Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I rise to meet the formal requirement that someone rise who is in opposition, although that is not, as you know, highly enforceable.

Mr. Chairman, I think the amendment is a good one. Any doubts I had were assuaged since I listened to the gentlewoman.

But I do want to point out a difficulty that Members of this House should contemplate. We run the risk here that this may violate our obligations under the World Trade Organization. As someone who voted against joining, and I say that without any embarrassment, I would say to Members who will be joining, I believe, virtually every Member of this House in supporting the gentlewoman's amendment that perhaps it should lead them to rethink to having so enthusiastically subscribed to the WTO agreement without some changes. It certainly seems to us that while we do know the government is directly involved, spending its own money, you can have a requirement for domesticity. It is unclear what the interpretation will be here. The interpretation be not be purely an American one. It will be in the dispute resolution procedures of the

Mr. Chairman, I note that the author of this amendment is not now on the floor. Could we get unanimous consent to pass over without his forfeiting his chance so he could do it when he comes?

Parliamentary inquiry.

Is there any way under the rules to preserve the right of the gentleman from Minnesota who offered this?

Well, then I offer it as his designee.

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment on behalf of our colleague from Minnesota (Mr. Walz) who has been diligent in trying to see that money allocated under the TARP Program is fully accounted for, and, obviously, many of us feel that has not happened with the first half of the money.

Let me make a point that may have escaped some Members. We are not used to this, and so it may be hard for Members to assimilate, but last week the Senate acted decisively. The Senate voted under the bill that we passed last fall and defeated the resolution of disapproval.

The procedures adopted that called for the resolution of disapproval to assure Members that there would be no tricks in both Houses ruled out any motion to reconsider. So the Senate defeat of the resolution of disapproval last week is final and it is dispositive.

We, under a statute that could have been drafted better, will still vote on that resolution, but the outcome of the vote in the House is irrelevant, because the Senate has legally acted to trigger the second $350 billion.

So it's a fact that the $350 billion, the second $350 billion, will be at the disposal of the Obama administration. It isn't even yet there because the Bush administration, at the request of the Obama administration, requested the funds last Monday. I believe they probably won't ripen until a week from yesterday. It's a 15-day period. But as of next week sometime, the Obama administration now has the legal right to deploy the $350 billion.

What our colleague from Minnesota (Mr. Walz) has thoughtfully put forward as an amendment will require the Treasury to make available on the Internet all of the reports that are required under the bill. The bill requires reports, but they will now be made immediately available on the Internet.

There is a great deal of understandable public dissatisfaction at the failure of this information to be made available. And the gentleman from Minnesota, by insisting that we use the most appropriate contemporary technology, has helped with that problem.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, as the designee, I now yield the remaining 2\1/2\ minutes to my designator, the author of the amendment, the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the 5 minutes that goes to someone in opposition.

I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his careful legislating. He is a careful legislator. He is exactly right. This amendment does make sure that the inspection IG's oversight purview is equivalent to that of the TARP.

There have been concerns about the oversight, which we understand. I wanted to divide this in two as we talk about the oversight. The problem has been that they have not required enough of the--the Treasury hasn't required enough. The oversight mechanisms we put in there haven't seem, to me, to have done some good. The special IG was created. He was held up until the Senate acted. He recently issued an example of his plan to go forward.

We have also had very good oversight by the Government Accountability Office. When Members read about the failure of Treasury to require the recipients of the capital infusions to do any re-lending, or at least to tell they were going to do it, that was documented by the Government Accountability Office in a very effective report, which we had a hearing on. And then the panel of appointees by the congressional leadership, which includes the gentleman from Texas, the former Senator from New Hampshire, and three other very energetic citizens, they have also put out good reports.

So we have gotten some good oversight that tells us what they did wrong. But oversight, of course, only highlights that. It doesn't correct it. This legislation is in fact informed to some extent by that oversight, and hopes to build on it. The gentleman from Arizona's amendment will make sure that the oversight continues to be equal to the test.

I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time do I have remaining?

I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

Let me inquire of the gentleman from Arizona, is he his remaining speaker?

Do I have the right to close as a member of the committee?

I yield myself 2 minutes just to say, as has been pointed out, we have been given indications that the Senate does not plan to act on this. Of course, I can recall a number of times when people on both sides have said we are going to go ahead whether they do or don't.

I will say this. Much of what we put in this bill can be done even if it doesn't pass. And I regard this as a very important vote that we will have later to strengthen our hand in making sure that Treasury does what we think is necessary, even if it doesn't become law. Almost everything in the bill could be done even without statutory change. This may be one of the few things that requires statutory change.

So I would say this to the gentleman from Arizona. If I am correct and this is one of the few pieces that would require statutory change to expand the special IG's authority, we will work together to get a suspension bill through that will do that, that is abstracting from some of the rest of it. Because, again, it's now a given that the second $350 billion will be spent. So I just wanted to give the gentleman that assurance, that while almost everything else in this bill can be done, and we are really insisting they should use authority that they have, to the extent this requires statutory change, I believe we can do a very quick, noncontroversial suspension.

I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time do I have remaining?

First, on the auto issue, let me say I agree that it would have been a mistake to have taken the original TARP vote and then said, Okay, use that to go to the aid of the three American automobile manufacturers. And this is why Speaker Pelosi correctly insisted that we vote on it. Now it turned out because the Senate didn't act, that it didn't become law. But what this House voted on had a major influence on what the Bush administration did.

I was not prepared to support the use of TARP funds if it did not receive the vote of this House for the autos. So with regard to autos, the House has already, by a fairly large vote, decided to do that. That is the model I have in mind for this bill. There's probably some ambiguity as to whether or not the gentleman's amendment would require statutory change. I am in favor of resolving the ambiguity. I'd rather

be redundant than ambiguous, as people might know from listening to my speeches.

So I will work with him to get that bill passed. But on the basic point, here we are. It is true the Senate at this point says they are not going to pass it. It is true we are doing things here that we wish the Bush administration had done, but didn't do them. I believe that the Bush administration and the Obama administration are correct that it's in the interest of the economy for the second $350 billion, and they are very strongly agreed on that, both administrations, if it can be done well, it would be to the advantage of the economy in helping with the economic problems. But we are insisting that they do some things they didn't do at first.

Even if it does not become law, as Members know, I will be talking with the Secretary of the Treasury, I will be talking, as will other Members, with the administration. When we tell them to do something about foreclosures, when we say to look at the problems of municipalities, if we have the force of a large majority of the House of Representatives behind us, it will make us even more persuasive.

None of us, I think, have enough confidence in our mellifluous tones to think that on our own we can do things that we couldn't do when we are speaking for a majority of the House of Representatives.

So passing this bill with these specifics will be adding greatly to our ability to get the administration to do these things. I should say it's already clear that under the Obama administration, unlike the Bush administration, there will be significant funds for foreclosure relief.

I understand the dilemma some of my conservative friends have, because two leading journals of conservative opinion, the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, have said, Don't do anything about foreclosures. Well, this bill will ensure that they do, to their disappointment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate what the gentleman is saying. He knows we are going to have a hearing in our committee on the Federal Reserve; but because of what the Senate did, whether or not they spend the $350 billion is no longer an open question. They are going to spend it. The Senate guaranteed that.

I have to differ with my friend from Texas when he says it sends a signal that they shouldn't have $350 billion without a plan. They know they have the $350 billion. This is an effort to strengthen our hand when we impose some constraints on them.

But the signal it sends is we care about these substantive issues: Foreclosure, requiring a disclosure, et cetera. It does not send a signal that they have $350 billion, because they have it. They don't need a signal. $350 billion is better than a signal; it is now legally theirs to spend without any constraint, except what we are able to impose on them through our efforts. I understand the gentleman disagrees with some of the specifics. Those were entirely reasonable points to make. But the notion that we shouldn't send them a signal to spend the money misses the point that they are about to spend the money next week whatever we do, and all we can do at this point, given what the Senate has done, is to try to impose some of the concerns we have on them.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Madam Speaker, I reserve a point of order against the recommittal motion.

Madam Speaker, I have a point of order.

Madam Speaker, having read the motion, I insist on my point of order.

It is not germane calling on spending under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means and other matters entirely outside the jurisdiction of the Financial Services Committee and mandating spending not covered by this bill.

Madam Speaker, the argument is that because the bill directs the Secretary of the Treasury to do certain things that are within the jurisdiction of the Financial Services Committee, it is therefore allowed if you want to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to do anything. Now, it might, I suppose, be that the Secretary of Treasury could declare war on somebody under that theory, except my colleagues there don't believe having any check on the executive power to declare war; so they wouldn't vote that. There is a clear violation here of the rules.

The gentleman from Texas then says, well, if you don't vote to totally disregard the rules of the House, because this isn't even a clear question by getting into Ways and Means jurisdiction, then you must not like what I want. The notion that people who believe that the rules ought to be followed are somehow disagreeing with the substance, of course, makes no sense. And, in fact, if there were a real intent to do this, I would assume a bill to do it would have been introduced and made available to the appropriate committees. No bill's been introduced. No serious effort has been made to do this.

I hope that the point of order is sustained.

Madam Speaker, I move to lay that appeal on the table.

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to the motion to recommit and in defense of George Bush.

I would have thought my Republican colleagues would have waited a little bit more than 28 hours to so thoroughly repudiate George Bush. What this motion says is that George Bush used the authority to deploy $350 billion ``so badly''--direct quotes--``so hastily, so haphazardly, so without a plan, that nothing will fix it.''

Basically, we are told that President Bush drove the car so recklessly that we have to junk it. That because President Bush so misused these tools, we have to deny them to a new President.

Let's be very clear. The TARP has taken on in the minds of some of my colleagues on the other side an odd shape. It has become alive. It's sort of a horror movie in their minds. The TARP is this thing that has its own will.

No, the TARP is not something with its own will. It's a set of policies. George Bush's administration used them badly. Not, I think, as badly as my Republican colleagues say. That is why I think I am defending them. He didn't permanently destroy this.

There are a number of things that the past President did that I don't like. I was not a great fan of the Bush foreign policy. But I don't think we should repeal the State Department. I think Obama should have a chance to have a good foreign policy. So that is the first part of this. The criticisms made of the Bush administration, wholly irrelevant to what the Obama administration will do.

As to the timing, the Bush administration acceded to the wish of the Obama administration to release the funds. Apparently, the Bush administration agreed with the Obama administration that delay would be a serious problem. Had the Bush administration not waited, we might have had more time. The President, to his credit, President Bush, accommodated President Obama, unlike my colleagues who now want to cut him off at the knees early on.

I have another problem, Mr. Chairman. This motion today is a motion to end the program. Guess what we will vote on tomorrow? A motion to end the program. Having wasted the House's time with a blatantly nongermane rule, recommittal, they now come up with a blatantly unnecessary one because the exact vote we are having today, we will have tomorrow.

And so why do they do this? Why would they ask for the same vote? They have a dilemma.

Let's be very clear. Responsibility, which comes with it sometimes making decisions that can be in the short term difficult, in the minds of some--responsibility sits uneasily on the shoulders of many of my Republican colleagues, particularly the most conservative.

When they had a President they were supposed to support, they had to do things that made them uncomfortable. Not all of them, but their leadership and many of them voted for the TARP. They couldn't wait for George Bush to leave town so they can throw off the shackles of responsible public policy. Now they can simply revel in their negativism. They can vote to kill the program today and tomorrow to show George Bush how much they don't like him.

And what particularly is their problem? Well, one of the things many of us on this side think was the greatest single problem of the Bush administration was not doing foreclosure mitigation. The Obama administration has committed that if they get this second $350 billion, which the Senate vote means they will get, they will do foreclosure mitigation. But here is the problem of this conservative dominated Republican Party: The most recent paper from the Heritage Foundation says, don't do foreclosure mitigation; it is a waste of time and money. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, another source of great guidance for my colleagues over there, says, don't do foreclosure mitigation.

They are torn. They have to put in the recommit that they can find some reason to vote for because they don't want to have to choose between the demand of a large number of Americans for foreclosure mitigation and the arguments of the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal that they shouldn't do this. So what do they do? They advance the disapproval vote from tomorrow to today because they don't want to do this.

By the way, the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation also are critical of other things. The Wall Street Journal says, how dare we try to give money to community banks; how dare we talk about auto industry help or auto dealers, or loans to others in America.

The Bush administration--and I give the gentleman from South Carolina, it was better that we passed it than that we didn't. But the Bush administration made several errors: They didn't put any real controls on how the money that they infused was spent; they did too little on compensation; they didn't do anything about foreclosure.

President Bush agreed with President Obama that there was still a need for the money. We here want to pass a bill that instructs them to use it better. I do not think that your desire to dissociate from George Bush should lead you to cripple the Obama administration.

[From the Heritage Foundation's Web Memo, Jan. 14, 2009]

TARP: Frank's Bill Underscores Weaknesses of This Bailout Program

(By David C. John)

More is not better. Efforts by Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA)

of the House Financial Services Committee to ``improve'' the

Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the TARP

Reform and Accountability Act of 2009 (H.R. 384) would

unfortunately just make the program worse. Among other policy

mistakes, it would explicitly approve the use of TARP to bail

out the auto manufacturers as well as expanding the program

into several other new areas.

Frank hopes that with his legislation, Congress will see

fit to approve TARP'S second $350 billion for use by the

incoming Obama Administration. However, there is no good

reason to approve the request for additional TARP funding

under any foreseeable circumstances, and Frank's bill only

adds more reasons for the additional funding request to be

denied.

H.R. 384 is a compilation of responses to congressional

criticisms of the TARP program, fixes to previous attempts to

address housing foreclosures, attempts to revive housing

sales, and various other miscellaneous provisions. A few of

those provisions are good policy moves, such as making

permanent the temporary increase in FDIC and NCUA deposit

insurance coverage to $250,000. Unfortunately, most of the

other provisions would only make matters worse.

