To amend the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to limit the fee disclosure requirement for an automatic teller machine to the screen of that machine.

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

First of all, let me say that this is very much bipartisan legislation in that it has been sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans. I am very, very pleased to have as an original cosponsor on this and to have worked very closely with Mr. Luetkemeyer, who has done an admirable job in providing leadership on a much, much needed piece of legislation, which is H.R. 4367. As I said, I am proud to be an integral part of moving forward a very timely, reasonable, and vital piece of legislation.

Let me just say at the outset, Mr. Speaker, that our banking system, our retail system, our credit unions all sit at the center--at the epicenter--of this Nation's great economic system, which is facing tremendous challenges. As Mr. Luetkemeyer said, we are faced with people who are basically scam artists, those who will go in and remove the labeling off the ATM machines, knowing that the penalty is upwards of one half a million dollars, and then will try to bring class action lawsuits against these financial institutions in very tough economic times. So this legislation has been developed to address this and to fix this so that our banking industry and our financial services industry will not have this threat over them.

What it would do is repeal the requirement for both a physical placard as well as an electronic notice disclosing the transaction fees on the ATM screens. Currently, as it works now, if an ATM machine does not display a physical placard, a financial institution--a bank, a credit union or our retailers--can be subject to a class action lawsuit, which would potentially amount to, as I said, one half a million dollars, or 1 percent of its net worth. This penalty has the potential of prompting bogus lawsuits against financial institutions simply due to a lack of the physical placard, even when the electronic notice is shown to a customer, perhaps because the placard was removed by a third party. So you can see that this is not fair for these institutions to be faced with up to a half million dollars in penalty fees, especially in these tough economic times. At the same time, many of these institutions continue to struggle to maintain standard operations while being faced with our current economic climate.

Mr. Speaker, let me just talk about that for a moment because there have been 31 bank failures in this country this year alone. About 3 weeks ago, three banks shut their doors, including the Security Exchange Bank in Marietta, Cobb County, Georgia, which is located in my district. As a matter of fact, in Georgia alone, 78 banks have closed their doors since our crisis began.

Georgia leads the Nation, unfortunately, in bank closures. That's why I am so particularly concerned about it and so pleased to have this measure pass, because this sensible legislation that we consider today would remove the threat of legal action against financial institutions--a bank or a credit union--simply for the lack of the physical placard at one of its ATM machines.

Passage of this bill, as Mr. Luetkemeyer pointed out, will still provide the consumer with the protections that they need because a notice informing them of any fees will still be required upon the start of a transaction on the ATM screen. In addition, consumers will still be able to benefit from the convenience that the estimated 445,000 ATMs in operation in this country provide.

I'm very proud to have worked on this bill. It's very timely. It's very important for our economy that we move with this bill. The bill certainly deserves the strong bipartisan support that we have, and it's been a pleasure to work with Mr. Luetkemeyer on it. I urge my colleagues to support this measure today.

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

Mr. Speaker, in closing I certainly would just like to say how important this legislation is.

As the chairman of our Financial Services Committee, Chairman Bachus, just stated, these are sophisticated individuals. These are people who know the system. That's why I refer to them as scam artists.

This is a racket, and it's a racket that we need to put out of business that's causing tremendous headaches, tremendous difficulties for the heart of our fine economic system, which is our banking system, our commercial system. This will go a long way in helping to take away a very superfluous but serious enough threat.

The other thing about this that's very fine is we hear a great cry among the American people for great bipartisanship. Here's a great example of Democrats and Republicans working together for the good of the United States of America.

Thank you very much for working with me on this, and I appreciate having an opportunity to work with you.

And since I have no other speakers, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I came here to compliment the two gentlemen who have spoken on this bill, who are the cosponsors of a bipartisan bill.

When I first heard about this legislation, I thought, like most legislation this year, it won't go anywhere. I thought it may pass the House, but it may not pass the Senate. I understand that with this particular legislation, that our Senate colleagues are waiting for it and they're ready to act upon it.

