Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2396) to amend the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to update the exception for certain annual notices provided by financial institutions, and providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4015) to improve the quality of proxy advisory firms for the protection of investors and the U.S. economy, and in the public interest, by fostering accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and competition in the proxy advisory firm industry.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule. This rule that we are looking at today has two bills under it, and this is the 56th closed rule allowing no amendments that we are bringing to the floor this year. Over the past year, we have not considered any legislation under an open rule that would allow Republicans or Democrats to bring forward amendments here on the floor.

When the 115th Congress opened, Speaker Ryan promised regular order bills would make their way to the floor after hearings and markups. Instead, we have seen bill after bill rushed to the floor. Many bills haven't even gone through committee or skipped hearings. That is true for the failed healthcare bill, and it is also true for the tax bill currently in conference, the major bill this Congress.

This tax bill, that somehow we understand there is a ``deal'' on before the conference committee even met, was crafted behind closed doors, and no Member was able to offer their ideas on the House floor. I offered several bipartisan amendments in the Rules Committee, but they were locked out, as were amendments from every other Democrat and Republican that chose to offer amendments.

The tax legislation would explode our debt. It is a giveaway to wealthy corporations and does nothing to help the middle class.

Now, the benefit of having an open process is creating better ideas: having Democrats and Republicans bring forward those ideas, see who can muster a majority of votes here on the floor of the House, and include that in a tax bill. We are a legislature. That is how we are supposed to work.

Instead, a bill was crafted behind closed doors to raise taxes on 78 million Americans and add $1.7 trillion to the debt. When you add to the debt, that is a tax on future Americans. Instead of taxing them today, you are taxing them tomorrow. The tax-and-spend Republican Party continues to add to the deficit and add to the debt day after day after day.

Mr. Speaker, we only have a few legislative days left before the end of the year, and we have very important work to do, like reauthorizing the Children's Health Insurance Program and funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year.

There are millions of Americans who have been negatively affected by devastating hurricanes and wildfires in Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida, and the Virgin Islands, and Congress has not stepped up to the plate.

There are also over 800,000 aspiring Americans who are at risk of being deported from the only country they have ever known as home because of the reckless actions of President Trump. Congress needs to act to find a real solution so DREAMers can continue to work legally in the communities that they live in, and they continue to thrive and give back to make our country even greater.

We have a lot of critical tasks ahead, which is why I am really surprised, with all of this work to do, and only 7 or 8 days to do it, that here we are considering two bills where we will have our debate, but they are not bills of great importance. We are using our floor time--very limited, 7 days before the end of the year--when we could be debating tax reform and offering amendments, when we could be addressing the needs of the DREAMers, where we could actually be doing something about the deficit, reining in out-of-control wasteful government spending. We are not doing any of that.

We are doing two minor bills that are favors for public companies, or whoever they are. I am happy to talk about them. I am going to do my role in debating them. One I am even fairly supportive of. But they are completely separated from the actual concerns of the American people.

No wonder the approval rating of this institution is under 15 percent, because we continue to debate these minor bills under a closed process, when, this very week, we could have had an open process for tax reform. We could be voting on 10 or 20 amendments a day, passing some and rejecting some. I have no problem if I bring forward some Democratic amendment and it fails. That is the process. That is fair.

But we have bipartisan, commonsense amendments that should be part of tax reform. Representative Schweikert and I have a bill to provide a de minimis exemption on taxation for use of cryptocurrencies, to allow them to be used for amounts under $600 in everyday purchases and to remove the specter of IRS enforcement.

Let's put it in. Let's have a vote on it. Let's see if a majority of Congress agrees with me. I hope they do. If not, I am a big boy. It is my job. I can go home. But to not even be able to fight for the issues that my constituents have hired me to fight for is not only the frustration I have, and not only the frustration many Republicans have, but it is the frustration the American people have with this institution.

Now, let's get to these bills. Typically, the Financial Services Committee did not hold a hearing on either of these rules. It is a closed rule.

The first one, H.R. 2396, the Privacy Notification Technical Clarification Act, would remove privacy notice requirements for financial institutions to consumers that share or sell a customer's personal information with third parties.

We are all for reducing unnecessary regulations. When I get to the next bill, the Republicans are actually trying to add paperwork and regulations. This one does, but it picks a very poor one to get rid of. It gets rid of privacy notices for financial institutions that tell consumers that they can share or sell their personal information. Of all of the places to cut paperwork, why would you want to cut the one piece that consumers and retail investors actually care about?

Back in September, 143 million Americans had their personal and sensitive information shared widely, as a result of a data breach at Equifax. Congress should be looking at ways to better secure our sensitive information--a cybersecurity bill, better information sharing--instead of actually making it easier for our personal information to be shared more widely and giving you, as the consumer, less ability to find out where it is being shared.

A hearing would be helpful to understand the full effects of this legislation to see what the unintended consequences are. We do know that it would eliminate clear disclosure to consumers about their privacy rights--never a good thing, especially in these times-- including a consumer's ability to opt out from having their information sold to certain third parties. We can do better.

The other bill, H.R. 4015, the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act, makes a change to how proxy advisory firms provide information to shareholders. It would require that they make their recommendations available to companies.

This bill is problematic from a number of perspectives. Here is what it does. Proxy advisory firms provide independent advisory services for investors and have fiduciary responsibility to their investors.

Under this legislation, they would actually have to open themselves up to lobbying for companies and add additional paperwork. They would have to register with the SEC, whereas they now don't, before trying to issue vote recommendations or trying to change the corporate board.

Here is who the players are in this fight: On the one hand, you have public companies; on the other, you have investors, which means your pension fund, and mine, Mr. Speaker. It means university endowments. I know you all don't like those, and you are going to tax them soon. It means, perhaps, using an individual investor, through a mutual fund or other vehicle. So investors on one side, public corporations on the other.

But the problem is: it is not the shareholders of the public companies, it is the insular governance and management structure of those organizations. Many of them do need to be shaken up in the name of efficiency.

There are many examples of investor pressure that has been applied to good effect: to meaningful reforms and corporate governance; preventing conflict of interest, making sure that the board oversees the CEO are not just his golfing buddies, and he is on the board, or she is on the board, of their companies, too.

I have generally been on the side of investor empowerment in that: not to the extreme, not to make it impossible to be a CEO on a publicly traded company, to run a publicly traded company. But, if anything, we should make sure that the actual owners of the companies are empowered to make the changes they need to increase efficiency.

This bill goes the wrong way. It adds red tape and paperwork. It adds regulations to investors and prevents them from being able to exert influence in the same way they do today, adding one degree of additional regulation and paperwork to allow them to do the kinds of good governance activities in terms of running competitive fights for boards of directors.

Now, I get that there is another side. There can be a steamy underbelly to investor engagement as well. There are some investors who only care about short-term gains, who try to institute practices or bully management around in a way that is not conducive to long-term value but, rather, just pump-and-dump schemes that they try to make money off of, and I totally get that.

But in general, it is the owners of a company to whom the fiduciary responsibility of the directors and the CEO lie; and we should empower them, for better or for worse, to make the changes to increase the overall productivity of the company.

We should not burden investors with additional red tape, as Republicans are doing, by creating more bureaucracy and paperwork and compliance costs with this bill.

Frankly, I was surprised to see this bill come out of Financial Services Committee because Republicans have been fairly consistent in trying to remove regulations from Dodd-Frank. That has generally been the approach. I supported the removal of some of those unnecessary regulations. Others are important regulations, like this privacy disclosure that I don't think is a good idea.

But here, they are actually adding reporting requirements above and beyond Dodd-Frank. They are out ``Dodd-Franking'' Dodd-Frank. Republicans are saying there is not enough reporting; there is not enough paperwork; there is not enough money going to lawyers and accountants. In Dodd-Frank, we are going to require that they file even more paperwork with the SEC.

I think that is the wrong way to go, Mr. Speaker, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to resist this effort to burden shareholders who actually own companies with additional costs and paperwork and prevent them from making necessary management improvements to the companies that, at the end of the day, are run for them, not for the benefit of management.

That is why I oppose this bill. Shareholders should have a right to impartial information about the company in which they have invested. We should minimize paperwork where possible. I have been proud to support a number of bipartisan proposals to do that. This bill goes the opposite way.

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

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

I include in the Record the Republican bill summary from the majority on the Rules Committee for H.R. 4015.

Committee on Rules

Pete Sessions, Chairman--December 11, 2017

H.R. 4015--Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act of 2017

Purpose: To improve the quality of proxy advisory firms for

the protection of investors and the U.S. economy, and in the

public interest, by fostering accountability, transparency,

responsiveness, and competition in the proxy advisory firm

industry.