Policy Errors in the Frank Legislation

Increased Interference in Corporate Decisions: H.R. 384

authorizes the government to have an ``observer'' in the

board meetings of financial institutions that have accepted

TARP funds. This is a far step from pledges that any

government investments through TARP funds would be passive,

and it opens the way for additional political takeovers of

financial institutions.

Expansion of TARP into New Areas: Frank's bill not only

retroactively approves the highly questionable use of TARP

into bailing out GM and Chrysler; it also expands the program

into consumer loans, student loans, commercial real estate,

and municipal securities. The language makes it clear that

TARP will be held accountable for ensuring that these types

of loans are made available. This is a further step toward

government micro-management of lending decisions. Even worse,

the Fed has already addressed some of these problems, and

there is no evidence that the situation will be improved by

additional TARP programs.

New Foreclosure Programs: Congress has already passed a

wildly unsuccessful program to help homeowners who are facing

foreclosure, and H.R. 384 attempts to both fix the earlier

program and to set up another one. Last year's Hope for

Homeowners program initially promised to help almost 2

million homeowners, but in operation, it has helped fewer

than 500. The bill both tinkers with the existing program and

promises at least $40 billion for a new one to be managed by

the FDIC. Unfortunately, both proposals still face the same

problems, namely the diverse ownership of mortgages caused by

securitizing them into mortgage-backed securities. The Frank

bill lists several options for this program in the hopes that

the new Treasury secretary can come up with a more effective

approach, but all of them face such severe logistical

obstacles that the provision is more wishful thinking than

anything else.

Use the Fed for Future Crises. The financial market dangers

that led to the TARP program, however, are far from over and

could yet require additional governmental action. U.S. and

international credit markets are still undergoing a wrenching

restructuring and repricing of financial assets as markets

adapt to the ending of excessive and risky borrowing. It is

possible for another short-term crisis to once again cause

financial markets to seize up.

However, the first line of defense against these dangers

should be the Federal Reserve Board under its wide, existing

powers--not TARP. While some of the Fed's actions in recent

months have been disconcerting, it is still the most

appropriate institution to address short-term dislocation in

the financial

system. The Fed is also insulated from the political and

lobbying pressures that have caused TARP to range far and

wide from its original purpose. As the Frank legislation

demonstrates, TARP is seen as almost a slush fund that is

available both to respond to real crises and to address

politically sensitive areas. However, the Fed has the ability

to only focus on real situations that require its

intervention while also avoiding political pressure. Rather

than adding still more money to this increasingly untargeted

TARP, Congress should just rely on the Fed to address any

future emergencies.

Time to End TARP. Regardless of valid criticisms about its

day-to-day management and many specific efforts, TARP did

achieve its short term purpose of heading off a financial

catastrophe. However, as the Frank legislation shows, its

future use will be as an increasingly unfocused and under-

supervised fund to help politically active constituencies. It

is time to lay TARP to rest and to move onto other more

urgent priorities.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 384, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings. We would not want inappropriate headings in our bill, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, Saturday, January 17, is the 250th birthday of Paul Cuffe. He is not well known, but he should be. I was not myself familiar with his important role in our history and as one of those who fought against the terrible racist pattern that mars our early history until it was called to my attention by a constituent, Brock N. Cordeiro of the Town of Dartmouth. Mr. Cordeiro wrote to me and called my attention to Mr. Cuffe's role. As Mr. Cordeiro notes, in 1781 ``Paul Cuffe sought the franchise or relief from taxation without representation'' and he played a major role in the fact that this happened in Massachusetts in 1783. Many years later, in 1864, as the Town of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, celebrated its centennial, people noted that ``it was his determined and manly efforts, and his refusal to pay the taxes assessed upon him, on the grounds that he had no voice or vote with his neighbors, that finally secured from the Legislature of Massachusetts equal rights of suffrage for the colored man with the white man.''

Madam Speaker, I am very proud as an American of the role that America has played as the first vibrant self-governed Nation, but the racism that marked our early years is the source of trouble which we are still fighting to overcome. It is therefore entirely appropriate to recognize as his 250th birthday approaches the pioneering work of Paul Cuffe. It is very difficult to imagine from our safe haven today what moral and physical courage it took for Mr. Cuffe to defy the racist consensus which confronted him, and his example should be widely hailed.

I am grateful to Brock Cordeiro for calling this to my attention. Mr. Cordeiro noted in his letter to me that he came to this through his academic studies, and because of his own history in the need to confront our racist past and to mark the progress we have made in overcoming it, he wrote a master's thesis on Mr. Cuffe.

Madam Speaker, as you know, and as I advised Mr. Cordeiro, we do not issue proclamations on people's birthdays, but given the great historical example that Paul Cuffe has given, I am very proud to insert this tribute to him on his 250th birthday into this Record.

I thank my colleague. And we've had several hearings on this subject.

Again, the timetable here has been forced by the bill we adopted last fall with the support of the Republican leadership and the President as well as the Democratic leadership. And as a concession to Members, we put in there that once the President asked for the second $350 billion it would trigger a 15-day period in which we had to act. And we believe it's important for the House to make clear what it wants to do here during that period. But we've been having hearings on this since the fall.

We put into the bill last fall some good oversight. The Government Accountability Office put out a report last year very critical of the failure to demand that the financial institutions that received funds make clear what they were doing with them, and particularly to show to what extent they were re-lending. That was because we put into the bill that the GAO would be there from the first day in their offices. We had a hearing with Mr. Kashkari, the Bush appointee to run the program, and the GAO to deal with it. We had a further hearing on this subject in the fall. We then had the long hearing that the gentleman from Massachusetts talked about earlier this week to go into this in great detail on Monday.

We have invited all Members as of Friday to submit amendments. A number of Members did so. In fact, I thank the Rules Committee; they have put 10 amendments in order--one was a duplicate, so 10 are in order, five from Republicans, five from Democrats. Of the Republican amendments, I intend to vote for two; I intend to vote against three. There were also amendments that we received from some Republicans that we agreed to put in the manager's amendment.

The question is simply this, and it's two-fold: First, on the broader question that's not before us today, do we deny to President Obama a set of tools that this Congress voted for last fall because a great majority of Members on both sides think that the Bush administration used them poorly? If someone drives a car badly, do you sequester the car and deny it to someone else who wants to drive it?

The TARP is not some living organism with a mind of its own. It is a set of policy tools. A newly elected President has asked that he be allowed to implement those tools. We say yes, but--and we are asking for some serious commitments about how it's done. So that's the first point.

The second point is that this money, whether or not it is spent, will be in a separate vote. And the ranking Republican said yesterday, well, let's wait for them to tell us how they plan to spend it. No, I don't think we should do that. I think we should tell them how we want them to spend it and see if they agree. And we have been having conversations, and they do agree.

We are talking about subjects that have been very familiar to Members. We are here trying to remedy defects in the Bush administration's execution of this program--nothing for foreclosures, not enough for community banks, no restrictions on what the banks that receive the money use, tougher restrictions on compensation--though I know not everybody agrees with that. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board--which I know represents the viewpoint of many on the Republican side--was very critical today because we are asking that money be used to reduce foreclosures; they say that's a waste of money. They were scoffing, the Wall Street Journal--and again, I think that editorial reflects some of the opposition we have here--they scoffed at the notion that we want community banks to get some of the money. And they said, how can you possibly want the money to go to nonfinancial institutions? I guess the Wall Street Journal wants to be the ``Wall- Street-Only Journal,'' and any effort to deal with small businesses or automobiles, that's somehow a profanation of the temple as far as they're concerned.

We have had serious discussions with the Obama administration. I believe it is important that we do two things: First of all, give the new President the right to spend the money; and, two, give him restrictions on how he spends it.

Would the gentleman yield?

I think there is a lot to be said, but it is, of course, entirely outside the jurisdiction of the Financial Services Committee.

I thank the gentleman. And I agree with that. And housing has been at the center. I would note--and it's not directly relevant, and may, in fact, support this other proposal--but I would note that the homebuilders and the realtors strongly support the bill we are talking about today because they think it helps in other ways. It does not preempt what the gentleman from California is talking about, but those people who are most concerned with the housing industry support the bill and think it will be helpful.

Would the gentleman yield?

I just want to congratulate him and his fellow Kansans and others who brought this to our attention.

And let's make one thing clear; we recently read--I did--in the New York Times about smaller communities that have lost commercial air service. To tell a business which is located in a community that has lost commercial air service that it can never charter or buy a plane is really to invite them to leave those communities. So it is not simply the airline industry that's involved here, but it is economic fairness for small communities where businesses located there would have no other option if they aren't allowed to go to private aircraft.

Will the gentleman yield?

He says that Ronald Reagan didn't like the spending of the Congress during his administration. Of course, for 6 of those 8 years he had a Republican Senate, but the point is, if he didn't like it, he exercised great self-restraint because he never vetoed one of those spending bills that he apparently didn't like.

I rise to offer that amendment, Mr. Chairman.

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

Mr. Chairman, when we determined that because the President was going to be triggering this request we should act on this bill, we sent out a notice to all Members inviting amendments. We received a large number of amendments and we agreed that many of them made a great deal of sense. Some of them we think clarify what was already the intention of the bill. This amendment includes a variety of those. There will be Members here on the floor who want to talk about it.

For example, you heard the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) talk about the removal of the provision that would have restricted the use of private aircraft. That is one of the things that is in here. There are other things that are important to various Members who will be addressing them. They aim at enforcing better the accountability and essentially increasing some of the restrictions on the recipient institutions. I will be discussing these and other matters with some other Members.

At this point, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I first yield myself 30 seconds to correct the gentleman from New Jersey.

The gentleman from New Jersey said that President Obama was requesting these funds. In fact, President Bush requested the funds. He did it after President-elect Obama asked him to, but I think it ought to be clear on the record, this is a continuation of the Bush policy and it was President Bush who in fact requested the funds. President Obama could not request them until next week. The President did it at the request of the President-elect, but it was President Bush who did it.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

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

If the gentleman will yield, as he knows, because he was a strong supporter, the Committee on Financial Services, once we became the majority, in fact put through this House a bill that was even tougher in some ways than what the Federal Reserve did, and I think was the spur to the Federal Reserve acting. Unfortunately, it wasn't acted on in the Senate, but I thought it was good that we passed it. I know there are Members who say if we can't know the Senate is going to pass something, we shouldn't even try. We have rejected that. We did pass that bill.

The gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) has been a leader here. She will be bringing that bill up again, and we want to apply those principles not just to TARP recipients, but to all credit card companies. We expect to do it quickly. The gentleman is absolutely right. We should not wait until 2010. I hope that we will have this bill on the floor by March, and we will be able, and the gentleman's input has been very helpful to us, to pass this bill that will become law very soon.

The gentleman has transformed my correcting his error into distancing myself from President Obama. I said when I got up that it was done by President Bush at the request of President Obama.

I will yield myself 1 minute.

The gentleman from New Jersey has built that castle in the air because I corrected his flat error. He said President-elect Obama asked for it. He did not. I said that President Bush asked for it at the request of President-elect Obama. How my correcting his error became distancing myself from the new President is beyond me.

In fact, President Bush's administration did want the second $350 billion. The gentleman is wrong in saying they didn't. Secretary Paulson was deterred from doing that, however, because we told him that we were sufficiently disappointed in the way it had been administered and that if he asked for it we would probably reject it, and that only if he came to some agreement with the new President and the Congress could that go forward. So those are the facts.

Yes, the outgoing administration wanted it. They withheld because they were told they wouldn't get it unless they had cooperation, and then the two administrations jointly did that. There is no distancing when I make that point.

In fact, the central point here about the TARP is this: We believe quite to the opposite that we are distancing ourselves from Mr. Obama. We believe that because Bush used this badly is no reason to give Obama not a chance to use it well.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore).

Mr. Chairman, I first yield myself 1 minute to say that I appreciate the intellectual honesty of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling). He opposes one of the major thrusts of this bill and one of the major criticisms many of us had of the Bush administration, namely, the foreclosure relief. And the gentleman opposed these efforts.

I must say that I am encouraged by the Bush appointee, Secretary of HUD, Mr. Preston, the Bush appointee as head of the FDIC, Ms. Bair, both of whom believe that we can do foreclosure protection with the tools in this bill, and that it can be done effectively. But I appreciate this is a genuine difference between us and I appreciate the gentleman articulating it.

In 2007, this House passed a bill to restrict subprime lending of an inappropriate sort aimed at both borrowers and lenders. It would have made it impossible for people to borrow inappropriately, as well as to lend. The gentleman, I believe, opposed that. Many others, the gentleman from New Jersey did. There were some important philosophical differences.

The Wall Street Journal, which today denounces us for trying to do foreclosure relief, denounced us at the time. They said when we passed the bill to restrict subprime lending, it was an undue interference in the market, and we're going to keep people from owning homes.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

So just to be clear, whether or not there should be Federal programs as advocated by FDIC Chair Bair, Secretary of HUD Preston and many others, whether or not there should be Federal programs to reduce foreclosure, is a very defining difference between most of us on this side and most on the other side; although there

are many on the Republican side who do agree with us that we should try to abate foreclosures, not just as a matter of compassion, but as central to solving our economic problem.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson- Lee).

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

If the gentlewoman would yield.

She's absolutely right. I appreciate her calling this to our attention. We have amended the bill to take into account these private banks, many of which serve lower-income communities and are themselves people of experience in this area.

As I said yesterday when the question came up about mutuals, the form of ownership should not be determinative here. Whether or not they are performing a valid function in the economy and whether or not they can use these funds responsibly is all that should cover. So we did amend the bill at the gentlewoman's request in that manner.

I yield the gentlewoman 30 seconds.

If the gentlewoman would yield.

Yes. In fact, it will make the administration better if those administering it have knowledge of and represent the whole range of people to whom this is aimed. And I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Chairman, first I'll yield myself 30 seconds to answer the question. What do we tell the person making mortgage payments why we are trying to help reduce foreclosures? And the major reason is that it is the improvident granting of these loans and the failure of many of these loans to pay off that is the single biggest cause of the financial crisis we're in. And a wide range of economists agree that until we reduce the rate of foreclosures which are embedded in so many securities that were, without regulation, scattered around the economic landscape, we will not be able to undo the economic problem we're in. So foreclosure diminution is part of our economic recovery plan.

