Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act

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

Mr. Speaker, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Usually, we tell that saying to children to encourage them to achieve greater things, but it seems that when it comes to Congress, it is what Wall Street keeps telling House Republicans.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans thought they could sneak this bill by last week through a fast-track process on the House floor, a process with limited debate and no opportunity for amendments. They thought they could ram through this gift to a handful of the biggest Wall Street banks on just the 2nd day of this new Congress right after we had reconvened.

Well, the American people were watching, and the Democrats here in the House told them ``no.'' The Republican bill failed. Now, here they are; they are at it again. Now, H.R. 37 is back on the floor again, without the opportunity to amend it and with limited debate.

The only difference is that Republicans have reduced how many votes are needed to guarantee passage. That's right. Rather than fix the bill to win broad support, Republicans just changed the rule to make sure the tainted bill passes.

And what does this bill do? Well, for one, it takes a part of Wall Street reform's Volcker rule and delays it for yet another 2 years. Remember that the Volcker rule is the part of Dodd-Frank that stops government-supported banks from gambling with bank depositors' money. And this extra 2-year delay comes on top of a 3-year delay that our regulators carefully crafted to ease the megabanks' transition.

This particular part of the law that Republicans want to see delayed applies to what are known as collateralized loan obligations, or CLOs. CLOs are bundles of leveraged loans, loans often issued by private equity firms to facilitate corporate buyouts that can harm American jobs. The loans are sliced and diced into packages and sold off to investors, including banks that hold customers' deposits. The packages often also contain credit default swaps or other derivatives that can make the position even riskier.

Somehow, Wall Street bankers--the supposedly smartest people in the room--can't seem to comply with a law passed in 2010 by--that's right-- 2017. Seven long years isn't enough. The Republicans and the banks want nearly a decade.

In addition to that, the Republican bill wouldn't just let the banks hold on to these CLOs. The bill would let the banks accumulate new CLOs also. That's right. The banks could actively trade in and out of these investments, unlike the rules carefully crafted by the Federal Reserve.

We saw the Republican playbook at the end of last year with the so- called swaps push-out rule. They hope they can jam these bills through Congress by attaching them to must-pass legislation. And most of all, they hope these issues are way too complicated or too technical for the American people to understand or care about. But the American people really do understand. They remember how our economy was nearly brought to its knees in 2008, and they recognize that we can't let Wall Street slowly chip away at reforms designed to prevent that kind of large- scale financial crisis from happening again.

And President Obama gets it, too. That is why the White House said he would veto this legislation if it got to his desk. And so one cannot help but wonder why are we here on the floor after 8 o'clock in the evening with an attempt to push through something that was jammed into a package of bills? Many of those bills had been heard either in committee or on the floor, but one portion of this bill had not. And so is this simply an attempt to ram down one segment that they fear real debate on, ram it down the throats of the Members of this Legislature and the citizens of this country, hiding it in this package, hoping that we won't get it?

What is worse is that this legislation has been brought to the floor without regard for any regular order. The nine new members on the Financial Services Committee will not get a chance to hear testimony on it at all. And in just the 2nd week of their term, 52 new Members of the House are expected to vote on it, having complicated deregulation shoved down their throats. Democrats offered 13 amendments, one of them bipartisan, but none of these amendments will be considered or debated. Why? Because my colleagues on the other side are not interested in legislation but, rather, in political theater.

We cannot let this casual disregard for the legislative process stand. We want to see reforms sensibly implemented. We want to work with regulators to get the rules right, and we want our largest banks to stop gambling and go back to facilitating growth in the real economy. But that is difficult to do when my Republican counterparts continue pushing legislation that masquerades as technical fixes but really makes substantive changes to the Dodd-Frank reform law. And then they package completely reckless legislation with other provisions that are either necessary or sensible.

Democrats know better, President Obama knows better, and the American people know better. So I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).

I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

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

There are so many inaccuracies in some of the testimony that I am hearing from the opposite side of the aisle that I don't know where to start to try to clear up some of the points that they are attempting to make.

First of all, let me start with this business about how community banks are going to be hurt. This is simply an attempt to hide behind community banks and scare the Members of this body into believing that if they don't support this bill, that somehow their community banks are going to suffer.

The FDIC said that 95 percent of CLOs owned by banks are owned by those with more than $50 billion in assets, with the preponderance owned by Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

Specifically, JPMorgan Chase has $33.5 billion worth of CLOs; Wells Fargo has $24.1 billion worth of CLOs; and Citi has $4.7 billion worth of CLOs.

So what are we talking about when we use this kind of messaging to claim that somehow we are going to hurt these small banks? That is absolutely not true. And I want to tell you, the community banks have not been in the background putting out tremendous sums of money on this lobbying effort. According to The New York Times:

The current efforts to undermine Dodd-Frank have been

textbook lobbying. In the first three quarters of last year,

the securities and investment industry spent nearly $74

million on lobbying on 704 registered lobbyists.

So get this picture. We keep seeing attempts by any means necessary from the opposite side of the aisle to push controversial legislation into packaged bills, some of those bills having been supported either in committee or on the floor. It is not enough that they lost when they put this on the suspension calendar. They have come back with a rule that does not allow for any debate, and they are determined to win this by majority vote, even in the face of a veto. Who are they trying to protect?

