Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1062) to improve the consideration by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the costs and benefits of its regulations and orders.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 216 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Worcester, Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

House Resolution 216 provides a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 1062. This rule provides for discussion and opportunities for every single Member of the majority and the minority to participate in this debate. We made in order every single germane amendment that was submitted to the Rules Committee on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us today is really quite simple. It is a commonsense solution to preventing unnecessary and overly burdensome government regulation, or perhaps an opportunity to understand why the government might be perpetrating a rule that would impact our free enterprise system. It requires the SEC to perform cost- benefit analysis before finalizing any major rule. It also prevents the implementation of the rule if the benefits do not outweigh the costs.

Through this bill, the American taxpayer will be protected from needless regulations that would impede economic growth without providing effective consumer protections. In other words, Mr. Speaker, we're here to ensure that the SEC provides balance with the rules and regulations that are in a major context when it issues these rules on the marketplace.

In January of 2011, President Obama signed an executive order directing all non-independent agencies, such as the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and others, to abide by the same rules that we're providing for today in H.R. 1062. However, because it is an independent agency, the SEC is not required to follow the President's rules.

The legislation before us today creates parity and opportunity for Congress to work with an agency and other non-independent agencies on a better way for them to promulgate the rules that they do and show a balance in the marketplace, just like the President asked other government agencies to do.

Furthermore, this legislation in no way weakens consumer protections or reduces accountability in the financial services industry. To the contrary, this proposal ensures that regulations issued by the SEC are effective and based on sound policy. Consumers and businesses alike will benefit from a reformed regulatory process.

So I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this rule and ``yes'' on the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend, the gentleman who brings up many good points about jobs, job creation, the ability for this Congress to be able to effectively hear from the American people about the issues and ideas that they're facing, come to resolution in this body, work with our friends in the Senate, and to get legislation to the President of the United States. I think that should be and has been what our goal is about, and it should be our goal also to find common ground.

What's interesting is that this piece of legislation that we're handling now actually went to the banking committee, Financial Services Committee, as an agreement we more or less thought would be a suspension item; in other words, a piece of legislation that there was widespread agreement on that it would be good to put in the rules as one of a group of pieces of legislation, this would be a good idea to have the SEC accept this as part of what they do when they issue a rule.

Now what's happened is it has turned into a larger fight as a result of us wanting to simply make sure that the rules that apply to other Federal agencies also apply to independent agencies. So we thought we were doing the right thing to come and work together, and it's fair, I guess, I assume, to do that, even though we are trying to talk about this rule today.

If we want to talk about the budget and things that are presently being evolved, then we need to listen to our Democratic friends about the budget. They're not happy because we passed in this House an opportunity to have a budget that in the next 10 years would balance, a balanced budget.

The gentleman Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Budget Committee, came up to the Rules Committee and he spoke about how this President, every single year that Barack Obama is President, with the help of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, raised spending, put rules and regulations on the American people that are causing the lowest level of job creation that we've had in over 40 years, a trillion-dollar deficit every single year. And even with this massive tax increase that was a signing bonus for the President that took place in December, we still are going to run a trillion-dollar deficit. So what my friends, the Democrats, said upstairs in the Rules Committee, what they're for is raising spending another trillion dollars and raising taxes another trillion dollars.

Mr. Speaker, I do understand there's widespread disagreement. There's widespread disagreement when our friends that control the Senate, the Democrats, want to do the exact same thing in their body to this country, raising spending another trillion dollars, raising taxes another trillion dollars.

So they make a good point. Why won't we appoint conferees?

Well, Speaker Pelosi, back in 2009, took more than 2 months to do the exact same thing that they want us to do.

What is occurring is that our chairman, Paul Ryan, is working with their chairman on the agreement of how they would go about doing their job of having a conference on the budget because, you see, when you start so far apart, of trying to balance the budget, trying to not put more rules and regulations and taxes on the American people to where they stand a better

chance, not only of taking care of their own families, and providing for their children to go to college and to be able to pay for it, and to take care of their lifetime needs when they retire, that requires a basic sense of simply agreeing with what people are trying to do versus having the government come and provide a government-run health care system, having the government provide student loans, having the government expand government and take care of people endlessly.

And so there's two different visions, one of raising taxes $1 trillion, raising spending $1 trillion, which is what the Democrats want to do, versus trying to balance our budget, work our way out of problems, grow our economy, jobs, job creation and investment. That's what we're trying to do, and that's what Republicans talked about last month.

That's why we came forth with a budget when the Senate hadn't even done a budget, under Democrat leadership, for 4 years.

That's why we are leaders in Washington. Republicans are leaders in the House of Representatives. We maintain the control. We follow the order and listen to the American people of trying to make their lives better, not grow a government that will be out of control, like an Attorney General who, upon taking the oath of office, then decides when he does and when he does not want to make decisions, and whether he recuses himself; or whether you have an IRS that's out of control and in people's lives and making decisions that are politically based.

Mr. Speaker, this is the reason why we need a government that is smaller, more efficient, and does not have time or the inclination to become all things to all people, and to tell the American people what they will do and control our lives. That's why we're here today.

And, Mr. Speaker, I couldn't be happier than to say today we're on the floor trying to talk about what we thought was an idea that would be accepted by every single person in this body as a great idea.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, you know, I think it's very interesting that they're trying to argue that we're trying to get in the way of the SEC. Yet the SEC, in their rules and regulations, have put an impact on small business of $1.75 trillion.

Mr. Speaker, what we're trying to do is apply the same principles and ideas that President Obama had to an agency that spends its life doing rules and regulations. And to say that doing their job correctly, with a balance, is something that we shouldn't require them to do is a silly argument.

That's like saying that Republicans and sequestration--when it was a President Obama idea. It is the President's idea. Sequestration--he's the one that proposed it. We're the ones that simply took him up on his idea. And he signed it into law.

They're arguing with themselves about the things which are good. Once again, the President initiated sequestration. We worked with the President as a back-stop. There we are.

The President issues this same ruling, asking agencies to please make sure they include cost-benefit analysis, but don't apply it later to someone who spends their life doing rules and regulations.

Mr. Speaker, it's an amazing world that we live in. We thought, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, Jeb Hensarling, after testimony in meetings and in feedback thought, the SEC actually agreed with this. We simply put it in as something they ought to be doing on a regular basis.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have right now a gentleman from the committee who has spent time and heard the testimony and understands that this should be a piece of legislation that we all agree with because it's common sense.