It also, of course, hurts property values in general.

I now yield 1 minute to a very active member of our committee, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Would the gentleman yield to me the remaining few seconds?

I just want to say the gentleman said his amendment was noncontroversial, but noncontroversial doesn't mean unimportant. It is a very thoughtful amendment. It will greatly advance things, and I appreciate his offering it.

I yield 2 minutes to one of the Members who has been most active in trying to deal

with this foreclosure problem that other Members think we should ignore. He is the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

I yield 2 minutes to one of the most active advocates of trying to have effective foreclosure relief. She is the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) who has been a fierce advocate here, particularly of the rights of tenants, which are often overlooked in this process.

The gentleman should proceed because I will be closing for us, and I am the last speaker.

Mr. Chairman, it becomes clear that for many in the minority this is an opportunity to punish Barack Obama for the mistakes made by George Bush. The gentleman says we should have a plan. In fact, what they are objecting to is the plan.

Here is where we differ: They have said, the gentleman who just spoke, the ranking member of the full committee, ``Let's ask the President to tell us what he plans to do.'' We want to do it the opposite way. We want to pass this bill to tell the President what we think should be done.

Now, it doesn't get specific as to institutions. It shouldn't. We don't pick institutions here. We empower them and direct them, in some cases, to deal with the whole economy and with classes of institutions. There is no selection here by Congress of this or that company or even line of business.

Secondly, the gentleman closed by saying why should the majority respond to the foreclosure issue. And the answer is that the foreclosure issue hurts everybody in this country. It reduces property values too radically. It reduces the capacity of institutions that have these assets that are held. It hurts pension funds. It hurts a whole range of people. It hurts people's 401(k)s. The whole society has suffered from this improvidence.

And I would note again, in 2007, the majority in the House, when we became the majority, voted to ban these loans from being made whether the fault was on the part of the borrower or the lender. The gentleman from New Jersey and others condemned that, said we were interfering unduly with the market. He said the market would take care of it. Well, the market hasn't taken care of it. The market has plummeted.

This bill does what Members say they want, and I guess they won't take ``yes'' for an answer. It says this is what the House believes should be in the plan. And no, it does not look like it's going to pass the Senate now, although Members on the other side rarely think that's a reason for us not to act. But if we pass this and the President was to disappoint us--and I don't expect him to; I have a great deal of confidence in him--and not carry this out, the bill will be alive in the Senate and will be available as an instrument to do it.

Beyond that, here's the difference. We passed a law, and George Bush ignored the law, as he often does. There will be a great contrast between a President who ignored the law and a President who agrees with us to abide with what the House asked him to do.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I'll tell you what it's written to say. We believe that it is entirely a sense of Congress but understand the terrible harm that would come if it wasn't. Of course, the gentleman says it's not going to become law, so why he's so concerned about it, I don't know.

But if it did, here is what it would do: This terrible section, here's what it does. It says that the borrower can't destroy the property. We are in danger of being too strong in insisting on protecting the lender. The language to which he objects--which he quite understandably didn't read--says ``the homeowner may not, with respect to any property, destroy, damage, or impair such property, allow it to deteriorate or commit waste.''

So it may be that we have unduly argued that the borrower pending this who's got a foreclosure shouldn't trash the property.

I will plead guilty to perhaps erring on the side of ambiguity in imposing on the borrower an obligation not to trash the property.

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

How much time did the gentleman consume?

Mr. Chairman, I am struck by the implicit endorsement of this amendment that I received from my friend from Texas. He opposed the amendment by talking not about what it does, but what might happen later on in a way very different from it. He did not appear to have much objection to the amendment itself. He is talking about, if we do this, it might lead to something else. Well, at that point object to something else.

The argument that I'm against this because it will lead to something else almost always comes from Members who don't like the provision under debate, feel uncomfortable in explaining why, so they, therefore, debate a straw man. Yes, there were Members who wanted it to be mandatory that we put someone on the board of directors; I thought that was inappropriate. I don't think a Federal official with the political pressures to which he or she will be suffered should be voting as a member of the board of directors. There were others who wanted to require an observer in every case. We came to what I think is a very moderate approach, to give the Secretary of the Treasury the discretionary authority to do it. There may be some cases where it is important, some where you could forgo it.

The fact that the budget deficit went up does not seem to be an argument against giving the Secretary of the Treasury a discretionary observer at institutions that receive any help under the TARP. And the fact that the gentleman would cite the budget deficit and terrorism risk insurance and what happened to them as reasons not to deal with something entirely different because as they change this might change does not meet my logical standards.

Now, I will say, by the way, with terrorism risk insurance, as an advocate of it--along with the former chairman of the committee, Mr. Oxley--I never said that it would be temporary. I believe that there is, in fact, a public responsibility to deal with terrorism, and I didn't feel it was going to go away. But in any case, it's an irrelevancy.

Here's the proposal: To give the Secretary of the Treasury discretionary authority to send an observer with the right to sit in on meetings if he believes that it is justified in the particular set of circumstances. It's not a voting member, and it's not mandatory in all cases. I find it hard to see what harm it would do; so, apparently, does my friend from Texas. Because if he were clear about the harm that would do, he would have documented that. Instead, he talked not about the harm that might come from this amendment, but from harm that might come at a future date when something very different from this amendment was put into effect. By the way, this could not grow in an evolutionary fashion; it would take a vote of the Congress to require this. This would not be something that happens accidentally; it would be something that would take a conscious decision.

What we are saying here is we want more accountability. We are saying that we have some confidence in the Obama administration. And again, we are at the central issue here. Many of us believe that President Bush's administration did not use this authority as well as they should have. By the way, I agree with the administration that we are still better off than they would have been if they had not had the authority at all, but we thought it could have been used even better. The central question we will be addressing next week is; do we deny to the new President tools that the old President had that many think he misused?

This bill is a subordinate, it says this; should we tell the new President that, while we in the House believe he should have the opportunity to deploy these tools, we have very clear ideas about what should be done about it?

And we have done several hearings. This has been a very participatory process. I was pleased with the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) yesterday, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schock) today, both talked about things that are positive in this.

We have opened ourselves up and have accepted a large number of proposals from Members on both sides. There will be an amendment offered later by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) that I intend to vote for and I hope the House will overwhelmingly adopt. So we are trying to move forward.

If Members want to debate what we are doing or not doing, that's reasonable; but let me just close by saying here's where we are: We are proposing that the Secretary of the Treasury in the new administration have a discretionary right to send an observer to recipients of TARP funds where he thinks that would be appropriate. The gentleman from Texas says don't do that because TRIA became permanent, and we have a bigger budget deficit. And I guess hair doesn't grow on certain parts of the body. None of these have anything to do with the issue under consideration. And the absence of arguments against this, what the amendment proposes, gives me a sense of confidence that it's really pretty hard to criticize.

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

Parliamentary inquiry.

Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

I was told that the gentleman's time had expired. I have a right to close. I waived that because I was told that the gentleman had consumed 5 minutes when I asked. I thought that was all there was on the amendment.

Oh. I apologize for my diction because I thought that I had asked how much time he had consumed.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Do I have any time remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I did that, but I did that because I had asked--as I think the transcript would show--how much time he had consumed. We apparently had a miscommunication. So I would ask unanimous consent that any remaining time be allowed.

I will use the 10 seconds to say that the gentleman from Texas said ``may'' may become ``shall.'' ``May'' does not become ``shall'' without our voting.

Would the gentleman yield to me?

I just want to express my disappointment at this lack of comity. I had the explanation. There was an error that was

not the gentleman from New Jersey's fault. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) on the other side asked him a question to which he could not have had the answer because he was not in control of the process. I was willing to give the answer. I don't know why the gentleman from New Jersey would refuse to allow it since he suggested things that were not accurate as to this.

The gentleman has already objected, and that will stand as a precedent that we will all follow in certain cases, but the refusal to allow an explanation really dismays me.

The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) submitted this amendment on Tuesday. We had some questions about the form of it. He and I had conversations yesterday in which we came to an agreement that this part of the amendment would be easily accepted, that other parts would not be. So he modified it, and he modified it yesterday, and the formal modification was what we then came to. So he submitted it in a timely fashion on Tuesday in a bigger version. We agreed yesterday to remove part of it and leave this part of it. The gentleman has in every case acted in a timely fashion. He exceeded the conversations we had. My error and misunderstanding of my instructions led to the wrong amendment being put in order at the Rules Committee rather than this revised version.

Yes. It is to say that the gentleman has a very good idea. I regret that what I believe to be obstruction kept us from incorporating it, but I will be strongly urging the administration to work with us to see that this is made a part of the overall proposal.

Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

The gentlewoman is referring to amendment No. 6. She offered amendment No. 5.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

We had No. 5 first, and the gentleman said No. 5. No. 5 is the auto amendment. The order we were given had No. 5 as the automobile one.

Mr. Chairman, point of order.

Under the rule, amendment No. 5, which was introduced, deals with automobiles, not with the subject of this. The gentlewoman introduced, was asked for amendment 5, rose and introduced, we were told it was No. 5. That deals with automobiles.

If I could make a point of order. Apparently we were given a misprinted copy of the rule. So I apologize. The copy of the rule we got was misprinted, and the order was reversed on the copy we got.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition. I apologize again. The Rules Committee report was misprinted. It listed them in the wrong order, so I apologize to the gentlewoman. That's why we were reacting to a misprint.

I oppose this in part because----

I claim the time in opposition.

The proposal that the gentlewoman singled

out to object to is a recommendation from Mr. Preston, the Bush administration Secretary of HUD.

Members have pointed out that the Hope for Homeowners Program has not worked, and we are disappointed.

It hasn't worked because, I think, we have tightened it up excessively. What we are trying to do here is relax it. Part of the impetus for this came from the secretary of HUD and the commissioner of the FHA, Mr. Montgomery, two Bush appointees.

In an article of December 17 from the Washington Post, which I will submit for the Record, Secretary Preston said that we have made this much too implicated and much too restrictive.

He singled out, as one of the provisions that was objectionable, the provision the gentlewoman from Minnesota just talked about. It's the secretary of HUD who told us to drop that if we wanted to make it workable.

How do you do that, Preston said? That was legislated. The article says it becomes more difficult to get people to refinance.

So we have on the one hand Republicans correctly pointing out that our effort for Hope for Homeowners failed, but we don't want that to be a permanent failure. We want to improve it. Now when we put in the improvements, some of which were recommended by the secretary of HUD, we were told that that's going to be too generous.

So this is kind of like the question that you were asked who do you like better, your mother or your father? There is no right answer.

Should the program be very tough, should it be very relaxed? Whatever we do, people are going to oppose it. That's because, and there is--and I go back to 2007 when we voted on the subprime bill. I go back to the Wall Street Journal editorial at that time and this morning. There are people who do not want us to respond to the foreclosure crisis.

Now, responding it to it will be uneven because it's a messy problem. But people who voted in 2007 against banning irresponsible subprime loans, I am not surprised that they don't want us to be effective right now. And I am not surprised--I am a little surprised that they would single out our effort to act on a recommendation of Secretary Preston to correct this.

[From the Washington Post, Dec. 17, 2008]

HUD Chief Calls Aid on Mortgages a Failure

(By Dina ElBoghdady)

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Steve Preston

said the centerpiece of the federal government's effort to

help struggling homeowners has been a failure and he's

blaming Congress.

The three-year program was supposed to help 400,000

borrowers avoid foreclosure. But it has attracted only 312

applications since its October launch because it is too

expensive and onerous for lenders and borrowers alike,

Preston said in an interview.

``What most people don't understand is that this program

was designed to the detail by Congress,'' Preston said.

``Congress dotted the i's and crossed the t's for us, and

unfortunately it has made this program tough to use.''

The criticism comes as Congress prepares to weigh in with

further plans to help distressed borrowers facing

foreclosures, which are at the root of the financial

meltdown. This week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

demanded that the Treasury Department use some of the money

from the $700 billion emergency rescue package to help at-

risk homeowners.

One of several federal and state foreclosure prevention

initiatives facing difficulties, HUD's Hope for Homeowners

program has been especially hamstrung. For instance, a

program launched by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on

behalf of IndyMac Bank customers has modified more than 3,500

mortgages in two months of operation.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who helped steer the HUD

program through Congress, said some of the federal bailout

money should be used to revamp it. Frank acknowledged the

initiative has its problems, but he blamed them on the Bush

administration.

``That's partly their fault,'' said Frank, chairman of the

House Financial Services Committee. ``The administration was

critical of the program and kept putting pressure on us to

make it cheaper and more restrictive. . . . If it hadn't been

for the Bush administration's opposition, we would have

written it in a better way in the first place.''

The goal of the program, run by the Federal Housing

Administration, was to allow borrowers who owe more than

their homes are worth to refinance into more affordable 30-

year fixed-rate mortgages insured by the government.

But part of the problem is that the program's success

hinges on the lenders' willingness to participate.

Congress originally allowed the FHA to insure new loans for

only 90 percent of a home's value. With home prices plunging,

borrowers who have little or no equity in their homes and

cannot otherwise come up with the remaining 10 percent

qualify only if the lender forgives this balance. Lenders

balked.

Late last month, Congress granted HUD permission to

increase the amount that's insured and the department decided

to guarantee up to 96.5 percent of the value of new loans.

Preston in the interview praised that change. But its impact

remains unclear.

``Getting the lenders to agree . . . has been our biggest

challenge,'' said Peyton Herbert, director of foreclosure

services at HomeFree USA, a housing counseling firm in

Hyattsville. ``They want dollar for dollar what's owed on

that loan or something close to it. That's the fly in the

ointment.''

The list of impediments goes on. Borrowers who participate

in the program must pay hefty fees and high interest rates,

and they must split any increased value with the federal

government when the home is sold.

``You're paying a premium to borrow the money already, and

that ought to be enough,'' said John Taylor, chief executive

of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. ``To me

this falls into the category of, we want your firstborn.''

