Relating to the disapproval of the President's exercise of authority to suspend the debt limit, as submitted under section 1002(b) of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 on October 17, 2013.

Mr. Speaker, given the bicameral and bipartisan support for our bill and the overwhelming consensus about the systemic risk created by the section we are working to reform today, I am genuinely surprised we are even here debating this today.

Nevertheless, I rise to speak in support of H.R. 992, the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act, which my Democrat friend from New York, Sean Patrick Maloney, and I have worked together on in the House Agriculture Committee.

As my colleagues are aware, our bipartisan bill amends a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act which was included at the 11th hour to ``get 60 votes in the Senate'' as former House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank indicated during a markup of the bill back in February, 2012.

This section we reform with our bill was mischaracterized as an effort to prevent ``risky'' swaps activities in the bank. While we believe this provision was proposed in good faith, it simply does not prevent the risk that its authors intended. Moreover, this provision of the bill will cause many American financial institutions to operate at a significant disadvantage to their foreign competitors.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker have both publicly raised concerns about section 716.

In the 112th Congress, the House Financial Services Democrats, including Chairman Frank and current Ranking Member Maxine Waters, endorsed H.R. 1838, agreeing that this measure addressed the valid criticisms of section 716 without ``weakening the financial reforms law's important derivative

safeguards or prohibitions on bank proprietary trading.''

The bill before us today is virtually identical to H.R. 1838 from the last Congress.

Mr. Speaker, to echo what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said at a hearing on February 27:

Section 716, as drafted, will not reduce risk and will

likely increase costs of people who use the derivatives and

make it more difficult for the bank to compete with foreign

competitors who can provide a more complete set of services.

It is crystal clear: this section needs to be reformed.

I ask my colleagues to support this bill and look forward to my Senate colleague, Kay Hagan, passing her companion bill in the Senate so we can get this commonsense reform completed.

Board of Governors of the

Federal Reserve System,

Washington, DC, May 12, 2010.

Hon. Christopher J. Dodd,

Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: You have asked for my views on section

716 of S. 3217. This section would prevent many insured

depository institutions from engaging in swaps-related

activities to hedge their own financial risks or to meet the

hedging needs of their customers, and would prohibit nonbank

swaps entities, including swap dealers, clearing agencies and

derivative clearing organizations, from receiving any type of

Federal assistance.

The Federal Reserve has been a strong proponent of changes

to strengthen the regulatory framework and infrastructure for

over-the-counter (OTC) derivative markets to reduce systemic

risks, promote transparency, and enhance the safety and

soundness of banking organizations and other financial

institutions. Title VII and Title VIII of S. 3217 include

important provisions designed to achieve these goals. For

example, Title VII would require most derivative contracts to

be cleared through central clearinghouses and traded on

exchanges or open trading facilities, require information

concerning all other derivatives contracts to be reported to

trade repositories or regulators, and provide the regulatory

agencies significant new authorities to ensure that all swaps

dealers and major swap participants are subject to strong

capital, margin, and collateral requirements with respect to

their swap activities. Title VIII also includes provisions

designed to help ensure that centralized market utilities for

clearing and settling payments, securities, and derivatives

transactions (financial market utilities), which are critical

choke points in the financial system, are subject to robust

and consistent risk management standards--including

collateral, margin, and robust private-sector liquidity

arrangements--and do not pose a systemic risk to the

financial system.

I have also frequently made clear that we must end the

notion that some firms are ``too-big-to-fail.'' For that

reason, the Federal Reserve has advocated the development of

enhanced and rigorous prudential standards for all large,

interconnected financial firms, and the enactment of a new

resolution regime that would allow systemically important

financial firms to be resolved in an orderly manner, with

losses imposed on the Federal Reserve to provide emergency,

secured credit to nondepository institutions only through

broad-based liquidity facilities designed to address serious

strains in the financial markets, and not to bail out any

specific firm.

S. 3217 makes important contributions to the goals of

reducing systemic risk, eliminating the too-big-to-fail

problem, and strengthening prudential supervision. I am

concerned, however, that section 716 is counter-productive to

achieving these goals.

In particular, section 716 would essentially prohibit all

insured depository institutions from acting as a swap dealer

or a major swap participant--even when the institution acts

in these capacities to serve the commercial and hedging needs

of its customers or to hedge the institution's own financial

risks. Forcing these activities out of insured depository

institutions would weaken both financial stability and strong

prudential regulation of derivative activities.