If it is true that 95 percent of the CLOs owned by banks are owned by those with more than $50 billion in assets, and I told you who has a preponderance, then that is who is being protected. It is the biggest banks in America--Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo. That is who is being protected. This money I am talking about, $74 million on lobbying 704 lobbyists, these are the big banks spending the money lobbying on this legislation.

And so this business about protecting Main Street, about protecting the small businesses, simply attempts to misguide and mislead, knowing that most folks really don't understand the CLO market, that this legislation, along with many other pieces of legislation, are complicated. Dodd-Frank is an attempt to reform what had gone terribly wrong in this country. We have seen attempt after attempt, probably more than 100 attempts in the Financial Services Committee, to try and undermine Dodd-Frank, to get rid of Dodd-Frank, to break it up piece by piece, and again by any means necessary.

And so if you can answer why all these attempts, why all of this money is being spent, why we're protecting just these three big banks in America, then you can see that this is not about Main Street, this is not about small businesses. This is now about relationships between too many Members of this House and of this Congress with the biggest banks in America, who are determined to destroy Dodd-Frank. And they have tried all of these tactics and they have tried somehow to make people believe that we don't care about this fire sale that we are going to cause the big banks.

Well, let me just say this. No, I don't worry about causing a fire sale of the big banks. I am not here to protect the big banks. I am truly here to protect Main Street and small business entrepreneurs and business people in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk further about title VIII and how it does not benefit small businesses. CLOs comprised only of actual loans are exempt from the Volcker rule entirely. We are only talking about CLOs that contain other instruments like credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, commercial paper-backed securities, et cetera.

The Volcker rule will have a minimum impact on the CLO market. Nothing in the rule says that other buyers of CLOs need to stop their purchases. Nonbanks like hedge funds or insurance companies can continue to purchase or trade CLOs. The restriction only affects banks, big banks, which have tremendous access to taxpayer subsidies through the FDIC and the Federal Reserve borrowing window.

Various Wall Street research analysts have said that the market ``shrugged off'' the Volcker rule and that the industry can do just fine moving forward. In fact, 2014 saw record issuances for new, Volcker-compliant CLOs.

Banks will have 5 years, including 3 years worth of extensions, to comply with this provision. The Republicans now want to give them 7 years. Our position is this: enough is enough. Eventually the Volcker rule has to become operational or else Dodd-Frank becomes meaningless.

These CLOs are typically leverage loans. It should buy private equity firms to facilitate corporate buyouts of

large companies. This is more about facilitating private equity than helping Main Street businesses.

For example, leverage buyouts are when a private equity firm pays for a controlling interest in a company by taking out a loan against that company, saddling the company with debt. The aim is to reduce costs, often by firing workers and slashing employee pay and benefits in order to quickly resell the leaner company for a profit. So this isn't about job creation; this is about job destruction.

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

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

Despite what my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle have said, this package of bills does not simply constitute a technical set of changes to Dodd-Frank or to our securities laws. In fact, these changes are substantive and the package is widely opposed.

My friends on the opposite side of the aisle keep talking about they are protecting Main Street, but let me recite for you what Main Street is saying about this bill. Let me read for you some highlights of the opposition letters we have received in addition to opposition from President Obama, Secretary Lew, and former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker himself.

Main Street is represented by, number one, Americans for Financial Reform. Americans for Financial Reform says that H.R. 37 ``includes numerous changes that could have significant negative impacts on regulators' ability to police the financial markets, so that they function safely and transparently.''

They go on to oppose title VII of this bill, citing a Wall Street Journal article outlining how regulators are increasingly warning banks about the looser underwriting standard for leverage loans.

Further, representing Main Street, the AFL-CIO says of H.R. 37, that they oppose the bill because it ``would loosen key Dodd-Frank protections wisely put in place after the 2008 financial collapse.''

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights notes about H.R. 37: ``One lesson of the financial crisis is that deregulation in areas that appear technical and arcane can have significant impacts on the financial system and, thus, on the well-being of ordinary families, particularly in the communities we represent.''

Finally, Public Citizen noted about H.R. 37 that we should not provide more CLO relief because ``the largest banks dominate ownership,'' as I demonstrated a moment ago, ``of CLOs.''

Mr. Speaker, I think we should heed the warning of Main Street, the warning of these groups who truly represent Main Street.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

There has been a lot of talk about bipartisan support or lack of. There have been a lot of talks about how the Republicans have been able to get Democratic votes and that, somehow, we should be happy, we should be satisfied, and that they really don't understand why it is that we are opposing not only the bill, but the tactics that have been used in several attempts to pass legislation with controversial bills tucked into the big package.

Let me give you a summary of amendments that Republicans refuse to consider as we have attempted to work with them.

Mr. Ellison and Mr. Issa offered a bipartisan amendment to strike title VII of the bill, so that all public companies will have to report their financial statements in a computer-readable format. Mr. Sherman and Ms. Kuster both offered amendments striking the CLO title.

In a similar vein, because Republicans refuse to hold debate on the CLO title, Mr. Kildee and Mr. Capuano offered an amendment to require the regulators to first determine that such a delay was, indeed, in the public interest.

Mr. Lynch also proposed to revise the delay from 2019 to a date we previously considered and approved in the House, 2017. This revised date is one that we had thoroughly considered in the House. We never considered in the House an extension for 2 more years to 2019.

