Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 5192) to authorize the Commissioner of Social Security to provide confirmation of fraud protection data to certain permitted entities, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 830 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 830 provides for consideration of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children From Identity Theft Act. The resolution calls for a closed rule, as no amendments to the bill were submitted.

Mr. Speaker, this bipartisan legislation is designed to reduce identity fraud by allowing financial institutions to verify the accuracy of a name, Social Security number, and date of birth before passing that information to credit bureaus.

This legislation is designed to target something known as synthetic identity fraud. This begins when a criminal combines a real Social Security number with fictitious information, such as a name and date of birth, to apply for credit with a financial institution that passes information to credit bureaus for a credit check.

Credit bureaus create a record based on the fraudulent credentials. Over time, this creates a synthetic identity based on the valid Social Security number but a false name.

Currently, children and other vulnerable individuals are more likely to be victims of synthetic identity theft because they do not drive, work, or establish credit. This makes it easier for an identity thief to misuse the Social Security number of a child without being detected.

Reports indicate that over 1 million children have their identity stolen each year. Studies show that children are 50 times more likely than adults to be a victim of identity theft.

This is a real and serious issue that is only becoming more and more common. According to TransUnion, a record $355 million in outstanding credit card balances was owed by people who it suspects didn't exist in 2017. That is up more than eightfold from 2012.

This type of fraud can saddle children with unintended debt and a flawed

credit history sometimes before they can even walk or drive a car.

That is why this bipartisan legislation is so important. The bill would require the Social Security Administration to create a verification system to match the name, Social Security number, and date of birth submitted by permitted entities against their official records.

This would allow financial institutions to verify the accuracy of the customer's personal information in order to guard against synthetic identity fraud.

Importantly, the bill requires that users of the verification system pay the full cost to limit any costs to taxpayers. Also, the bill ensures that the provisions do not distract the Social Security Administration from their core duties and responsibilities.

It is also important to note that the bill includes protections to ensure the verification system is secure and not subject to abuse or misuse. The consumer must also consent before their information could be subject to an inquiry.

This is bipartisan, commonsense legislation that solves a real-world problem, but I bet it will never get the attention that it deserves. This bill went through regular order. It passed out of the Ways and Means Committee on a 38-0 vote, and I hope it receives a similar vote here on the House floor.

Despite what some in the national news media would have you to believe, this type of bipartisan legislation actually happens all the time here in the House. The vast majority of bills we pass receive bipartisan support, and while that may not make for the best television, it is the reality of the work we do on a daily basis.

So I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the Protecting Children From Identity Theft Act, and let's work to solve a problem impacting Americans each and every day.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 830 and the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my good friend from Florida. I do want to note the presence on the floor of our newest member of the Rules Committee, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres). We welcome her to the committee.

I do think there are bipartisan things that we can do. The gentleman said one that I think is very important; that is, infrastructure. He and I have had this discussion before. The President wants us to do an infrastructure bill, and I think all of us want to do an infrastructure bill. I think there is some time here we need to take to make sure that we do get a bipartisan bill in that regard. I don't think it will pass without a bipartisan agreement, so I hope we do that.

On the gun issue, as I think the gentleman knows, the bump stock rule was actually something put in place by ATF under the Obama administration, and President Trump has asked the ATF essentially to rescind it, and they are in the process of doing that. So I hope they'll do that.

We did pass, and this body is part of our appropriations bill for this fiscal year that has gone to the President and been signed, the Fix NICS bill. So there are gun legislation things, addressing these issues, that are moving forward.

He also brought up the very important issue of immigration. The President, I think, has made some very bold moves in that regard to try to get a discussion going so that we can have some bipartisanship here. It is clear that that is not going to pass both the House and the Senate without that. I hope that those negotiations and those discussions can somehow resume because they clearly hit a very bad spot. The President has shown his good faith. I hope the rest of us can reach back and find a way to address this issue.

But this issue is not just the Dreamers. It is also border security. If we are not willing to talk about that and chain migration and the others, we are not really talking about immigration reform; we are talking about one piece of it.

With regard to the AUMF, Authorization for Use of Military Force, I am a strong advocate, as I think the gentleman knows, for a new AUMF. Actually, I am a cosponsor for one of the bills that would provide for that. I have said, going back several years, that I think we have been operating in certain parts of the world without adequate authorization. And whether it is constitutionally required or not, I think it is the right thing to do.