I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina, a member of Financial Services, Mr. McHenry.

Mr. Speaker, in order to balance out the time, I'm going to reserve the balance of my time.

You know, Mr. Speaker, what we're trying to do is to put in writing exactly what the gentleman talked about why are they promulgating the rule, what effects would their rule have, and why what they do makes sense and is in a balanced way. That's what we're trying to do here today. It makes sense to me. I wish it made sense to more people in this body.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

We've turned this debate into some really commonsense ideas, and that is, that we ought to have a budget, which is what Republicans have said for years. I have no doubt in my mind that when Chairman Paul Ryan of the House Budget Committee, when he is ready, when he feels like they have worked out an understanding with the chairman----

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

I don't deal with Senator Patty Murray very much, but I bet you she has an opportunity to call Paul Ryan if that's what she wants.

And I have every reason to believe that when Paul Ryan and Patty Murray work out the differences and decide these things, that that can happen.

I would remind the gentleman, I'm not involved in those conversations. I do know that this is part of your job as the ranking member. I respect that, and I would be in favor of it, because I, too, want us to have more of a unified budget, a clear understanding, an opportunity for us to understand what we're trying to do.

Regaining my time, I would say to the gentleman and to this body, I have every reason to believe that there can be opportunities for our two bodies to work together.

My last point: This ``no budget, no pay,'' it worked. It worked, Mr. Speaker. It was the law. The President actually produced a budget.

The House produced a budget. And the Senate produced a budget, which they had not done for 4 years. So for 4 years you didn't hear our friends screaming and yelling about what the Senate should do until a good idea took place, and that is, in essence, ``no work, no budget, no pay.''

Do you know what? We didn't for 4 years either. We did not have a budget for 4 years. It is actually not required by law. We operated as two bodies--us, we in the House, trying to move forward with a budget that we did pass, and the Senate acting like it wasn't important.

I completely agree with the gentleman from Maryland. I think we should do it. That's why Republicans came up with the process of ``no budget, no pay.''

I think we will see very quickly an opportunity for the ideas around this issue to materialize. We'll find out what the differences are, maybe why we haven't done it.

That's not what this bill is about today. I'll have the conversations. I'll be able to speak cogently. And I will tell you that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) and, I believe, because I know him well, the gentleman from Maryland should have a chance to keep doing their work because they believe it's part of the process.

So I offer nothing but accolades of the gentleman, the young gentleman, who is the ranking member of the Budget Committee. And he knows that. He knows what kind of a person I am. I would not say it if I didn't believe it.

But I did not come prepared today on this bill because it is not what it is germane about, and I will respond to him. As a Member of House Republican leadership, I will tell you that our Speaker is interested in moving this body through.

The gentleman from Ohio understands how important regular order is, how important doing budgets is, how making sure that the American people have a chance to know what we're doing. I mean, we actually read bills before we pass them, Mr. Speaker.

I reserve the balance of my time.

No, sir.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for asking. I have no additional speakers at this time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be on the floor today as we approach this issue about the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, in that we would simply codify in the law an understanding that they would need to, as they have the task of addressing the large rules and regulations that they have--but not for every rule and regulation--put a cost-benefit analysis in their process. It makes sense.

I find it very amazing that our colleagues have taken this to the level that they have in trying to say that we're doing this to be for big banks and against the American people or consumers. That is a farfetched idea. It is about the rules and regulations that they talk about, just like government agencies would be required to have.

In a larger sense, here is why we are here today. Here is why Republicans are doing what we are doing with the budget, with a jobs bill that was passed by this body, why we are trying to talk about what we would do with sequestration--the President's idea. This House has passed numerous times information, our ideas, giving the President the ideas about how we think sequestration should work, a debt limit. We are faced with another debt limit vote here in our future. Two weeks ago, the House talked about how that should be handled. That bill was completely mischaracterized.

The reason we are here is that, under Barack Obama and Democrats, our country is having a $1 trillion deficit every year, and there is not one year in the future that they can point to in which we would balance our budget even for one year. If you cannot balance your budget, if you cannot control yourself--your spending habits, your insatiable appetite to grow government--then it means that we are on a dangerous trajectory.

Look at this, Mr. Speaker. This is history. This is what lies ahead. This is the demise for our children of America being a great Nation. This is why Republicans are down here. This is our past. This is our future. Republicans are here with ideas about balance, structure, working together--the SEC or other agencies working together--to the benefit of growing jobs, balance, things that make sense, instead of a government that's out of control with an IRS with a political agenda and with the Department of Justice abusing its powers that were invested in the Constitution's and the Bill of Rights' understanding of a balance.

This reminds me of a prior administration, under Richard Nixon, when he used the IRS and the Department of Justice to punish his enemies, people he disagreed with.

Mr. Speaker, we are here on a broad range of ideas, evidently, today. When I woke up, I thought it was just about a balanced rule for the SEC, for them to apply in their rules and regulations a chance to say ``cost-benefit analysis'' so that those to whom they provide regulations would understand and the SEC would understand for their some 175 lawyers and 50 economists who look at the marketplace. Let's balance this out. That's what I thought we were here for. Instead, I have learned today we are here to talk about the budget, that we are here to talk about sequestration, that we are here to talk about a lot of things which all embody themselves in: our country is in trouble.

We are in trouble because the President of the United States is for a bigger activist government, for a health care bill that will cause us to lose 2 million more jobs and will keep small business smaller. It will harm our future. Republicans are here simply with common sense and balance today just to talk about the SEC. I welcome the chance for my colleagues, as they have done today, to come to the floor.

The gentleman, Mr. Van Hollen, is one of my closest friends on the Hill. He is a man who I work with on a regular basis, and I respect him. His ideas related to moving forward on the conference should be answered, and I anticipate they will. I simply came unprepared as to that answer today.

So, Mr. Speaker, as always, I will finish where I started and say Republicans are trying to provide leadership. Our great Speaker, John Boehner, does understand regular order and that it is important to read bills before you pass them.

We believe in coming to the floor and talking about ideas before problems occur. That's what we've been doing. That's what the Rules Committee is about. And the legislation that we have handled since January has been all about trying to work together to let the American people know we get it. We're going to balance what we do with their needs and desires to make sure that this country remains strong and is ready for its future because, Mr. Speaker, I, like you, have children who need our country to be prepared for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying legislation.