In an effort to prevent the spread of systemic threats, Mr. Lynch proposed that an affiliate of a financial institution, whose failure could pose a systemic risk to our economy, should be required to clear its derivatives.

Mr. Lynch raised a concern that companies, like GE Capital, might be able to take large bets in one part of their company, but receive relief from rules intended to mitigate those risks in another. Mr. Lynch also offered three amendments on title XI, all intended to ensure that employees understand their compensation.

Elsewhere in the bill, Mr. Capuano offered an amendment to title X, requiring companies to disclose political campaign contributions. In the same title, Mr. Ellison required the SEC to finalize its Dodd-Frank rules related to executive compensation data within 60 days.

Mr. Grijalva proposed an amendment to restore the swaps push-out provision that Republicans eliminated by attaching it to the CR/Omnibus last month. Mr. Ellison and Mr. Grijalva also proposed a substitute amendment to focus this Congress on something that would help our economy, ending budget sequestration.

Finally, I propose that we find a way to pay for part of the budget of the cash-strapped SEC by imposing a user fee on investment advisers. This is a commonsense proposal that has been supported by investment advisers, investment advocates, former Republican Chairman Spencer Bachus, SEC Chair White, and the State securities regulators.

Despite the fact that the SEC can only examine an adviser on average once a decade, our committee didn't even consider this issue last Congress.

That is an effort, Mr. Speaker and Members, to show that we have attempted to work with the opposite side of the aisle. We have attempted to offer commonsense amendments that have been absolutely rejected without any consideration being given to them.

We find ourselves here on the floor at 9 this evening, attempting to debate a bill that is going nowhere, that has been issued by the President, a veto message. We are here debating again about whether or not we are putting our taxpayers and Main Street and our small businesses at risk, going back to some of the same tactics, some of the same ways that were used by the banks that brought us to the point of a recession, almost a depression.

Somehow in this short period of time, we have forgotten what happened in 2008, we have forgotten about how many businesses were destroyed, small businesses were destroyed, we have forgotten how many elderly folks lost money in their 401(k)'s, we have forgotten how many homes were foreclosed on, we have forgotten about how we brought this country to the brink of a disaster.

And so let me just say that Dodd-Frank is an attempt for reform. And it is not even a tough reform. As a matter of fact, many of us consider it rather mild. But we have on this side of the aisle been fighting day in and day out in our committee to try and just see the implementation of Dodd-Frank rather than the destruction of an attempt to reform an industry that caused great harm to this society.

And so with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule.

First of all, when we have spending bills that make it here to the floor of the House, we traditionally have had an open amendment process for those appropriations bills. That allows Members on both sides of the aisle to offer cuts to move things around.

At the time of bloated budget deficits, why aren't the Republicans allowing any cuts to be made from this bill? They are not allowing Democrats or Republicans under a closed rule to offer savings to the Federal Government from bloated budgets.

They are limiting amendments on two other bills, a completely unrelated anti-regulatory bill and also a bill with regard to Financial Services that I offered an amendment along with Mr. Issa to improve are not allowed under this rule as well.

It is a very bad precedent for congressional procedure here in our second week to shut down ideas from both sides of the aisle to make either of these bills better beyond a select few ideas that have apparently been blessed by the Republican majority.

I heard in the Rules Committee last night--and my friend, the chair, did as well--a number of very good amendments that were offered, some that I didn't agree with, but I still thought we ought to be able to discuss and debate--I offered a few myself--but hardly any of these are actually allowed to be debated or voted on by the Members of this body.

Instead, what the Republicans have done is effectively hijack the discussion of homeland security and safety to instead have a discussion about our broken immigration system. Well, I was ready to go for that.

I offered an amendment that would have allowed us to vote on an immigration reform bill as part of the rule, one that passed the Senate with more than two-thirds support last session, one that I believe would still carry the support of more than 60 Senators--I think it would likely pass the House if it had been made in order--but I was shut down.

Instead of allowing a discussion about a solution to our broken immigration crisis, the Republicans seek to keep it alive, conflict for the sake of conflict, and to somehow lump families and children in with criminals for the same enforcement priority, which makes no sense to any law enforcement professional or any of our communities, which is why we have a broad coalition of the business community, the faith- based community, the law enforcement community, all outraged over the most recent Republican actions, which seem to cater to the far rightwing of their party, rather than seek pragmatic practical solutions to replace our broken immigration system with one that works.

With regard to the Financial Services bill, I offered a bipartisan amendment along with my colleagues, Mr. Issa and Mr. Ellison, to improve transparency, to modernize our financial reporting standards, to ensure that digital data was available and searchable by investors everywhere, to increase transparency with regard to public companies. Unfortunately, it was not allowed to be debated or voted on here on the floor of the House to improve this bill.

This is truly an obstructive and undemocratic approach to governing. Instead of the Members of this body--Democrat and Republican--being able to work together and propose ideas to improve bills, we are presented with bills that are ``our way or the highway,'' bills that will never become law, bills that have the threat of veto from

the President of the United States, and are presumably only being done to appease the rightwing Republican base.

Well, we should have started off this Congress with a fresh sensibility. We could have brought forward a clean Homeland Security Appropriations bill, allowed Members to improve it, to make cuts, to balance our budget deficit, to move things from programs that didn't work to programs that did. We could have brought forth a real jobs bill addressing the needs of working families.

Instead, what the Republicans have chosen to do is to play politics and jeopardize the safety of our country and our homeland security over a debate that they want to have with regard to immigration without offering any solutions.