However, I do not think the President had to have prior congressional authorization before the strike that was launched Friday night against Syria in conjunction with France and Great Britain. He clearly has that authority under Article II of the Constitution, to protect our servicemen and -women who are in Syria right now. So I applaud what the President did. I applaud the way he did it. But I am clear in my thinking that he did not need prior authorization from Congress to go there.

Now, I hope that we will get a strategy in general for Syria that fits into our overall strategy to the Middle East. We have been stumbling around in Syria for several years now. President Obama put out the so-called red line, and then the Syrians walked across it and used chemical weapons against their people. And we did nothing. All that did was encourage further bad behavior like what we saw in this horrible chemical attack on innocent civilians in Syria.

At least President Trump is doing something. And I hope that that something that he has done will send a loud message, not just to the Assad regime in Syria but also to Russia and to Iran, that the civilized world is not going to tolerate that sort of activity. And we don't care who does it; we are going to take appropriate action. The President had the authorization to do it, and I am glad that he did it.

We are not done legislating this year. I think the gentleman suggests that we are, but we have got some big bills coming before us. This week we will take up a major IRS reform bill. I am looking forward to that, this being tax day for so many of us. A good tax day for the vast majority of the people in America, by the way.

We will be taking up a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration. We will be taking up another farm bill. We will be taking up the National Defense Authorization Act that comes out of the Committee on Armed Services that I am in.

We have a host of legislation that we will be doing, and I think doing successfully, between now and when we have these midterm elections in November. So we are not done legislating by any means.

I look forward to continuing to debate these issues, but today we are talking about a very important bill that did come through committee in a bipartisan fashion and, I believe, is going to get broad bipartisan support here in this body, once more showing the American people that we can get the people's work done in the right way.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am as well.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my good friend from Florida. I certainly hope that there can be some further discussions and we can have something that comes forth on this floor that is truly bipartisan on the issue of immigration reform, including border security.

I know that there are some people, not including my friend from Florida, who would like to pass legislation that would repeal the Second Amendment. I hope that that legislation doesn't come to the floor because I do not think it would meet with the approval of the vast majority of the people of America.

I do strongly believe at some point we should be debating on this floor a new Authorization for Use of Military Force. But I will say again, the President did not need that authorization for what he did on Friday night, not because he was presuming to act under an old authorization, but because he had the inherent power to do that under Article II of the Constitution. If he is acting under that authority, he doesn't need extra authorization from us.

This bill, however, that we are talking about today is something we can all agree on, is something that is important for protecting young children and, yes, for protecting people who have just become immigrant citizens of this country. So I applaud the fact that we have come forward with this legislation. It shows that we are working together. I look forward to the debate on the floor of this House.

Mr. Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 830 and the underlying bill.

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

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, it is kind of good to see a Floridian in the pro tempore chair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate this rule. Last night at the Rules Committee, we had the opportunity to hear from Chairman Kevin Brady of the Committee on Ways and Means, the chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee, Lynn Jenkins, and the ranking member of the Oversight Subcommittee, John Lewis, about this legislation.

They discussed--hey, America, listen to this--the bipartisan nature in which they worked on this issue to craft legislation that they hope can achieve strong bipartisan support in this body.

It came out of committee 38-0.

H.R. 5192 protects young children and recent immigrants from synthetic identity theft, a type of fraud that involves combining a legitimate Social Security number with a fake name in order to create a new synthetic identity. One in every 10 children have fallen victim to this type of threat. Research has shown that children's identities are stolen at a rate of 50 times more frequently than adults, resulting in children and families shouldering unforeseeable debt and a flawed credit history that is extremely difficult to clear.

Mr. Speaker, in a refreshing change of pace, this measure, as I indicated, had a 38-0 vote coming out of the markup in committee and included input from Democrats, the IRS, and consumer protection advocates.

Unsurprisingly, as I have indicated, it came out of committee overwhelmingly with all 16 Democrats voting in favor. The bipartisanship reflected in this bill is certainly a rarity in this body and, frankly, could have easily come before us under suspension of the rules.

It is now painfully obvious what the Republican majority's playbook is. My friends across the aisle can work in a bipartisan manner if they want to, but when it comes to major issues facing our country, like taking away healthcare from 23 million Americans or handing a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to America's wealthiest citizens, they would rather force through partisan legislation written in back rooms with little to no expert analysis, similar to the farm bill that is about to come out here sometime in the not-to-distant future.