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

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

I rise to strongly oppose H.R. 1062. This bill places significant additional requirements for economic analysis by the Securities and Exchange Commission, effectively bringing any efforts at rulemaking to a standstill.

Let's be clear: the purpose of this legislative effort is to stop implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act dead in its tracks. After losing in Congress, the fight against the Dodd-Frank act moved to the courts, beginning with overturning the proxy access rules they adopted under authority provided by that act.

Although I agreed fully with the SEC's position, they went with their friends to court and the court found that the SEC did not meet its already significant requirements to conduct an economic analysis.

After the proxy access case was overturned, the SEC adopted improved standards for conducting cost-benefit analyses. These procedures were cited by the GAO just last December as having all of the elements of good regulatory analysis. Basically, what the GAO is saying is we took a look, we studied it, and they do a good job.

Nonetheless, the bill before us today adds even more requirements, tying up the SEC resources, and putting it at even greater risk for litigation for every rule, despite the assurances of my Republican colleagues that they're only applying the terms of an executive order to the SEC. That executive order explicitly protects agencies from lawsuits based on their economic analysis. H.R. 1062 has no such protection for the SEC.

The Commission is undertaking a valiant effort to finish the Dodd- Frank and Jobs Acts rule, even in the face of attempts by the majority to restrict their funding. As the SEC attempts to balance capital formation with the need to protect investors, this bill weights the scales heavily in favor of industry over investors. In fact, the words ``investor protection'' do not appear anywhere in this bill.

Even without this bill, we can count on industry lobbyists to sue the SEC anytime it sees a weakness in the justification supporting a rule, as they have in several other cases currently before the courts.

And this bill does not apply only to new rules. This is extraordinary--and I want to say this so everybody understands--this bill would require the Commission to review every rulemaking ever issued--even those that have protected our securities markets since the Great Depression--1 year after the adoption of this bill, and then again every 5 years thereafter. As a result, the Commission will be forced to divert resources away from other key areas, such as enforcement.

This comes at a time when House Republicans want to hold SEC funding flat, despite the SEC's new responsibilities--the increase in the number of participants it oversees and the growth of complexity and the size of U.S. securities markets.

It is ironic that as House Republicans push this bill forward, they are also calling for the SEC to speed up its efforts on Jobs Act rules. This bill makes it impossible for the SEC to meet the very deadline we adopted just 2 days ago when we passed H.R. 701.

I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 1062, and I reserve the balance of my time.

At this time, I would yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Wisconsin, Representative Gwen Moore.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota, Representative Ellison.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut, Representative Himes.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Carney).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois, Representative Foster.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington, Representative Denny Heck.

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

First, I have a number of communications that I will insert into the Record.

I have a Statement of Administration Policy from the Executive Office of the President; I have American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations; I have Americans for Financial Reform; I have AFSCME; and I also have California Public Employees Retirement System, all in opposition to this bill, and asking us to please oppose the bill.

Executive Office of the President, Office of Management

and Budget,

Washington, DC, May 15, 2013.

Statement of Administration Policy

H.R. 1062--SEC Regulatory Accountability Act

(Rep. Garrett, R-NJ, and 23 cosponsors)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays a

critical role in protecting Americans' investments for

retirement, higher education, and other personal savings

while ensuring strong, efficient, safe financial activity

that contributes to the Nation's economic health and job

creation. While the Administration is firmly committed to

smart and effective regulations that advance statutory goals

in the most cost-effective and efficient manner, the

Administration opposes passage of H.R. 1062. By adding

burdensome and disruptive new procedures, H.R. 1062 would

impede the ability of the SEC to protect investors, maintain

orderly and efficient markets, and facilitate capital

formation.

The Administration believes in the value of cost-benefit

analysis. However, H.R. 1062 would add onerous procedures

that would threaten the implementation of key reforms related

to financial stability and investor protection. H.R. 1062

would direct the SEC to conduct time- and resource-intensive

assessments after it adopts or amends major regulations

before the impacts of the regulations may have occurred or be

known. The bill would add analytical requirements that could

result in unnecessary delays in the rulemaking process,

thereby undermining the ability of the SEC to effectively

execute its statutory mandates.

The Administration is committed to a regulatory system that

is informed by science, cost-justified, and consistent with

economic growth. Through efforts including Executive Order

13579, ``Regulation and Independent Regulatory Agencies,''

the Administration is taking important steps to encourage

independent agencies to follow cost-saving and burden-

reducing principles in their reviews of new regulations, and

to examine their existing rules to identify those that should

be modified, streamlined, or repealed.

Mr. Chair, how many minutes do I have left?

I yield myself the balance of the time.

In closing, allow me to quote one of the Financial Services Committee members in a hearing yesterday, because I think it is so important for us to understand that the SEC is our cop on the block that has the responsibility for protecting investors.

Let us understand that my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle are opposed to the SEC having an adequate budget. They do everything that they can to cut the budget, to deny the resources; but they keep adding on additional responsibilities, recognizing that the SEC has a tremendous load. Not only do they have all of the work, the cost-benefit analysis that they do on everything, but they have the responsibility of rulemaking for all of Dodd-Frank, which is the reform legislation that will cause us to eliminate risk and to protect our constituents and the citizens of this country.

But let me just say that yesterday, during a Financial Services Committee hearing, Chairman Emeritus Spencer Bachus said that it would be penny-wise and pound foolish for there not to be a bipartisan agreement for raising the funding or increasing the funding for the

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the amendment, although I do not oppose the amendment.

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

This amendment adds a requirement that the SEC analyze the number of jobs created or lost as a result of a new rule or order, while differentiating between public and private sector jobs.

Although this amendment is not by itself problematic, it layers one more requirement onto a bill already bursting with onerous cost-benefit requirements. And while counting the jobs created or lost because of a particular regulation is a noble goal, we have to view this goal in the context of the overall bill, which tips the scales heavily in favor of industry over investors, including the pension plans for millions of Americans.

The criteria by which the SEC would need to engage in cost-benefit analysis under H.R. 1062 would have the Commission make all decisions on the basis of whether the rules impose the least burden on ``market participants.'' In fact, nowhere in the bill are the words ``investor protection'' used, despite the fact that a central mission of the Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors.

Let's be clear: H.R. 1062 is essentially a solution in search of a problem. This bill is not about refining the SEC's cost-benefit analysis. The Commission, in fact, has already done that by adopting a new set of guidelines to ensure that its analysis meets the very high bar set in the decision overturning their proxy access rule. Instead, this bill is about making it easier for industry groups to overturn SEC regulations in the courts.

