Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker on rollcall No. 310, I was absent due to a family matter. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 311, I was absent due to a family matter. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 312, I was absent due to a family matter. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 313, I was absent due to a family matter. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 314 I was absent due to a family matter. Had I been present, I would have voted: ``no.''

I wish you could meet my friend, Dr. Gaylen Byker, a truly renaissance man who was born in Iowa but raised in Hudsonville, Michigan, which is in my district, where he grew up in a family that was very entrepreneurial and very politically involved. His father actually served as a State senator, Gary Byker.

Gaylen attended Calvin College, where he is now President, and earned a BA with concentrations in philosophy, English, political science, and speech, with a minor in Russian. He also entered the Army in 1967 and served in Vietnam, and he was discharged with the rank of captain. He went on to earn a law degree at the University of Michigan and then his master's degree in world politics at Michigan as well. After that, he decided he needed to get his Ph.D. in international relations from Pennsylvania.

He then served and worked at an energy exploration company out of Houston. He worked on Wall Street, both on energy as well as in derivatives and futures. He then served as a lawyer in Philadelphia. He has been involved in numerous organizations and volunteer opportunities, including the Ruffed Grouse Society of the United States.

He is an avid hunter--and a pretty good shot as well, I might add. He became president of Calvin College in 1995, where he has served it since then for the last 17 years. Gaylen is truly a person who has left a place better than when he found it.

Dr. Byker, we just want to say thank you for your service to Calvin College in the greater community in west Michigan.

Mr. Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

I would like to commend my friend, my freshman colleague from Minnesota, for offering this amendment, and commend him for his service to our country in the military and then what he's been doing. I think it's a valuable lesson, having been there in that cockpit yourself, dealing with this program. And I support this amendment as well.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my good friend from Illinois for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, we not only serve on the Financial Services Committee together, we also share a Great Lake.

Michigan is uniquely situated, literally bordering all five of the Great Lakes--Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Saint Clair, Lake Ontario. Four of those are actually international boundary waters with thousands of miles of shoreline that are on there, and there are dozens of ports throughout the Great Lakes. I might add that they are aptly served by the District Nine commander out of Cleveland as he is juggling all of the various assets that the Coast Guard has.

But I do reject the plans by this administration to decrease the search and rescue capabilities in the Great Lakes. This vital amendment restores funding in order to maintain a level of capability that has been present in the Great Lakes for many years, and it has been much needed, Mr. Chairman.

As the gentleman noted, these funds, combined with offsets in this bill, address shortfalls that this administration has actually advocated for. So Coast Guard search and rescue in all of the Great Lakes cannot be shortchanged. As we see in example after example, whether it be by boat or by helicopter in Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair, Lake Ontario, some of the busiest boating traffic--recreational, as well as commercial traffic--that we see anywhere in the world concentrated in that area.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of my amendment to strike section 212 of this bill, H.R. 5326.

Madam Chair, Congress should be taking steps to encourage the creation of more private sector jobs, not growing government. Legislative provisions that prohibit, impede, interfere, obstruct, encumber, or delay contracting out opportunities, or even require in- sourcing, require these things to be done, are counterproductive to reducing the deficit, limiting the size of government, and creating private sector jobs.

Madam Chair, I was one of the founding members of what has been dubbed the Yellow Pages Caucus, a group of people who came to Washington and said, hey, if the private sector can go out and do this, maybe we need to think about whether the government should be doing it and taking those opportunities away from those people who are advertising in the Yellow Pages or in the modern equivalent, on those Google searches that might be on people's iPads.

Well, not only do Federal Agencies duplicate oftentimes private business, but many engage in unfair government competition with the private sector. This amendment would allow A 76 competition within the Bureau of Prisons for the performance of commercial activities within the organization. By allowing the private sector to compete for these services, it forces the Bureau of Prisons to take a hard look at the things that it is currently doing and find savings for us hardworking taxpayers. It is only common sense that these A 76 provisions force government to be more efficient.

Now, what is an A 76? An A 76 is a circular or a letter that is produced by the Office of Management and Budget. And in this it says that whenever possible, and to achieve greater efficiency and productivity, the Federal Government should conduct competition between public Agencies and the private sector to determine who should perform the work.

We are going out and saying, hey, where does it make sense to go do this? Who can go and do this cheaper and deliver a better product?

It requires these executive Agencies to annually prepare lists of activities considered both commercial and inherently governmental. All we're doing with this amendment is to say that the Bureau of Prisons ought to be holding

to the exact same requirements that all of the other Departments and all of the other Bureaus must do in the Federal Government. A 76 forces government Agencies to keep up with the lowest bid the private sector can offer, and it forces government to cut costs and increase efficiencies.

Now the other interesting thing is that with this section 212, we wonder oftentimes what does section 212 do. Section 212 exempts the Bureau of Prisons from doing this activity. This makes no sense to me, Madam Chair. This makes no sense to me that we would take an organization like the Bureau of Prisons and say don't worry about it folks, we trust you. We think you're doing this as efficiently as possible.

