequences. That's backwards, it's upside down, and it risks the public safety.

I urge the adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairwoman, I have an amendment at the desk.

I would like to extend a thanks to Chairman Smith and to Ranking Member Conyers for having their hard work brought to fruition here with this legislation.

Madam Chairwoman, the Richardson amendment would allow the government to take significant regulatory action if and when the monthly national unemployment rate is above 6 percent, thereby allowing for the action and proper implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the health provisions of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

The sponsors of H.R. 4078 suggest the legislation will promote job growth. I argue that the Affordable Care Act, when fully implemented, will promote job growth, support economic growth and spur deficit reduction in our economy in terms of the deficit that we currently are experiencing. My amendment is intended to ensure that adequate health care through the Affordable Care Act can be fully implemented.

Because so many Americans rely on their employers to have access to health care, high levels of unemployment can leave many of our U.S. citizens uninsured and underinsured. When the monthly unemployment rate is above 6 percent, something this Nation has unfortunately incurred for approximately 2 years now, that is the very time, I would argue, that our government was created to assist U.S. citizens and all of those who obviously need health care. A strong economy needs healthy workers.

There is a common and persistent misconception that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will pose an undue burden on small businesses and will limit job creation, but this is absolutely untrue. Rather, the Affordable Care Act offers $40 billion in tax credits for small businesses to help pay for employee health insurance coverage. In 2011, this tax credit was used to pay for the coverage of over 2 million uninsured Americans. In my home district, the 37th Congressional District of California, 510 small businesses have already received this tax credit to maintain or expand the health insurance coverage for their employees.

The Affordable Care Act also establishes health insurance exchanges in which small business owners and employees can pool their buying power to shop for affordable plans. Beginning in 2014, all the plans offered in these exchanges will have guaranteed sets of minimum benefits to ensure that small businesses are not faced with gaps in coverage or fine print restrictions, which are documented problems that have plagued recipients in the past.

Despite the unfounded claims that this bill will raise taxes for everyday Americans, the Affordable Care Act will bring a significant and immediate savings to the middle class at a time when we need it most.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, how much time do I have remaining?

I am convinced that President Obama does care, but today, I am here to talk about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Regarding that act, I think it's important to note that this amendment is not simply a blanket exemption; rather, it deals with the time when unemployment exceeds 6 percent. For those American people-- many of whom I represent, who have struggled through no fault of their own to be able to gain employment--this is a significant exemption that is needed.

Madam Chairwoman, when we look at the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it passed this body in Congress; it passed the body in the Senate; it was signed into law; and now it has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. Health care reform is finally here to stay, and the time has come for us to commit ourselves and our attention and our efforts in this Congress to wholeheartedly supporting its enactment. Where changes and revisions and improvements need to be made, we have an opportunity to do so.

The Richardson amendment I bring forward today does not obligate additional funds to address health care reform. It would simply give the Federal Government the freedom--the freedom that we all believe in--to pursue all available options in the future, especially in the greatest times of need. My amendment ensures that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is implemented without adding time and cost-consuming procedural burdens.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting Richardson amendment No. 8 and to reaffirm this Nation's commitment to providing the basic necessity. Certainly, I think that equates to the level of the right to the pursuit of happiness, which is what America was built on.

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

Madam Chairwoman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairwoman, the Richardson amendment simply improves the bill by allowing for necessary regulations to be promulgated when the monthly national unemployment rate is above 6 percent in order to protect consumers against unintended consequences that they might suffer under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

This amendment promotes job growth by ensuring small businesses have fair and accurate credit scores to obtain competitive interest loans. This amendment enables the appropriate Federal agencies, such as the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to issue regulations necessary to protect consumers and to promote small businesses.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, also known as FCRA, is an important piece of legislation that protects the accuracy, fairness, and the privacy of information collected at credit bureaus. It gives consumers the right to view and challenge the information in their respective credit reports. Although this legislation was originally passed well over 40 years ago, this issue has remained in the forefront of public consciousness, and in 2003 we had provisions that were added to deal with identity theft.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires that consumer reporting agencies, also known as CRAs, ensure that they provide up-to-date information and remove negative information after 10 years. These requirements mandated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act provide entrepreneurs with fair credit scores and enable them to seek competitive loans to start or expand small businesses.

There are 28.6 million small businesses in the United States, and small businesses create two out of every three jobs in this country. In the State of California that I represent, small businesses employ more than 50 percent of the State's 16 million workers and represent 90 percent of the job growth for higher income.

With that, Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

Madam Chair, in relation to the comments that have been made, I'd like to speak to why the fair credit reporting agencies would be exempted in this particular amendment.

When you consider that we're national representatives--and rational legislators do know, I would say, and I think small business owners are aware, that without capital, without the ability to have appropriate credit scores and not to be able to extend that, not to be able to get appropriate capital to have your business to be successful, there are no jobs. There is no thriving economy. That's why, in fact, this Agency should be exempted.

The statistics are clear: small businesses are the key to our economic recovery and our continued growth. Relieving the financial burdens of small businesses stabilizes the uncertainty and encourages critical job growth. Entrepreneurs and small businesses are the engines of innovation and economic growth, and the small businesses in my district are at the forefront of that innovation.

It would be wrong and counterproductive to limit the Federal Government's ability to support small businesses when they need it most. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting Richardson Amendment No. 9 and reaffirming our commitment and this Nation's commitment that when businesses need the assistance, when they, in fact, can qualify for the assistance, that improper reporting or old reporting certainly shouldn't hinder their ability to have that vibrant business.

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

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.