Background and Legislative History: Each year, public

companies hold shareholder meetings at which the company's

shareholders vote for the company's directors and on other

significant corporate actions that require shareholder

approval. As part of this annual process, the Securities and

Exchange Commission (SEC) requires public companies to

provide their shareholders with a proxy statement before

shareholder meetings. A proxy statement includes all

important facts about the matters to be voted on at a

shareholder meeting, including, for example, information on

board of director candidates, director compensation,

executive compensation, related party transactions,

securities ownership by certain beneficial owners and

management, and eligible shareholder proposals. The

information contained in the statement must be filed with the

SEC before soliciting a shareholder vote on the election of

directors and the approval of other corporate actions.

Solicitations, whether by management or shareholders, must

disclose all important facts about the issues on which

shareholders are asked to vote.

In general, state corporate law governs shareholder voting

rights, including the types of corporate actions that require

shareholder approval. However, Section 14 of the Securities

Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) authorizes the SEC to

promulgate rules governing the solicitation of proxies for

most public companies. SEC Regulation 14A governs proxy

solicitations and sets forth the categories of information

that must be disclosed in proxy solicitations.

Largely as a result of the SEC's regulations, proxy

advisory firms now wield outsized influence in the U.S. proxy

system. In particular, regulators, market participants, and

academic observers have highlighted potential conflicts of

interest inherent in the business models and activities of

proxy advisory firms. For example, as indicated above, proxy

advisor firms may feel pressured by their largest clients--

many of whom are activist investors--to issue vote

recommendations that reflect those clients' specific agendas.

In addition, proxy advisory firms often provide voting

recommendations to investment advisers on matters for which

they also provide consulting services to public companies.

Mr. Speaker, the reason I do this is, my colleague from Georgia somehow said that it was laughable, this characterization that it is adding paperwork.

That is exactly what this bill does. In fact, in this exhibit, this is a Republican summary of their own bill. It says: ``The information contained in the statement must be filed with the SEC. . . .''

The whole bill is about adding paperwork. That is what the bill does. You can argue it is paperwork all you want because corporate CEOs want it and many existing board members want it. Investors don't want it. But we are talking about additional paperwork, and there is nothing in that statement that you can refute because the Republican bill summary explains that that is what they are doing. I mean, there is no disagreement.

And he is correct. I am sure there are some Democrats who support these bills, some Republicans who support them, some Republicans and Democrats who might oppose these bills, but that is what the bill does, it adds paperwork. That is why I mentioned I was surprised to see it come out of the Financial Services Committee that, in general, had been more interested in reducing paperwork. Here, they are interested in adding compliance cost and paperwork to investors.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Sean Patrick Maloney's bill, H.R. 4585, which would block the FCC's rule rolling back net neutrality from taking effect to ensure the internet remains open to all Americans.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney) to discuss the proposal.

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

I can see my good friend, Mr. Duffy, is very excited about this, very engaged. It is a hard issue. I don't think many Democrats are that excited either way. They are all going to decide where they stand because it is just a fight between corporate CEOs and big institutional investors. They are both fine. I mean, you have got to pick one or the other in voting ``yes'' or ``no'' on this bill.

I think, as Democrats, we are more interested in how the people are doing who are working for those companies. How are we doing about sustainable practices over time?

Yes, every Democrat and Republican will cast their vote here either for institutional investors or for corporate CEOs and insular boards. Fine.

It does add paperwork. We talked about that. Mr. Duffy said: Oh, it adds paperwork. Democrats should like it.

Yes, maybe there are some. I think some Democrats voted for it in committee. There are Democrats that want to increase paperwork. I am not one of them. I want to decrease paperwork and streamline it.

But, no, I am sure there will be some Democrats who support it. There are probably Democrats who, themselves, agree with the corporate CEOs over the institutional investors.

I have taken a company public. I have run private companies. I have seen this world. I think it is a good thing that the share of institutional investment has increased. I don't have the statistics in front of me. The gentleman from Wisconsin said something along the lines of 46 to 75 percent of the capital is institutional.

The big problem in public corporate governance is not too much shareholder engagement; it is not enough. When you have a diffuse shareholder base, when you don't have institutional investors, when you have, proverbially, 200 people who each own half a percent of the company or even more and they never talk and don't know each other, the ability of management to run amok in their own interests, to the detriment of the shareholders, plagues our public marketplaces.

So to have sophisticated, active investors who own enough and can work together, sometimes through these proxy fights when it comes to it, to be able to maximize long-term value is a good thing. It is a good thing.

Of course, everybody can point to times that it has been good for companies and times it has been bad. Generally speaking, this bill is adding paperwork to move the bar the wrong way, to move it towards management, away from shareholders.

I agree you need a balance. I wouldn't support a bill that moved it all the way to shareholders either. You are just encouraging agitators to get in on a short-term basis and speculative basis.

But I think we are close to the right place; and if you ask me where I would move it, I would move it a little the other way to empower shareholders. In fact, I have a bill that does that. It is part of a bigger bill, but it is a bill that gives shareholders more of a direct say over the pay of top executives because, again, there is a problem with insular corporate boards. Part of the answer is empowering institutional investors and empowering individual investors.

So, look, Democrats will hold their nose and vote for either corporate CEOs or for big investors, and that is fine. I firmly think that the best interests of our economy and the people and sustainability lie in moving it toward the investors.

This bill moves it the wrong way and adds paperwork and costs to the investors. So I really think it moves the wrong way, which is why I oppose this bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

There was also a discussion, Mr. Duffy mentioned why aren't we just talking about the rule. It is because, Mr. Speaker, like 56 other rules, it is a closed rule.

What else can we say about closed rules? We have said everything. There are no amendments. I could spend an hour complaining about how they are not allowing amendments in and it is closed and so are 56 other rules, but it is more productive to get to the underlying issues because we have had the debate on closed rules 56 times just in the last 10 months.

That is a record, Mr. Speaker. You should be proud of presiding over a record number of closed rules for a United States Congress. But it is not very interesting to talk about for another hour.

So they will talk about an interesting bill, a minor bill. I think I discussed that. I mean, we have a government shutdown; we have an issue with tax reform; we have DREAMers; we have a million things we could be doing. This is a minor bill.

Okay. Let's talk about the merits of giving the current corporate boards that might be too insular and the current CEOs and management a little more power, like this bill does, by increasing red tape and paperwork on investors versus the merits of empowering investors. Fine, we will have that discussion. We will cast our ballots. We will see what happens.

Another issue that is very important and timely that this Congress should get to is the one my good friend Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney raised. When we defeat the previous question, we can bring up an issue that, again, is not a partisan issue.

As the cofounder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, said, the end of net neutrality would end the internet as we know it. It is an issue every American citizen is looking to us to take leadership on.

In my time in office, I have had to make a number of controversial votes, whether it is for the Affordable Care Act or repeal of this or that, and oftentimes I hear from constituents on both sides. I remember we got thousands of letters for the Affordable Care Act, thousands of letters against it--very typical.

Net neutrality has been a unique and singular experience in my 9 years in Congress. We received 1,500 calls and over 5,000 emails about the issue, and I asked my staff to double-check this because I didn't believe this, and they did. One hundred percent of the emails and calls were for net neutrality. That is right. Not a single constituent of mine contacted me on the other side.

In a district that has a plurality of unaffiliated voters and a similar number of Republicans and Democrats, they are never shy to contact me. So it is not partisan. It certainly united Republicans, unaffiliated voters, and Democrats in my district to be unanimously for net neutrality, which surprised me. But it also means that Congress should not be tone deaf to that, and that is why it is important to defeat the previous question.

Republican Senators like Senator Thune have come together to call on colleagues to come together and protect net neutrality. My good friend and colleague from Colorado Mike Coffman announced that we should--the FCC should delay their vote and that we should protect net neutrality.

It is common sense, Mr. Speaker, and by defeating the previous question, we can get on to an issue that the American people care about rather than a fight between CEOs and investors and which side you take. It is about protecting your internet in your home so you can access the content of your choice--a consumer issue and an issue for small businesses.

We had a digital roundtable last night, Mr. Speaker. I think thousands of people from my district watched as I had several experts, including several small businesses from Colorado, talk about the importance of net neutrality to them in creating jobs and being able to have a predictable and sustainable business model, and then being able to compete with large, entrenched companies and be disruptive with new innovation.

So I hope that we can defeat the previous question and get on to that. If we don't, I am going to ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the bill that adds paperwork and costs, requiring SEC filings for the investors who are fighting bills, who are fighting proxy fights, and then I urge my colleagues to look closely at the privacy bill.