A further hindrance: The mortgage payment must exceed 31

percent of a borrower's income as of March, which does not

help people who have since fallen into trouble.

Add to that the fact that borrowers must also provide two-

years of financial records and sign a statement that they did

not give false or misleading information on their original

loan application and the bar gets even higher. It becomes

even more difficult to attract borrowers who took out loans

without verifying their income.

``How do you do that?'' Preston said. ``That was

legislated.''

For all those reasons, FHA Commissioner Brian Montgomery

said he got an earful from agitated lenders, housing

counselors and real estate agents at a seminar last month in

Atlanta designed to educate housing professionals about the

Hope for Homeowners program.

``What we thought would be a civil and cordial exchange

with the several hundred people gathered turned into an

almost rock-throwing episode,'' Montgomery said.

He said Capitol Hill lawmakers were hampered by a

philosophical divide within their ranks when they cobbled the

program together and that led to a compromise that made

little sense.

``There were two philosophies on the Hill: Let's throw the

barn door open and help as many people as we can regardless

of the reasons. Or we need to make them pay because they

should have known what they were doing,'' Montgomery said.

``They found some middle philosophical ground, but that

philosophical middle ground made [the program] unworkable.''

Montgomery complained that any minor adjustment to the

program must be passed through an oversight board, which

further slows the FHA's response time.

Frank called Montgomery's assessment of Congress's handling

of the legislation ``dishonest.''

As for oversight, he said the board is made up of Bush

appointees. ``Shame on them if that's the problem.''

Frank acknowledged, however, that concessions had to be

made to make the program palatable to the American public.

This is why borrowers who take part in it must share any

gains from appreciation in home values with the government.

``You're not going to get a program approved that helps

people refinance loans on their homes and then allows them to

turn around the following year and make a profit on that

home,'' Frank said.

Frank provided a letter he wrote to Treasury Secretary

Henry M. Paulson Jr. in late November urging him to use the

bailout money Congress approved for rescuing the financial

markets to reduce the upfront and annual fees, because these

are reducing use of the Hope for Homeowners program.

In another letter to Paulson, Preston, Federal Reserve

Chairman Ben Bernanke and FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair, Frank

made a few more suggestions and praised HUD's decision to

increase the proportion of loans that the FHA can insure to

96.5 percent from 90 percent.

But yesterday, he said the FHA's leadership in these trying

times has been a ``disappointment.''

Montgomery said Frank's ire at his agency is misdirected.

``Barney Frank may have a beef with some of the

Republicans,'' he said, ``but he shouldn't have a beef with

us.''

I would ask how much time is remaining on our side.

How much time on the other side?

Then I would yield my remaining time to the gentlewoman from California, who has been the House leader in fighting foreclosures.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Because I was confused before by the Rules Committee report misprint, what's the amendment that's not going to be offered that was to be offered by whom?

Parliamentary inquiry. Is that the one that would have stricken the aid for the automobile industry?

But amendment No. 6 as printed now, as we understand it, is the one that would strike aid to the automobile industry. So we understand that will not be offered?

I thank the gentleman. It is a very important amendment.

The suggestion by the gentleman from New Jersey that if this had been put forward by a Member in September it would have been rejected has no basis. A number of Members did put forward changes at that point which we accepted. I think the reason this did not come forward is this: This is here because it is tied into the TARP. I should say that this is as much as can be done, and I commend the gentleman for his initiative. We need to do much more with the Federal Reserve.

Last September, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury came to us, congressional leadership, the leadership of the committees, and said the Federal Reserve is going to give $80 billion to AIG. I asked Mr. Bernanke if he had $80 billion. He said, ``I have $800 billion.''

We had not previously focused on a statute from the thirties that gives the Fed of the ability to lend money it has control of to any entity where he thinks it is sufficiently collateralized. That has much moved since September, only since September. We were very shortly out of session. That is why in early February we will have a hearing in which we will ask the Fed to account for all of this.

Now, we are able to do this here because part of the Fed's program is collateralized to some extent or capitalized by the TARP so we have a hook there. The reason this wasn't offered in the fall, my guess is that nobody at that point anticipated that the Fed would be in conjunction with the TARP capitalizing this.

By the way, I also accept the compliment about this process. We have been told that we were doing this too quickly, exactly as we did too quickly last time. But the fact this amendment is before us contradicts that. A large number of amendments have been put forward, because this has been in discussion in the House for some time.

So we could have done it in September. Nobody anticipated at that point, at least we did not, the extent to which the Fed would mushroom in this case. My guess is they didn't either, that they had a more optimistic view of the economy.

At any rate, this does a good job of giving us this information where there is a linkage between the Federal Reserve and TARP money. But that is not enough. The gentleman has done the most that we can do in this bill.

Beginning in February we will start having hearings, and I do believe, yes, we have to examine the enormous grant of power given to the Federal Reserve under this statute from the Depression. It has been very rarely used. It was used I think in one of the financial crises of the nineties.

This is a phenomenon that really grew. So Members will understand, when the Federal Reserve granted $29 billion to the creditors of Bear Stearns, we thought that was a lot of money at the time. It turns out to have been a rounding error in what they are doing. So, yes, it is time for us now that they have mushroomed this, and I don't say this critically, we have to look into it.

Will the gentleman yield?

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 384 and insert extraneous material thereon.

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

Mr. Chairman, the parliamentary situation must be understood. Last year, when we responded to the urgent pleas of the Bush administration to authorize the $700 billion deployment of Federal funds to unstick the credit markets, we resisted their insistence that all the money be made available rapidly, and at least said that they would have the right to spend the first half, but after having spent the first half, would have to notify Congress of any intent to spend the second half, and that we would have 15 days in which to consider, under expedited procedures, resolutions to disapprove that.

As the Bush administration began to administer this program, many of us became very unhappy, in particular, we felt that they had repudiated commitments they had given to us to use a significant part of the fund to diminish foreclosures.

We also thought it was a mistake to provide infusions of capital to banks without any requirements as to what was done with that capital. The infusion of capital was not, in itself, a bad idea, but doing it in a way without conditions was in error.

Because of the dissatisfaction with that and some other aspects, we made it clear, many of us, to the Secretary of the Treasury that any requests to free up the second 350 would be voted down by the Congress, possibly by a sufficient majority to override a veto. The Secretary of the Treasury, therefore, withheld using any of those funds.

We now have a new administration coming in, and many of us believe that the new administration should have the opportunity to spend, lend, deploy the 350. The main argument against it is very simple; because the Bush administration messed this up, we must not allow the Obama administration to do it.

People talk about this program, the TARP, it is called, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and they impute to it a personality. It becomes, in some of the rhetoric, a living organism. We can't trust the TARP. The TARP was bad.

Well, the TARP is not an organism. It has no mind; it has no spirit. It is a set of policy tools. And at the outset, the argument that because the Bush administration used those tools in ways that we disagree with, we should deny them to the Obama administration goes much too far.

If I were to follow the principle that where the Bush administration did things badly, I would deny the Obama administration the chance to do them, we would not have a State Department because I don't like the Bush administration's foreign policy on the whole. But I do not think we should therefore deprive the new President of the chance to do it.

Instead, what we do, and here's where the parliamentary situation comes in. We have a vote coming under the bill that we passed last year on resolutions of disapproval in the Senate and the House, and they cannot be stopped, thanks to the way we wrote this, by the Rules Committee, by a filibuster or by anything else. Prior to that vote, many us believe we, in the House, should make clear what conditions we would want to impose on this if it does go forward.

Now, I believe the Obama administration will do this better than the Bush administration, but I want to go more than simply believing that. I think it is important that we pass this bill that makes clear what we believe should be in it, and hope that it passes the Senate, but even if it does not get taken up there for a while, and we've had long delays, have the administration commit to it.

Now, I'm somewhat bemused by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Trying to follow their path on this whole program has made me dizzy. Last year they were, at various points, ardently for it, then against it, then for it again. They were for it in the end only with a condition that had to be added to it involving insurance, which the Secretary of the Treasury of their administration said he did not think made any sense and he did not plan to include it.

The leadership, I sympathize on the other side. They've got a membership that they have found hard sometimes to work with, and that has led the leadership to go, in my judgment, in the last year, from obstruction to irrelevance to self-delusion. First they said, let's not do anything. Then they absented themselves from negotiations involving the White House and the Treasury, the Senate Republicans and Democrats and ourselves. They just weren't there, and they wouldn't tell us what they thought. Then finally they felt they had to do something, so they said they would support the bill on condition that it include this insurance plan which the Secretary of the Treasury has made very clear to people he intended to ignore. That gave enough of them enough comfort to vote for the bill.

Now, we found that leaders on the other side who supported this when it was for the Bush administration, now want to deny it to the Obama administration because they correctly realized that the Bush administration did not do it well.

I know that quoting the Bible is in vogue in some circles. I'm not the best exegete, but I will say there is an analogy, you were told, I think, not to visit the sins of the father on the son, or maybe you're told that you should. I'll be honest and say I don't quite remember.

But I certainly do know that when you are dealing with important matters of public policy and tools that you give a President, visiting the sins of one administration on that administration which is not only coming after it, but repudiated it politically would be a great mistake.

Now, the last point I would make is again to emphasize. This vote that we will take on this bill does not free up the money. It does not free up the money. It does not mean the money should be spent. It will mean, after we have dealt with the amendment process, that if the money is spent, we want it spent in this way. There will be a separate vote on whether or not it should be spent.

Now as I understand, I realize that my Republican colleagues in the leadership, on the whole, intend now to repudiate their support for this retroactively, but it comes too late. Punishing the Obama administration, denying the incoming administration the opportunity to deploy these resources, particularly after they have agreed, as I believe they will, very explicitly with what the House thinks should be included, would be a great mistake.

And the last point I would make is this. If we do not pass this bill today, and I believe that, in a subsequent and independent decision, agree to release the $350 billion, we will make no progress in what is the single biggest economic problem we've been facing, namely, the foreclosure crisis, which has been the cause of so much else.

There has been very little done in the foreclosure crisis. We have tried. We

passed a bill. It didn't work very well. The one chance we have to bring relief to a substantial number of people facing foreclosure and, importantly, undo the economic harm that does for the country, because foreclosures don't just hurt the person who's losing the property. They have been a central cause of our economic problem, widely agreed upon by a wide range of economists.

Passing this bill, and then in a subsequent vote, unrelated, but independent, but as part of a package, freeing up the second $350 billion, subject to the conditions we put today, is the only way Members will have to see that foreclosure diminution becomes a reality.

So I hope this bill is passed. More importantly, next week, I hope that if it is passed, we will then defeat the motion of disapproval.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), a member of the committee.

If the gentlewoman would yield, in title IV of the bill, we list some high-priority items where we expect these funds to be deployed, and we say that, if they are not deployed, we have to get an explanation in writing as to why that wasn't possible. In general, aid to municipal finance and housing, as part of that, is clearly included.

Mr. Chairman, California has been one of the epicenters of this foreclosure crisis, and the delegation has worked very closely together. One of those leading that effort is the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher). I yield her 2\1/2\ minutes.

If the gentlewoman would yield, I completely agree with that statement.

As she knows, because she was a major part of this, there is an amendment included in the manager's amendment that was authored by herself and by her colleague from California, Mr. Cardoza, whose eloquence on behalf of the people facing foreclosure cannot fail to move anyone who listens to him. That says it beyond the current foreclosure relief that will be in this bill, and it will be the only foreclosure relief we will get if this money isn't made available. We are mandating that a further study be made to help people who might be facing foreclosure in the future and to deal with the broader aspects of the problem.

So I thank the united efforts of the people of California, the Members from California, for helping improve this bill. I give them my commitment that, as chairman of the committee, I will be working with them to go further.

Mr. Chairman, time is limited so I want to give myself 30 seconds to rebut the inaccuracies we've just heard.

First of all, the gentleman said we've closed the process. I have no idea what he is talking about. I suspect he does not either. This is a very open process. We solicited amendments. A number of amendments were offered, a number of amendments from both parties will be made in order, a number of amendments from both parties have already been accepted in the manager's amendment.

The accusation that this is closed is just wildly off base. It has been a very open process, and I would say a majority of the amendments that have been offered made sense, and we've agreed to them. And to say it is a one-person bill, in fact we have opened it up.

Now, Members who did not offer amendments--I will acknowledge. If you didn't offer an amendment, Mr. Chairman, it wasn't put in the bill. But this bill has been open, and the rule tomorrow will make that clear.

I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) who's had a lot of input in this bill, which I guess makes it still a one-man bill.

If the gentleman would yield, absolutely.

I believe that the difference in the way the TARP will be administered in the new administration and the last administration will be very glaring, and frankly, I think that one of the motivations on some of my Republican colleagues to kill this now is that they fear the contrasts that will be presented between the very responsible and effective administration of this by the new administration and the inappropriate way of the last administration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds, and ask him to yield to me.

Absolutely. This is a necessary component of our efforts to keep the American automobile manufacturers from going under. We give this authority--we reassert this authority to Treasury, and we intend to be very, very insistent that they use it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman 10 additional seconds.

He is absolutely right, and once again, we underlined this authority and we intend to be very insistent that it be used.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to one of our freshman Members, a man with great experience in municipal government, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

If the gentleman would yield, yes, I very much agree.

I think one of the most sympathetic victims of this financial crisis has been the municipalities. The capacity to finance what's necessary for the quality of the life of their constituents has been impaired by factors well beyond their control. And the gentleman is absolutely right that we have an obligation to try to come to their aid which this bill would mandate be done.

Would the gentleman yield?

I am in complete agreement, and while that would be beyond the scope of this, as the gentleman knows--I know he's not suggesting we do it here--I guarantee we will be having hearings later this year on the proposal.

My own view is that some form of insurance would be there.

The most unjustified risk premium being paid in America is by those municipalities that issue particularly full faith and credit general obligation bonds.