After the 2008 financial crisis, the public spoke; and they demanded that Congress stand up and legislate rules of the road to prevent another crisis. So we took action to regulate the over-the-counter derivatives market, improve corporate governance, implement the Volcker rule to stop commercial banks from gambling with depositor money, and to reform the credit ratings agencies that slapped AAA ratings onto toxic securities.

Having lost that battle here in Congress, the industry--with the help of some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--is now waging a new, quiet battle to have these regulations thrown out in court. H.R. 1062 abets that goal by making it significantly easier for the industry to win in court. This is a key differentiation from the President's executive order on cost-benefit analysis, whose requirements cannot be used as a basis for litigation.

So, again, this amendment is harmless, but it amends what is a deeply problematic bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment doubles down on all of the problems raised by H.R. 1062 by imposing the same burdensome cost-benefit analysis requirements on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, or MSRB, and certain self-regulatory organizations as the underlying bill imposes on the SEC.

Beyond the problems caused by H.R. 1062, this amendment would further put individual citizens and taxpayers at risk by tying the hands of the MSRB, which is entrusted with regulating dealers of municipal securities, including city bond issuances.

The Wall Street Reform Act expanded the mission of the board to protect State and local governments and to regulate, for the first time in history, the individuals who provide municipalities with financial advice.

We had good reason to expand the mission and responsibilities of the MSRB under Dodd-Frank. Like many borrowers who were sold exotic mortgages based on the representations made by mortgage brokers in the lead-up to the financial crisis, we saw that many municipalities entered into complex financial instruments that they didn't fully understand. At the same time, we saw that many financial advisers to municipalities were involved in pay-to-play scandals and recommended unsuitable investments, particularly to small communities. The result was the imposition of substantial costs on taxpayers in communities across the country. The most high-profile example is the case of Jefferson County, Alabama, which entered into the largest municipal bankruptcy in history after a simple sewer bond financing deal ended with the county going broke over faulty interest rate derivatives.

This amendment will make it much more difficult for the MSRB to regulate the financial entities selling these derivative products to our small counties, cities, and towns.

But that's just one example. The amendment would impose similar onerous requirements on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority-- that is FINRA--the self-regulatory organization for broker-dealers, and the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board, which regulates the auditing industry.

Again, this amendment doubles down on what is already a harmful bill by extending the same onerous requirements of self-regulatory organizations. I see no reason why the Congress would want to further tip the scales in favor of Wall Street over Main Street.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott).

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman and Members, I would like to thank the gentlelady from New York for bringing this amendment today. As a matter of fact, the opposite side should thank her, too, because she is giving them an opportunity to back out of this awful bill that will be harmful and that is ill-informed and to get

on with just saying that her resolution would make good sense. So I am eager to support this amendment from the gentlelady from New York.

The amendment strikes all bill text and replaces it with a sense of Congress, reiterating all the economic analysis requirements already imposed on the SEC.

Specifically, current law requires the SEC to conduct economic analyses pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Congressional Review Act and the Regulatory Flexibility Act, as well as additional cost-benefit analysis per the National Securities Markets Improvement Act.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

In its current form, I am.

This is the final amendment to the bill, which would not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.

This motion ensures the ability of the SEC to continue to protect investors and enforce the securities laws. I want to emphasize that this motion does not stop the bill, but it does flag the very important ways in which we need to let the SEC act. The motion would ensure that the SEC can protect investors and enforce the securities laws in two specific areas:

First, the motion will ensure that this bill does not reduce the ability of the SEC to protect the pension plans of our firefighters and police, the people on whom we rely as our first responders, as well as the pension plans of teachers and other retirees against fraudulent and deceptive practices. Protecting investors is a core element of the SEC's mission and one that we ignore at our peril. This week is Police Officers Week. Do we really want to honor our men and women in service by stripping them of protections for their hard-earned and hard-won earnings? Mr. Speaker, these protections become ever more crucial as we rely increasingly on the securities markets for our retirement savings.

Second, the motion to recommit focuses on protecting investors by ensuring that the SEC can protect against the takeover of American firms by foreign companies, particularly Chinese companies, that are using such mergers to access the investor funds in our capital markets without going through the SEC registration process. The SEC has had numerous enforcement actions against such companies which purchase a small company and merge it with a larger, often fraudulent, foreign company. It has worked hard to protect the savings of hardworking Americans, including union pension holders and other pensioners, from being disadvantaged by these Chinese firms that don't play by the same rules.

Both of these areas highlight the importance of SEC action to protect investors, particularly those preparing for retirement. With Americans increasingly dependent on the securities markets to protect their retirement savings, it is more critical than ever to ensure that we preserve the ability of the SEC to act.

Just yesterday, we heard from the SEC's new chairwoman, Mary Jo White. When we asked her about this bill, she said that she found it ``very troubling.'' I don't imagine that a former prosecutor who took on the Mob and terrorists is easily troubled. Indeed, she said that she had already needed at least 45 new economists to meet the need for an expanded economic analysis under the SEC standards, but she couldn't hire them due to the sequester. This is troubling indeed.

Rather than helping the SEC to do its job better, we are cutting its budget and throwing up new roadblocks, like this bill. It is a mistake. I urge my colleagues to support this motion, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material for the record on H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act of 2013.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge the adoption of H.R. 1062. This is a bill that technically is about something called cost-benefit analysis. I know to some that sounds a little bit like Ph.D. economics, but, Mr. Chairman, what it's really about is kitchen-table economics.

When I go home to the Fifth District of Texas, what I hear from my constituents is that they're insecure in their jobs--those who are lucky enough to have them.

We know that millions of our fellow citizens are unemployed, are underemployed; and those who are fortunate enough to have jobs wonder will they have them tomorrow.

We know again that we are in the Great Recession, the ``non- recovery'' recovery. So the impact of the regulations that are promulgated in Washington, D.C. has a huge impact on kitchen-table economics, on whether or not our constituents are going to be able to put gas in the car to take their children to school, whether or not they're going to be able to help an elderly parent with their medical bills, how they're going to put groceries on the table.

It is incumbent upon us, Mr. Chairman, to make sure that the rulemaking authority--that this body helps grant the executive branch-- at least has to take into account how their rulemaking impacts hardworking American citizens and those who wish to work hard.