That one, again, I would not characterize as a major bill. I will be voting ``no.'' I understand there might be some Republicans and Democrats voting ``yes'' on that one as well. But, you know, whether they delete that clause or not is hardly the game changer for the economy that tax reform will be.

I have ideas, bipartisan ideas, bills that I have sponsored with my Republican colleagues that should be part of tax reform, that would help the economy go, that would create far more jobs than a two- sentence disclosure, whether it is there or not, and, frankly, more important, also, than this, whether the proxy fight people have to file with the SEC. I mean, I am sure they will be able to do it. I mean, yes, you Republicans want to give them more paperwork and create more bureaucracy, but I am sure they will survive.

But let's do something important like open process tax reform. We could be debating amendments right now and voting on them like our job--you know, like 100 amendments from Republicans and Democrats. I would even be open to let's just consider bipartisan amendments, throw out amendments that only Republicans support or only Democrats support.

To be fair, you are in the majority, Mr. Speaker, how about just amendments that Republicans alone support or are bipartisan? You don't have to do any Democratic amendments only because let's just have an open process. Let's allow some amendments.

Every amendment was locked out of tax reform. I offered like, what, 16 myself? I remember my colleague Mr. Woodall was there. They were commonsense ideas. There was a little fix I did with Mr. Tipton from Colorado for Kombucha, that is fermented tea, and it had to do with the tax treatment, de minimis. Senator Cory Gardner supports it in the Senate, our Republican Senator. Noncontroversial, next-to-no fiscal impact, and the Rules Committee still didn't even allow me to debate the amendment on the floor for 10 minutes, for 5 minutes, for 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, enough with these closed rules, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have a couple problems with this rule. First of all, the rule brings to the floor the wrong bills. These are minor bills. I will give a recap in a moment, but oh, my goodness. Two sentences of a disclosure and a little more filing costs for pensions and investors. Okay. We will get past that. They probably won't become law anyway. You can blame it on the Senate, you can blame it on the House, but most of these things we do don't become law.

I understand that many of my colleagues are frustrated with the Senate, but whatever the case, we just do these things.

But there is stuff that might become law, that could become law, like tax reform; like the fact that the government is shutting down next week if we don't continue the funding. We have a clock ticking on our debt ceiling. We have 800,000 aspiring Americans who don't even know if they can go to work legally, like they can today, in another few months because of President Trump's decision to end their provisional status.

These are real issues--the cost of healthcare going up for my constituents and yours. But we are not doing that. We are bringing up two bills. I will give you the summary of them. Even these two bills, closed process, no amendments. If I was able to offer floor amendments, as I said, I could offer an amendment that would actually move the balance the other way toward investors and empowering investor activism, perhaps even look at giving them a safer pay, if you will, over executive pay, and reining in some of the problems of this bill. But we are not allowed. We are not allowed to offer any amendments here on the floor.

Again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again. That is 56, by my count.

That is 56 times Republicans have brought bills to the floor and haven't allowed Democrats or Republicans to offer amendments.

Look, my colleagues can say: Oh, Democrats weren't great on this, and they had too many when they controlled it. You know what? First of all, Republicans set a record. This is the most number of closed rules ever.

Secondly, I am not here to defend the Democrats. If the Democrats were in

charge, they should offer more open amendments. There is no question. But Republicans, whatever they complained about the Democrats, they outdid them by a big factor. Ten months, 56 bills that no single Member of the House is allowed to offer an amendment on just to have a fair up-or-down vote. It is wrong. It is wrong.

That is why I hope my colleagues can defeat this rule to say: Enough is enough.

Mr. Speaker, we have to defeat this rule and move on to the issues important to the American people, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in opposition to H.R. 2396, the Privacy Notification Technical Clarification Act.

Contrary to the bill's title, this bill is far from a technical clarification. So I want to be very clear about what this bill would actually do.

H.R. 2396 would reduce the meaningful and clear disclosures that financial institutions must currently provide to their customers every year, even if those companies share their customers' nonpublic personal information broadly with nonaffiliated third-party companies.

Unlike other privacy bills Congress has considered, this bill comes with no guardrails whatsoever to discourage the company from broadly sharing consumer-sensitive personal information.

While the bill provides several alternative mechanisms to deliver privacy reminders, one option would result in the customer receiving no written disclosure at all.

The current annual privacy notices serve as a reminder describing a customer's right to restrict the sharing of their nonpublic, personal information to nonaffiliated third parties and information about how to exercise this right if they so choose.

This privacy right was created in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was signed into law in 1999. I served on the conference committee, so I know firsthand that the initial and annual privacy notices in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act were enacted partly in response to public concerns about the sale of personal data for marketing purposes that were highlighted in a number of legal actions brought by State attorneys general at the time.

In 1999, for example, there was a settlement between the Minnesota attorney general and U.S. Bank resolving allegations that the bank misrepresented its practice of selling highly personal and confidential information about its customers to telemarketers.

These concerns are just as relevant today. In fact, I find the timing of the consideration of this bill very troubling, as it is being brought to the floor just months after the massive Equifax data breach.

In the Equifax breach, 145.5 million Americans had their Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other sensitive financial and personally identifiable information exposed to thieves.

Equifax is not the only major credit bureau to experience a large data breach. About 2 years ago, Experian, one of the other three major credit bureaus in this country, had a breach that exposed millions of T-Mobile customers' information.

These breaches are on top of a long list of other breaches we have seen at other companies where sensitive customer information was compromised. Consumers have called on their Representatives in Congress to enact tougher laws that would strengthen their control over their personal information, not weaken it.

Consumers are increasingly wary about the unfettered sharing of their personal information by financial firms to nonaffiliated third parties that can result in consumer profiling, fraud, aggressive target marketing, and identity theft.

Unfortunately, this bill goes in the opposite direction. Instead of working to strengthen consumers' privacy protections, H.R. 2396 would ease obligations on financial institutions to provide notices to their customers describing their privacy practices and policies, and importantly, fully explaining to these customers their right to restrict the sharing of their information to nonaffiliated third parties.

This is commonly referred to as a consumer's right to opt out of having a financial institution share their information to companies that are outside of their common corporate structure or organization. These nonaffiliated third-party companies are generally not ones that the consumers have an existing relationship with, meaning that they have not received a product or service from the company in the past.

The proponents of H.R. 2396 may say the bill has nothing to do with Equifax, or that Equifax would not be covered, if the amendment being offered later today is agreed to. But the bill would roll back privacy notice requirements for many financial institutions that engage in vehicle financing, including megabanks like Wells Fargo, even if they broadly share their customers' nonpublic, personal information with other companies.

Let's discuss Wells Fargo and their auto lending practices and their work with nonaffiliated third parties. Earlier this year, the Democratic staff of the Financial Services Committee produced a report on Wells Fargo's egregious misconduct, which has consulted in extensive consumer harm.

For example, Wells Fargo charged over 570,000 consumers for automobile insurance policies they did not need, which resulted in at least 20,000 customers, including Active Duty servicemembers, having their vehicles inappropriately repossessed. These auto insurance policies were provided through a nonaffiliated third-party company called National General Insurance.

The bank has also demonstrated a clear pattern of misusing millions of their customers' information to open accounts in their name without their permission.

So why should Congress consider relaxing the privacy requirements for a recidivist bank like Wells Fargo?

Let me also address arguments that suggest customers don't read these notices anyway. That is a quote that we hear oftentimes.

As I have discussed, I think consumers are paying closer attention now after the Equifax incident. Proponents say that a company posting a link on their website isn't so bad, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau allowed for it.

But the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau provided an alternative to the annual privacy notices for companies that do not share data in ways that trigger consumers' opt-out rights under the law. Over the last decade, Congress has heard repeatedly from banks and credit unions that if a company does not share personal information with an unaffiliated third party that allows consumers to opt out from having it shared, and if they do not change their privacy policies, they should be exempt from the annual notice requirements. In those instances, the customer does not have the ability to opt out of having the information shared.

After several years of research and debate, we made that targeted change in the last Congress. Since then, other companies, specifically captive auto finance companies, have made the case they should have more flexibility satisfying the annual notice requirement because they have a unique and close relationship with automobile dealers they work with that still requires them to send the annual notice.

This unaffiliated third-party relationship triggers a consumer's right under the law to opt out and not have their information shared. I offered an amendment in committee that would have granted this targeted relief, but it was rejected.

So, while I appreciate that H.R. 2396 provides flexibility to captive auto finance companies, the bill is not limited to them and goes much, much further. Mr. Speaker, over 30 consumer, community, privacy, and civil rights groups have publicly opposed this bill, including U.S. PIRG, and so do I. This is an area where more study is needed before policymakers craft sweeping changes.