Mr. Scott brought up, I think, a salient point when he said that we're having many banks and credit unions who are struggling, because when people don't have jobs, they can't pay back their loans. Our banks and credit unions are trying to cope with the added expense of more regulation. Particularly at a time like that, but at any time, for people to take advantage of a statute that is intended to protect the American people is really audacity and greed in its purest sense.

I'm an attorney, and I can tell you that 999 out of 1,000 attorneys or former attorneys would absolutely be enraged to find that very few of their colleagues are taking advantage of Regulation E and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to sue these institutions on lawsuits that are totally against the public interest, and particularly are against the interests of those living in low-income areas and high-crime areas. The people in those areas are coping with so much that to add to that, having an ATM machine removed from that location or from a low-income area, just adds another expense for people who have very little means of financing their life today. That's what's happening.

Either the vandals themselves are going and vandalizing the sticker that we've all seen--we've all used an ATM. We've all seen the sticker there. We probably didn't notice the sticker there because what really caught our attention is when we get on the screen and we see that same notice, but that notice actually on the screen requires us to affirmatively say ``yes,'' we will agree to it. So people today probably don't even notice that sticker. The few people who noticed that sticker and took advantage of it were people that were up to no good, people that were willing to bring what some of us would call a ``frivolous lawsuit.''

These lawsuits can ask for a half million dollars worth of damages. And because it is actually a statutory failure to have it, these lawsuits sometimes result in a $100,000 or $200,000 judgment. They're also resulting in these ATMs not being located in areas that are subject to vandalism. Of course, almost any area could be subject to it, but we've penalized those Americans who are least able to afford to travel a greater distance for the convenience of an AMT machine.

As Mr. Luetkemeyer and Mr. Scott said, people come up; they scrape it off. Some of these appear to be well-organized efforts by the very people that bring the lawsuit to go out and do these in an organized manner among hundreds of machines. They then come in and file a class action.

Mr. Luetkemeyer, at one time, was a banker in a small Missouri community. And in most cases, particularly a small credit union or a community bank or a local bank, they can't afford to battle these for $50,000 or $100,000--it actually may be a big law firm bringing these lawsuits--so they settle them for $50,000. This will put an end to that.

Let me tell you, no one on the Financial Services Committee expressed any doubt about this legislation. I don't think anyone would, other than those people who are complicit in vandalizing these machines and making money on what we sometimes called ``unintended consequences.'' I tell you, it certainly was unintended. If we had, in our imagination, sat down for days and said what is the worst thing that could happen by requiring us to put a sticker on as well as electronic notice, we would have never come up with this. We would have never come up with the ingenuity of some people to take advantage of the law. But that's what's happened here.

Today, I think, unanimously, hopefully, we're going to shut the door on this practice and send this bill over to the Senate, particularly for areas where there is high vandalism in our rural communities. We're going to set a wrong right.

Let me say that this is a model for how this Congress ought to operate, of coming together, having a consensus, coming up with good, commonsense legislation that benefits the public and reduces unnecessary costs and puts what I consider and I think is criminal behavior out of business. We're going to put some criminals out of business with this legislation.

Mr. Luetkemeyer, Mr. Scott, and all Members who are cosponsoring this bill, I commend each and every one of you.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4367) to amend the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to limit the fee disclosure requirement for an automatic teller machine to the screen of that machine.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to add extraneous material to this bill.

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

Today, we are considering one of the most commonsense bills seen in some time. This bill provides a real solution to a real problem that is impacting banks, credit unions, and merchants nationwide.

Regulation E currently mandates that ATM fee disclosures appear both in physical placard or in sticker form on the machines as well as through an on-screen electronic notification. Unfortunately, some individuals have seen the potential to make a quick buck off a frivolous claim and have begun to remove stickers from ATMs across the country, thereby placing financial institutions and merchants out of compliance. This is exactly what has happened to some small financial institutions in my district and throughout Missouri. Someone was traveling through the State, removing stickers from ATM machines, and then was offering to settle with the banks for several thousands of dollars per machine or the banks would face lawsuits.

The premise of this bill is simple: to eliminate an outdated and unnecessary regulatory burden facing merchants and financial institutions while continuing to ensure consumer protections for all ATM users through required on-screen fee disclosures.