While it is certainly refreshing that we are working in a bipartisan manner for a change, protecting children and families from identity theft is not the only bipartisan priority. These reforms are just as pressing as protecting our children from gun violence, providing relief for hard-working, young Dreamers, and debating the use of military force overseas--or how about an infrastructure bill of consequence and real immigration reform.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans say Congress must do more to reduce gun violence. More than a million Americans took to the streets across the country to march for our lives and to urge Congress to take action to reduce gun violence. I had the honor of sitting on the stage on that day, and I was never as proud as I was of the children from Broward County, where I am privileged to serve, or from around this Nation, and their friends and allies, parents, loved ones, and constituents who came from all over the country here, as well as to events in a significant number of locations around the country.

207 members of Congress, including 14 Republicans, are sponsoring H.R. 4240, the Democratic Representative Mike Thompson's bill that would give States the resources to help them submit information to the background check system. One hundred Members of Congress, including seven Republicans, are cosponsoring the Gun Violence Restraining Order Act, which will allow family members or law enforcement officials to petition a judge to temporarily remove firearms from an individual in crisis. We had that example in Florida after it passed its law. Immediately, a family came to the sheriff's office to have weapons taken from a person in crisis.

Has the Speaker brought these bipartisan measures to the floor for a vote? No. The Republican majority has refused to take up even the most basic commonsense legislation to help mitigate the epidemic of gun violence facing this country. My friends across the aisle have even refused to address the use of bump stocks, a reform whose need is agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans, including the President. Fortunately, in the State of Florida, it did pass in the last session of the legislature.

Mr. Speaker, just last year, 34 House Republicans signed a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan urging him to bring forward a permanent legislative solution for the Dreamers, these young, hardworking individuals who are stuck in legal limbo. But despite this bipartisan support, not to mention the support of 90 percent of the American public, the Republican majority continues to block the Dream Act, ignoring the calls of the vast majority of Americans.

It is time for the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress to stop playing politics with the lives of Dreamers and come to terms with the fact that their long anti-immigrant wish list is not going anywhere fast.

Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives is a place where the issues facing our Nation should be addressed and solved in a bipartisan manner, similar to this legislation. It is a sad state of affairs for the Nation that Congress has continued to sit idly by while the executive branch further engages our military in conflicts overseas without congressional authorization.

Republican leadership's refusal to allow a robust debate on the efficacy of an authorization of the use of military force for our presence in Syria is not only a dereliction of duty but does a great disservice to the country and our Constitution. If the President, any President, intends to further involve American troops in the Syrian conflict, or any conflict, then Congress has not only the responsibility but also the constitutional authority to lead that conversation.

Despite across-the-aisle support for these pressing problems, we are not here today debating the rule to address gun violence in America. We are not here today debating the rule to protect Dreamers from being removed from our

workforce or being deported to countries of which they have no knowledge. We are not here today debating the rule for the use of military force in Syria. We are not here today discussing immigration reform. We are not here today discussing an infrastructure measure that is desperately needed.

When I came to Congress in 1992, there were 14,000 bridges in this country in need of repair. Today there are 54,000 bridges in this country in need of repair. But we are not discussing that here today. Instead, we are using floor time to discuss a bill that could have easily been considered on the suspension calendar, and I predict that, had it been on the suspension calendar, 435 Members, or as many as assembled, would have voted unanimously in favor of the measure today as they would if it were on the floor at this particular moment.

Are my friends across the aisle intent on running out the clock before the midterm elections? Is that what the American people have to look forward to over the next 7 months? The people who sent us here deserve bipartisan solutions to the pressing problems confronting this great Nation. Not next month. Not next week. Not tomorrow. But today.

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

Mr. Speaker, through you, I would advise my friend that I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to my friend from Alabama, and he indicated that the action that was just undertaken over the weekend by this administration was ``something,'' and I maintain that it was under an old Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Listen, one of the reasons Congress won't undertake to debate an authorization for the use of military force, which I would urge my friend would give us a strategy if we had that debate and at least the administration would have Congress' input with reference to the use of military force--we can't continue to have pin pricks at the whim of any President. I argued the same thing during the Obama administration, and I argued it during the Clinton administration.