Prohibiting depository institutions from engaging in

significant swaps activities will weaken the risk mitigation

efforts of banks and their customers. Depository institutions

use derivatives to help mitigate the risks of their normal

banking activities. For example, depository institutions use

derivatives to hedge the interest rate, currency, and credit

risks that arise from their loan, securities, and deposit

portfolios. Use of derivatives by depository institutions to

mitigate risks in the banking business also provides

important protection to the deposit insurance fund and

taxpayers as well as to the financial system more broadly. In

addition, banks acquire substantial expertise in assessing

and managing interest rate, currency, and credit risk in

their ordinary commercial banking business. Thus, banks are

well situated to be efficient and prudent providers of these

risk management tools to customers.

Importantly, banks conduct their derivatives activities in

an environment that is subject to strong prudential Federal

supervision and regulation, including capital regulations

that specifically take account of a bank's exposures to

derivative transactions. The Basel Committee on Banking

Supervision has recently proposed tough new capital and

liquidity requirements for derivatives that will further

strengthen the prudential standards that apply to bank

derivative activities. Titles I, III, VI, VII and VIII of

S.3217 all add provisions further strengthening the authority

of the Federal banking agencies and other supervisory

agencies to address the risks of derivatives. Section 716

would force derivatives activities out of banks and

potentially into less regulated entities or into foreign

firms that operate outside the boundaries of our Federal

regulatory system. The movement of derivatives to entities

outside the reach of the Federal supervisory agencies would

increase, rather than reduce the risk to the financial

system. In addition, foreign jurisdictions are highly

unlikely to push derivatives business out of their banks.

Accordingly, foreign banks will have a competitive advantage

over U.S. banking firms in the global derivatives

marketplace, and derivatives transactions could migrate

outside the United States.

More broadly, section 716 would prohibit the Federal

Reserve from lending to any swaps dealer or major swap

participant--regardless of whether it is affiliated with a

bank--even under a broad-based 13(3) liquidity facility in a

financial crisis. Experience over the past two years

demonstrates that such broad-based facilities can play a

critical role in stemming financial panics and addressing

severe strains in the financial markets that threaten

financial stability, the flow of credit to households and

businesses, and economic growth. These facilities will be

less effective if participants must choose between continuing

(or unwinding) derivatives positions and participating in the

market-liquefying facility.

I am concerned that section 716 in its present form would

make the U.S. financial system less resilient and more

susceptible to systemic risk and, thus, is inconsistent with

the important goals of financial reform legislation. We look

forward to continuing to work with the Congress as you work

to enact strong regulatory reform legislation that both

addresses the weaknesses in the financial regulatory system

that became painfully evident during the crisis, and

positions the regulatory system to meet the inevitable

challenges that lie ahead in the 21st century.

Sincerely,

Ben Bernanke.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 391 and section 1002(e) of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the joint resolution under consideration.

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

Some people may be wondering why we find ourselves here today. Some people may be confused as to why we are voting on a resolution to disapprove of the debt limit suspension 2 weeks after the fact. And some people may be asking why I introduced this resolution of disapproval on behalf of some people who voted ``yes'' and others who voted ``no'' to give the President the authority to suspend the debt limit.

The answers to these questions are much simpler than they might appear.

We are here today because the United States of America carries a debt load of over $17 trillion and counting.

We are voting on this resolution today because this is the procedure that was put in place by the Senate when they crafted a package to end the government shutdown. Many of us voted for that Senate legislation largely because we didn't think it was responsible to risk defaulting on our national debt.

However, I introduced this resolution, and a majority of House Members will vote to disapprove, because it is also not responsible to ignore the problems created by our long-term debt.

Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that a large number in this body voted to avoid default, it would be a gross mischaracterization to say that we approve of a debt limit suspension absent adoption of bold policy reforms that will set our Nation on a sustainable fiscal trajectory.

We must break the habit of negotiating these fiscal deals at the last minute. We must stop kicking the can down the road, proverbially skipping along from crisis to crisis.

Simply put: enough is enough. Let's start talking across party lines about how to fix our debt problems now, not the end of a deadline.

We know that programs like Medicare and Social Security are on unsustainable footing. That is why a Democratic President and Republican House have both offered up reforms for these programs. So if we agree there is a problem, why must we wait until the next crisis to address it?