One of the things that I took away from the meeting in the Rules Committee last night, in the testimony from Members on both sides of the aisle, is that nobody thought--Democrats or Republicans--that this Republican bill that defunded DACA and undid the executive action would actually solve our broken immigration system. Republicans and Democrats acknowledged it wouldn't.

So rather than playing politics with our defense of our homeland, why don't we roll up our sleeves and get to work to actually fix our broken immigration system and replace it with one that works?

Now, look, the bill provides for consideration of the Homeland Security bill, but everybody knows it is not a serious attempt at funding the Department of Homeland Security. There is a manufactured crisis, the first step in a sure-to-fail legislative process that the President himself has said he would veto.

Why is anybody in this body--reasonable lawmakers, all of them-- placing the funding of Homeland Security at a time of increased national threat--we saw the events in France this last week--putting our defense of our homeland at risk?

Yes, our President took action. Some agree with it; some disagree with it. He used the authority that he has been given by this body to establish enforcement priorities with regard to the 10, 11, 12 million people who are here illegally.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker, if we don't solve our broken immigration system, there is only going to be more people here illegally; instead of 10 or 11 million, there could be 12 million, 14 million, 15 million, until we get serious about border security, about enforcement, about restoring the rule of law.

This bill doesn't do it. This bill says let's support children rather than criminals; let's prevent people that have registered, gotten right by the law, paid a fee, had a background check, had their fingerprints taken, let's prevent them from legally working or going to school; let's hang the threat of tearing them apart from their American kids over their heads.

Both sides acknowledge that is not the answer to fixing our broken immigration system. So let's move past this discussion, let's secure our homeland, and let's get to the discussion of how to fix our broken immigration system, which both sides agree this debate is not about.

This bill also provides for consideration of the Regulatory Accountability Act, another recycled bill from the last Congress. It is not an immigration reform bill; it is not a jobs bill. It is actually a bill that makes government function even less efficiently than it currently does.

It adds 84 new bureaucratic hurdles to make sure our food is toxin- free and safe to eat. It would bury agency rulemaking under a bureaucratic blizzard of hurdles and documentation requirements. This is a paperwork creation bill, this is a government inefficiency bill, the opposite of the direction we should be moving with regard to making government streamlined and more efficient.

Finally, this rule provides for consideration of the Financial Services bills, which this body considered last week, but again, when something doesn't pass under suspension, a procedure that requires two- thirds, the rule should hopefully enable Members on both sides of the aisle to improve upon the bill. I offered just such an improvement, as did some of my colleagues.

If the goal was to get to two-thirds rather than just pass this bill with a Republican majority, why don't we begin the difficult work of making this bill better, of improving on it, of taking ideas from Democrats and Republicans, to get this bill to the point where two- thirds of this body support it? Unfortunately, that did not occur, and this bill is being brought under a very restrictive rule.

We can do better. We can do better than closing down the traditional open process we have around amending appropriations bills. We can restore regular order and allow bills to actually be considered through the committee process here in this Congress, instead of appearing with 48 hours to read for Members of Congress, without even giving the opportunity to amend them. Unfortunately, in the second week here, the Republican majority is already making good governance a farce.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule, to show that Congress can and will do better if you give the Democrats and Republicans who serve in this body the ability to legislate, to offer their ideas, to work with Members on their side of the aisle and the opposite side of the aisle, and to get to a point where we can present a bill that the President of the United States will sign and will become the law of the land.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

I yield the gentleman 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Republicans are playing partisan games with our country's border security and our safety. By tacking on unrelated immigration measures to a basic funding bill for Homeland Security, they are putting us on a path that could shut down our Department of Homeland Security and endanger the people of our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that would allow the House to consider a clean version of the Homeland Security bill.

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

We do not need to start this new Congress going down a path of legislative brinkmanship and crises of our own making. We shouldn't be treating funding for our national security like a political pawn.

There are differences of opinion about how to solve immigration. There are differences of opinion about the President's actions. The venue for taking out those disagreements is not to put the homeland security of our country at risk. We don't have to attach these controversial amendments to a must-pass bill to keep our borders secure. We have no shortage of other things we should be focusing on.

There seems to be pent-up frustration about our broken immigration system. I share that. Let's address our broken immigration system and fix it and pass immigration reform. I tried to do that in the Rules Committee yesterday. Unfortunately, that discussion is not allowed under this rule, and I urge my colleagues to vote down the rule.

Instead, we are spending our time here in Congress with yet another crisis of our own making. Instead of solving pressing issues, instead of creating jobs, instead of protecting our homeland, we are putting a bipartisan, important appropriations bill right smack in the middle of an unrelated political fight.

The American people can no longer afford an immigration enforcement system that spends extraordinary sums of money every year detaining and deporting individuals with strong ties to their community and who pose no meaningful threat to anyone. We should focus on criminals rather than children. That is exactly what the President's actions do.

If the Republicans don't like it, we are happy to work with them to address the underlying issues of immigration and why we have 11 million people living here illegally in the first place. Until we do, this bill doesn't solve a thing. But let's not get hung up over the side issue and make sure that we continue to protect our homeland against a terrorist threat.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, 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.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding and for her great work on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 37, the so-called Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act.