I welcome the gentleman as someone with the municipal government experience that he's most recently had, and I look forward to drawing on that experience as we help correct this situation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to one of the most energetic and informed members of the committee, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Well, Mr. Chairman, I am tempted to defend George Bush against the charge that he is un-American at this point because this was his program, but I'll defer that until later.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay).

If the gentleman would yield, obviously we aren't doing anything for any one company--the gentleman wasn't suggesting that we were--there are other companies. And yes, unsecured paper should be covered. Obviously we don't expect any investment by Treasury to be made irresponsibly; they have to check to make sure that it's a good investment. But ruling out the unsecured, no, that was not our intention. In fact, under the underlying bill, which we do not change, the Secretary has the authority fully to respond to that sort of situation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to another freshman member of the committee, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes).

If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Chairman, he's absolutely correct. The form of ownership should have no relevance to the decision here.

If the gentleman would yield, he understates my view when he says they should be encouraged. I believe I will be glad to join with him in insisting that they do that. And, frankly, we don't want any form to be disfavored and certainly not the mutual form, which has a great deal in terms of our history to commend it. So the gentleman is absolutely right, and I think on this one we can be pretty certain that, particularly if the House gives the kind of endorsement to it that I suspect that it will, we'll be able to accomplish that.

If the gentleman would yield, that's right. And I would say some of my colleagues understandably wanted to put very severe restrictions on the recipient institutions, and we put restrictions on them. But we don't want to be so restrictive that we drive out private capital. This will only work if the public capital leverages and unlocks and reassures private capital.

Mr. Chairman, not being a person who holds grudges, I yield 2 minutes to someone who left our committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

If the gentleman would yield, he is absolutely correct. We think that it is a very important use of it. It's one of those things that was not done sufficiently previously, and we are convinced it will be done with this House's taking the lead in the future.

If the gentleman will yield, yes, he's correct. What we, in fact, say here is that nothing should be advanced to a bank without an agreement in advance as to how it should be used. Now, we would expect a great bulk of the funds, the agreement would say, be re-lent, but that's not the exclusive purpose. There are other valid purposes. What this bill says, however, is that that would have to be clear up front as one of the permitted purposes, and we do believe that this Treasury Department, given that, yes, they would accept that as a very valid use.

Mr. Chairman, I will now yield 3 minutes to one of the leaders in this House on the important issue of foreclosure, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, just as in baseball, sometimes a player who made a great defensive play is first up. After his stellar role in the chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano).

In a spirit of cooperation, if the gentleman is short of speakers, I have a surfeit over here. I notice there seems to be a lack of interest over there. We can send you some.

Okay. I was trying to fill the gap over there.

I will yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Donnelly) who has been a very informed advocate for many of the industries that operate in his district.

If the gentleman would yield, yes, it is. Let me say that the language is better now because of the gentleman from Indiana and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and some others who called our attention to an inadvertently narrow definition.

Yes, recreational vehicles play an important role in the economy and in the people's quality of life, and they should be included.

Absolutely. If the gentleman would yield, I think that this is an important part of what the average American wants and needs and that this is part of the chain of employment, so I will be urging them to do exactly that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to one of the most informed members of our committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green).

I yield 2 minutes to one of our very thoughtful Members, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

I would yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

If the gentlewoman would yield, what we say in here is, first, we have adopted in this bill the LaTourette amendment that the House did unanimously, to go back to the money already given and demand an accounting. That, we think, will put some pressure on them.

But more importantly, going forward we say that the Treasury may not make any capital infusions until they have made an agreement with the recipient bank as to what they plan to do with the money. And we expect that, in most cases, that will be re-lending.

We also make this point. The first chunk of money went primarily to the very large banks. They don't lend in the ways that the gentlewoman wants to see loans. One of the other things we're going to do is to increase funding to community banks in general, which we can trust. But even with those banks, the community banks in which we have confidence about how they're going to respond, we are going to insist that there be an agreement beforehand as to how they will use the money.

Yes, it does include credit unions.

If the gentlewoman would yield here, and I appreciate her forbearance here. It's probably beyond the scope of this.

I yield 1 more minute to the gentlewoman, and ask her to yield it to me.

This question is requiring accounting, the accounting standards require them to write down the assets. I think that's reasonable. The problem is that once that's done, too many things automatically flow from that.

There used to be a show called Truth Or Consequences. Our problem is truth and consequences. I don't want to dilute the truth, but I think we can have some flexibility in the consequences. The gentlewoman has given a very good example of that. It's an issue that this Financial Services Committee will be working on. I expect to have a serious hearing on this and consideration of it, and I know the gentlewoman will be helpful to us in putting this together and deciding how to respond.

I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sestak).

I will inform my colleague, I'm about to get the last speaker before I will close. So I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

If the gentlewoman would yield, yes, he does. And the purpose of this bill is not simply to confirm that the authority is there, but to say that we expect it to be used, and to demand that if it is not used we get a written explanation as to why not.

And I think it should be noted, if the gentlewoman would continue to yield, the gentlewoman from California, earlier the gentleman from Virginia, most recently the gentleman from Illinois, really a fairly good geographic stretch, have all made the point that the municipalities have been the unfair victims of this financial crisis, and we do some things to help that in this particular legislation. We will be doing more. And I thank all three of them and many others who have brought this to our attention.

Mr. Chairman, I will use our remaining time.

People may have a little difficulty reconciling the speech they just heard with the person who made it. The gentleman from Alabama last year voted for the 700 billion the second time, not the first time. He was in and out of the negotiations on it, told us he would participate, then was told he couldn't. He did finally vote for it.

We ought to be clear what's happened, and I understand the need to stay at a position.

The new deputy, the new whip of the Republican Party, was quoted in a publication here, Congress Daily, as saying that the gentleman from Alabama was allowed to keep his position as the ranking member because he'd agreed to engage me. Not, let me say--less I cause great problems given the obsessions on the other side--to become engaged to me. I don't want people to be confused. It was that he would engage me.

I did not yield to the gentleman.

And that's what you see. That's the only explanation I could give for this dodge and whirlish, frankly, pattern of activity I can't fully understand. Again, he did vote for it.

What we are seeing, I would say this, if you're listening to the Republican arguments today, this is the going away present to George Bush. Remember that the $700 billion was a major initiative of the Bush administration, insisted upon by Bush officials or Bush appointees: Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson.

At the request of the President--I put the ``President''; he's still the President--as an independent actor is the one who triggered this issue. If he had not done so and had waited a couple of weeks, no, we wouldn't be here today. We would have been following the regular order.

But President Bush, at the request of President-elect Obama--but President Bush did it--triggered on Monday a 15-day period. We will have to vote early next week on whether to approve or disapprove the second TARP, and that was George Bush's approach.

So we're here because George Bush, at the request of President Obama, asked us to release the second 350, and we're here because George Bush asked us to do the first 700 billion.

I do not think in American history there has been as thorough a repudiation of a President by members of his own party, as we have heard from the Republican Party today and elsewhere. But they are entitled to repudiate their President. I salute their perspicacity.

What they are not entitled to do by logic is to say that because the President they supported, the President they campaigned for, the President they honored, because they are so disappointed with the way he conducted one of his major initiatives that this Congress gave him, that they will deny the new President these tools.

Now, I don't like the foreign policy of the Bush administration. But I don't think we should say that Mr. Obama cannot have a State Department.

The TARP is not an independent organism with a spirit of its own. It's a set of tools. There was apparently unanimity in the Congress that the Bush administration did not use them well, although the gentleman from Pennsylvania on our side and others have made the point that they did some good.

By the way, that's one of the interesting things on the Republican side. They have insisted, first of all, that the TARP did no good whatsoever; and secondly, that it succeeded to the point where we don't need the second half. If you read what some of them have said, that's what they said. Several quoted Mr. Kashkari as saying, ``Well, Kashkari, who's running this under George Bush, says things have been stabilized.'' Yeah. He says they've been stabilized in part because we've had this. So quote Mr. Kashkari who says this is worksome to argue that it should never have been done in the first place.

Now let me address this issue of this odd thing that says we should be independent, we should assert ourselves, and what should do? We should wait for the President to give us a plan. That's an odd form of assertiveness to wait for the President to give us a plan. I didn't want to do that. Most of the House does not want to do that, and we are here to tell the President what we think has to be done.

And the gentleman has engaged in one of the, I think, least persuasive techniques, a straw man. Yes, Mr. Summers did a letter, which he had up there. That is by no means the only indication that we will have. And in fact what we are getting is is a specific agreement from the Obama administration to the terms of this bill.

For example, on foreclosure--and the gentleman said, and I'm baffled by this, ``we don't know what he means by `foreclosure.''' Well, he said we need the facts.

You can subpoena someone to tell you what he knows. You cannot subpoena someone to be told things. You can subpoena information out of someone. You can't subpoena information into someone.

There is a concept from ancient theology, which I do not impute to anybody here in defense of the House rule, called invincible ignorance. But invincible ignorance is immune to facts. It is immune to logic and cannot be overcome. We have made very clear--the gentleman from California, who's technically on this--at least 20 billion to go into the plan put forward by Sheila Bair, a Bush appointee of the FDIC. That's very specific. It's not Hope for Homeowners. It's a separate plan.

Secretary Preston, a Bush appointee at HUD, has told us that there is, in the original bill, authority to buy home mortgages and that will work. So there is another specific: buy home mortgages that are in people's portfolios and reduce them, which we mentioned in the bill. The Sheila Bair plan.

Now, Hope for Homeowners, the gentleman is right. We passed Hope for Homeowners, and it was too constricted. It won't work. We constricted it some; the Senate further.

Now, by the way, when we were passing Hope for Homeowners, the Republican mantra was, ``This will cost us $300 billion dollars.'' Preposterous at the time. Now they are arguing, ``Well, it was too restrictive.'' They are right this time. They were wrong the first time.

Part of the reason it was too restrictive is that we were concerned about this argument that we were spending too much.

So we do propose here--and I hope in the recovery program--to fix Hope for Homeowners so we will have Hope for Homeowners, and we will work with the Federal Reserve to try to make Hope for Homeowners more workable.

So we are talking about three specific approaches: A more workable Hope for Homeowners, which reduces principal; the Sheila Bair plan, which reduces interest; and the Preston plan, which buys up mortgages. We also intend to use more money here through Fannie and Freddie.

The notion that nobody knows what we mean by mortgage foreclosure could be advanced seriously. I don't know whether that's a form of engagement that will satisfy the Republican leadership and the Republican Study Committee, to which the gentleman has to pay some attention; but we have very specific numbers, we have a commitment from the Obama administration, from Mr. Geithner, and from Mr. Summers that they will spend at least 100 billion of the 350 on mortgage foreclosure reduction. And if they can't, they will tell us in writing why they couldn't; and they will spend no less than 40.

Now you could not be more specific. The gentleman knows this. This isn't a line in Larry Summers' letter. What's the purpose of pretending that you don't know that we have this commitment to at least 100 billion, no less than 40, and 100 unless they can tell us in writing why it isn't done.

As far as the banks are concerned, we're very specific here. Well, one we passed the LaTourette amendment that Members here voted for. Apparently they thought it was meaningless. I didn't think it was meaningless. I thought a Republican Member, Mr. LaTourette, had a good amendment, and we made this part of the bill; and we have a commitment from the Obama administration to enforce it.

Now, it is possible that the Obama administration will break its word. It is not unheard of for administrations to break their word. We believe the Obama administration will abide by its commitment to follow this bill if it's passed.

I understand the skepticism on the Republican side because we're telling them that we have a commitment which we accept as valid from a new administration that they will abide by the bill as it passes the House. We haven't experienced where the bill could pass both houses and be signed and be ignored. So I understand their skepticism that a President will pay respect to a law.

But again, here is the fundamental flaw. They would visit the sins of the Bush administration on the Obama administration.

We still have a financial crisis, and yes, Mr. Kashkari said things have gotten better, but he didn't say this isn't necessary. Secretary Paulson thinks they're necessary, the Federal Reserve thinks they're necessary, the Obama administration thinks it is necessary to use the $350 billion wisely. We are putting limits here on how it could be used. And it is possible, and it's true.

The Senate doesn't plan to pass the bill they tell us now. That is often the case. It's the first time I've heard the Republicans say that's the reason for us not to do things.

But here is the point: We will pass this bill, I hope. We will then probably see the 350 made available, and I trust the Obama administration. But if they don't, hanging over their heads will be this bill in the Senate--and they don't plan to pass it now--but I believe its being there as a live option will make a difference.

As to participation, no, we haven't had a markup because we are not formally constituted. If President Bush had waited and asked for this in a couple of weeks, we would have had a regular markup. Instead, we've had a very open process, and we have elicited amendments. Oddly, some would argue that because we got over 70 amendments, that shows that Members were somehow unhappy. In fact, we have accepted the great majority of those amendments, including many of those offered by Republicans. Now, many Republicans didn't offer amendments, but those that did, we have accepted some and we put others in order.

So here is the issue that we come down to.

The Republican leadership voted for this bill--not their whole membership, but the leadership did. They were in, they were out; but they voted for it. They then saw their administration had administrated so badly that they've decided to punish the Bush administration by denying a vital tool to the Obama administration. It's like the story of the mother who says to the teacher, ``My child is very sensitive. So if he misbehaves, smack the kid next to him because that will impress him.''

Well, Obama is the kid next to the people who misbehaved. Don't smack him. Don't tell a new President who won an election largely in repudiation of your party's candidate that you're going to deny him this tool.

We think that if the 300 and--note the Republicans who opposed this haven't said that if the Obama people follow this pattern, it will be wrong. They took some shots at foreclosure. Some of the more conservative Members think we should do nothing about it. Most of them don't want to say that.

The question is this: Do we tell a new President that he doesn't have the authority, or do we give him the authority with a set of rules to which he agrees?

Madam Speaker, after the congressional redistricting of 1992 and the subsequent election, I won the great responsibility and challenge of representing America's most prosperous fishing port--the City of New Bedford and the Town of Fairhaven. Over these past sixteen years I have worked very hard in conjunction with the people in the fishing industry to help create the conditions in which they can do their work which is so important not just to the region in which they are located, but to the entire country. As we stress the importance of people eating in a healthier manner, the role of seafood becomes all the more important, and preserving the ability of people in the fishing industry to perform this service they do for the rest of us is a major part of my job.