So this is a very, very simple bill, Mr. Chairman. It simply says that the Securities and Exchange Commission has to adopt cost-benefit analysis to ensure that the advertised benefits of one of their rules is actually measured against the actual cost of what they're doing. This is vitally important.

Mr. Chairman, as you well know, this body had a vote yesterday to repeal the Affordable Care Act--or dare I say the Not So Affordable Care Act. And I'm curious, what would have happened had Congress had the benefit of the cost of this bill prior to that vote? What would have happened had we known that the Congressional Budget Office said that we will have 800,000--almost 1 million--fewer jobs because of ObamaCare?

You know, when we took that vote, Mr. Chairman, all we had were the advertised benefits. But how come we didn't have the Congressional Budget Office report of the cost? That's just one example. Almost 1 million fewer jobs because nobody bothered to conduct cost-benefit analysis. It wasn't required at the time.

Now the President claims that we ought to have this. He issued an executive order--No. 13563--saying government agencies ought to do it, but then his administration issues a veto threat on this bill. I find that kind of interesting. So the President says he wants to do it; he's just not actually going to do it.

The SEC mission, among other things, is to ensure that we help form capital. You cannot have the benefits of capitalism and the free enterprise system without capital, capital formation. So it's necessary to ensure that we look at the cost of what we're doing.

Apparently, the SEC historically--again, notwithstanding that they claim they're going to do it. Most recently, we've had a unanimous decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals--unanimous decision--in the proxy access case that the SEC failed--and failed miserably--at ensuring cost-benefit analysis, also known as kitchen-table economics. How are the costs of their rulemaking going to impact hardworking Americans?

It's time to remedy this, Mr. Chairman. Our constituents demand it.

Again, I urge the adoption of H.R. 1062, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 30 seconds, Mr. Chairman, just to say that, number one, in listening to my colleague, the ranking member, I'm just curious about this concern about litigation burdens. We certainly didn't see it, as she and many of her colleagues back the proxy access rule, and how many have refused to support medical liability reform. So I don't understand why the litigation burden concern is not there.

In addition, I notice that the SEC has sought comment in the past on rulemaking to ensure that there is a retrospective look-back because markets change.

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and GSEs of the Financial Services Committee, the author of the legislation, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds just to say to my friend from New York that if this regime is so effective, why was there a unanimous decision in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to say it was ineffective, and if it is already on the books then the worst thing that we have done is that we are being repetitive. I don't think that's such a great sin.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia, the vice chairman of the Capital Markets Subcommittee, Mr. Hurt.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Frog Jump, Tennessee (Mr. Fincher).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Pittenger).

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the chairman of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to myself.

I would like to do a little factual cleanup here, Mr. Chairman, on some things that my Democratic colleagues have said.

I believe I understood my friend, the gentlelady from Wisconsin, to say nowhere in this bill is the word ``benefits.'' First, I would say, number one, it is a 10-page bill, not a 2,000-page bill. And on the very first page, line 11, you read the word ``benefits.'' If you turn to page 2--not page 2,000--page 2, line 3: ``Utilize the Chief Economist to assess the cost and benefits.'' So let me correct that for the record.

Second of all, we had discussion about the failure of regulation and how this bill might lead to another Great Recession or financial crisis. I would point out to my friends that it was the failure to understand the cost of Fannie and Freddie, the failure to understand the cost of the affordable housing goals that put millions of our fellow citizens into homes that they could not afford to keep.

So maybe, just maybe, had this body and the other body realized the full cost of their folly and how it could not only bring this economy to its knees, that it could cause our fellow citizens to risk their meager lifesavings on homes they couldn't afford to keep, maybe had a cost-benefit analysis been in place at that time, we wouldn't have the suffering that we have today.

I would say to my friend from Connecticut, he is clearly talking to different economists and different job creators than I have because what I understand from them is that, frankly, we have trillions of dollars of capital sitting on the sidelines because of Dodd-Frank, because we have rulemaking that falls into two categories: those that create uncertainty and those that create certain harm.

Last, but not least, I actually have the numbers from CBO on the budget of the SEC. And I think if you examine them carefully, Mr. Chairman, you will discover that in a little over 10 years, this is an agency whose budget has increased 300 percent.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I now proudly yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to my friend from Georgia when he talks about the incredible burden of a retrospective look back, I would quote:

Because considerations of efficiency and competition in

capital formation evolve over time, a retrospective analysis

of the Commission's rules and regulations is fully within the

Commission's statutory mandate.

That comes from the ABA.

I would also quote this as well:

The safety of workers' retirement savings that are invested

in the capital markets depend in large part on the

Commission's rules and regulations for the protection of the

investors. To be effective, securities regulations must be

continuously updated to address the emergence of new

loopholes, abuses, and market failures.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 1 minute to the author of the bill, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Chairman, I'm under the impression I have the right to close, so the gentlelady has reserved. I will reserve until she is ready to close.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time, although I will alert my colleagues I do not intend to take it all.

Mr. Chairman, I find it somewhat interesting the great amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth that we have heard on this House floor for a very simple bill that weighs in at, frankly, less than 10 pages that simply requires a government agency to decide is there going to be a cost to our economy, is there going to be a loss of jobs as they pass a rule. It doesn't overturn their rules. It just says, before you make a rule, you've really got to think about kitchen-table economics. You've got to take a look at and understand how will this ultimately impact hardworking Americans who are struggling to pay their health care bills, struggling to put gas in the tank and who have economic insecurity due to this economy.

So I've heard a lot of furor here. I must admit I'm particularly entertained by those who care to lecture me on what it means to be a conservative. Maybe I'm not the world's expert, but there was a time in my career my fellow colleagues elected me the chairman of the Conservative Caucus of the House, known as the Republican Study Committee. And, Mr. Chairman, I have a certificate in my office that I proudly display from the Americans for Democratic Action where they say Congressman Hensarling receives a zero percent liberal rating.

So I will certainly agree with my friends that, apparently, I don't know much about liberalism, but I do think I do know a few things about conservatism. So I'll come up with an informal agreement. We'll let you be the experts on what it means to be a liberal--and you're very good at it, to the best of my knowledge--and I will retain the expertise on how one votes conservative.

The next thing I would say, Mr. Chairman, is how fascinating it is to have so many of my colleagues say that this bill, on the one hand, is unnecessary, but, on the other hand, it's burdensome; on the one hand, it's redundant, but, on the other hand, it will stop the SEC in its tracks. Mr. Chairman, I just don't think you can quite have it both ways.