The bottom line is that I believe we should not open the door too widely at this time to give this same degree of flexibility to all and every financial institution, including recidivist banks like Wells Fargo.

Furthermore, there needs to be more, not less, privacy protections and consumer control relating to personal information following the massive data breach at Equifax this year.

Mr. Speaker, for all of these reasons, I urge opposition to H.R. 2396, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), a senior member of the Financial Services Committee and the ranking member of the Small Business Committee.

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

I have heard, more than once, Members speaking for consumers, saying: These privacy notices are not that important. Nobody reads them. They throw them in the wastebasket.

Well, I don't know how Members would know that, and I don't think that we should be satisfied that consumers are being represented that way with indications that they don't really care about these notices and the opportunity to opt out so that their information won't be shared.

But let me tell you what consumers are saying to us. I have, here, letters that have been sent by consumer organizations that really do care about what is happening with this bill today, and I would like to share that information with you.

Let me just tell you who these consumer organizations are and whom they represent:

There is Americans for Financial Reform. Americans for Financial Reform is a nonpartisan and nonprofit coalition of more than 200 civil rights, consumer, labor, business, investor, faith-based, civic, and community groups formed in the wake of the 2008 crisis, working to lay the foundation for a strong, stable, and ethical financial system, one that serves the economy and the Nation as a whole.

Then there is Allied Progress. Allied Progress is a consumer watchdog organization that uses hard-hitting research to stand up to Wall Street and powerful special interests and hold their allies in Congress and the White House accountable.

Then there is Center for Digital Democracy. The Center for Digital Democracy is recognized as one of the leading consumer protection and privacy organizations in the United States; and since its founding in 2001 and, prior to that, through its predecessor organization, the Center for Media Education, CDD has been at the forefront of research, public education, and advocacy, protecting consumers in the digital age.

Then there is Consumer Action. Through multilingual financial education materials, community outreach, and issue-focused advocacy, Consumer Action empowers underrepresented consumers, nationwide, to assert their rights in the marketplace and to financially prosper.

There is the Consumer Federation of America. The Consumer Federation of America is an association of nonprofit consumer organizations that was established way back in 1968 to advance consumer interests through research, advocacy, and education. Today, nearly 300 of these groups participate in the federation and govern it through their representatives on the organization's board of directors. CFA is a research, advocacy, education, and service organization.

Then there is Consumer Watchdog. Consumer Watchdog is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government, and politics, and they describe themselves as deploying an in-house team of public interest lawyers, policy experts, strategists, and grassroots activists to expose, confront, and change corporate and political injustice in every way, every day, saving Americans billions of dollars and improving countless lives. For decades, Consumer Watchdog has been the Nation's most aggressive consumer advocate, taking on politicians of both parties and the special interests that fund them.

Then there is the National Association of Consumer Advocates. The National Association of Consumer Advocates is a nonprofit association of more than 1,500 attorneys and consumer advocates committed to representing consumers' interests. Our members, they say, are private and public sector attorneys, legal services attorneys, law professors, and law students whose primary focus is the protection and representation of consumers. They have represented hundreds of thousands of consumers victimized by fraudulent, abusive, and predatory business practices.

As a national organization fully committed to promoting justice for consumers, NACA's members and their clients are actively engaged in promoting a fair and open marketplace that forcefully protects the rights of consumers, particularly those of modest means. NACA also has a charitable and educational fund incorporated under 501(c)(3).

There is another very prominent consumer organization, the National Consumer Law Center, working on behalf of low-income clients. Since 1969, the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center has used its expertise in consumer law and energy policy to work for consumer justice and economic security for low-income and other disadvantaged people, including older adults in the United States. This organization's expertise includes policy analysis and advocacy, consumer law and energy publications, litigation, expert witness services, and training and advice for advocates.

This organization works with nonprofit and legal services organizations, private attorneys, policymakers, and Federal and State government and courts across the Nation to stop exploitative practices, help financially stressed families build and retain wealth, and advance economic fairness.

Then there is Privacy Times. Privacy Times is the leading subscription-only newsletter covering privacy and freedom of information law and policy. It is read largely by attorneys and professionals who must stay abreast of the legislation, litigation, and executive branch activities, as well as consumer news, technology trends, and business developments. Since 1981, Privacy Times has provided its readers with accurate reporting, objective analysis, and thoughtful insight into the events that shape the ongoing debate over privacy and freedom of information.

Then there is the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer education and advocacy organization located in San Diego, California, their mission is to engage, educate, and empower consumers to protect their privacy. They engage in outreach, provide educational materials and services to individuals nationwide, and have an active media presence. The PRC uses the information we learn directly, they say, from consumers to form the basis of their advocacy work.

Then there is Public Citizen. Public Citizen has a team of researchers. They uncover the facts. Their staff brings their findings to the public through the media as well as one-on-one interactions. Their advocates bring the voice of the public to the halls of power on behalf of consumers.

Then there is Public Knowledge. Public Knowledge promotes freedom of expression and open internet and access to affordable communication tools and

creative works. They work to shape policy on behalf of the public interest.

Then there is Reinvestment Partners. Reinvestment Partners' mission is to advocate for economic justice and opportunity. They do this by providing direct services to people, revitalizing places, and advocating for just policies. Founded as a project of Legal Services in 1986 as the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, the agency has worked to ensure fair lending to underserved communities in order to build and protect wealth. In 2012, they changed their name to recognize the expanded diversity of their programs and their local and State and national outreach.

And then there is U.S. PIRG. U.S. PIRG is an advocate for the public interest, working to win concrete results on real problems that affect millions of lives and standing up for the public against powerful interests when they push the other way. They say: ``The problems we face don't care if you are liberal or conservative, if you live in a red or blue State. They affect each and every one of us.'' That is why, for decades, they have taken a nonpartisan, facts-driven, results- oriented approach to their work.

Mr. Speaker, I do not like hearing that our consumers don't care, that they don't need a yearly notification about their privacy rights, that they simply throw this information that describes their rights into the wastebasket; and I am so pleased that, over the years and through the history of this Nation when too many consumers have been ignored, taken advantage of, didn't know what their rights were, all of these organizations that I have taken time to share with you today work on behalf of consumers. They work not only in organizing and educating, but they send this information to their Members of Congress. All of these organizations have sent in this information not only about their backgrounds, but about this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time

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

Again, it is interesting how my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle describe their consumers. These are people, they say, who don't want to be inundated with useless information. They are saying that the privacy information is of no use.

It is interesting that Mr. Loudermilk said he read his privacy notice, unlike most other Americans who don't read their privacy notice. I think that is very interesting to describe himself as someone who read his privacy notice, but able to speak for all other Americans who don't read their privacy notice.

What is very interesting also about his comments is he refers to the consumer groups as special interests, while he is representing the banks and the financial institutions, the real special interests.

Why is it Representatives who come to this Congress to represent people who vote for them somehow see their responsibility to protect the real special interests, such as the financial institutions who have lobbyists running up and down these Halls every day, who make contributions to Members of Congress, rather than the consumers who are represented by the kinds of groups that I have taken time to describe here this morning, because these individuals and the average citizen do not have paid lobbyists from financial institutions and banks representing them here.

So it is also interesting that Mr. Loudermilk talked about how many of these consumers are going to be buying automobiles because of the tax fraud bill that he is referring to that is being advanced by the opposite side of the aisle. The only thing that bill is going to do for consumers, which will hurt our economy, is create a $1.5 trillion debt.

Well, he said that consumers were going to be buying more cars. Yeah, the wealthy will be, the ones who are given the breaks in this tax bill. The wealthy may be buying more automobiles, but the very people who are represented by these consumers that I have shared the information on this morning, they won't be able to buy automobiles because they are going to be harmed. It is only the wealthy, only those who are making extraordinary amounts of money, and corporations, that are going to benefit from the tax bill.

I don't even know how and why he talked about it in the same breath that we are talking about our consumers being able to be respected with privacy information that they would get because we have laws that give them the right to have this information.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no other Members, so I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

It is very simple. The consumer groups that I took time to help people to understand who they are and what they do, representing the consumers, are the folks who are concerned about people knowing their rights. This is what they work at doing.

Those of us who align ourselves with consumer groups care about the average citizen. We care that the average citizen gets the kind of information that is going to make their lives much easier.

The people on the opposite side of the aisle represent banks and financial institutions. We are not opposed to business, and we work with businesses in various ways.

We are opposed to rip-offs. We are opposed to fraud. We are opposed to denying consumers the opportunity to know their rights.