In some cases, our advocacy can be fairly easy, as a matter of principle. But there are also cases in which mastering a very complex body of data is essential if we are to do our job right. We are of course in the Congress assisted in doing that by the extremely talented and dedicated people we are lucky enough to have on our staffs, but we are also in need of help from outside. In the case of the fishing industry, no individual during my career has been as important as Dr. Brian Rothschild of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Brian Rothschild combines in an extraordinary degree technical expertise, practical knowledge, political savvy, and an ability to understand all viewpoints and articulate his own that makes him an enormous asset to those concerned with the fishing industry. He is a model of how public policy discussions should be conducted. Not surprisingly, the New Bedford Standard Times recently named him their South Coast Man of the Year, an honor that is beyond dispute an extremely well deserved one.

Madam Speaker, I ask that the article from the New Bedford Standard Times chronicling the extraordinary work of Dr. Rothschild and his importance to the fishing industry be printed here, since this is an industry which is greatly impacted by our activity and about which the Members should know a great deal.

[From South Coast Today, Jan. 1, 2009]

A Big Fish in Marine Science

Teacher, fisherman, furniture maker, marine scientist--

there isn't much that University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

professor Brian Rothschild can't do and do well.

Luckily for the city of New Bedford, sometime in the 1990s

he set his mind on seeking ways to save the local scallop

fishery. A little over a decade later, scallops have made the

city the biggest fishing port, in terms of dollars worth of

seafood caught, in the United States.

Around the same time that Dr. Rothschild, now 74, started

studying scallops, he also started building up the faculty

and facilities at the UMD Center for Marine Science and

Technology (SMAST), making it into one of the nation's

quality schools of ocean science. He was dean of the marine

school from 1995 through 2006, the school's formative decade,

when it first began attracting a world-class faculty.

For his efforts on behalf of the fishermen of New Bedford

and the seafood economy to their fisheries, and for his

efforts in making UMass Dartmouth a growing center of marine

science and research, Brian J. Rothschild is The Standard-

Times 2008 SouthCoast Man of the Year.

Nominations for the award came from the community and

members of the newspaper staff. Recipients were selected by a

newsroom committee.

``He's really made a big difference in the fishing industry

in New Bedford,'' said Rodney Avila, the owner of two scallop

boats and the city's representative to the New England

Fisheries Management Council (a coalition of industry,

conservation, and government officials that recommends

regulations for the region's fisheries).

Dr. Rothschild and UMass Dartmouth professor Kevin

Stokesbury developed a system of counting scallops by using

an underwater camera to photograph their beds at the bottom

of the ocean.

Previously, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)

had estimated scallops by the numbers caught in fishing nets,

a method that invariably led to undercounting, Dr. Rothschild

said.

Dr. Rothschild and Dr. Stokesbury proved the government

conservationists' methods of measuring scallops were wrong.

The underwater camera, in addition to being able to count

scallops not caught in nets, was also able to count scallops

in ocean areas that federal regulators had closed to

scallopers. They found the scallop numbers in the closed

areas were also greatly underestimated.

``I've always supported the idea of controlling fishing,

but I also support the idea of the best science,'' Dr.

Rothschild said. ``What we did was really good science.''

Jean MacCormack, the chancellor of UMass Dartmouth, noted

the singular nature of Brian Rothschild convincing a federal

regulatory agency to change its practices.

``It's pretty unusual,'' she said, ``to develop a

methodology that NMFS accepted.''

``NMFS was saying there were no scallops and they proved

them wrong,'' Mr. Avila said. ``That was one of the main

components of the rejuvenation of the scallop industry.''

New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang is unqualified in his praise

of Brian Rothschild.

``I think he's the difference between the scallop industry

prospering, as they have in the last decade, versus being in

the same situation as groundfish,'' he said.

The mayor was referring to the fact that the New Bedford

groundfishing industry has suffered from stringent federal

fishing regulations.

New Bedford was the nation's busiest port last year, for

the ninth year in a row, with 60 million pounds of fresh

seafood landed, with a value of $281 million, principally due

to the scallop catch.

Dr. Rothschild stresses that he's a big supporter of

conserving fisheries but, because fish live below the

surface, they aren't easily measured. He thought that if he

could improve the science, he could benefit both the fishery

and the fishermen.

``There was some resistance from the fisheries service. And

some of the conservation groups thought our estimates were in

error, but it's a solid scientific process we went through,''

he explains.

Dr. Rothschild subscribes to a view of ocean ecology that

the fishermen, and their fishing efforts, are themselves an

integral part of the ocean ecology of a given area.

``You have to look at a balance between the substantial

effects that humans have on the (fish) populations and the

productivity of the populations. That's what conservation is

in this day and age.''

Because fishing species, under certain conditions and to a

certain extent, proliferate in the wake of a fishing effort,

Dr. Rothschild set out to balance the maximum amount of

fishing effort needed to benefit human beings with the

maximum amount of fishing effort needed to benefit the

population of fish species.

Currently, SMAST is studying counting methods for

groundfish (which unlike scallops, move around in the ocean).

The objective is to obtain more accurate counts of the

groundfish (haddock, cod, yellowtail flounder) in the New

England fishery.

Because the federal government's currently accepted methods

of counting groundfish counting show the stocks are

depressed, NMFS intends to further restrict the fishing

effort--which is already a barely profitable industry--next

year.

The failure to find a better method for integrating the

effects of fishing and groundfish proliferation has had

devastating effects on the local industry, Dr. Rothschild

said.

``You can see all this happening in New Bedford. The (fish)

populations are being managed biologically yet there's a

tremendous amount of economic grief,'' he said. ``The

societal grief won't be realized until these contemplated

cuts (in the fishing effort) take place.''

People will be displaced from their jobs and end up on

government ``welfare,'' dependent on the taxpayers, he said.

In addition to his professional fields of expertise, Dr.

Rothschild is an active advocate for area fisheries and his

research on important government and quasi-government boards

and commissions. He worked for the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration in the 1970s as a senior policy

adviser so he well understands how the regulatory bureaucracy

works.

Presently, he chairs New Bedford's Ocean and Fisheries

Council (an advocacy group for the city's fishing interests),

co-directs the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute (a

research partnership between UMass Dartmouth and the state

Division of Marine Fisheries) and chairs the Scientific and

Statistical Committee of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries

Management Council.

The goal is to bring fishing regulations more into line

with statistics that better reflect ocean science, including

in the economics of the fisheries, he said.

``One measure of performance is overfishing, another is

optimal yield (of fish), another is minimal angst among the

people that are regulated,'' he said. ``I think we could do a

much better job so we need to increase the dialogue with the

agency. (That's) a step that Barney Frank and the mayor and I

have been involved in.''

Congressman Frank, who along with Sens. John Kerry and

Edward Kennedy, has long advocated for the city's interests

in Washington, said Dr. Rothschild has been very helpful in

making the scallop industry more successful.

``The beauty of Brian is that he knows the scene better

than anybody else,'' he said.

Dr. Rothschild's reputation as a scientist has given his

studies credibility with the federal government, said Mayor

Lang.

A former professor at the state universities of Maryland

and Washington, Brian Rothschild is the author of nearly 100

papers and books and is an acknowledged expert in fish

population dynamics, biological oceanography, and natural

resources policy. Next year, in collaboration with several

West Coast fishery scientists, he will publish a book on the

future of fisheries science in North America.

Mayor Lang calls him the perfect expert on the Magnusson-

Stevenson Act that governs American fisheries.

``He understands how it relates to species and he

understands how it relates to human beings,'' he said.

Dr. MacCormack noted that even though Dr. Rothschild has an

international reputation as a scientist, he is completely at

home with the fishermen and fishing boat owners on the New

Bedford docks.

``When you see him present a paper to academics, he speaks

their language, but he can go to the fish auction and speak

their language, too,'' she said.

Boat owner Rodney Avila gave a similar assessment.

``He doesn't talk down to fishermen, he talks with them.

That's important,'' he said.

``He's a good, all-around man,'' said Mr. Avila.

Brian Rothschild has dug deep into New Bedford in the 13

years he's been at UMass Dartmouth.

He and his wife, Susan, have refurbished one of the long-

neglected Victorian houses in the city's West End and he has

a studio in the North End where, in his spare time, he builds

replicas of 18th century furniture.

He has traded in the sailboat he first came to New Bedford

in for a 40-foot ``Novi,'' a recreational fishing boat where

he and Susan fish for local fish that make good eating:

stripers, fluke and whatever else in local waters that might

taste good.

His wife, like himself, loves fishing and ocean studies so

it makes for an interesting crew, he said, the dry sense of

humor he's well known for coming through.

Dr. Rothschild said he hopes his New Bedford legacy will be

the use of ocean science to continue the revival of the

fishing industry, and he hopes that SMAST can continue to

build the quality of its faculty so it becomes one of the

nation's elite marine science schools.

It may be, however, that Dr. Rothschild's biggest legacy

will be tied to the people of New Bedford themselves.

He admits that his survey is unscientific but he says the

city has changed since 1995 when he first arrived, sailing

his own boat from Maryland to the city, passing Cuttyhunk and

then finally coming up a foggy Acushnet River.

``When I moved here, the houses were, in general, in a

state of disrepair. The economy looked bleak,'' he said. ``As

the economy and the fish auction developed, the community

seemed brighter and better furbished and more prosperous.''

That's not a bad legacy, for an ocean scientist who sees

local fishermen as part of the sea's ecology.

The former minority whip has just proved the opposite of his case. In the one instance that he refers to where a bill came out of the committee which I chair, we were prepared to accept that amendment on the floor. It was offered promptly. We asked if it could be done, as we often did, as forthwith, and it could have been adopted on the floor. In that case it wasn't 6 days, it took several weeks, because we cannot drop everything and get to a bill.

Now, understand that when a bill is sent back to a committee, all the rules apply. And, by the way, nothing stops you from making this a revolving door, Mr. Speaker. People can keep doing this.

The motion to recommit, Members have said on the other side they want to be able to offer an alternative. Nothing in this proposal in any way diminishes their ability to offer an alternative. They are fully able to offer an alternative as an amendment. What they will be losing here is a legislative Ponzi scheme in which you pretend to be something you are not.

Here is the way it works: If the minority wants under any bill to offer a motion to recommit, as the rule will now read if this passes, they can offer a motion to recommit with a germane amendment that is binding, and if it is adopted, the bill is amended on the spot. But they often don't want to do that. Often their amendments are really disguises for opposition to the bill in general. So they take an amendment that would pass virtually unanimously because it is so popular and say it should be done in a way that sends the bill back to committee rather than to amend the bill.

So let's be very clear. Their ability to offer a motion that is an amendment

to the bill is in no way diminished by this. It is in no way changed. It is exactly the same. What they lose is the ability to take something that would pass overwhelmingly if they would allow a serious vote on it and use it as a way to get a bill sent back to committee for purposes of delay.

Now, the gentleman is right. It doesn't always work. Sometimes the bill survives. Sometimes it doesn't. There is often a traffic jam on the floor. There are also cases where timeliness is important, where the administration may be about to do something we want to stop them from doing and we want to be able to move reasonably quickly.

I will say this with regard to where he said bills came from nowhere. The bills where this tactic, this Ponzi scheme has been used, on bills that have come out of the Financial Services Committee, were not those bills. They were bills where there had been open amendment processes, where I have often gone to the Rules Committee and asked for amendments to be in order.

In fact, in my experience, the committee of jurisdiction leadership has no input into these motions. I have asked. There are amendments offered on the floor that were never offered in committee when they had a chance to be offered, and I will guarantee you that is a fact, because the purpose is not to amend the bill. If you were trying to amend the bill, you offer the motion to recommit in a way that amends it on the floor. That is not good enough for them, because they are not interested in substance. They are interested in this game playing and this charade--well, it is not a charade, because that is talking. They are interested in this pretense whereby you try to slow a bill down because you aren't willing to vote against it.

So if this rules package passes, there will be two options for the minority: They can move to send the bill back to committee, that can still be done, the motion to send it back to committee will still be there; or they can move to amend it on the floor. Their ability to offer an alternative is in no ways changed.

What they can't do is to pretend to be amending the bill by putting forward very popular language that would pass overwhelmingly, but doing it in a way that in effect sends the bill back to committee which doesn't allow the House to adopt that amendment, and then they want to be able to say Members weren't in favor of this noncontroversial piece.

So it is a legislative Ponzi scheme. It is a pretense. It is something that ought to be abolished. It does not add at all to the legitimacy of debate.

Let's adopt this rules change. The minority will have the two options, and that is all that democracy requires.

The gentleman from Wisconsin said, why will the majority not in some instances agree with the minority? That's the problem. We are talking about cases where we in the majority have tried to agree with the minority, and they would not be agreed with. They would not take yes for an answer.

This is the issue: if they offer a motion to recommit and it says forthwith, and they win the vote, the bill is amended. If they offer an amendment to a bill, not having offered it in committee, not having gone to the Rules Committee to ask it to be on the floor, if they take a noncontroversial popular issue and offer it as the motion to recommit, but say it should be sent to the committee and reported back promptly, we have tried to agree with them, and they have refused. This literally is a way to not take yes for an answer; it's a way to take something to which the majority would like to agree.

I have been here when I, and when the majority leader has said, in such a

situation, could we get unanimous consent to simply agree to that now, and the minority has said no.

Well, people have a right not to be agreed with. People have a right not to be agreeable. Some indulge that right more than others. But you don't have a right to refuse to be agreed with, and then complain that you weren't agreed with. And that's all that's at stake here.

So, yes, there are times when the majority should say yes to the minority, and that should be determined by the floor. What we're saying is the minority should not manufacture a situation in which there is no way to say yes to them because their goal is patently not to amend that particular bill, because if it was, they would accept the request that that amendment be accepted. Instead, it is to put a bill back to committee because they're afraid to vote against it. That's the issue.