We know that our Tax Code is outdated and that it has become too larded up with narrowly tailored provisions that benefit only a small number of special interests. That is why our House Ways and Means chairman has met weekly with the Senate Finance chairman to discuss how best to achieve a fairer, flatter Tax Code in a bipartisan way.

If there is agreement here, then why are we looking to self-imposed fiscal deadlines in hopes of getting a deal? I could go on and on, but I think the point is clear: Washington missed an opportunity during our most recent fiscal showdown.

This resolution sends a message that ignoring our problems does not make them go away. It sends a message that we should not wait until the last minute, but should reach across the aisle to face these challenges now; and it sends a message that we take these issues very seriously because they bear directly on job creation, personal income levels, and our collective faith in America's enduring exceptionalism.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution of disapproval.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I have so much respect for the long-standing service and distinguished tenure of my colleague on the other side of the aisle, and I just think that there is some clarification that is required in this body and for all who may be watching this evening's proceedings, so let me begin by reminding those who would review the record.

I am not sure I invoked the words ``Republican'' or ``Democrat'' in my opening comments. If I did, it certainly wasn't in a partisan nature. Instead, I extended a hand of friendship. I tried to actually increase trust and offered the hope that we might work together, we might actually work together to work on the very problems that caused me to run for office for the first time in 2010: the $17 trillion national debt that I know has grown to a great degree during the service of the good gentleman on the other side of the aisle who just spoke; the unsustainable entitlement programs that, when push comes to shove and we can no longer find the resources to fund them because people haven't made bold enough leadership decisions, those on the margins of society will be most adversely impacted.

I know these are issues that my good ranking member friend on the other side of the aisle cares about as much as I do. We have just not yet come together and found bipartisan solutions to these things.

Now, the continuing resolution vote that we passed, the package, if you will, the vote that we passed a few days ago, accomplished a few things. We indicated that the President could suspend the debt ceiling, but that move could be checked by votes of disapproval in the House and the Senate. So this was a process that was put into motion by that earlier bipartisan vote that occurred right here in this body.

It is true that it has been made clear over in the other Chamber, the Senate, that the leader there will never bring this bill up in the Senate. That has been made eminently clear. The risk of default is something that ought not be mentioned. We needn't spook the markets here. We will pay our bills in this country. That is something I have been proud to stand for ever since I have been in this body.

The continuing resolution package also indicated that, on February 8, the debt limit would be increased to reflect the borrowing that occurred during the debt limit suspension period, and then the Treasury would be given the ability to create additional headroom via so-called extraordinary measures after the debt limit was reinstated on February 8, 2014.

So that is the larger context here. It sounds to me very procedural, not particularly partisan. In fact, my hope was that this could be offered in the spirit of bipartisanship. This is a messaging bill.

There was an allusion during my good friend's comments to a message being sent as if that is somehow a negative thing. Now, most of the bills that are introduced in this body are introduced in part, at least, to offer a message to the broader American people, and we stand here and argue on behalf of the message that we are trying to drive home.

The message that I am trying to drive home is that these debt problems have lingered on too long and that to increase a debt limit, to suspend a debt limit, is certainly not to approve further borrowing in the future absent the sort of bold changes that, frankly, have not been enacted when my good friend has served many years in Congress. So that is the larger message here, and that is how I would respond.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished freshman gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup), who has had a lot of life's experiences.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman), a hardworking colleague.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp), a distinguished colleague.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Griffin), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee and my friend and colleague.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would just like to reiterate five key points:

One, our current national debt exceeds $17 trillion, an amount that is greater than our annual GDP, the size of our economy.

Two, while I and so many others in my party agree with many of my colleagues across the aisle that risking default is irresponsible, it is just as irresponsible to ignore why our debt is so darn high and what it means for the future of our country.

Three, we can and must work across partisan lines to avoid default in conjunction with a debt ceiling vote or a default related to a continued failure to address the largest drivers of our debt; and we must begin that work now, not at the last minute, or the next self- imposed fiscal deadline.

Four, those who have served here for decades have known for decades that our population was growing older, that health care costs were rising, and that our long-term fiscal trajectory was unsustainable; but nothing has happened.

Five, this recognition that Washington continually misses opportunities to put our country on a path to fiscal health ought to be something on which we can all agree.