But those Members of Congress who come here and basically mimic and mock the consumers by talking about those consumers who wait by their mailboxes for privacy information certainly are not representing the citizens of their district.

I can tell you this: When you take a look at who the real special interests are, who is representing the interests of the special interests, who in this House stands up for banks, financial institutions, and Wall Street and hedge funds, you look at the opposite side of the aisle, time and time again, and you will find them putting all of their time and their effort into representing those special interests.

For those of us who stand on the side of the average citizen, yes, we align

ourselves with consumer groups. No, we don't dismiss them as unnecessary people just messing around in the business of big business.

These are the representatives, again, of people who don't have fancy lobbyists walking these Halls and following the Members of Congress, getting into their area and influencing them.

Mr. Speaker, I stand today with our consumers. I applaud all of our consumer groups and I stand on the side of our consumers being able to know their rights and all of the work that went into providing this opportunity in law. I stand with them and I resist any effort by the opposite side of the aisle to deny the right of our citizens to be notified about their rights and their ability to opt out if they do not want their information shared with these unaffiliated groups.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud. I know that we are doing what our citizens want us to do, why they sent us to this Congress.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Clay's effort to make the bill better. He is absolutely correct, we have been attempting to work together to see if there was a way that we could deal with the issue at hand and absolutely ensure that our consumers not only have a right to information that explains to them what their rights are and how they can opt out when their information is being sold, really, to unaffiliated organizations.

Mr. Speaker, just in case people are not following exactly what we are talking about when we talk about opt-out rights, let me draw your attention to the fact that you oftentimes are receiving loads of mail in your mailbox, everything from somebody who is selling pet food to clothing, to services, to all kinds of products, and you don't know why they are sending you all this junk. Well, they are sending you this junk because somebody sold your information to all of these organizations because you didn't know that you had not opted out. You maybe didn't know what your rights are. But citizens have a right to have that information, and they have a right to be respected and not thought to be simply throwing it into the wastebasket.

It doesn't matter whether it is for all businesses in the United States or just for automobile dealers. It is about every citizen having the right to have their privacy protected and not having people sell their information to unaffiliated organizations that will cause them to be pressured or solicited over and over again and their mailboxes filled with information because their privacy information has been sold to one of those unaffiliated organizations.

Mr. Speaker, I think that Mr. Clay is attempting to streamline the bill. I appreciate the efforts that he has put into attempting to do this, but this does not correct the problem. This undermines the efforts of all of these consumer groups that worked for years to get these notices sent to our consumers.

Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that we have tried and we have worked and we have listened to each other, I would ask for a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to the bill.

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

My motion would prevent institutions that have engaged in a pattern or practice of unsafe or unsound banking practices and other violations related to consumer harm from being able to evade important consumer protections.

When companies repeatedly exhibit indifference to consumer protection and demonstrate that they are incapable of complying or are unwilling to comply with U.S. laws and regulations, they should not be allowed to benefit from those bad actions.

As I have already mentioned, under this bill, as amended, companies like Wells Fargo would be free to share or sell customer information with any company, with minimal reminders to their customers.

We all know that Wells Fargo has engaged in illegal student loan servicing practices, inappropriate checking accounts, overdraft fees, unlawful mortgage lending practices, overcharging veterans for refinanced loans, enrolled customers in life insurance policies without their consent, delayed mortgage closing dates until after the expiration of the borrower's interest rate lock to levy additional fees, and charged over 570,000 customers with auto insurance policies they did not need, which resulted in at least 20,000 customers, including Active-Duty servicemembers, having their vehicles inappropriately repossessed.

Companies like Wells Fargo are why I introduced H.R. 3937, the Megabank Accountability and Consequences Act, to make sure that lenders that have engaged in abusive practices face real consequences for their wrongdoing. It is time we truly hold companies that demonstrate a pattern of harming consumers accountable. These institutions must no longer be allowed to abuse hardworking Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of my motion, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4015, the so-called Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act, would create an untested, inappropriate, and burdensome regulatory framework for proxy advisory firms, making it much more difficult for shareholders to obtain unbiased research used to make well-informed voting decisions about the companies they own.

Institutional investors, like pension funds and mutual funds, typically invest money on behalf of hardworking Americans in a large number of public companies. In exchange for their investment, companies provide investors with shares of ownership and a say on important proposed changes to how the companies are run.

These proposals may relate to who sits on the board of directors, how much executives are paid, environmental practices, employee minimum wage, and nondiscrimination policies.

Shareholders often hire independent researchers called proxy advisory firms to help inform their voting decisions on the many proposals they consider each year.

H.R. 4015 contains numerous provisions that would undermine proxy advisory firms and the shareholders that rely on them for unbiased advice.

First, H.R. 4015 would essentially fulfill the wishes of corporate management by regulating proxy advisory firms out of existence. The bill requires proxy advisory firms to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and authorizes the SEC to deny applications on a whim.

Additionally, H.R. 4015 would force proxy advisers to publicly disclose their internal proprietary research methodologies and voting policies, which firms invest time and money into developing.

The bill would also require proxy advisers to hire a sort of compliance department dedicated entirely to the grievances of corporate management rather than the adviser's own shareholder clients.

These burdensome requirements would deter new proxy advisers from entering the market and squeeze out smaller, cost-sensitive firms. As a result, shareholders would be faced with ever-increasing fees to obtain research from a shrinking universe of advisers.

Second, H.R. 4015 would grant corporate management the right to review and weigh in on a proxy adviser's draft recommendations before the shareholder-clients, who pay for the recommendations, get to see a final report. If management raises a complaint that the adviser disagrees with, the bill allows management to get the last word by publishing its dissenting opinion in the adviser's final report. In other words, the bill is the equivalent of requiring that a teacher clear a report card with a student before sending it to his or her parents.

Finally, H.R. 4015 is unnecessary in light of existing Federal securities

laws. For example, some proxy advisers, such as the largest firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, are already registered and regulated as investment advisers under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. As such, they already owe heightened obligations to their customers; must make regular, comprehensive disclosures to regulators and the public; and are subject to periodic compliance examinations, among other legal responsibilities. Additionally, the SEC has already provided guidance on due diligence and oversight related to proxy advisers.

H.R. 4015 would replace this well-understood guidance with a harmful and inappropriate regulatory regime that undermines investors' ability to simply exercise their shareholder rights.

Tellingly, nothing in H.R. 4015 advances the bill's purported goals of ``fostering accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and competition in the proxy advisory firm industry.''

Shareholders hold corporations and their management accountable by casting well-informed votes on important issues of corporate governance, including issues of diversity. For example, a recent study by Ernst & Young found that corporate board diversity and gender pay equity were key themes in the 2017 proxy season. Specifically, Ernst & Young found that over half of the investors it interviewed included diversity as a board priority in 2017, and ``proposals asking boards to report on and increase their board diversity are among the top shareholder proposals submitted this year.''

H.R. 4015 would render these important accountability efforts ineffective, as the institutional shareholders driving governance changes would be less able to obtain the research needed to inform voting decisions.

Now, I can imagine that Americans listening to this debate may get confused that Republicans, who have been singularly focused on repealing important safeguards and protections for America's consumers and investors, are now claiming that they are seeking to protect investors with these new rules, but, Mr. Speaker, if this bill truly helped investors, why have so many from all over America written letters to Congress opposing H.R. 4015?

To name a few, the bill's opponents include public pension funds and government officials from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington. These investors joined a letter from Council of Institutional Investors stating that H.R. 4015 ``would weaken corporate governance in the United States; undercut proxy advisory firms' ability to uphold their fiduciary obligation to their investor clients; and reorient any surviving firms to serve companies rather than investors.''

Proponents of effective corporate governance, including Americans for Financial Reform, Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen, and Principles for Responsible Investment, have similarly written to oppose this bill. For example, the Consumer Federation of America wrote that H.R. 4015 ``would empower companies to bully proxy advisory firms into dropping their objections to management proposals or watering down their recommendations.''

Private institutional investors also agree that H.R. 4015 would leave shareholders reliant on biased information tilted toward the interests of company management. Sound corporate governance requires shareholders to have access to impartial information when voting on key corporate issues.

If our Nation's investors, who provide the capital for businesses to grow jobs and our economy, are unable to hold corporations accountable, they will be increasingly reluctant to invest. H.R. 4015 would, thereby, hurt the very businesses it purports to assist.

Mr. Speaker, for these reasons, I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing H.R. 4015.