It is important to recognize that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has also expressed interest in eliminating this duplicative fee disclosure requirement. In December of 2011, the CFPB asked the public to comment on the elimination of this requirement. However, during the public comment period, the CFPB admitted that it may not be able to remove the duplicative disclosure requirement and that it would be up to Congress to take action.

Today, Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to take action.

H.R. 4367 is supported by the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, the Credit Union National Association, the American Bankers Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Electronic Funds Transfer Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, The Clearing House, the Food Marketing Institute, the Financial Services Roundtable, the National Association of Convenience Stores, the American Gaming Association, and the ATM Industry Association as well.

This legislation has broad bipartisan support from its 145 cosponsors. Among them is the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott), who has been a great partner on this initiative, and I thank him for his efforts.

Again, I want to remind my colleagues that this bill does not in any way alter the mandate for on-screen fee disclosures, meaning that customers will have a clear understanding of what they will be charged before they complete their ATM transactions.

It is time to put an end to these frivolous lawsuits. I thank my colleagues for the sponsorship of this legislation, and I ask all Members to support this bill today.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is now my distinct honor to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) to

speak on the bill, our distinguished chairman on the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, again, I want to thank Mr. Scott from Georgia for helping this bill along. As he articulated, Georgia has had an inordinate number of banks this past year, 2 or 3 years, that have suffered and have gone out of business.

This is just another situation here where this bill may not be a very big bill in the light of things, but it certainly is going to relieve some stress on some of our institutions, also some exposure for some of our merchants. I think, as our distinguished chairman articulated, it's time to put some of these folks out of business as well.

I have had, unfortunately, some of these things go on in my district, and this is how it was brought to my attention. But I think we have come together as a group, and we had a great meeting the other day in Financial Services and had strong bipartisan support. We have the support in the Senate.

With that, I will close and ask for the support of the body.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H.R. 4367, a bill which would remove the current requirement under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act that ATM machines

have a physical label indicating the fee charge. Currently, ATM machines have both a physical posted notification and an on-screen prompt that inform the customer of any fees prior to the withdrawal or transfer of money. These fees are often used to offset the cost of a patron withdrawing money from an ATM owned by another financial institution.

H.R. 4367 is an essential piece of legislation which prevents greed- motivated individuals from fraudulently removing the physical fee notification and then filing frivolous lawsuits on financial institutions for not having the physical notification posted. This fraud forces financial institutions to waste huge amounts of money on legal fees, some as much as $500,000, merely to defend frivolous lawsuits. Unfortunately, the cost of this litigation forces banks to raise their ATM fees to deal with the action of a few unscrupulous individuals exploiting a legal loophole.

Today, virtually all ATM machines display on-screen notifications of a transfer fee, prior to allowing the customer to withdraw money. Altering the law so that banks are only required to post an on-screen fee notification will help them avoid expensive, unjust, and unnecessary lawsuits. H.R. 4367 is an essential and necessary part of modernizing our financial regulations to fit the needs of the digital world. Please know that I firmly support H.R. 4367 and would have voted in favor of it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise regarding my excused absence from rollcall votes 452-454 on Monday, July 9, 2012. I was unavoidably delayed on my return to Washington from Houston, TX due to weather.

I would have voted ``aye'' for rollcall vote 452, on motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill H.R. 4155, ``Veterans Skills to Jobs Act'', which would require the head of each federal department or agency to ensure that an applicant for any federal license who has received relevant training while serving as a member of the Armed Forces is deemed to satisfy any training or certification requirements for the license, unless the training received is found to be substantially different from the training or certification requirements for such license.

I would have voted ``aye'' for rollcall vote 453 on motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill H.R. 4367, ``To Amend the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to limit the free disclosure requirement for an automatic teller machine to the screen of that machine'', which cancels the requirement that such a fee disclosure appear in a prominent and conspicuous location on or at the ATM.

I would have voted ``aye'' for rollcall vote 454 on motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill H.R. 5892, ``Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2012'', which Amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) to increase from 5,000 to 10,000 kilowatts the size of small hydroelectric power projects which the Federal Energy.