I urge all my colleagues who want to see our country address our long-term challenges before it is too late to vote ``yes'' on this resolution of disapproval.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 391, I call up the bill (H.R 992) to amend provisions in section 716 of the Dodd- Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act relating to Federal assistance for swaps entities, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record on H.R. 992, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, America's economy remains stuck in the slowest, weakest, nonrecovery recovery of modern times. Millions of our fellow countrymen remain unemployed, underemployed. Many because of ObamaCare just had their hours cut, and millions lie awake at night wondering how they will make ends meet.

Regrettably, those who create jobs in America for our constituents are drowning in a sea of red tape which is preventing them from hiring new workers. I still vividly remember the day when one of my constituents in east Texas came to me as he shut down his small business due to red tape and he said, Congressman, it got to the point where I just thought my government didn't want me to succeed.

Mr. Speaker, today we have an opportunity to ensure that businesses succeed in America, succeed in hiring new workers. Today, just like yesterday, Mr. Speaker, Republicans and Democrats can again pass bipartisan legislation that will help grow our economy. This legislation is H.R. 992, and I commend the bipartisan group of members who introduced the bill: Mr. Hultgren, Mr. Himes, Mr. Hudson, and Mr. Maloney.

As chairman of the Financial Services Committee, I also want to thank the members of the committee who joined together and approved this bill on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 53-6. Mr. Speaker, the vote was 53-6. This bipartisan bill will relieve manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, and Main Street businesses of unintended consequences of one section of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Many Americans may not realize it, but farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and other employees use a financial product called a derivative to manage risk and protect themselves from extreme fluctuations in the price of things like fuel, fertilizer, and commodities.

For example, a company like John Deere will do an interest rate swap as they finance a tractor for a farmer in east Texas in my district, and that derivative is directly linked to the cost of that tractor for my constituent.

Companies like Southwest Airlines who operate in my hometown of Dallas, Texas, they will use derivatives to lock in cheaper fuel prices when the price of crude oil is on the rise. This keeps the cost of flying more affordable for customers, like the grandmother in Mesquite, Texas, who travels to visit her grandchildren in Kansas City.

Perhaps a farmers co-op in Nebraska will use derivatives to finance fixed-price diesel for truckers who haul cattle. Perhaps a hospital in Los Angeles may use derivatives to hedge against

the rising interest rates when financing a big investment like more beds or new lifesaving technology.

Although not one single patient, not one single farmer, not one single grandmother, not one single trucker caused the financial crisis, they were all swept into section 716 of Dodd-Frank.

Section 716 requires financial institutions to push out almost all of their derivatives business into separate entities. This not only increases transaction costs, which are ultimately paid by the consumers, it also makes our financial system less secure by forcing swap trading out of regulated institutions.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said section 716 ``would make the U.S. financial system less resilient, weaken our financial stability, and make our economy more susceptible to systemic risk.''

To those who are loath to ever amend Dodd-Frank, no less of an authority than Barney Frank himself, former chairman of the committee, said: ``It addresses the valid criticisms of section 716 without weakening the financial reform laws, important derivative safeguards or prohibitions on bank proprietary trading.''

So again, Mr. Speaker, no law is perfect. We would be derelict in our duty if we didn't put the American people back to work and pass this law.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased now to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hultgren), the chief Republican sponsor of the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act which, again, passed our committee on a strong bipartisan basis of 53-6.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw).

Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), the chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and GSEs.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to help my colleagues, who apparently haven't found time to read the underlying section 716, subsection (i), which reads in part:

No taxpayer funds shall be used to prevent the receivership

of any swap entity resulting from swap or security-based swap

activity of the swaps entity.

I would encourage my colleagues to actually read the bill.

Now I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the volunteer State of Tennessee (Mr. Fincher).

Mr. Speaker, I am now very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney).

Mr. Speaker, again, I continue to be amazed at those who wish to decry the possibility of a Federal bailout in debating this bill. I wonder where their voices were yesterday when all of them, seemingly--the voices we hear today--defended the Federal Housing Administration from actually receiving a taxpayer bailout, the first in history.

So when taxpayers actually have to pay, we hear choruses of ``Que Sera, Sera.'' But when a private institution loses their money that the taxpayers didn't have to pay for, all of a sudden the sky is falling.

I understand that the ranking member, obviously, has the opportunity to change her mind; but clearly she was for it before she was against it.

When I hear many of my colleagues decry the lack of bipartisan legislation, I don't understand why Members would try to oppose it now. It passed overwhelmingly, 53-6.

For those who say this is somehow gutting Dodd-Frank, apparently they didn't consult with the former chairman of this committee, Barney Frank, who is on record saying that this addresses the valid criticisms of section 716 without weakening the financial reform law's important derivatives safeguards.