What we have done is abdicate our responsibility in Congress when it comes to war. And if you think it isn't war, then ask the 500,000 people who are dead as a result of this measure undertaken in Syria, not just by the United States but with a variety of forces fighting inside. If you think it isn't war when a bomb destroys a building, or 76 missiles destroy buildings, then I have news for you about what war looks like. And we had no input.

My understanding is the administration met with the leadership of the Republican Party. I don't recall hearing a single Democrat was invited to have any discussion at all about this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud this bipartisan legislation, as I have said, that would limit synthetic identity fraud and help protect millions of identities, including those of young children and recent immigrants, from being stolen. In a refreshing change of pace, this measure received input from Democrats, the IRS, and consumer protection advocates.

My friend from Alabama said that there are measures that are coming

forward, and I applaud him that those measures are coming forward. But I didn't hear him say that there were going to be measures having to do with Dreamers. I didn't hear him say there was anything that would be significantly involved in gun violence other than his words with reference to bump stocks and some reference back to some other date in time. I am talking about right now, not only bump stocks but the necessary indicia for buying a weapon and the age for buying a weapon and a variety of measures.

Twenty-six measures exist right here in the House of Representatives on which we could be voting--any one of them--that are commonsense gun reform. And we refuse to do so because the Speaker won't put them on the floor.

I hope that we can continue working together across the aisle to confront the pressing issues facing this great Nation. When the farm bill comes here, I hope Democrats have some input. They haven't had any at this point. And we can help people whom we have been elected to serve.

However, it is time that we address gun violence in America; it is time that we protect Dreamers; it is time we exert our constitutional authority and debate a new Authorization for Use of Military Force; and it is time for us to repair these broken-down bridges and raggedy roads in the United States of America.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 830, I call up the bill (H.R. 5192) to authorize the Commissioner of Social Security to provide confirmation of fraud protection data to certain permitted entities, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5192, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act, and I am grateful that it is being brought before the House today.

This bill aims to combat synthetic identity fraud by directing the Social Security Administration to accept electronic signatures when financial institutions want to verify their customers' information.

Synthetic identity fraud accounts for 80 percent of all credit card fraud losses today. It has been reported that a record $355 million in outstanding credit card balances was owed by people who it suspects didn't exist in 2017, up more than eightfold from 2012.

The Government Accountability Office describes this type of fraud as involving the creation of a fictitious identity using a combination of real data, like a Social Security number or date of birth, from multiple individuals, along with fabricated information.

H.R. 5192 is an important step in reducing fraud, while also ensuring that the Social Security Administration is able to continue providing important services and benefits.

The SSA Commissioner is not allowed to begin development of the new verification system until the Commissioner determines that at least 50 percent of the program's startup costs have been covered by users. After initial development, users of the verification system are obligated to pay for the ongoing costs associated with this new workload by way of advances, reimbursements, user fees, or other recoveries, as determined by the Commissioner.

My south Florida district is far too familiar with fraudulent activity affecting the community, and sadly, children and immigrants are particularly vulnerable to these schemes. Over 1 million children have their identity stolen annually, and they are 50 times more likely than adults to be victims of identity theft.

I am proud to partner with Representatives Sinema, Hultgren, and Marchant on this important effort. I would also like to thank Chairman Brady and subcommittee Chairman Johnson for their leadership and hard work, as well as the staff of the Social Security Subcommittee and the rest of the House Committee on Ways and Means staff who have worked on this legislation.

I encourage all my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act, to help modernize identity protections for our children.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), the distinguished chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank my colleague, Ms. Sinema. It is a pleasure to work with her and to team up, in a bipartisan manner, to fight fraud and to help the most vulnerable, in this case, the children. I am very grateful to her, for all her work on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hultgren).

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague, Mr. Davis, and I agree with him. This is certainly something to celebrate. The American people oftentimes see us arguing. It is less often that they see us collaborating, working together to advance policies that will improve quality of life in our country.

That is why I want to again urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act. We need to do everything we can to safeguard our communities from these fraud schemes. This problem has worsened significantly over the past few years and is leaving families with debt they did not accrue and a weaker credit history.

H.R. 5192 will help root out synthetic identity fraud through modernized verification of customer information, and I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to help protect individuals across the country from this illegal activity.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, my appreciation to Chairman Brady, to Ranking Member Neal, to Mr. Davis, to Mr. Hultgren, to Ms. Sinema, and to everyone who has been a part of making this happen, so that, after we pass this legislation, children in our country won't have to worry about having their identities stolen at such a young age.