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

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

It is not enough that my friends on the opposite side of the aisle just voted to give the biggest tax breaks to America's richest corporations. They are back here now supporting the control and the dominance of corporations over our investors who need protections. The difference between us and them, they are for deregulation of Dodd-Frank and protection for consumers to support, however they can give it, the biggest corporations in America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott), a hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano), an invaluable member of the Financial Services Committee.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talked about what is happening in corporate America. They are dancing in the streets after that big tax cut that was just given by my friends on the opposite side of the aisle.

As to just a couple of companies--or too few companies--that are doing the advising for these investors, it was just a week or so ago that my friends on the opposite side of the aisle came here representing one company, Berkshire Hathaway, where they were asking this Congress to allow them to charge higher interest rates on the most vulnerable people in our population, with high interest rates and the terrible foreclosure practices all over this manufactured housing that Berkshire Hathaway is selling to these most vulnerable people in our society.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green), who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas.

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

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters from the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the California State Teachers' Retirement System, the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, and the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems.

California Public Employees' Retirement System Executive

Office,

Sacramento, CA, December 18, 2017.

Subject H.R. 4015, The ``Corporate Governance Reform and

Transparency Act of 2017''.

Hon. Kevin McCarthy,

Majority Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Minority Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Leaders McCarthy and Pelosi: On behalf of the

California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), I

write to express our opposition to H.R. 4015, the ``Corporate

Governance Reform and Transparency Act of 2017,'' which is

scheduled to be considered by the full House this week.

CalPERS is the largest public, defined benefit pension plan

in the United States, with approximately $346.13 billion in

global assets, as of market close December 13, 2017. CalPERS

manages investment assets on behalf of more than 1.8 million

public employees, retirees, and beneficiaries. As a global,

institutional investor that invests in more than 11,000

public companies worldwide, we rely on the integrity and

efficiency of our financial markets to furnish the long-term

sustainable, risk-adjusted returns that allow us to meet our

liabilities.

Although we support the House Financial Services

Committee's focus on bipartisan ways to foster a system that

promotes capital formation and maximizes shareowner value, we

have several substantive concerns about H.R. 4015. Given the

large number of public companies in which CalPERS holds

voting shares, we use proxy advisory firms and other data

providers to assist us with analysis of management and

shareowner proposals and director elections. In providing

these services to CalPERS, these firms are guided by our

Governance and Sustainability Principles and proxy voting

policies to efficiently provide independent research and

analysis that helps to inform our voting decisions. While we

are certainly in favor of ensuring that proxy advisory firms

are well-regulated and transparent, we oppose efforts to

create an unduly burdensome regulatory regime in this area.

H.R. 4015 would create such a regulatory regime by

establishing conflict of interest management requirements

that are duplicative of existing Securities and Exchange

Commission (SEC) authority. Currently, shareowners pay proxy

advisory firms through contractual arrangements, and this

provision of H.R. 4015 appears designed to fix a problem that

does not exist among contracting parties.

In addition, the bill would establish a process by which

corporations have preliminary access to the proxy information

that investors pay for under contracts with proxy advisory

firms. At the same time, corporations that do not provide

early access to their consultants' positions on items subject

to shareowner votes would not be required to register with

the SEC. The bill would also significantly increase proxy

voting costs for investors and create additional barriers to

entry for new proxy advisory firms. Finally, the bill's

definition of ``proxy advisory firm'' makes it unclear

whether the intent is to regulate the thousands of entities

that provide advice to institutional investors or only the

three or so that would be considered proxy advisory firms

under this definition.

Considering the SEC's limited resources and ever-increasing

responsibilities for addressing a broad range of emerging

challenges in our securities markets, it would be imprudent

to impose unnecessary requirements on the agency. As an

institutional investor that uses proxy advisory services, we

oppose H.R. 4015.

Thank you for your consideration of these views. Please do

not hesitate to contact me if we can be of any assistance.

Sincerely,

Marcie Frost,

Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Speaker, they are frightened, absolutely frightened, that we could possibly be on the floor today negotiating with the opposite side of the aisle about investment advisers.

They can't understand why it is that we have Members of Congress who do not understand how important it is to have someone protecting the interest of middle class workers all over America.

You have heard the reference to the teachers, firefighters, garbage collectors, and on and on and on. These people work every day. They invest in their retirement and they expect their retirement to be taken care of, honored, and not to be basically undermined by corporate interests. So these investment advisers are extremely important to the investors of these retirement systems.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4015 is simply the latest effort by Republicans to check off every item on the corporate wish list before the holidays. The bill would empower corporate management at the expense of institutional shareholders, like our Nation's public pension plans, by allowing corporations to unfairly influence proxy voting recommendations.

Because of the size of their portfolios, public pension plans who may hold shares in thousands of companies must rely on proxy advisers to provide independent research and voting recommendations on the merits of proposals. Without the work of proxy advisers, institutional investors would, in practical terms, be left voiceless on corporate matters that are important to them, including governance, board

compensation, executive pay, and environmental sustainability.

H.R. 4015 would give corporate management the unprecedented right to interfere in the relationship between institutional investors and the proxy advisers they hire.

At its core, the bill is based on the false premise that shareholders blindly follow the recommendations of proxy advisers who themselves are beholden to activist interests. This belief is directly contradicted by reality.

For example, in 2017, the largest proxy advisory firm recommended ``no'' votes on less than 12 percent of say-on-pay proposals, which are nonbinding votes on executive compensation practices required under the Dodd-Frank Act. That means they sided with company management 88 percent of the time.

When it comes to director elections, the largest proxy firm voted ``yes''--``yes'' votes for 90 out of 100 directors. Proxy advisers understand that the vast majority of companies' proposals are good for shareholders, but not for all.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ``no'' vote on this misdirected bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the following letters:

Americans for Financial Reform,

Washington, DC, December 18, 2017.

Dear Representative: On behalf of Americans for Financial

Reform (AFR), we are writing to urge you to vote against H.R.

4015, the ``Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act

of 2017'', which will be considered on the House floor this

week. By placing an excessive and unnecessary regulatory

burden on proxy advisory firms, this bill would unfairly

disadvantage shareholders as compared to firm management, and

raise serious First Amendment concerns as well. AFR joins

major representatives of shareholders such as the Council of

Institutional Investors (CII) and the California Public

Employee Retirement System (CALPERS) in opposing this bill.

H.R. 4015 would establish a new Federal regulatory scheme

for proxy advisory firms. These firms provide institutional

investors, including pension funds, with the research and

information they need in order to exercise their voting

rights as shareholders. The regulations proposed in H.R. 4015

would require proxy advisory firms to provide the management

of public companies with detailed voting recommendations

relevant to their firms before these recommendations were

shown to shareholders who paid for proxy advisory services.

Advisory firms would also be required to resolve any

complaints from firm management, and employ an ombudsman to

ensure that such complaints were addressed. If complaints

were not resolved to the satisfaction of firm management,

then the full text of complaints from companies would be

included next to voting recommendations in proxy advisory

reports. Regulations would also mandate extensive disclosure

requirements for the details of proxy advisory methodologies,

reducing incentives to invest in developing such

methodologies. The costs of this regulatory regime would be

passed on to investors and pension funds that use proxy

advisory services.

The regulatory scheme is a transparent attempt to weaken if

not eliminate the independence of proxy advisory firms from

firm management by placing sharp restrictions on their

expression of opinions which differ from those of firm

management. Besides raising First Amendment issues, this

improperly restricts the ability of shareholders to obtain

independent views on how they should exercise their voting

rights.

This legislation cannot be justified, as some have

attempted to do, by any analogy to the regulation of credit

rating agencies. Proxy advisory services do not face a

fundamental conflict of interest in their business model

because they are not paid by securities issuers while

providing certification of securities quality to securities

investors. They also have not been implicated in massive

fraudulent behavior that contributed directly to a global

financial crisis. Further, proxy advisory services are

clearly recognized as providing opinions regarding voting

decisions, in a context where many other such opinions are

available, rather than being entities that certify the

quality of securities.

Any concerns about the independence of proxy advisory

services can be addressed by simply requiring such services

to register as investment advisors under the Investment

Advisors Act. The radical regulatory scheme laid out in H.R.

4015 goes far beyond anything even mentioned in the recent

Treasury Department report on capital markets, which examined

the issue of proxy advisory firms and recommended only that

regulators engage in ``further study and evaluation of proxy

advisory firms, including regulatory responses to promote

free market principles if appropriate.'' The regulatory

scheme in H.R. 4015, besides being misguided in other ways,

certainly does not promote free market principles.

The effort in H.R. 4015 to eliminate the independent voice

of proxy advisory services should be rejected. We urge you to

vote against it.

For more information please contact AFR's Policy Director,

Marcus Stanley.