I notice when some can't argue the merits of a question, they tend to come up to question one's motivation, and we've got the usual Wall Street bogeymen to come in here. But what I want to know about is why, why would we not want to know, as some have estimated, that the Volcker rule promulgated by the SEC potentially could cost 1.1 million jobs in our Nation? And yet my colleagues from the other side of the aisle say, Shh, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want this information. We don't want it out. Just like we didn't want out the information that ObamaCare could cost us 1 million jobs.

And we see it every day. We get the headlines: people can't afford their health care, their premiums have gone up; people are getting laid off; people who had full-time jobs are going to part-time; and people who would have hired more people don't want to cross that 50-person threshold. And that's just ObamaCare. But, no, shh, we don't want--we don't want to know how this is going to impact hardworking Americans who have economic insecurity, millions who do not have jobs.

I am somewhat perplexed, Mr. Chairman, how such a simple bill that says all you've got to do is look at the cost--we're not imposing our numbers on them. We're just saying you've got to look at the cost of what you do. It's what families do; it is what job creators do; and, frankly, it's what the administration claimed they wanted to do, and it's what the SEC claimed they wanted to do.

How many of my Democratic colleagues with their words say ``yes'' but very soon with their voting card are going to say ``no''? No, we shouldn't know the cost of rulemaking. No, we just want to know what bureaucrats say the benefits are. But, you know, if people lose their jobs, well, que sera, sera. We just aren't going to--we don't want to know that ahead of time. Maybe we'll learn about it afterwards. Maybe we'll try to clean up the pieces, the shattered lives of people who lost their jobs.

Mr. Chairman, this is a false dichotomy set up by many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. The question is not between regulation and deregulation. The question is between smart regulation and dumb regulation. And smart regulation requires the rule makers to understand the cost of their rules to the average, hardworking American family. That's smart regulation. Dumb regulation is burying your head in the sand and saying, no, we don't want to know.

If we're so concerned about the burden on the SEC, if we're so concerned about the litigation burden, and if we're so concerned about the work burden and the rule burden, where's this same concern for the job creators of America? Where is that concern? You cannot help the job seeker by punishing the job creator, which is what so many of the different titles of Dodd-Frank do.

So at the end of the day, Mr. Chairman, this is as simple and as common sense as it could be. If you're going to pass a rule and you're going to tell us about the benefits, you've got to let us know what the costs are to the economy and to hardworking American families. It's common sense. We should adopt it. We should adopt it today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee, my friend Mr.

Sessions, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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

Mr. Speaker, here we go again, another day in the House where we're not focused on jobs, where we're not focused on healing our ailing economy, where we're not focused on the needs of the American people.

Yesterday, for the 37th time in 2\1/2\ years, this House passed a bill overturning the Affordable Care Act. For the 37th time, my Republican friends decided to take up time on this House floor supporting a meaningless, partisan bill to overturn a law that will dramatically improve the health care of millions of Americans and is already helping to lower our deficit. Perhaps one day they will wake up from their Tea Party fever-dream and move on to more important priorities.

Not only have they wasted time debating a bill that won't be considered in the Senate, let alone signed into law, they are willfully ignoring the budget process that they were so stridently defending just a few months ago. It's been 55 days since the Senate passed its budget resolution, yet the Republicans refuse to go to conference to finish their work. This is the same Republican Party that passed a bill that says Members of Congress cannot be paid if we don't produce a budget. Let me repeat: no budget, no pay. Yet the Republicans refuse to finish the budget. All this flip-flopping is giving me whiplash, Mr. Speaker.

And today, we are presented with a bill, along with a whopping three amendments made in order. So much for an open process. Whatever happened to open rules?

So let's take a look at today's bill. It is a bill that would require the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, to conduct even more extensive cost-benefit analyses than it already does when proposing any rule or when issuing interpretive guidance. Who could be against cost- benefit analysis? That seems like a commonsense idea, one that has merit and should be considered by agencies.

Well, Mr. Speaker, here is where the devil is really in the details. The SEC already does cost-benefit analyses on these rulings and regulations. It is already happening. So what's the real purpose of this bill? Is there a problem with the way the SEC is handling these cost-benefit analyses?

Mr. Speaker, this bill is really about putting more burdens on the SEC as they are attempting to fulfill their mandates under Dodd-Frank and do their job to protect investors. This bill places additional burdens on the SEC to meet these new requirements--and I'd like to point out--without providing any additional budget resources.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that this bill will cost the SEC $23 million over 5 years and will require the hiring of 20 additional staff. This is while sequestration is causing the Federal Government to shrink and agencies to furlough staff. In fact, right now sequestration is actually preventing the SEC from hiring any more additional staff, the same additional staff that would be needed to implement this bill if it were ever to become law.

I can only presume that the authors of this bill are attempting to bog the SEC down with additional, unnecessary, and redundant mandates in order to prevent the SEC from doing its job of protecting investors. This bill actually steers the SEC's work toward minimizing costs to big businesses and investment banks. That's what this does. How is that protecting the individual investor?

For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Republican leadership wants to undermine the efforts of this agency to protect the individual investor. We're coming out of a historic recession, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

A big reason for the recession was the recklessness of investment banks and financial institutions. Millions of Americans lost money they had put into the stock market and entrusted to banks and financial institutions because of these institutions' reckless actions. We're talking about college savings, retirement accounts, and other nest eggs. Yet the Republican leadership would rather take the side of these reckless financial institutions that brought financial and economic ruin to our Nation, our communities, and our families than stand up and fight for the individual investor--the little guy. They'd rather fight for Wall Street than stand up for Main Street.

Mr. Speaker, that's not the right thing to do. We should pass a budget instead; we should pass the Van Hollen sequestration replacement bill; we should pass a jobs bill; but we should not be wasting our time on a bill that will punish individual investors in order to protect big banks.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill. I urge my Republican friends to, some time soon, take up some legislation that's going to help put America back to work and get our economy back on the right track.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. Speaker, I'm a little bit confused. The gentleman from Texas says he wants a smaller government, yet the bill that he's proposing here that we discuss on the floor actually will cost the American taxpayers more.

CBO says we need an additional $23 million for this additional bureaucracy that the gentleman has embraced. We're going to need to hire 20 new employees, according to CBO, in order to meet these new requirements.

So if you want a smaller government, here we are expanding government. But they're expanding government in a way that will hurt the little guy and protect Wall Street, which is to be expected.