I served on the Financial Services Committee during the 2008 financial crisis, and I had an opportunity to witness the harmful impact that lack of regulation had on hardworking families around our Nation at a total cost of more than $22 trillion, according to the Government Accountability Office. My constituents--and many of yours-- lost their homes, their jobs, and their retirement savings during that period. Many pension funds today continue to suffer and are on the brink of collapse because of the reckless policies that were observed during that time by many of our major banks.

While I voted against the bailout of the Wall Street banks who were rewarded with bonuses as a result of the bailout, I did have the honor of helping to assist in reforming our financial system through the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. I regret the bill under consideration today rolls back many of those reforms that my colleagues and I fought so hard to adopt.

I would note that after being defeated last week under a suspension process that offered no opportunity for amendments, this bill now has inexplicably been brought to the House floor under a closed rule that again does not include any of the 14 amendments that were filed with the Rules Committee. At a minimum, a bill that does so much harm to our financial system necessitates the normal committee process and additional time for debate.

H.R. 37 contains 11 separate bills, a few of them which I support, others I strongly oppose. Portions of H.R. 37 have entirely new provisions that the members of the committee and of this Congress have not had the opportunity to thoroughly analyze.

By the way, if you desire a good review of this legislation, in this past Sunday's New York Times there is an article written by Gretchen Morgenson that I think is extremely well-written and goes into great detail beyond the time that I am allocated here tonight.

Title II of this bill would allow banks with commercial business to trade derivatives privately rather than on clearinghouses. This would increase risk and reduce transparency for these transactions. My amendment, which was not accepted, would have improved the provisions by prohibiting systematically important financial institutions, whose collapse would pose a serious risk to our financial system, from claiming the exemption under this title.

Title VIII of this bill includes new language that has not been considered by the Financial Services Committee under regular order. If passed, title VIII would give banks an additional 2 years to comply with the provisions of the Volcker rule that mandates that banks divest collateralized loan obligations--packages of risky debt.

I thank the gentlewoman.

This 2-year extension is in addition to the extension we already provided by the regulation last year. That further delay adds unnecessary risk to our financial system. And that is why I sponsored another amendment to remove this additional 2-year delay, so banks will be required to comply with this provision of the Volcker rule no later than July 21, 2017.

Again, title XI of this bill modifies the SEC rule 701 by allowing private companies to compensate their employees up to $10 million in company securities without having to provide those employees with certain basic financial disclosures about the company stock.

I strongly support employees receiving equity benefits from their firms in which they work, but those benefits should be tangible and real. We all remember Enron and WorldCom where employees were pressured to buy stock as part of their compensation, and at the end of the day, that stock was completely worthless.

Why can't we enable employees to receive some equity in the company in which they work and ensure that those workers get accurate financial disclosure as part of that deal? This is why I offered three amendments to reform title XI in order to make certain workers get accurate information about the equities shares that they are receiving from the companies they work for. Unfortunately, the Rules Committee chose to deny all the amendments to this bill.

In closing, this harmful bill uses the veneer of job creation to provide special treatment for well-connected corporations and financial institutions while doing very little for the workers that it professes to help.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill, and, again, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

[From NYTimes.com, Jan. 10, 2015]

Kicking Dodd-Frank in the Teeth

(By Gretchen Morgenson)

The 114th Congress has been at work for less than a week,

but a goal for many of its members is already evident: a

further rollback of regulations put in place to keep markets

and Main Street safe from reckless Wall Street practices.

The attack began with a bill that narrowly failed in a

fast-track vote on Wednesday in the House of Representatives.

It is scheduled to come up again in the House this week.

The bill, introduced by Representative Michael Fitzpatrick,

a Pennsylvania Republican who is a member of the House

Financial Services Committee, has three troublesome elements.

First, it would let large banks hold on to certain risky

securities until 2019, two years longer than currently

allowed. It would also prevent the Securities and Exchange

Commission from regulating private equity firms that conduct

some securities transactions. And, finally, the bill would

make derivatives trading less transparent, allowing unseen

risks to build up in the system.

Of course, you wouldn't know any of this from the name of

the bill: the Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small

Business Burdens Act. Or from the mild claim that the bill

was intended only ``to make technical corrections'' to the

Dodd-Frank legislation of 2010.

Here's the game plan for lawmakers eager to relax the

nation's already accommodating

financial regulations: First, seize on complex and esoteric

financial activities that few understand. Then, make

supposedly minor tweaks to their governing regulations that

actually wind up gutting them.

``We're going to see repeated attempts to go in with

seemingly technical changes that intimidate regulators and

keep them from putting teeth in regulations,'' predicted

Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial

Reform, a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of more than 200

consumer and civic groups across the country. ``If we return

to the precrisis business as usual, where it's routine for

people to accommodate Wall Street on these technical changes,

they're just going to unravel the postcrisis regulation piece

by piece. Then, we'll be right back where we started.''

The bill was put forward on the second day of the new

Congress, in an expedited process, which didn't allow for

debate among members. This process is supposed to be reserved

for noncontroversial bills and requires support from a two-

thirds majority to prevail. It fell just short of achieving

that level, with a vote of 276 to 146, overwhelmingly backed

by Republicans and opposed by most Democrats.

A central element of the bill chipped away at part of the

Volcker Rule, the regulation intended to reduce speculative

trading activities among federally insured banks. The bill

would give the institutions holding collateralized loan

obligations--bundles of debt--two additional years to sell

those stakes.