This is used as a way to send bills back to committee to avoid votes. And this leaves, this package, the minority, fully able to offer any motion to recommit or send it back to committee. It just says they can't play games.

Mr. Speaker, we are about to see the great majority of Republicans deliver both orally and then, by their votes, a stunning vote of no confidence--but not in the automobile industry--in the Bush administration.

This is a bill that was brought forward in consultation with President Bush and his chief aides. The funding mechanism here is one that was insisted upon by the President. The amount of money and the source of the money complied entirely with the wishes of the Bush administration.

Now, one set of questions raised about this bill has to do with the administration of the TARP Program, once again, by the Bush administration. I believe that is too harsh. I believe we would have been worse off had we not passed that. Yes, I have some criticisms of it, but let's be very clear. This bill takes the Bush administration's proposal about how to fund this, and in turn gives to the Bush administration now, if it becomes law, significant power to begin the process of restructuring the automobile industry.

As I said, much of what we heard is a lack of confidence in this administration. Now, we were told that it's going to put a lot of taxpayer money at risk. My friend from California said don't pick winners and losers.

Well, may I ask then, Mr. Speaker, how we would characterize the decision to give well over $100 billion to AIG? Were they not a winner in this? If they were a loser, I should be such a loser at $100 billion. Six plus times as much money as being authorized here to be lent to the auto industries was lent to AIG.

Is there a certainty that the auto industry is going to pay it back? No, no more than there is with AIG. In fact, I think a little bit more. But AIG, that's not an industry, that's a company. That one company received over $100 billion.

I also disagree with those who would say, as apparently a Republican subgroup says, well, the way to deal with that is to take the wages that were bargained collectively over time by the unions in these three companies and drop them to some other level. I don't remember anybody saying, now, we have all agreed that CEO compensation and money for the top people should be restrained.

But the average worker at AIG makes more money than an auto worker. The average worker at Citigroup, the recipient, again, of a large amount of money, makes more than an auto worker. Does anybody remember Citigroup being told that as a condition of this money they have to get no more than a community banker would get? That may be a fair standard, but why is it only applied to blue-collar workers? Why is it that this insistence on leveling down the wages of people whose companies receive loan funds only applies to people who do this physical work?

I agree with the gentleman from California. There was a great reason to do the financial services bailout, because financial services are important, and I agree with him as well. That helps the auto industry.

People buy cars on credit. An occasional buyer will come into an auto sales room to buy a car with cash. He generally wants bulletproof windows and special getaway mechanisms. Most people are buying it on credit, and that's because, as we have said, not that they are too big to fail, but too interconnected. But so is the auto industry. The gentleman himself talked about the suppliers elsewhere. This is an industry that has an enormous nationwide impact.

But, finally, what are we doing here? We are lending them $15 billion. We are lending them $15 billion that is to be repaid, if by March 31 they haven't been able to persuade the new administration's appointee that they are making very fundamental changes. The bill says look for changes from the workers, but also from the bondholders and also from the suppliers and also from the dealers.

Let's not single out those who work with their hands as the only ones who might be accused of unjust enrichment, because they ain't rich. So that's the proposal, $15 billion if they can show that they are making these reductions.

By the way, we regret the fact that the President insists on taking money that we had set aside to help them become more innovative. We will replenish that. I think the Speaker deserves a great deal of credit for yielding in that way, but in a way that would protect this point.

But the $15 billion comes with super seniority or very serious collateral. On March 31, either this Congress will have to vote more money, there is no more automatic money, this Congress will vote more money, and we will have a chance to make changes in the bill if we think it's necessary, or we will have to repay the $15 billion with a great deal of seniority in debt preferable to any other debtor and with high collateral. Yes, we are acting quickly.

We are in a crisis. They were having problems. Like a lot of other entities in America, including the job market in general and banks, the deterioration has been more rapid than anyone had anticipated. And, yes, they now face the potential of financial collapse more quickly than anticipated.

If we had known in September what we knew today, we could have begun acting back then. What we are doing is an interim measure. Fifteen billion dollars is a short-term fix, $15 billion that will be repaid. It's not the hundreds of billions that we talk about with Citigroup or the over $100 billion that we talk about with AIG, it's a lot of money, but it's money that will be repaid. It gives us a chance, particularly the new administration and this Congress to figure out what can be done. If by March 31 it is clear that

pessimism has prevailed and nothing can be done, we will get the $15 billion back.

But, finally, as to the rule, my understanding when I went up to testify before the Rules Committee, I was told there was one amendment that had been offered by the minority, and it has been made in order, and I plan to vote for it.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Well, I will now say, Mr. Speaker, that I am sorry I yielded for that bit of trivia. It was offered to me as the LaTourette amendment. I thought it was a Republican amendment.

You know, at a time when we are all trying to get out of here, why we would waste time on that kind of trivia I don't understand.

So let me say I believe that given that this is a short-term emergency, we will have time to reconsider. The consequences of defeating this bill would be disaster for an economy that is already in terribly indecent shape.

Will the gentleman yield?

Bankruptcy has been the primary argument I have heard as the preferred alternative from the Republican Members of the committee I chair.

Yes. I would have to demur from being the author. I do want to give equal billing to my coauthor, George W. Bush. But having said that, I do believe that we agree that the provision has exactly the meaning the gentleman says, to prevent a closure or anything else of that sort.

No, we vote on bills. They write them.

Yes, a bonus would be in addition to compensation, and it could be in Crown Victorias, or it could be in stock, or it could be anything else. And of course we do empower the administrator to be appointed by the President.

I did want to comment briefly. The gentleman from Virginia, apparently, once again, no confidence in the President. The President is given the power, under this bill, to appoint someone with great power, and he says things need to be done in a few days and apparently doesn't trust George Bush to do it.

But the answer is that the bill does empower those restrictions to be any kind of compensation.

The provision of the bill that gives the authority or the ability to veto any $100 million grade of investment or any $100 million impact decision includes the right to say ``no'' to a closure or to move the plant somewhere else, and it is primarily designed by us to ensure against the possibility that the taxpayer dollars being lent to them would be used to facilitate movement to other parts of the world where even the gentleman from California would agree that they would not be American.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1534, I call up the bill (H.R. 7321) to authorize financial assistance to eligible automobile manufacturers, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I ask that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this bill and include extraneous remarks and material thereon.

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

Mr. Speaker, we consider this bill in a context, a context framed by the report last Friday of a massive loss of jobs in the American economy. This economy is in the worst shape that it has been in since the Great Depression.

We are facing a double hit, a credit crisis brought on by a variety of factors, but resulting now in a serious lack of confidence on the part of investors and a deterioration in the physical parts of the economy, which have combined to cause a serious, deep recession.

That is relevant because there have been suggestions that we could afford to allow the three domestically owned auto companies to founder, that there are other sources of automobiles, that they could be required to declare bankruptcy, to, therefore, not pay suppliers, to cut back substantially on money owed dealers, to reduce by large amounts the workforce and the compensation of the workforce, to take one of the major factors of the American economy and substantially reduce its economic impact.

I think that would have been a mistake in any economic period, but to contemplate the severity of that blow to our economic activity at this time is to invite further deterioration of an economy that has already deteriorated beyond what people expected and beyond what the American people ought to have to tolerate.

The bill is a limited bill. It is the product of a compromise, the terms of which were largely dictated by the President of the United States. I am struck, Mr. Speaker, by the lack of confidence that has been expressed on the Republican side of this House, not in the auto industry, but in George Bush and the people he has and will appoint.

The amount of money here, $15 billion, is a loan. It is a loan far more likely to be repaid than many of the much larger amounts that the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve, working with them, have advanced to Citigroup and AIG and the number of other entities.

It is $15 billion because the President said no new money, not even money from the $700 billion troubled assets fund, the TARP. This Congress voted a month or two ago, 2 months ago, to advance $25 billion to the auto industry to promote innovation, which everyone agrees is necessary. It wasn't just to the Big Three, it was to any applicant who was going to use this money to try to innovate.

The President said, to our dismay, he would veto any legislation trying to keep the auto industry out of bankruptcy that used any funds other than that $25 billion that had already been voted for that purpose. The Speaker, to her credit, resisted what I think was a strong temptation to engage in a dispute with the President that would have killed any effort to get legislation and instead, perhaps to his surprise, she agreed with him and said we would live with that constraint.

So the amount of money that is here is both in amount and, in short, exactly what George Bush wanted. This is an amount of money that George Bush told us we could make available.

We have made it available in a form that makes it overwhelmingly likely that it will be repaid. It is a loan with the American Government in a super senior position in terms of repayment and where there were some potential problems with that because of clauses in other agreements, heavy collateral.

So this $15 billion is very likely to be returned if the program fails. That's the worst case.

We will have advanced $15 billion, we will get it back in 3 months because disaster cannot be averted, but we are not willing to say that disaster cannot be averted without trying.

What this bill then says is the President of the United States, George Bush, shall designate an administration official to preside over a process of hard negotiation with all of those who have a share in this industry, the companies, of course, the bondholders, the workers, the suppliers and the auto dealers, and make it clear to them that if they are not willing and able to come together and reduce costs and put in place a program that makes it possible to envision a future in which more efficient cars are made and sold with a great likelihood of success, then not only will there be no more money than the $15 billion, but the $15 billion will have to be repaid.

Well, apparently my Republican colleagues, again, do not think that the Bush administration has within its ranks anyone capable, with all the help that they have been given, of beginning that process. Some have said, no, make them go bankrupt.

There is nothing about bankruptcy that cannot be accomplished within the framework we have said except the ability to unilaterally say ``no'' to this or that class of people who are owed money. All of the powers that you could accomplish in reorganization in a bankruptcy are given here, and the enforcement power is that the money will be withdrawn if this is not done and the entities will collapse.

We have provisions in here that make it impossible, if the Bush administration and then the Obama administration coming after them, say so to have money that was, in part, provided by the American taxpayer, used to finance activity in other countries. That doesn't mean American investors should never be in other countries. It does mean that taxpayer dollars made available in these circumstances shouldn't go to other countries. Then the question is, then, well, why the haste? We are hastily reacting to very fast-moving events.

A month ago it did not appear that the car companies would be in such dire straits. Car companies all over the world have been hurt by the credit crisis. Automobiles are paid for by credit. As credit has tightened up substantially, and as people have lost their jobs, there has been a greater than anticipated fall off in auto sales. Of course, the auto companies have made mistakes in the past, a lot of people in the industry have, including consumers.

But we find that the rapid deterioration in the general economy, it hasn't caused the problem for the automakers, but it has exacerbated them and greatly shortened our time horizon.

This bill is intended to keep them from going bankrupt between now and March 31. It does it in a way that will allow us to recapture the money if that effort fails. It does express the belief that, done properly, in conjunction with other things, things that could unstick the credit market, funds that we hope will be made available under the troubled assets program to auto dealers, who have a very real claim here, and we will be pushing for a program that will include them and funding be made available. Several Members of this House have spoken out strongly in favor of doing that.

We believe it is possible, and likely, that as the economy gets better, and as they continue the movements they have already made towards cars that are likely to sell and be more energy efficient, that we can survive this.

There are some Members who have consistently opposed any intervention, but this administration sent over $100 billion to AIG. Citigroup has been the recipient of very large amounts of money. I do not understand how people can have not made any effort to undo the administration's intervention with AIG, well over $100 billion, and then try and stop about one-seventh of that sum as a loan to the auto companies.

Yes, credit and finance are important, but the physical work done by working class and middle-class Americans in auto companies, in car dealerships, in the small businesses that are other suppliers, cumulatively, are just as important. To give up now on the auto industry would be to condemn the American economy at one of its most vulnerable periods in our economic history to a degree of further hurt, and the American people deserve better.

House of Representatives,

Committee on the Judiciary,

Washington, DC, December 10, 2008.

Hon. Barney Frank,

Chairman, Committee on Financial Services, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Frank: This is to memorialize the provisions

in H.R. 7321, the ``Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring

Act,'' that fall within the rule X jurisdiction of the

Committee on the Judiciary. In particular, there are several

provisions in section 12(d) and (e) that alter the normal

operation of the bankruptcy laws; section 19(c) provides the

annual cost-of-living salary adjustment for the federal

judiciary: and section 19(d) precludes private antitrust

suits regarding certain consultations between a covered

automaker and its employees, dealers, suppliers, and

creditors.

In agreeing to be discharged from further consideration of

the bill, in order that it may proceed without delay to the

House floor for consideration, the Judiciary Committee does

not waive any jurisdiction over subject matter contained in

this or similar legislation. We also reserve the right to

seek appointment of an appropriate number of conferees to any

House-Senate conference involving this important legislation,

and would ask your support if such a request is made.

I would appreciate your including this letter in the

Congressional Record during consideration of the bill on the

House floor. Thank you for your attention to this request,

and for the cooperative relationship between our two

committees.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.,

Chairman.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to note that I am surprised to hear my friend argue that the bankruptcy courts have more automotive expertise and engineering and finance and industrial policy expertise than is present in the whole Bush administration. I think he is too pessimistic about that and too much supportive of the bankruptcy process.

Second, I would also just recall the very thoughtful remark of our colleague from Texas, Ms. Jackson-Lee, who noted that those who thought bankruptcy was a disaster for mortgages appear to see it as a panacea for automobiles. Many of us fail to see how that transformation took place.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Detroit (Ms. Kilpatrick).

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

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to the dean of the House and a great expert over time on the auto industry, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).

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

Mr. Speaker, I think we've gotten an imbalance of time here, so if it is all right with the gentleman from Texas, I would reserve and defer to him for another speaker or two to even out the time.

I would continue to reserve.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that my friend from Georgia apparently doesn't trust the auto companies to know what's in their own interest. He says that the provision in our bill that gives the administrator the ability to cancel a decision, which we have in there as protection against money being sent overseas, is way too interventionist, and instead, they'd be better off with bankruptcy. That's a choice they will be free to make under this bill.