Just one thing I want to say to make clear to my colleagues, in case anybody's a little bit confused here as well on the issue of the process. The way the process is supposed to work, when it comes to the budget, we pass a budget in the House, the Senate passes a budget in the Senate, then you go to conference and you work out the differences. And guess what? In a conference, you don't get everything you want, and we don't get everything we want, especially when there's a divided government, the way it is right now. Compromise is something that has to take place.

And so I would just take issue with the gentleman when he says that Republicans are leaders. Republicans aren't leaders. Republicans are obstructionists. You're holding everything up.

We're doing meaningless, sound-bite, press-release legislation day in and day out, not helping put one more American back to work, not alleviating any of the difficulties that the middle class is dealing with right now.

My friends are obstructing everything. They're holding things up. They're delaying the economic recovery. It is unconscionable that we are on the floor doing things that are going nowhere and that are helping no one.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), the ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services.

Mr. Speaker, talk about bizarre, the notion that a bill comes to the floor, that CBO, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, says is going to cost $20 million, there will be a need for additional employees, and there's nothing in this bill that will cover those costs, and on top of that my friends who, by the way, embraced sequestration, that's your plan, I would say to my colleague from Texas. That's not the President's plan. It was the Members of this House led by the majority here that voted for it.

To everybody who doesn't like it over there, guess what? You're in charge. Fix it. Bring something to the floor and fix it. Mr. Van Hollen has an alternative. You won't even let us bring it to the floor. So don't complain about something that you supported and you voted for and now you don't want to fix.

Just one other thing. I want to make it clear to my colleagues that this isn't about protecting small businesses. This is about protecting Wall Street, big banks, and big financial institutions. I get it, you know. That's nothing new coming from the other side of the aisle. But that's what this is about.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York, the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter.

I yield the gentlelady 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that I think what's going on here is basically that my Republican friends are trying to expand the bureaucracy and potentially charge the American taxpayers $23 million. But they're not going to provide the money, and so they're just going to bog down an agency that is designed to protect investors and consumers. I think that's the game here. This is about protecting big banks and Wall Street and big financial institutions. It's the same-old, same-old. This is nothing new for those who have been following the agenda of the House Republicans.

So, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to urge that we defeat the previous question. And if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H. Res. 174, Representative Chris Van Hollen's resolution, telling the Speaker to appoint conferees to negotiate a compromise budget agreement with the Senate.

It has been 55 days since the Senate passed a budget. My Republican friends made a big deal about the fact that we shouldn't be paid unless we pass a budget. The House has passed a budget, the Senate has passed a budget, but my Republican friends don't want to go to conference because they don't believe in compromise.

So to discuss the importance of starting the budget negotiations with the Senate, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the ranking member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that this House goes to conference.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry. Under the rules of the House, would it be possible if the gentleman would yield for that request that we could go to conference?

I think that says it all.

I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

In reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman from Texas how many more speakers he has.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Again, I think what we have just witnessed kind of says it all. My Republican friends really do not have any intention of going to conference. They do not want to compromise. I think they were hoping maybe the Senate wouldn't come up with a budget and that they could have a talking point or a press release, but the Senate did come up with a budget. We have a budget here in the House that I strongly disagree with because I think it ruins our economy, but nonetheless, that's what the majority in this House voted for. We ought to go to conference, and we ought to be able to figure this out.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment to the rule, which would defeat the previous question, in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say in closing: another day and another meaningless piece of legislation that is going nowhere. It is a piece of legislation, quite frankly, that is geared toward helping big banks and big financial institutions at the expense of investors and small businesses. This is a bill that, again, I think, may make a nice press release for people who want to do big fundraisers, but at the end of the day, we are not doing anything to help the American people. We still have sequestration in place, there are people being furloughed, there are businesses that are losing contracts, there are people in the public and private sectors who are being laid off as a result of this.

By the way, sequestration is what my Republican friends embraced and voted for. So, when anyone comes to the floor here and says, Oh, we don't really like it, I would remind them that, as much as I hate to admit this, the Republicans are in charge of the House. They can bring a remedy to the floor any time they want to. Mr. Van Hollen has offered on many, many occasions an alternative to get us out of sequestration, but each time he offers it the Republican majority says ``no.'' You don't even have the right to bring it to the floor. You can't even debate it on the floor. That's the answer that we're getting, and it is totally unacceptable.

I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can get Mr. Van Hollen's resolution made in order so that we can go to conference and do something meaningful, and I would also urge a rejection of this bill.

I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I think the American people are getting sick and tired of the majority in this House essentially rooting for this economy's demise so they can gain some political advantage. I think people are getting tired of it. They are hoping that we can come together in the spirit of compromise and get some things done--help put people back to work, help the average working family, help the middle class, help lift those in poverty out of poverty. They're hoping that we're going to do something serious and meaningful so that it will make a difference in their lives. We're not doing that, and it's a grave disappointment, I think, to people all over this country--to Democrats, Republicans, Independents alike.

So, again, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and on the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman.

I rise today obviously in support of H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act.

At a time when new regulation after new regulation is being proposed by

this administration, it is critical that we restore some semblance of order to the regulatory process and ensure that our Nation's small businesses do not continue to drown in a sea of red tape. So this legislation specifically subjects the SEC to a more robust version of the President's own order, which requires and outlines an enhanced cost-benefit analysis requirement, as well as requires a review of existing regulations.

The SEC Regulatory Accountability Act will do what? It will enhance the SEC's existing economic analysis requirements for requiring the Commission to first identify the nature of the problem that would be addressed before issuing any new regulations.

While the SEC has already certain cost-benefit related requirements in current law relative to rulemaking, as indicated before, recent court decisions have vacated or remanded several of these and pointed out the deficiencies in the Commission's use of cost-benefit analysis.

For example, recently the SEC inspector general issued a report that expressed several concerns about the quality of their analysis. They found that none of the rulemaking examined attempted to quantify either benefits or costs, other than informational collection cost.

This bill will ensure that the benefits of any rulemaking outweigh the cost, and that both new and existing regulations are accessible, consistent, written in plain language, and easy to understand.

The legislation will also require the SEC to assess the cost and benefits of available regulatory alternatives, including the alternative of not regulating at all, and to choose the approach that basically gives us the best benefits.

Under the bill, the SEC shall evaluate whether a proposed regulation is inconsistent, incompatible, or duplicative of other Federal regulations, as well.