Sincerely,

Americans for Financial Reform.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 657, I call up the bill (H.R. 2396) to amend the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to update the exception for certain annual notices provided by financial institutions, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2396, the Privacy Notification Technical Clarification Act, which is an important bill cosponsored by a bipartisan group of Members of the House and a bill that was approved by the Financial Services Committee with a strong bipartisan vote of 2-1, quite literally: 40-20. Additionally, this bill builds upon an issue that has a long track record of strong bipartisan support in Congress.

I thank Congressman Trott, a member of the Financial Services Committee, for introducing this legislation and for leading congressional efforts to modernize the privacy notification process for consumers and to provide regulatory relief for our struggling financial institutions.

There is a serious issue, Mr. Speaker, with the sheer volume, complexity, weight, load, and cost of the regulatory burden upon, particularly, our struggling community financial institutions, our community banks, and credit unions.

It is no one specific regulation, but the totality, the combination of them all, are causing us to lose a community bank or credit union a day in America. As we lose them, our constituents lose their opportunity for credit opportunities to share in their version of the American Dream. It makes it more costly, more difficult for them to finance someone to go to college, for them to perhaps buy an auto to get them to work, or perhaps capitalize their own small business. So we frequently hear from our community financial institutions.

I heard from a community banker in Nebraska, not long ago, who explained: ``I have explained about how things have changed since I started in banking 10 years ago. In efforts for our government to make things more fair or easier for consumers, it has actually become increasingly more difficult for people to obtain favorable loan terms and, not to mention, obtain loans in a timely manner.''

I heard from a banker in Alabama about real estate regulations, who said: They were intended to help customers, but it is actually hurting them. As wait times increase and banks are no longer offering certain products, not all of these people can be protected from themselves, no matter how many rules and regs the banks follow to protect them.

I heard from a community banker in Utah, who said: I have been in banking for 29 years. In that time, the regulatory burden has increased dramatically. The ability to help customers and small businesses succeed in rural America has been greatly hampered by regulation intended to protect the customer from Wall Street banks, but in the process, smaller community banks, such as mine, have been caught in the fray or broad brush of regulations.

A banker in Oklahoma said that, because of Dodd-Frank regulations: ``We no longer offer/purchase house loans.''

The list goes on and on and on.

So this is one regulation that simply says: under the Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act, if a financial institution doesn't change their privacy notification, they don't have to send out a piece of paper annually--a piece of paper like this that 99 percent of the time customers throw away and don't read in the first place.

Don't take my word for it. Professor Adam Levitin, who is a frequent Democrat witness before the House Financial Services Committee testified before our committee: ``One thing that I think should go the way of the dodo bird are the Gramm-Leach-Bliley privacy notices. Nobody reads them.''

That is a Democrat witness, Mr. Speaker. It is not a Republican witness. It is a Democrat witness.

He goes on to say: ``There's no reason anyone should--even the large banks--should be spending money on giving these notices.''

But that is not what this bill does. It just simply says, if a financial institution does not change their privacy notification, they don't have to send out a paper notification that creates more costs, that gets passed on to the customer, and that nobody reads in the first place.

Number one, it is important regulatory relief for our financial institutions. But it is also important when we think in terms of the sheer volume of financial disclosures that our constituents receive.

This goes back to the fact, Mr. Speaker, if you disclose everything, you effectively disclose nothing because you overwhelm the customer.

So we must vigilantly ensure that our constituents are receiving effective disclosure, not just voluminous disclosure, but effective disclosure of material items written in clear, understandable, common language. Again, not voluminous disclosure of irrelevant items written in legalese and fine print. That doesn't do anybody any good, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan for his leadership. The bill that he is bringing today has earned bipartisan support because it is a simple technical correction to clarify that customers have to be physically mailed an annual privacy notice only when the privacy policies have actually changed from the previous year.

Importantly, this bill was carefully crafted to maintain and retain current privacy and opt-out policies and does not exempt any financial services provider from an initial privacy notice, nor does it allow any loopholes for an institution to avoid issuing an updated notice.

In fact, this legislation, Mr. Speaker, does not change privacy provisions at all, just how they are delivered. Let me repeat: the legislation does not change privacy provisions at all, just how they are delivered.

Again, Mr. Trott's bill has strong bipartisan support. It provides a simple and flexible approach that modernizes privacy notification to the benefit of our customers and to the benefit of our financial institutions.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the measure and urge every Member to vote for it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that I listened very carefully. It was a fascinating speech from the ranking member. Too bad it has absolutely nothing to do with the bill that is before us. Ms. Waters was speaking of privacy policies. The bill has to do with notification.

But I do agree with the ranking member that we do need more effective disclosure. In H.R. 2396, we require financial institutions to make their current policies available on its website at all times. That actually improves disclosure. The only people who can be for the status quo are those who own paper mills so that we can waste more paper.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Trott), the sponsor of this legislation and an outstanding, hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Luetkemeyer), the chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to say I hope that schoolchildren from around the Nation have been listening to this debate because they would be educated on the House version of the filibuster.

I thought that the ranking member was going to break out the Washington, D.C., phone book and begin to read from it. It was a fascinating discussion of a litany of Washington-based special interest groups. I know they appreciated the shout-out; I know it will help them in their fundraising efforts; but it has absolutely nothing--nothing-- to do with the bill that we are debating, nothing to do with the bill that we are debating.

So the ranking member said how important it is that consumers receive an annual--an annual--notice of the privacy policies of financial institutions. Well, under this bill, H.R. 2396, they don't get it annually, they get it monthly. They get it weekly. They get it daily. They get it hourly.

I yield myself an additional 1 minute.

In fact, under H.R. 2396, the privacy notification must be continuous. It has to be put on the website. This helps the consumer. The consumer has access 24/7 to the privacy notification under the gentleman from Michigan's bill, as opposed to the status quo being defended by my friends on the other side of the aisle, who say, once a year--once a year--you ought to get a piece of paper that is probably going to end up in the round file anyway.

Again, Mr. Speaker, this debate has nothing to do with the privacy policies of financial institutions. It has everything to do with the notification of such policies. What we provide for is the continuous notification; and should that policy change, then, and only then, does that necessitate the killing of trees.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Loudermilk), an outstanding member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Trott), the sponsor of this legislation.

I yield the gentleman from Michigan an additional 30 seconds.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, there have been several surreal moments on the House floor this week, and today certainly is one more of them.

The debate today is not between regulation and deregulation, but in many respects, the debate is between smart regulation and dumb regulation. What we have today is a dumb regulation that forces a number of financial institutions annually to send out a paper notification even if they don't change their privacy policy; cut down trees, engage an expense--by the way, an expense that, my guess is, doesn't come out of executive bonuses, but probably comes out of the credit availability and the credit cost to the customer. It gets passed on to the consumer.

What we are also having a debate about--and I would encourage all my friends on the other side of the aisle, if in doubt, read the bill.

In this particular case, guess what, Mr. Speaker. It is a 2-page bill. It really doesn't take that long to read. If you read it, what you will find out is that this is a bill that is pro-consumer because we go from a notification that happens once a year to a continuous notification. We improve the consumer notification by ensuring that it is consistently on the website of the financial institution.

What we hear from the ranking member is: No. I want to stay in the 20th century. Gramm-Leach-Bliley is a law from the 20th century.

But, Mr. Speaker, we are in the 21st century. Why don't we ensure that the privacy notification for the consumer is actually on the website?

This is what is truly pro-consumer, not forcing people to go and subsidize the paper mills and the U.S. Postal Service by sending out a notification on paper that doesn't change anything and merely confuses consumers. If you are really pro-consumer, then try to respect their markets and try not to pass additional cost on to them.

Again, regardless of what you have heard from the other side of the aisle, this is everything to do with how we notify people of privacy policies, not the underlying privacy policy itself. It is 21st century. It is not 20th century. It is pro-consumer, regardless of all the special interests and Washington, D.C.-based lobbyists that the ranking member has cited.

The gentleman from Michigan brings us pro-consumer legislation, the Privacy Notification Technical Clarification Act. I am kind of embarrassed that we are having to spend this much time debating something that should have been on our expedited suspension calendar. It is almost like there is just simply a knee-jerk reaction anytime we attempt to modify any government regulation.

This is pro-consumer. Frankly, it is pro-environment. Every Member of the House should embrace H.R. 2396. I am sorry we have had to take up so much time for it, but there are thousands and thousands of regulations that hurt our financial institutions, that hurt our consumers. We are trying to get rid of every dumb one, one at a time.

Again, this should be passing unanimously. I don't understand it, but I am glad the American people could see this debate for what it is.