This kind of fraud can really ruin people's lives, and today, we are working together, as one united House, Republicans and Democrats, to fight fraud and to protect children, some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote, 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 am pleased to rise in support of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act, which was introduced by Representatives Carlos Curbelo of Florida and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Our Nation is facing a growing epidemic of so-called synthetic identity theft. This is a sophisticated form of fraud where the fraudster manufactures a fake identity using a legitimate Social Security number but combining it with a made-up name. Numbers that belong to children are especially valuable for these fraudsters. This is because children typically do not yet have a credit record. If they did, the credit record would reveal that the name and number do not match, making the number useless to the synthetic identity fraudster.

Under this bill, banks and other certified users could verify the customer's name, Social Security number, and date of birth with Social Security's

own records. This would allow the bank to detect attempted synthetic identity theft. As under current law, banks would be required to get the consent of their customer in order to have the SSA verify information.

Social Security would not provide any identity information back to the bank other than, yes, this is a match or, no, this does not match. This matching could occur more quickly than it does under current law, to reflect the way commerce is conducted today.

I am pleased that we were able to work in a bipartisan way to develop this legislation and to strengthen it as it moved through the committee process. We did so in several ways.

First, we made sure that users of the system paid the full cost of developing it and conducting the verifications. We did not want to detract from the main mission of Social Security, which is to make sure Americans receive their earned Social Security benefits on time and in full.

Second, we strengthened the security of the system to make it not subject to misuse. Americans' personal information must be kept secure, and Social Security must only conduct the matching when the individual has given consent.

I am pleased to say that Social Security's track record on this is strong, and I expect they will carry on with their protectiveness of Americans' private data as they design a new system. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation to protect children and fight identity theft.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), the lead Democratic cosponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I have no further requests for time, so I am going to move ahead and close.

Mr. Speaker, I think we have seen much agreement on the floor today, pleasantly so. I really don't know when I have seen as much agreement on a group of bills and legislation as I have seen on this day. And I guess it really means that all of us agree that we need to do everything that we can to protect ourselves from identity theft, that we need to look after the interest of children and protect them.

I want to thank all of the staff from both sides of the aisle, even those who worked for subcommittees, as well as for the primary staff, for the tremendous amount of work that they have done.

Again, it is a pleasure working with Mr. Curbelo, and I guess if we don't agree on everything, we do agree that all of us have a responsibility to file and pay income taxes in order to keep our government moving.

It has been a pleasant day, not just for us, but I think all of our constituents, who have watched the proceedings, probably are saying to themselves that they would love to see more days like this, and I would, too. So I urge passage of this bill and the others that we have had before us.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act.

Mr. Speaker, most of us assume our children are safe from identity theft. Most children don't have credit cards, and many don't have bank accounts, so why would they be targeted? Unfortunately, there is a new type of crime on the rise known as synthetic identity theft. This crime targets children and accounts for billions of dollars in credit card fraud.

Synthetic identity theft is happening right now, and it is hurting real people. In Arizona, a 17-year-old girl discovered she had accumulated over $275,000 in debt because her Social Security number was linked to eight scammers and 42 accounts, including mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards.

To pull off this fraud, criminals obtain a Social Security number with no prior credit history, and they use it to apply for a credit card under a fake name. While the first fraudulent credit card application is usually denied, the failed attempt creates a ``synthetic identity'' with credit bureaus. This allows thieves to apply for credit cards, other lines of credit, cell phones, and other activities that require a credit check. Over time, thieves are able to rack up mountains of debt and ruin kids' credit before they have a chance to build their futures.

Every day, Arizona families shouldn't have to worry about their kids being targets of financial fraud and identity theft. Because financial criminals constantly use new tricks to steal children's identities, we must modernize and strengthen ID verification for everyday financial activities.

Our bill, the Protecting Children from Identity Theft Act, fights back and gives Arizonans peace of mind. By directing the Social Security Administration to modernize its ID verification system to allow for more transactions to be screened and verified, we are taking a commonsense step to ensure people are who they say they are. Our commonsense bill closes a key security gap, helping to stop synthetic identity theft in its tracks.

Thank you to Chairman Brady and special thanks to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Curbelo), my friend, for working together to protect our children and crack down on fraudsters. Arizonans value their privacy, and they want us to work together to protect it. I am happy to work across the aisle to bring financial criminals to justice and help hardworking Arizona families get ahead.