It is time, Mr. Speaker, to get America back to work. It is time to make commonsense, bipartisan reforms. I respect every right of every Member to change their mind, but I hope something that passed 53-6 to put America back to work, that soon this full House will pass this legislation; and I urge its adoption.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I don't really understand the motion to recommit because regulators already have the power that is described here. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I find the matter to be irrelevant and not a particularly good use of the House's time. For those reasons alone, it ought to be opposed.

It is getting in the way of one of the strongest, most bipartisan pieces of legislation that has come to the House. It passed the Financial Services Committee by an overwhelming vote of 53-6. It will help grow the economy. It will put people back to work. It will reduce systemic risk.

I want to thank all of the sponsors, especially the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hultgren, for his leadership on this very valuable piece of legislation.

It is time to oppose the motion to recommit and it is time to pass the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Just a short time ago, a number of us joined many others in paying tribute to Speaker Tom Foley. There was a commemoration ceremony just 100 feet or so from here.

There was a lot of discussion, appropriately, of the need for bipartisanship.

There was much reference to the role that Tom Foley played in that in trying to reach across the aisle.

Bob Michel, the former leader on the Republican side, spoke so eloquently as to how there was a level of trust and how there was an effort at bipartisanship.

I think what has happened in this House is that the increased polarization has really twisted this institution and has even, to some extent, twisted the ability to have close relationships. I say this because I think this resolution is not within that spirit.

It was only the week before last that 87 House Republicans joined 198 House Democrats to pull this Nation back from the brink of a default that would have magnified the economic damage inflicted by the Republican shutdown of this government. That was a bipartisan effort with leadership support from both sides of the aisle.

And I can understand why those who voted ``no'' on October 16 might vote ``yes'' on this bill in order to be consistent. And while I disagree with the policy, at least their vote would be consistent. I think the vote would be consistently wrong, but it would be consistent.

What is hard to understand is how anybody who voted ``yes'' on October 16 to avoid a default would now vote ``yes'' on this bill that would bring about a default. So you talk about the message. Essentially, the message of this bill is once again we will utilize the threat of default. That is what this bill says. When you vote for it, that is precisely what you are saying. So you are saying that serious impairment of our Nation's full faith and credit, which economists warned would plunge us back into recession, was a bad idea on Wednesday, 2 weeks ago, but doing so is a good idea on Wednesday, 2 weeks later, when we vote tomorrow. That is precisely what you are saying. That is your message. So the same person who voted one way then is soon going to vote the other way.

Let me just say why I think this is not within the spirit of an effort at bipartisanship that I referred to earlier and that I think is so important, and the lack of any effort at that has really twisted--I use that word--the strength of this institution.

Just a short time ago, a few weeks ago, as the Republicans took us to the brink of default, the minority leader on the Senate side said:

There is no education in the second kick of a mule, and we

are not going to do this again in connection with the debt

ceiling or with a government shutdown.

That is precisely what this legislation says--precisely. It says-- forget about the second kick of a mule. What it says is that you would do it again in connection with the debt ceiling. So that is your message. And you would do that; you would take us to the brink of default that, earlier this month, the Council of Economic Advisers estimated lost 120,000 jobs that would have been created in October and private forecasters estimated slowed fourth quarter GDP growth by between 0.2 and 0.6 percentage point.

So I think there is no escape from the inconsistency. There is no escape from essentially saying once again there is no real effort to reach across the aisle. There is no real effort to try to instill some belief that the two parties can work together. So that is a bad message, and I guess a lot of you think you can be inconsistent because it will never come up in the Senate. And it won't. But that doesn't take away the fact that there is an inconsistency here, I guess to try to cover some people's votes, to somehow minimize their impact.

But when it comes to the default of the full faith and credit of this country, there has to be something more important than providing us cover. We need to provide cover for the citizens of this country so that they are not vulnerable to playing with the default and the full faith and credit of this country.

So you shouldn't be bringing up this resolution. It will pass, I guess. There will be enough inconsistent votes, and it will go nowhere, but it sends the very, very wrong message.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

The gentleman from Indiana mentioned about spooking the market--and Halloween is in a couple of days. Essentially, what this bill says is you would be willing to spook the market if you could. That is the wrong message.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), a veteran of these battles and a friend of Tom Foley's.