So because some rulemaking has been politicized in the past, the bill then requires this cost-benefit analysis which I talk about will be performed by who? By the Commission's chief economist.

These are commonsense reforms. They are appropriate, especially given the fact that the Commission continues to struggle with this issue. For instance, as already pointed out in the recent unanimous decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated the Commission's proxy access rule, the Court stated:

The Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously for

having failed once again adequately to assess the economic

benefits of a new rule and inconsistently and

opportunistically framed the costs and benefits of the rule.

The bill also includes, besides all this, a section that will provide a clearer post-implementation assessment of new regulations so that post-implementation cost-benefit analysis can also be done, in addition to the pre-implementation. This will be able to better inform the true impact of the major rules once they're in place.

Now, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say these new requirements will be too costly and will open the SEC to a flood of additional lawsuits. No, no, no, no. This could be further from the truth. By having these robust standards, the rules will be drafted so well that they will be thoroughly done, they will not be struck down by the courts, and we will not have to wade through additional time and money defending them in court and then redrafting the rules, like the proxy access rule.

So in the end, this is a commonsense, pragmatic approach to our rulemaking process that should have been in place all along. And with our economy struggling now with unemployment above 7\1/2\ percent, we need to ensure that we're making it easier, not harder, for businesses to begin hiring again.

Clearly, Mr. Chairman, a stronger commitment to economic analysis by the SEC is absolutely essential to ensure reasonable rules do not unduly burden registered companies or negatively impact job creation.

I was not going to speak again until, in fact, I was being lectured on what a true conservative is by the other side of the aisle, who gave us the over 2,000-page Dodd-Frank legislation that has in fact stymied the economy, despite what the gentleman from Connecticut was saying before, that is setting literally trillions of dollars on the side, not being invested; that the unemployment rate hovers at high levels because of this stagnation in the economy because of the legislation.

To the other side of the aisle, to define what a true conservative is, a true conservative would actually read the bill, as other Members of the other side of the aisle have not done. Those who could not find simple words such as ``benefit'' when it is listed many times, those who could not find the benefits to investors when it's listed multiple times. A true conservative would understand what they're talking about when they come to the floor, Mr. Chairman. A true conservative would do what's in the best interest of the economy, of the investor, of the job seekers of this country, as well. A true conservative would support this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I appreciate the gentlelady's offer of an amendment here. I also appreciate the fact that the lady and I have often worked together on legislation in the past in our respective committee, but on this one I humbly disagree.

As she says, the amendment before us basically guts the bill and simply sets forth a sense of Congress.

Two points, one on policy and one on practicality.

On policy, if this were the gentlelady's idea that this is the way we should go on this piece of underlying legislation, as the ranking member of the subcommittee and as a member of the full committee, she had every opportunity in the world to come before the committee at the time and put this before us, at which time we could have had a full and complete debate on it.

Had we done so, we probably would have pointed out to her two things.

One, she makes reference to the D.C. Circuit Court's opinion on lines 14 through 18 of her case. Would that the D.C. Circuit Court had said that the SEC is doing a good job, that they had the authority to do so and that nothing else is necessary in going forward. If she had read the opinion, she would have known that that's not quite what they said.

The D.C. Circuit Court stated that the SEC, the Commission, acted arbitrarily and capriciously for having failed--note this--``once again''--so this is not the only time--but once again to adequately assess the economic effects of the new rule and, again, inconsistently and opportunistically framed cost benefits of the rule.

So the citation that she gives of the D.C. Circuit Court does not support her position but undermines her position. The D.C. Circuit basically supports our position that the SEC has failed, and that it has failed repeatedly to do what it should do, and that is why we have the legislation before you today.

And when she talks about red tape and unnecessary--well, that's not what the AFL-CIO says, and that's not what the American Bar Association says. The SEC did look at the issue of doing a retrospective look at this. They did so back over a year and a half ago, back in September of 2011, and they asked for input.

What did the AFL-CIO say about that?

To be effective, security regulations must be continuously

updated to address the emergence of new loopholes, abuses and

market failures.

Likewise, the American Bar Association also chimed in about the retrospective analysis, which is what the SEC could have been doing, should have been doing, didn't do, and that is what our bill will require them to do.

So I appreciate the gentlelady's efforts in this area, but I would recommend a ``no'' vote on her amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition.

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, and I will simply address both the process and the policy briefly.

On the process, I appreciate the gentlelady's bringing this amendment here to the floor today; but, as she knows, we were in committee for multiple hours hearing various amendments on the underlying legislation, and she had every opportunity to bring it before the entire committee at that time, and we could have had a full and complete debate and actual vote in the committee at that time. I am lost for a reason why she did not go through the regular order.

But, more specifically, to the merits of the underlying bill and the amendment, if there could be anything simpler or easier than what we are trying to do in the underlying bill, H.R. 1062, Mr. Speaker, let's be real. Mr. Speaker, all we're asking the SEC to do is this: identify a problem first before you do a regulation, and then once you consider a regulation, consider all the alternatives that are out there, not just the initial one that comes forward. And then once you've passed that regulation, the next year and years after that, go back and reconsider them and make sure that they're being done effectively and they were the most efficient regulations for the economy. That's the underlying legislation, and that's why I encourage my Members to support the underlying bill.

To the MTR, what is the SEC charged to do? Three, basically, core provisions: investor protection, capital formation, and efficient markets. And perhaps to the point here, one of the most important is investor protection.

Who are we talking about when we're talking about investors? It's that single mom out there who is trying to raise a young girl and trying to put her into college and have money to do so. It's the young couple who wants to have financing to be able to buy their first home. It's the moms, dads, and our grandparents, the pensioners and the retirees who want to know that their investments are secure and the markets are operating efficiently. To the point here with your amendment most specifically, yes, it's the cop on the beat, it's the fireman, and it's the union worker who wants to make sure that he's investing his time and efforts into our community and his investments are taken care of in an efficient operation in the markets on Wall Street and the markets as well.

That's what our bill does. All of them are taken care of in the underlying legislation. Your amendment basically says that we don't care as far as making sure the most efficient rules are concerned when it comes to the firefighters, the pensioners, or the teachers.

I'll close on this. If we want to honor the firefighters, if we want to honor the police officers, and if we want to honor the teachers and the pension funds, vote ``no'' on this MTR and vote ``yes'' on the final passage.

I yield back the balance of my time.