The sales were required under the Volcker Rule, which bars

banks from ownership in or relationships with hedge funds or

private equity firms, many of which issue and oversee these

instruments. Like the mortgage pools that wreaked such havoc

with United States banks in the most recent crisis, C.L.O.s

can pose high risks for banks.

The creation of such securities has been torrid recently;

$124.1 billion was issued last year, compared with $82.61

billion in 2013, according to S&P Capital IQ. Among the banks

with the largest C.L.O. exposures are JPMorgan Chase and

Wells Fargo; according to SNL Financial, a research firm,

JPMorgan Chase held $30 billion and Wells Fargo $22.5 billion

in the third quarter of 2014, the most recent figures

available. The next-largest stake--$4.7 billion--was held by

the State Street Corporation.

Given the size of these positions, it's not surprising the

institutions want more time to jettison them. But the new

legislation represents Wall Street's second reprieve on these

instruments. After banks objected to the sale of their

holdings last spring, the Federal Reserve gave them two years

beyond the initial 2015 deadline to get rid of them.

Now they want another two years.

Although the top three banks had unrealized gains in their

C.L.O. holdings in the third quarter, SNL said some banks

were facing losses. And that was before the collapse in the

price of oil, which has undoubtedly pummeled some of these

securities.

A second deregulatory aspect in the Fitzpatrick bill

relates to the lucrative private equity industry, which

remains loosely regulated. The bill would exempt some private

equity firms from registering as brokerage firms with the

S.E.C. Under securities law, such registration is required of

firms that receive fees for investment banking activities,

like providing merger advice or selling debt securities.

Private equity firms are typically registered only as

investment advisers, so submitting to broker-dealer

regulation would result in more frequent examinations and

more rules.

These firms don't like that. But their investors could

benefit from closer regulatory scrutiny of costly conflicts

of interest in these operations. For example, a private

equity firm providing merger advice to a company its

investors own in a fund portfolio--not an arm's-length

transaction--could easily charge more for those services than

an unaffiliated firm would.

Finally, the bill's changes in derivatives would reduce

transparency and increase risks in this arena by allowing

Wall Street firms with commercial businesses like oil and gas

or other commodities operations--to trade derivatives

privately and not on clearinghouses.

Trading on clearinghouses generates accurate price data

that help both banks and regulators value these instruments.

Because these clearinghouses perform risk management,

problematic positions are easier to spot.

If this change goes through, it will be the second recent

victory on derivatives for big banks. Last month, Congress

reversed a part of the Dodd-Frank law barring derivatives

from being traded in federally insured units of banks.

Taxpayers may be on the hook for bailouts, therefore, if

losses occur in the banks' derivatives books.

The Dodd-Frank law, as written back in 2010, was by no

means a comprehensive fix for a risky banking system. And it

is more vulnerable to attack, in part, because of its

complexity and design. Dodd-Frank delegated so much rule-

making to regulators that it essentially invited the

institutions they oversee to fight them every inch of the

way.

And when Congress backs the industry in these battles, it's

no contest.

Still, it is remarkable to watch the same financial

institutions that almost wrecked our nation's economy work to

heighten risks in the system.

``The truth about Dodd-Frank is it's pretty moderate and

pretty compromised already,'' Mr. Stanley of Americans for

Financial Reform said. ``Any further compromise and it tends

to collapse into nothingness.''

Which is exactly what Wall Street seems to be hoping for.

Mr. Speaker, I think my good friends who are on the floor today, my good friends on the Republican side of the aisle, have failed to read the Constitution, which includes, clearly, the President's authority for executive actions and not, as they have articulated, an executive order.

And it says in the ``take care clause'' that he has the ability to manage this government, as Presidents Reagan and Eisenhower did.

What I would offer to say is, there is nothing in what the President has done but to exercise executive action. But I will say to them that Secretary Johnson of Homeland Security has said that we are placing ourselves in a dangerous position, not because of the President's actions, not because of the appropriations bill, but because of these enormous poison pills that are stamping and stomping on the President's right to executive action.

I oppose all of the bills that are presently in this rule, including the regulatory bill, the Financial Services--all of them have poison pills. The regulatory bill, for example, wants 70 criteria before any agency can pass a regulation.

Yes, to my Republican friends, we are in a moment, a historic moment. France was more than a wake-up call. But what I will say to you is that we can pass a clean Homeland Security appropriations bill and we can end this dangerous condition that we are in.

I would ask my colleagues to eliminate the poison pills of pulling back on the President's constitutional authority.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule for H.R. 240, the Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2015.

I oppose the rule because, if passed, the five Republican amendments made in order by the Rules Committee guarantee the bill will be vetoed by the President at a time when ensuring that the agencies charged with securing our border and protecting the homeland have the resources needed to keep us safe should be our highest priority.

House Republicans are playing a dangerous game of Russian Roulette with the security of America's homeland by recklessly adding this ``poison pill'' to legislation needed to fund the agencies and programs charged with securing the border and protecting the homeland.

Mr. Speaker, the amendments to H.R. 240 made in order by the Rules Committee are simply the latest attempt by House Republicans to prohibit the executive branch from exempting or deferring from deportation any immigrants considered to be unlawfully present in the United States under U.S. immigration law, and to prohibit the administration from treating those immigrants as if they were lawfully present or had lawful immigration status.