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

Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to

the gentleman from Illinois (Danny K. Davis), a distinguished member of our committee.

Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time, and I will speak very briefly because the message here is so clear, that those who vote for this bill are saying they are willing to use the threat of default once again, and we shouldn't be doing this.

I don't think the Nation believed that this government and its programs would be shut down; but it turned out, because of the way the Republicans handled it, this government was shut down, and programs were very much undercut that were needed by the people of this country.

We came within a flicker of default. The consequences of playing with that were very, very substantial.

So now, once again, the Republicans bring up a bill, and whatever the reason is, are giving people a chance, once again, to say that playing with default is a legitimate method of operation. You shouldn't do this.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act, H.R. 922, is a commonsense, bipartisan bill that changes the application of Dodd- Frank, but does not undermine the systemic protections the law was intended to create. H.R. 992 amends section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act to correct an unintended consequence of a poorly vetted provision that was dropped into the Senate version of the bill late in the process, with no notice and no debate.

Section 716 prevents banks that write certain types of swaps from utilizing any type of Federal banking assistance, including accessing the Federal Reserve's discount window and obtaining FDIC insurance. It would have the practical effect of requiring banks to push important swap activity into special-purpose, separately capitalized entities.

While in theory section 716 may seem like a reasonable response to the 2008 financial collapse, in practice, these entities are less well capitalized, less well regulated, and unable to officially reduce risks by netting the effects of multiple hedging transactions.

Across our Nation, farmers, ranchers, and other businesses rely on the risk-mitigating tools of the financial industry. Commodity price exposure, interest rate risks, and other business uncertainties are routinely managed through swaps and other derivatives products. Requiring banks to separate some of these swaps into special-purpose, affiliate institutions will wind up costing the end-users who rely on these tools more for no actual reduction in system-wide risk.

Moreover, the swap push-out requirements adopted in section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act have not been considered in any other foreign jurisdiction, putting our banks and end-users who rely on them at a competitive advantage throughout the global economy.

H.R. 992 restores an appropriate balance to risk-mitigation services allowed by banks. It continues to prohibit structured finance swaps-- like those that were made famous by AIG--from the books of banks, but it ends the need for banks to push commodity and other swaps with significantly lower risk profiles into separate legal entities.

As I said earlier, H.R. 992 has broad bipartisan support. I would like to thank two members of my subcommittee and coauthors of this bill, Congressman Richard Hudson and Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, for their good work in finding a bipartisan solution to this significant problem. I wish that all of Congress was as hardworking, deliberative, and cordial as the members of the Ag Committee.

As I close, I would like to do so with the words of one of our former colleagues and a man who is widely regarded as knowing a thing or two about Dodd-Frank, former Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.

In remarks made about an earlier version of this legislation, he said:

I want to reassure people passing this bill, particularly

as amended, will not in any way, shape, or form reduce

sensible regulation in derivatives; it will not increase any

exposure to the financial system from derivatives.

If this legislation made good sense to the coauthor of Dodd-Frank, it ought to be a no-brainer for this House to pass. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation that will put an end to the needless uncertainty that section 716 is causing our farmers, ranchers, and small businessmen across this Nation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hudson), my colleague on the Ag Committee and coauthor of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler), also a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is left on both sides.

I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford).

I have no further requests for time. I will be the final speaker.

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

I want to thank my good friend, David Scott, who is ranking member on the committee that he and I lead, for the good work on this bill, supporting it today, as well as the other work that we have done with respect to our committee. I also want to thank Richard Hudson and Sean Maloney for their work on bringing this together.

A couple of points, and then I will close.

One, the ``London Whale'' has been mentioned more than one time as a reason why we should not go forward with H.R. 992. That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the trades associated with the ``London Whale.'' Those trades are on cleared exchanges and occur within the bank and would have been unaffected by section 716 had it, in fact, been implemented.

One of the telling points is the prudential regulators on this particular section of the law have put off the actual implementation of this law until at least July of 2015. So if time is of the essence, if the disaster is around the corner, then I think the prudential regulators would have recognized that and would have moved a little more hastily than to put it off for 2 years.

There is no bogeyman here, Mr. Speaker. This is good sense, bipartisan--we hope it will be bicameral--legislation that corrects a really unintended consequence--poorly drafting a bill in 2010, when Dodd-Frank was passed. It didn't intend to have these kind of consequences, and this simply addresses that.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the bill. Let's pass this on and get it done over in the Senate.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I object.