Well, Madam Chair, I believe in that old idiom that Ronald Reagan came up with: trust, but verify. I would like to see the Bureau of Prisons do that exact thing. I think they ought to go out and demonstrate that they can in fact and should in fact be doing these activities that they are.

It's estimated, and this is from the Office of Management and Budget from July 2003, page 2 of a report that they have, ``Competitive Sourcing Conducting Public-Private Competition in a Reasonable and Responsible Manner,'' is the title of that, they estimate that this act of competition alone generates cost savings from 10 40 percent on average. So what we are really talking about is we cannot even ask about or study how we can save the hardworking taxpayers of America these moneys in the Bureau of Prisons. If it is good enough for the Department of Defense, if it's good enough for Treasury, if it's good enough for all of these other Departments and all these other areas, why can't it be an option to save those same dollars in the Bureau of Prisons.

I ask you, Madam Chair, does this make sense to you? It sure doesn't to me.

Well, during this continued period of economic uncertainty and unsustainable Federal spending, Americans are looking to Congress for commonsense, taxpayer-first solutions to reduce the cost of services provided by their Federal Government. This amendment allows our Nation's free market system to fairly compete. The role of government should be to govern, not to operate businesses inside of the government.

And with that, Madam Chair, I ask for my colleagues to support my amendment to section 212.

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

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 12 o'clock and 27 minutes a.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until today, Wednesday, May 9, 2012, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Offered By: Mr. Huizenga of Michigan

Amendment No. 34: Strike section 212.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I've got a radical idea, a radical idea for the people of America. Let's use Harbor Maintenance Trust Funds for harbor maintenance. For 25 years, we've been robbing Peter to pay Paul, but in reality that $7 billion that we have taken away from that has really been robbing places like Manistee, Michigan, where this weekend in my district a ship ran aground and had to get towed off and the damage that happened to it.

We have 11 harbors in the Second District, hundreds in the Great Lakes and countless in the Nation on both of the coasts and the Gulf of Mexico. Enough money has been collected every year to pay for all of this maintenance that has to happen, but unfortunately Congress has been skimming it to help pay for other programs.

I appreciate my friend from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany), his leadership with the RAMP Act, and Chairman Upton from Michigan in leading this in the Great Lakes. We know this is the right thing to do for America and for our transportation needs, our infrastructure needs. Our Great Lakes need it. The coasts need it, our harbors need it, our economy needs this to happen.

I strongly support this amendment today.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 133, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a massive new branch of government created under the Dodd-Frank Act, fails to safeguard proprietary information given to the Bureau by regulated entities. I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 4014, which will create more peace of mind for financial institutions while offering more oversight and consumer protections to hardworking taxpayers.

If you remember one thing, remember this: we all agree on stringent consumer protections. This bill is a commonsense measure that adds necessary oversight to the Bureau. Specifically, H.R. 4014 would immediately close a loophole in the law that was created during the creation of the CFPB. Currently, information collected by the CFPB from financial institutions is not protected by the same confidentiality provisions that other financial regulators are required to provide. Additionally, we must ensure parity between State bank supervisors and other State regulatory agencies that oversee nonbanks at the State level and make sure they are afforded the same protections. We need a real solution to ensure that privileged information will not be intentionally disclosed to any third party. H.R. 4014 would protect that data that depository and non-depository institutions provide during an oversight exam, therefore, enhancing the Bureau's supervision process and giving financial institutions the much-needed certainty that the information will be kept private.

Unlike current statutes regarding other Federal agencies assessing relevant information, the Dodd-Frank Act failed to provide such protections despite the CFPB's claim that they won't or wouldn't share such information.

The simple truth is that if we don't pass H.R. 4014, the CFPB could legally share privileged information with third parties. Absent this specific congressional legislation, the courts have permitted this practice of sharing in the cases of other Federal agencies. Although the Bureau has said that they are prepared to take all reasonable and appropriate steps to protect proprietary information, we cannot be sure. Therefore, we must pass this bill to restrict them from doing so.

Even President Barack Obama's appointed director of the CFPB, Richard Cordray, recently testified that this was an ``oversight'' and that he would be ``supportive'' of a legislative solution to ensure privileged information is not leaked to third parties through the CFPB. My bill is that real legislative solution. This is a commonsense fix that will put an end to the needless uncertainty and legal costs to both the CFPB and to financial institutions.

Mr. Speaker, while I believe this issue must and will eventually be addressed in the Dodd-Frank Act, this is a very important step. I urge the swift adoption of this important legislation to restore genuine accountability to the CFPB and to deliver a more efficient and effective government for America's hardworking taxpayers.

I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to see that this omission in the Dodd-Frank Act is quickly rectified and sent to the President for his signature.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House and to address the Nation today.