This bill doesn't force anybody to apply for the money. Any company that thinks the provisions of this bill are too burdensome and too interventionist retains the full authority to run to bankruptcy.

I will say this. I yield myself 15 seconds. They think bankruptcy is a lot less attractive than the gentleman from Georgia. But understand, he says, protect the companies from this intervention which keeps money from being sent overseas. Let them go bankrupt.

None of them want to make that choice, but if they do, this bill leaves them free to do it. It doesn't force them to take the money. They still have the joys of bankruptcy which the gentleman from Georgia explained to them.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

I yield the gentleman 30 seconds.

I would reserve again. We have got an imbalance that we created.

I yield 1 minute to another long-time distinguished expert in the field, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I will take 30 seconds to say that my friend from Arizona says how can we assume that one bureaucrat would know more than the marketplace. Well, it's not harder to do that than to assume that one bankruptcy trustee would know more than the marketplace. Bankruptcy is a suspension of the marketplace. I am puzzled by this double standard here. Let's leave it to the market by appointing a bankruptcy trustee--a total abnegation of the concept of the market--and the appointment of a lawyer who is less likely, it seems to me, to have the expertise than the whole Bush administration might be able to find in industrial matters.

I yield 1 minute to the long-suffering and extremely patient gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay).

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

I yield 1 minute to a member of the committee, to the Chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Well, I am personally prepared to close. I would not be allowed to, so I have several more speakers.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan, who has been, as I can personally testify, the most ardent advocate in responding to this automobile crisis, Mr. Levin.

If the gentleman would yield, the answer is, yes, that clause does apply. We would want an automobile manufacturer to be able to use any of its existing unfunded credit facilities as a source of liquidity. So we clearly intend for the savings clause in the subordination provision of the legislation to cover unfunded committed credit facilities in effect as of December 2.

Let me inquire of the gentleman: Does he have only one speaker remaining?

Then I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland, the majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter).

Mr. Speaker, I will now speak, and I will have one speaker after that. So when I'm through, it will be the turn of the gentleman from Texas to do his closing because I'm retaining one speaker after myself.

I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.

Here is the dichotomy: Bankruptcy versus a piece of legislation which says to the administration--the incoming and outgoing--you do what you hope to accomplish in bankruptcy but with more flexibility, with a greater pool of people to call on.

We've heard mocked the notion that either this administration or the next would have within its ranks expertise in economics and industrial organization, and we're told, ``No, no. That doesn't work. Find a bankruptcy trustee.'' I think they get the worst part of that argument if they listen to it.

Beyond that, we have consumer marketing issues. The three companies are convinced--and almost every expert I talked to agrees with them--if they declare formal bankruptcy, their ability to sell cars is damaged. People buying cars want to know they will have a continuing relationship with an entity that will service the cars and make parts for the cars.

So this continuing longer term relationship makes bankruptcy far more of a problem for them than for an airline where your contingency was just to buy one seat and nothing further.

But again, the greatest illogic is to argue that somehow in the bankruptcy courts with a bankruptcy trustee, we were going to tie it to the lawyers. You get a far greater degree of expertise than either one of the two Presidential administrations could find within its ranks of economists and engineers and others. Therefore, we believe that our solution is the preferred one.

Mr. Speaker, in very shaky opposition, I start out claiming the time, but I am open minded on the subject, so I claim the 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, as evidence of my open- mindedness here and being willing to listen, I will yield 2 minutes to our very able committee colleague and cosponsor of this amendment, Mr. Green.

If the gentleman will yield, yes, we will have a recorded vote on this.

I believe I have 3 minutes remaining?

Well, I intend to use the 3\1/2\ minutes to speak enthusiastically for this amendment now for a couple of reasons.

First, the merits of the amendment. We were told by the Treasury Department that they would get more lending done. Some people unfairly said that the bill we passed didn't have good oversight. It had a number of pieces of oversight, including the best oversight you can have in this Federal Government, the Government Accountability Office, an outstanding organization.

We worked with them, and they were there on the first day of this program. We had a briefing with them. They have given us a report, and the report said that Treasury was not doing a good job of seeing whether the people who received the capital injections were, in turn, lending.

We heard that anecdotally, we got a confirmation that Treasury wasn't measuring. What particularly distressed me was Treasury didn't say, well, you don't understand how hard it is. Treasury said, you are right, we are not going to try, that we will judge the overall success of the program without doing that.

Now, I will give Mr. Kashkari credit. Today, at a hearing we held-- and we called a hearing just to deal with this

issue--he indicated they now do plan to do it. But I think given the initial reluctance, this amendment is very important.

For Members who voted for the TARP and want to see that vote vindicated, you need to vote for this amendment, because it makes it valid. But there is one other thing you have to do. Let me ask you another procedural question. This is the last train out of the legislative station this year.

So I would advise Members, if you believe that we need to put pressure on the Treasury to have the TARP do more lending, you have to do two things. You have to vote for the LaTourette amendment, but then you have to vote for the underlying bill. Because I would advise Members, if you vote for the LaTourette amendment, and you then vote against the bill, Mr. Speaker, I would caution Members going back to their districts and taking credit for having voted for an amendment into a vehicle which they then crashed into the sea.

So the only way the LaTourette amendment will have any effect, and I hope it will have effect because it's important, is if the bill to which it is about to be attached passes.

So I congratulate the gentleman on an extraordinary amendment. I am envious that I didn't think of this strategy to help get the bill passed, but I will acknowledge my strategic better in this case. That may sound ironic, but it's the case.

If you vote for the LaTourette amendment--which I think does a very important job of improving the TARP--and you then vote against this bill, you have completely and totally negated it.

Now you may, Mr. Speaker, have Members here who find it of value to be on both sides of this issue, to take credit for improving the TARP in theory, but disimproving it in practice, but I would hope that most of us would not want to be in that position. So I urge Members to vote for this, and having voted for this important thing, the gentleman is right, the gentleman from Ohio, he did put it in a separate bill. But that separate bill is not going anywhere.

There will be no further legislative work. So if you believe that we need to have the banks who have not been lending, and who have received part of the TARP, relend, vote for the amendment, and vote for the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, in a thoughtful and well documented article in the Boston Globe for December 3, Joseph Cirincione makes a very persuasive case for putting significant reductions in our nuclear weapons budget at the head of the list of budget savings President-elect Obama intends to make. Mr. Cirincione is the president of Ploughshares, and some of us remember the good work he did as a staff member working on trying to fashion a sensible nuclear weapons policy years ago in the House. He speaks with a great deal of knowledge and I am very pleased that someone as responsible and well informed as Mr. Cirincione has come forward to make this case. As he says in his article, the President ``can cut obsolete programs and transfer tens of billions of dollars per year to pressing conventional military and domestic programs.''

Madam Speaker, no rational solution to the problem of an ever- increasing budget deficit can be imagined that does not include significant reductions in the rate of military spending. Joseph Cirincione demonstrates how this can be done in a way that does no damage whatsoever to our national security and I ask that the article be printed here.

[From the Boston Globe, Dec. 3, 2008]

Need Cash? Cut Nuclear Weapons Budget

(By Joseph Cirincione)

President-Elect Barack Obama needs money, ``To make the

investments we need,'' he said last week, ``we'll have to

scour our federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful

cuts and sacrifices, as well.''

There is no better place to start than the nuclear weapons

budget. He can cut obsolete programs and transfer tens of

billions of dollars per year to pressing conventional

military and domestic programs.

Transfers to domestic programs will help jumpstart the

economy. Military spending provides some economic stimulus

but not as much as targeted domestic spending. This is one

reason Representative Barney Frank has called for a 25

percent reduction in military budgets that have exploded

from. 305 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $716 billion in

fiscal year 2009, including the $12 billion spent every month

for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We must, of course, spend what we need to defend the

country. But a good part of the military budget is still

devoted to programs designed for the Cold War, which ended

almost 20 years ago. This is particularly true of the $31

billion spent each year to maintain and secure a nuclear

arsenal of almost 5,400 nuclear weapons, with 1,500 still

deployed on missiles ready to launch within 15 minutes.

We can safely reduce to 1,000 total weapons, as recommended

by Senator John Kerry and other nuclear experts. That

reduction would save over $20 billion a year, according to

the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The reductions could be done without any sacrifice to US

national security, particularly if the Russians did the same

(as they indicated they'd be willing to do) either by a

negotiated treaty or the kind of unilateral reductions

executed by former presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail

Gorbachev in 1991.

The arsenal of 1,000 warheads could be deployed on 10 safe

and secure Trident submarines, each with enough weapons to

devastate any nation. In total, the smaller, cheaper arsenal

would still be sufficient to destroy the world several times

over. Further reductions would generate further savings over

time.

Additional savings are available in the related anti-

missile programs created during the Bush administration.

Total spending is now $13 billion a year--up from $4 billion

in 2000. Bush and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld

exempted the agency from the normal checks of Pentagon tests

and procurement rules in an effort to institutionalize the

program, locking in the next president, Obama will inherit

half-built facilities in Alaska and California, along with

plans to build new sites in Poland and the Czech Republic,

but no assurance that the interceptors actually work--and a

huge bill to pay. If Obama were to continue the program as

is, he would spend an estimated $62 billion through 2012.

In a congressional review of these programs, Representative

John Tierney of Massachusetts concluded, ``Since the 1980s,

taxpayers have already spent $120 to $150 billion--more time

and more money than we spent on the Manhattan project or the

Apollo program, with no end in sight.'' Tierney recommends

refocusing the program to concentrate on defenses against the

short-range weapons Iran and other nations currently field,

and restoring realistic testing and realistic budgeting.

Doing so could save $6 billion or more a year.

Further savings can be found by stopping a planned

expansion of nuclear weapons production facilities pushed by

contractors and some government nuclear laboratories. The

facilities would cost tens of billions of dollars and produce

hundreds of new nuclear warheads. Secretary of Defense Robert

Gates strongly backs the expansion. In a direct challenge to

Obama's plans to reduce nuclear weapons and ratify the

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Gates said in October, ``there

is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and

reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either

resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a

modernization program.'' Obama will have to back him down or

pony up billions to pay Gate's nuclear tab.

What will the new president do? He comes to office with a

comprehensive nuclear policy that could save billions. Obama

will now have to show that this new security team will

implement the change he promised, not their own parochial

agendas.

Madam Speaker, on the last weekend of September of this year, I was supposed to be at the Fishermen's Festival in New Bedford, an event I always enjoy and which I look forward to attending. Instead, as you know, I was here in Washington, D.C. as we were working to try and put the $700 billion credit system rescue plan into final form.

Among the events I missed at that festival was the awarding of the 2008 Friend of the Fishermen Award to Kevin Stokesbury. Dr. Stokesbury chairs the Department of Fisheries Oceanography at SMAST--the extremely important and valuable part of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, which studies the fishing industry.

He received this award from the people in the fishing industry of New Bedford because of the high quality of the work he has done to provide the kind of first-rate scientific information that is so essential to the continued survival of the fishing industry. One of the great successes--probably the greatest success--we have seen in regulation of the fishing industry in New England is with the scallop fishery, and no one is more responsible for this success than Kevin Stokesbury.

Madam Speaker, because Kevin Stokesbury's work shows that it is possible to support a thriving fishery in an environmentally responsible way, it is particularly noteworthy that he received this award from the fishing industry of New Bedford--the most important fishing port in America. I ask that the explanation by the fishing industry of this award to Kevin Stokesbury be printed here.

Introduction of 2008's ``Friend of the Fishermen''

This year's recipient of ``The Friend of the Fishing

Industry Award'' needs no introduction to most of the NB

fishing industry, particularly the scallop fishermen. It took

him a while to find his way here to us as he seems to have

taken a long way around, but he now lives in Westport with

his wife Shawna, & four children; Kasey, Tyrez, Taysia, &

Henry.

Starting with his B.Sc. & M.Sc. both of which he earned at

Arcadia University in Nova Scotia, he then received his PhD

in Marine Ecology from Universite Laval, Quebec City, Quebec

in 1994.

He worked as a Research Assistant 1994-1996 at the Center

for Marine Science Research at the U. of NC at Wilmington

before moving to the U of Alaska Fairbanks, as a Research

Assistant from September 1996-1998.

Ten years ago in September 1998 he finally found his way

here when he joined SMAST at U MASS, Darmouth as an Associate

Fellow. In September 2000 he became an Associate Professor.

In September 2005 he became the Chair of the Department of

Fisheries Oceanography. Do you sense a trend here?

In 1999 Kevin conceived a plan to videotape & map the

seafloor; the resulting survey would actually count scallops

with the intention of determining the size of the biomass. He

got together with a few scallop vessel owners & others from

the industry, & as they say, ``the rest is history''.

Kevin & his associates from his lab at SMAST have probably

logged more sea-time than a lot of fishermen over these past

9 or 10 years. They have completed more than 100 video

cruises surveying Georges Bank & the Mid-Atlantic fishing

grounds; this is more than 600 DAS. Their video library

consisting of footage from more than 200,000 video samples

has been used in every scallop fisheries management plan

since 1999.

Today this work has become much more detailed & expansive &

it now must be acclaimed as some of the leading environmental

work regarding sea floor habitat, & the marine benthic

community.

Not surprisingly, Kevin's work has not received the same

acclaim from many of his peers that it has from the fishing

industry & his associates. This unique cooperative research

that has existed between the fishing industry, Kevin & SMAST

since its inception, has turned much of the ``Old Science''

on its ear, & some did not take kindly to that. Without this

`New Science'', it's possible that we still would not be

scalloping in the Closed Areas!

As Chair of the Department of Fisheries & Oceanography,

Kevin's oversight now includes along with scallops;

groundfish, lobster & marine environments. Perhaps even more

importantly, he is now fostering a new generation of marine

scientists & researchers who, if the fishing industry is

lucky, will follow the path that Kevin has so brightly

blazed!

It gives me great pleasure to present ``The Friend of the

Fishermen's Award'' to someone I'm proud to call my friend;

Dr. Kevin D.E. Stokesbury.