The rule we are being asked to accept makes in order amendment that seek to block the executive actions taken President Obama to address our broken immigration system by providing smarter enforcement at the border, prioritize deporting felons--not families--and allowing certain undocumented immigrants, including the parents of U.S. citizens and lawful residents, who pass a criminal background check and pay taxes to temporarily stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation.

Mr. Speaker, the executive actions taken by President Obama are reasonable, responsible, and within his constitutional authority.

Under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the President, who is the nation's Chief Executive, ``shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.''

In addition to establishing the President's obligation to execute the law, the Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the Take Care Clause as ensuring presidential control over those who execute and enforce the law and the authority to decide how best to enforce the laws. See, e.g., Arizona v. United States; Bowsher v. Synar; Buckley v. Valeo; Printz v. United States; Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB.

Every law enforcement agency, including the agencies that enforce immigration laws, has ``prosecutorial discretion''--the power to decide whom to investigate, arrest, detain, charge, and prosecute.

Agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), may develop discretionary policies specific to the laws they are charged with enforcing, the population they serve, and the problems they face so that they can prioritize resources to meet mission critical enforcement goals.

Executive authority to take action is thus ``fairly wide,'' indeed the federal government's discretion is extremely ``broad'' as the Supreme Court held in the recent case of Arizona v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2492, 2499 (2012), an opinion written Justice Kennedy and joined by Chief Justice Roberts:

Congress has specified which aliens may be removed from the

United States and the procedures for doing so. Aliens may be

removed if they were inadmissible at the time of entry, have

been convicted of certain crimes, or meet other criteria set

by federal law. Removal is a civil, not criminal, matter. A

principal feature of the removal system is the broad

discretion exercised by immigration officials. Federal

officials, as an initial matter, must decide whether it makes

sense to pursue removal at all. If removal proceedings

commence, aliens may seek asylum and other discretionary

relief allowing them to remain in the country or at least to

leave without formal removal. (emphasis added) (citations

omitted).

The Court's decision in Arizona v. United States, also strongly suggests that the executive branch's discretion in matters of deportation may be exercised on an individual basis, or it may be used to protect entire classes of individuals such as ``[u]nauthorized workers trying to support their families'' or immigrants who originate from countries torn apart by internal conflicts:

Discretion in the enforcement of immigration law embraces

immediate human concerns.

Unauthorized workers trying to support their families, for

example, likely pose less danger than alien smugglers or

aliens who commit a serious crime. The equities of an

individual case may turn on many factors, including whether

the alien has children born in the United States, long ties

to the community, or a record of distinguished military

service.

Mr. Speaker, in exercising his broad discretion in the area of removal proceedings, President Obama has acted responsibly and reasonably in determining the circumstances in which it makes sense to pursue removal and when it does not.

In exercising this broad discretion, President Obama not done anything that is novel or unprecedented.

Here are a just a few examples of executive action taken by several presidents, both Republican and Democratic, on issues affecting immigrants over the past 35 years:

1. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan used executive action in 1987 to allow 200,000 Nicaraguans facing deportation to apply for relief from expulsion and work authorization.

2. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush issued an executive order that granted Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) to certain nationals of the People's Republic of China who were in the United States.

3. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush granted DED to certain nationals of El Salvador.

Mr. Speaker, because of the President's leadership and far-sighted executive action, 594,000 undocumented immigrants in my home state of Texas are eligible for deferred action.

If these immigrants are able to remain united with their families and receive a temporary work permit, it would lead to a $338 million increase in tax revenues, over five years.

America's borders are dynamic, with constantly evolving security challenges. Border security must be undertaken in a manner that allows actors to use pragmatism and common sense.

And as shown by the success in the last Congress of H.R. 1417, the bipartisan ``Border Security Results Act, which I helped to write and introduced along with the senior leaders of the House Homeland Security Committee, we can do this without putting the nation at risk or rejecting our national heritage as a welcoming and generous nation.

This legislation has been incorporated in H.R. 15, the bipartisan ``Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,'' legislation which reflects nearly all of the core principles announced professed last year by House Republicans.

As a nation of immigrants, the United States has set the example for the world as to what can be achieved when people of diverse backgrounds, cultures, and experiences come together.

We can and should seize this historic opportunity pass legislation to ensure that we have in place adequate systems and resources to secure our borders while at the same preserving America's character as the most open and welcoming country in the history of the world and to reap the hundreds of billions of dollars in economic productivity that will result from comprehensive immigration reform.

President Obama has acted boldly, responsibly, and compassionately.

If congressional Republicans, who refused to debate comprehensive immigration reform legislation for more than 500 days, disapprove of the lawful actions taken by the President, an alternative course of action is readily available to them: pass a bill and send it to the President for signature.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to vote against the rule so we can put an end to the dangerous game of playing Russian Roulette with the security of America's homeland.

Let us defeat this rule and bring to the floor a clean Homeland Security spending bill that the President can sign into law.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 27, I call up the bill (H.R. 37) to make technical corrections to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, to enhance the ability of small and emerging growth companies to access capital through public and private markets, to reduce regulatory burdens, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 37, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, for the sake of the American people, for the sake of all of those who are underemployed, who are unemployed still today in this economy, let us hope that the third time is the charm.

The bill that is before us today, substantially authored by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick), the Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act, was on the floor in a substantially identical version in the 113th Congress.