As a small business owner, I know the importance of fostering and creating an environment that promotes job creation, economic security and opportunity, and allows especially small businesses to grow.

I also know that Americans and Michiganders and those in the Second District in my home State of Michigan and across the country are looking for real solutions that will grow jobs now. That's why I support the JOBS Act. It will jump-start our economy and restore opportunities for America's primary job creators: our small businesses, start-ups, and entrepreneurs.

Now, I've been around long enough in my first year here, Mr. Speaker, to unfortunately see that sometimes you have to repackage ideas and put a different colored bow on it for people to accept it because what we're going to be passing has been passed. I sit on the Financial Services Committee. We've passed a number of these bills--and all of these bills, I believe. That's part of the America's Job Creators Plan that the House Republicans have put forward. But what we're doing today is we are going to be putting this JOBS Act; it's compromised of six bills that have been approved by the committee. Very quickly, those six bills are:

One, Reopening the American Capital Markets to Emerging Growth Companies Act. What that's going to do is it's going to allow temporary relief from some of the onerous SEC, or Securities and Exchange Commission, regulations that are on those small businesses.

Number two, the Access to Capital for Job Creators Act is going to allow small companies to raise capital by, again, removing some of those regulatory bans that are in there and that say that a small business can't use advertisements to go try to get and attract investors. Well, in an age of Internet and those kinds of things, that has a huge impact. It also brings along a concept that's been out there called crowdfunding.

That's the third bill, Entrepreneur Access to Credit Act. It is also going to ease the requirements that allow things like crowdfunding, people being able to go and spread this out on Facebook and Twitter and Internet and to their friends, to pull in those small-dollar investors that are going to be able to give them the capital that they need to launch that innovative idea.

Well, the fourth is the Small Company Capital Formation Act. It allows small businesses to go public by elevating the threshold that companies are exempt from $5 million to $50 million. That is going to be able to really, truly impact those small entrepreneurs and small business owners who are looking to take their business to the next step.

The fifth one is the Private Company Flexibility and Growth Act. That's expected to give small companies more room to grow before having to go public. Currently, there's a regulation that says you can have no more than 500 investors in your small company. This doubles that. This says you can have up to 1,000. We believe that that is also going to be able to allow those small businesses who are in transition, who are in that acquisition mode, who are in that growth mode, to be able to go up there and be successful.

Finally, number six, the Capital Expansion Act would increase the number of shareholders allowed to invest in a community bank from 500 to 2,000. Why would we include this part? Well, community banks really are the backbone of many of those small investors. They're the ones that they go to church with and shop at the grocery store with. They know their businesses. They may know that it's been a long-term relationship with that local community bank. By being able to expand the footprint of those community banks, we're going to be able to expand their lending power as well to those small businesses.

Well, it's interesting that here we actually have a bipartisan package of bills. This isn't just something that's the Republicans' ideas. In fact, in the Financial Services Committee, we had this as bipartisan votes. And really, it truly is going to help create a healthier environment for small businesses to hire and expand.

In fact, President Obama's administration released what's called a Statement of Administration Policy yesterday supporting this very act. We welcome his support and recognition of this bill's innovative solutions to ensure that small businesses can access capital needed to expand, hire, and invest. And again, that's because you, the American people, we here in the House of Representatives are looking for those real honest solutions.

Well, it's far time that we get government out of the way of small businesses as well, the engine of our economy. We need to focus on the real economy, and our priority has to be that focus.

According to the Kauffman Foundation, start-up companies created nearly 40 million jobs, 40 million jobs since 1980, and the Small Business Administration shows small businesses generate over 60 percent of all the new jobs created here in the U.S. Sixty percent of all those jobs that we are hoping to have in this country are created by these small businesses.

In fact, even the World Bank has a report. It's called ``Doing Business,'' and it showed that the United States has fallen to 13th for the ``ease of starting a business.''

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this as a key to lasting, honest economic recovery. And we need--America needs--these real jobs, real solutions, and real results right now.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of national school choice because we need to offer our children effective education opportunities. And in Michigan, despite spending just shy of $10,000 annually to educate each child, we need to look at a couple of facts. One, only 31 percent of eighth-graders are actually considered proficient in math. The other element that is very disheartening to me is the fact that one child drops out of school in America every 26 seconds. We have an obligation to give parents the tools and resources to get their children out of bad educational environments and into better ones.

As a Member of Congress, I support school choice and allowing States to even opt out of the No Child Left Behind program and use educational resources in a way that will best meet their local needs, not the demands of Washington, D.C. It should be up to parents--not governments--to choose what's best for their children. Better traditional schools, public charter schools, private schools, virtual education, and homeschooling. I personally advocated for these opportunities when I sat on the board of a public charter school in Michigan. I served as the director of development at Zeeland Christian Schools, and most importantly, as a parent along with my wife, who homeschooled our children. Those of us in Congress must continue to encourage and champion school reform.