Mr. Speaker, again, let's be pro-consumer, let's be pro-community financial institution, let's be pro-environment, and let's enact H.R. 2396.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, again, I would encourage the ranking member and all Members on the other side of the aisle to read the underlying bill. It is 2 pages long. It has now been amended by perhaps a 1-page amendment. This has nothing to do with Wells Fargo. It has nothing to do with Equifax. It is limited to the annual paper notification from auto finance companies, pure and simple.

Again, for those who listened to the earlier debate, the question is whether or not these auto finance companies are going to be forced to spend money that comes out of their customers' pockets to send out a paper notification of privacy policies even when the policy doesn't change, or whether or not we should modernize into the 21st century and ensure that there is continuous notification on a website and that a paper notification only goes out upon a change, an actual change.

What the ranking member is doing with the motion to recommit is once again empowering the unconstitutional and unaccountable CFPB to engage in even more activities that harm consumers. It ought to be rejected, and we ought to ensure that we adopt H.R. 2396 and simplify and modernize one regulation that is harming consumers and harming financial institutions.

Mr. Speaker, I urge rejection of the motion to recommit, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 657, I call up the bill (H.R. 4015) to improve the quality of proxy advisory firms for the protection of investors and the U.S. economy, and in the public interest, by fostering accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and competition in the proxy advisory firm industry, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4015, the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act of 2017, and I thank the sponsor of this legislation, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), the chairman of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee of our committee, for offering this bill.

Each year, Mr. Speaker, public companies hold shareholder meetings wherein shareholders vote for the companies' directors and on other significant corporate actions that require shareholder approval.

Mr. Speaker, the Securities and Exchange Commission requires that, before these annual shareholder meetings take place, public companies must provide shareholders with proxy statements that include all important facts about matters to be voted on at a shareholder meeting. Many shareholders and investment advisers rely on information provided by proxy advisory firms to guide their votes on these matters.

H.R. 4015 would enhance transparency in the shareholder proxy system by requiring proxy advisory firms to register with the SEC, disclose potential conflicts of interest and codes of ethics, and make their methodologies public.

Mr. Speaker, this is a pure disclosure bill, nothing more, nothing less. Proxy firms play an outsized role in the U.S. economy in shaping corporate governance. They counsel pension plans, mutual funds, and other institutional investors about how to vote the shares of corporations that they own.

With respect to institutional investors, Mr. Speaker, the share of institutional investor ownership was roughly 46 percent as recently as 1987, but today, that figure is more than 75 percent; in other words, the volume of proxy votes for which investors are responsible has grown into the billions.

In 2003, the SEC adopted a rule under the Investment Advisers Act that requires an investment adviser to vote in

the best interest of their clients' own proxies. A series of SEC no- action letters give the investment adviser a fundamental safe harbor from liability if they use a proxy adviser.

As a result, institutional investors have increasingly relied on proxy advisory firms to help them decide how to vote their shares. However, regulators, market participants, and academic observers have highlighted potential conflicts of interest that are inherent in the business models and activities of proxy advisory firms.

The committee, for example, is aware of numerous instances whereby the two largest proxy advisory firms have issued vote recommendations to shareholders that include errors, misstatements of facts, and incomplete analysis.

For example, in one instance, a company reported that, even though the total shareholder return the company actually had generated for its shareholders was 64 percent, a proxy advisory firm, Glass Lewis, erroneously reported this calculation to be 26 percent.

Another company reported that ISS erroneously reported that the company's long-term cash awards will vest and pay out their maximum opportunity in the event of a change in control. Well, this was reported even though the company's plan had been amended and approved by the shareholders years earlier in a manner that would pay out at target upon change in control, and there are many other examples.

Some proxy advisory firms' recommendations have been made without any contact to the public company at all, and then these same proxy advisory firms encourage companies to join their service in order to have the privilege to ``influence'' an advisory firm's recommendations. I suspect, for many people, this simply does not pass the smell test.

An industrial company told its shareholders, Mr. Speaker: ``ISS' negative recommendation was based on flawed analysis of our compensation programs that did not appropriately take into account the significant declines in our CEO's pay in 2015 or the performance-based nature of our annual and long-term incentive compensation programs.''

A pharmaceutical company responded to a proxy advisory firm's recommendations with this statement: ``For the second year in a row, Glass Lewis did not include its full pay for performance analysis in this report. For shareholders who rely only on Glass Lewis materials to make voting decisions, there is no discussion of the company's industry-leading performance over this time period.''

Again, Mr. Speaker, there are many, many more examples like these.

So another concern that many people have, Mr. Speaker, is that the two largest proxy advisory firms collectively--collectively--make up 97 percent of the proxy advisory industry--97 percent. This monopolization and the lack of transparency regarding proxy advisory firms means that the writings, analysis, reports, and voting recommendations of these two firms have a disproportionate effect on fundamental corporate transactions like mergers or acquisitions, the approval of corporate directors, and shareholder proposals. In other words, these two firms have a huge impact on our economy.

The bill of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy) helps address these concerns by setting up a new regulatory regime for proxy advisory firms that looks out for the interest of investors, shareholders, by ensuring they receive complete information through the proxy process and can better vote in a manner consistent with shareholder interest as opposed to the potential conflicted interest of a proxy firm.

Mr. Duffy's bill also helps ensure that shareholders and their proxies have access to accurate information regarding companies by allowing companies to provide input on proxy recommendations. This is especially important for emerging growth companies that rely heavily on investors.

A bad proxy recommendation in which emerging growth companies cannot refute the recommendation can be devastating to those emerging growth companies and, thus, have a harmful impact on our economy.

In a letter to our committee, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization wrote: ``Small business innovators operate in a unique industry that values a strong relationship with investors. Yet they are often held to standards that are not applicable to their company and forced to engage in proxy fights over issues that do not add value to shareholders.''

H.R. 4015 would provide for SEC oversight of proxy advisory firms, ensuring that they operate within appropriate boundaries and can be held accountable to regulators and the public.

To be clear, Mr. Speaker, nothing in this bill permits companies to rewrite a proxy firm's report or forces a proxy firm to change its recommendation based on feedback received from the company.

In summary, H.R. 4015 will improve transparency in the proxy system and enhance shareholder access to information by ensuring that proxy advisory firms are registered with the SEC, disclose potential conflicts of interest and codes of ethics, and make publicly available their methodologies for forming proxy recommendations and analysis. For every Member who believes in investor protection and supports a healthier economy, they should support H.R. 4015.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, it is a historic day in America. Republicans deliver historic tax relief for working Americans and small businesses.

The ranking member has articulated concern over burdensome requirements. I look forward to working with her now on reducing the burdensome requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), the chairman of the Committee on Financial Services' Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), our Republican Conference whip.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Budd).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds just to say that, if the gentleman is so busy he can't read a 100-page proxy statement, perhaps he could read a 20-page bill and he would realize that his comments have almost absolutely nothing to do with the bill whatsoever.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), the sponsor of the legislation and the chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

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

Mr. Speaker, while I was fascinated to hear so many of my friends on the other side of the aisle exclaim how much they care about working Americans, it just makes we wonder why now twice--twice--in the last 24 hours they have voted against giving the average working American a $2,059 tax cut. Twice now they have voted to deny working Americans tax relief in order to bolster their paychecks. I wonder about that.

I also wonder, as I listened to this litany of groups whose letters were entered into the Record, how often I heard labor union; government pension; Washington, D.C.; and special interest group.

What I didn't hear about is average working Americans who have their investment in trying to save to buy a home, trying to perhaps fund a small business, or send a kid to college. It is their interest that we are trying to stand up for.

So what we know is that the SEC--the Securities and Exchange Commission--have, for all intents and purposes, required investment advisers to use one of two proxy advisory firms, one of which, as my colleague, the author of the bill pointed out, is owned by a foreign labor union. Yet the SEC requires us to use them.

So here is the radical nature of the bill: the bill, H.R. 4015, simply says that we ought to have transparency--something apparently my friends across the other side of the aisle are against.

We say they have to register with the SEC--something my friends on the other side of the aisle are against.

They have to disclose potential conflicts of interest. Apparently my friends on the other side are against that.

They have to disclose codes of ethics. Apparently my friends on the other side of the aisle are against that, as well as making their methodologies public.

This is a disclosure bill to help investors, pure and simple. We ought to vote in favor of H.R. 4015.

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

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully. I didn't hear anything about labor union political campaign contributions, known political allies of the Democratic Party.

This is yet one more assault on the First Amendment's freedom of speech by my friends on the other side of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, it ought to be rejected, and I yield back the balance of my time.