This bill, to ease the burdens on small businesses, on job creators to help foster capital creation, so that people can be put back to work, so that people can have good careers, so that people can pay their mortgages and pay their health care premiums, substantially in the same form passed in the last Congress 320-102; regrettably then, the United States Senate, under Democrat control, took up no portion of the bill.

It was last week that a slightly different version of the bill was brought to this House floor under what we know as our suspension calendar, which is reserved for bills that typically enjoy broad bipartisan support; regrettably, it proved to be about a dozen votes short because a number of my friends from the other side of the aisle apparently decided that they were for the bill before they were against the bill. They changed their minds in approximately 7 days.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is a very simple bill. There were 11 different modest provisions, all of which enjoyed broad bipartisan support, again which were modest, modest attempts to ensure that small businesses could still survive in an otherwise onerous Washington regulatory climate.

Mr. Speaker, we had a bill that, even combined--and it is quite common for us to roll up bills for the sake of efficiency, bills that are quite similar in nature--was 30 pages long. Not 300, not 3,000--it wasn't the 2,000 pages of ObamaCare, not the 2,000 pages of Dodd- Frank--it was merely 30 pages.

Now, what is included in this bill? Well, included in this bill is H.R. 634, which passed this body 411-12. It includes H.R. 5471, which passed the House by voice vote, not a dissenting vote that I recall. It includes H.R. 801 that passed the House 417-4. It includes H.R. 2274, the bill that passed the House 422-0.

I could go on and on, but of the bills that are rolled up to ensure greater capital formation and regulatory relief for our smaller business enterprises, all of these passed either the committee or the House with overwhelming bipartisan support, and now--now--the minority is coming to this floor and somehow crying foul. Again, many were for it before they were against it.

I don't know how we can look our constituents in the eyes and know that, even today, they continue to suffer in this economy and not do something to help them.

What this is really all about, Mr. Speaker, is there is a division. There is a division within the Democrat Party. According to press reports, some Democrats have reportedly told their fellow Democrats that if they dare to vote for a bill that makes a clarification or modification to Dodd-Frank, they aren't real Democrats.

It is interesting that yesterday, President Obama signed into law a modification of Dodd-Frank. I know the President is not a Republican, but according to some Democrats, apparently by signing a modification to Dodd-Frank, he is not apparently a Democrat, either, so I am not really sure what he is.

It is fascinating that a former chairman, Barney Frank, of the House Financial Services Committee, one of my predecessors, in previous testimony before our committee, indicated a number of changes to Dodd- Frank that he thought would be proper, so according to some Democrats, apparently Barney Frank is no longer a Democrat, either.

What this is really getting at, Mr. Speaker, is of the 11 bills that are rolled up into this 30-page document, some of them either clarify or modify provisions of Dodd-Frank, and for some Members of the Democratic Party, apparently, Dodd-Frank has now been elevated beyond ideology to religion, and there can be no changes in a 2,000-page bill that we know is fraught with unintended consequences.

Yet there are some on the other side of the aisle that say, ``no changes, no changes,'' yet President Obama signed a change into law. Former Chairman Frank has indicated a number of changes he would consider.

It is time to get beyond the religion. It is time to get beyond the ideology. It is time to get America back to work. It is time to start growing this economy

from Main Street up, not Washington down, because that is not working, Mr. Speaker.

It is time to do what everybody claims they want to do, and that is work on a bipartisan basis. All of these bills passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities, and now, because of this almost religious zeal for the Dodd-Frank brand, again, some of my Democratic colleagues have decided that they were for it before they were against it.

It is time to put America back to work. It is time to enact H.R. 37, Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act. Let's make sure the third time is the charm.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds to say that this highly controversial bill that the ranking member alludes to passed on the House floor by voice vote, and this particular financing helps companies like Dunkin' Donuts, American Airlines, Burger King, and Goodyear Tire put people to work in America--hardly Wall Street. The head of the Independent Community Bankers has said it is necessary to protect community banks, and that is why we are here today.

Mr. Speaker, I am now happy to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott) on behalf of the Agriculture Committee, which shares jurisdiction on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

I continue to be fascinated by my Democratic colleagues whose rhetoric is against Wall Street, yet they vote in Dodd-Frank to codify a taxpayer bailout fund for Wall Street into that legislation. They designate firms too big to fail so their rhetoric is aimed at Wall Street but they hurt Main Street, who we are trying to help now.

I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr), who is the author of the title that helps so many of our small businesses grow.

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am very happy to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick), who is the sponsor of this job-creating legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy now to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Pittenger), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), the chairman of our Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 10 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am now happy to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), chairman of the Monetary Policy Trade Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I am now very happy to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from the ``Live Free or Die'' State of New Hampshire (Mr. Guinta), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am now happy to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), a member of the committee.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, what we have really witnessed here is a debate between the left and the far left, and the far left doesn't want the left to work on a bipartisan basis. That is sad. I think that is what the American people want us to do. The American people, by and large, don't want to occupy Wall Street. They just want to quit bailing it out, and bailing it out is exactly what the Dodd-Frank Act does. It is time to grow this economy from Main Street up, not Washington down, and that is what the big debate is.

Almost every bill here, Mr. Speaker, is a modest bill to help small businesses, to help capital formation to put America back to work. They passed on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis.

Let's show the American people that we can do it. Don't let the far left torpedo America's hopes and dreams. I encourage all the House Members to support this legislation.

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