Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa Jigme Pema Wangchen on the occasion of his birthday.

His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa is the head of the 1,000 year-old Drukpa Lineage of Buddhism, which originates from the Indian Scholar- Saint Naropa, an unbroken ancient lineage that continues to thrive. The Drukpa Lineage has over 30 million followers worldwide and has a profound cultural influence throughout the Himalayan region.

Inspired by a strong belief that all individuals can work for the benefit of their communities, His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa is a world-renowned humanitarian, environmentalist, and champion of gender equality. His good works have been recognized by the United Nations and the Indian Government. The international non-profit Waterkeepers Alliance named His Holiness the Guardian of the Himalayas.

His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa and his followers provided relief services to tens of thousands in the Himalayas following the devastating 2015 earthquake in Nepal and continues to rebuild the community. Additionally, he supports and organizes clinics which provide access to medical services in remote communities.

His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa works tirelessly to empower, educate, protect and inspire girls and women in the Himalayas and around the world and has led efforts to ensure that the rights of peoples of all faiths and nationalities are equally respected and protected.

His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa personally trekked and bicycled thousands of miles across the Himalayas to further the goals of gender equality and of environmental stewardship.

His Holiness supports myriad educational initiatives which seek to improve people's lives through education while simultaneously fostering respect for and knowledge of indigenous cultures. In furtherance of this aim, His Holiness has led efforts to preserve local art and to disseminate globally knowledge about the local cultural heritage.

His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa has led multiple initiatives to protect the environment in the Himalayas. As part of the One Million Trees project, His Holiness organized in 2012 the largest simultaneous tree planting initiative to support clean air and protect against soil erosion.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the spiritual and humanitarian leadership of His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa Jigme Pema Wangchen on the occasion of his birthday.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of The Brick Presbyterian Church, one of the nation's oldest and most venerable religious institutions. The Brick Church has been in continuous operation since 1767, with the exception of a few years during the Revolutionary War, and has a rich history of serving the community as a spiritual home. Pastoral leaders of The Brick Church have had a profound impact on the nation as spiritual leaders, brilliant composers of sacred music and compassionate advocates for the poor, the downtrodden and refugees.

The Brick Church began as an expansion of the First Presbyterian Church at Wall Street, whose growing congregation could no longer be accommodated. Its first building was on Beekman Street on a site now occupied by Pace University's downtown campus. The first pastor was Reverend John Rodgers who would close the street in front of the church during services to eliminate noise. Dr. Rodgers also corresponded with George Washington, was the first moderator of the General Assembly and served as chaplain to the New York State Legislature.

During the Revolutionary War, the British commandeered the church for use first as a hospital and later as a brig. By 1858, after surviving two wars, three epidemics and three fires, the church followed its congregation uptown to Fifth Avenue at 37th Street. Nearly a century later, in response to further migration north, the church moved in 1940 to its present location at 91st Street and Park Avenue.

The church's other pastors were Gardiner Spring (1810 through 1873), James Ormsbee Murphy (1865 through 1875), Llewellyn Bevan (1877 through 1882), Henry Van Dyke (1883 through 1900), Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1900 through 1901), William Rogers Richards (1902 through 1910), William Pierson Merrill (1911 through 1938), Paul Austin Wolfe (1938 through 1964), D. Reginald Thomas (1965 through 1970), James Seth Stewart (1972 through 1974), and Herbert B. Anderson (1978 through 2001). Rev. Van Dyke became ambassador to the Netherlands under President Woodrow Wilson and organized efforts to serve the tens of thousands of refugees flooding the country at the onset of World War I.

The Brick Church is currently led by the remarkable Reverend Michael L. Lindvall who was installed on October 27, 2002 as only its 13th installed pastor. Rev. Lindvall has made education a center of his ministry at the church, recognizing that parishioners may have less exposure to the Bible, theology or the history and governance of the church than they once did. Accordingly, educational programs such as the Children's Sunday Church School, youth programs, and adult education are critically important to The Brick Church.

Over the centuries, Brick Church has assisted in educating poor children, supported immigrant congregations and settlement houses, and worked to improve the neighborhood. Before the Civil War, leaders of the congregation were outspoken abolitionists who condemned slavery and corruption. Members of the Brick Church have support the Deacon Ministries and Grants program that helps over 22,000 people annually. Members also volunteer for a wide variety of community-based organizations that tutor young people, help homebound seniors, serve the homeless and help the formerly incarcerated make a fresh start.

A number of The Brick Church's clergy have made significant contributions to sacred music, including Revs. Van Dyke, Babcock, Merrill and Wolfe. In addition, Clarence Dickinson provided outstanding musical leadership along with Helen Dickinson, who founded the School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Today, Keith S. Toth, a graduate of the Oberlin and Juilliard Schools of Music, carries on the church's fine tradition of musical excellence.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring The Brick Church for providing a spiritual home to New Yorkers for 250 years.

Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote No. 124, on H.R. 1004, I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``no'' when I should have voted ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, the war on women is escalating and more dangerous with H.J. Res. 43.

Let's not beat around the bush. Let's call this joint resolution what it really is. It is a backdoor attempt to restrict access to a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

We all know that Federal funding for abortion is already prohibited, but this goes further--much further. It cuts off funding for contraception, screenings, and treatment if a provider also offers abortions paid for with private funds.

Providers either stop doing abortions or they lose the Federal funds they need to keep their doors open to serve their communities. In other words, the supporters of this resolution are willing to sacrifice women's access to basic healthcare services in order to stamp out abortion. It is cruel, it is wrong, and I would say it is discriminatory. When is the last time this body was called upon to cut off access to basic health care for men?

Vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, today, I am proud to reintroduce the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, bipartisan legislation to grant six weeks of paid parental leave to hardworking federal employees.

In the Presidential campaign, both candidates voiced strong support for a workplace that makes sense for hardworking parents. This bipartisan legislation is a great place to start.

The federal government is our nation's largest employer, and should be setting the trend for commonsense, family-friendly policies. Paid parental leave would give a boost to the almost two million people who work for the federal government across the country, and would help our government recruit and retain a talented workforce.

The growing costs of caring for a new child, the expensive diapers, bottles, baby carriers, they all add up very quickly. The USDA found that in the first two years a new child can cost families an average of nearly $13,000.

Paid leave makes sure that families can start out on the right foot, not forcing them into debt, or making devastating choices between caring for a child and the paycheck they need.

I am proud that versions of this legislation have passed the House twice before, and urge my colleagues to support this common-sense proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to reintroduce the Human Trafficking Fraud Enforcement Act of 2017 with my colleague Rep. Ted Poe.

In March 1931, the infamous gangster, Al Capone, was ultimately indicted for tax fraud. Today the IRS Criminal Investigations division continues to play a vital role in proving criminal activity and fraud. I believe that the IRS can play a similar role in cracking down on criminals profiting from human trafficking and prostitution.

This bill authorizes $4 million to establish an office within the IRS to prosecute sex traffickers for violations of tax laws. The office would focus on the willful failure of traffickers to file returns, supply information, or pay tax where the taxpayer is an ``aggravated'' non-filer. In addition, the office would coordinate closely with existing task forces focused on sex trafficking offenders in the Department of Justice.

The bill also amends the Internal Revenue Code to increase criminal monetary and other penalties for attempts to: evade or defeat tax, willful failure to file a tax return, supply information, or pay tax, aggravated failure to file tax returns, fraud and false statements, and underpayment or overpayment of tax due to fraud. This offense will carry a maximum sentence of 10 years and a maximum fine of $50,000.

The Human Trafficking Fraud Enforcement Act of 2017 also establishes a new felony offense for an aggravated failure to file to include failure to file with respect to income or payments derived from activity which is criminal under Federal or State law. This will target those involved in the promotion of commercial sex acts--pimps and traffickers--and not conduct of exploited persons in prostitution.

Last, this bill directly benefits those who are victimized by the traffickers by revising current IRS Whistleblower provisions so that women and girls who choose to come forward to cooperate in an investigation will be eligible to participate in the whistleblower program and may ultimately be granted up to 15% of any fines levied against the trafficker.

We must use every tool possible to take down traffickers, who have often proven elusive to apprehend and prosecute. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this misguided resolution that will only imperil the lives of more Americans.

In 2007, this body passed the National Instant Criminal Background Check System Improvement bill with a unanimous voice vote.

We all agreed that the background check system needed better information, especially after dangerous individuals slipped through the cracks and were able to purchase guns they never should have been allowed to buy in the first place.

Like Jared Loughner, who killed six people in Arizona who were at a grocery store to meet our colleague Gabby Giffords.

He passed background checks even though he had a history of drug use and disturbing behavior that should have been in the system.

So the Obama Administration, at Congress's direction wrote this rule to make sure that federal mental health records make their way into the background check system, so that it can effectively deny purchases to individuals who are already prohibited from buying guns.

And let's be clear about what we're talking about.

This rule only affects those with very severe, long-term mental disorders, and who have been identified by doctors and psychologists as severely mentally disabled.

It does not paint disability recipients with a broad brush.

8.8 million Americans receive Social Security disability benefits, yet SSA estimates only 75,000 would meet the criteria under this rule.

That is less than one percent.

Let's also be clear: this resolution is an attempt to hamstring our federal agencies and to keep them from improving the background check system.

Rather than work with a new administrator to improve the rule, the Majority would rather have no rule at all because this bill not only repeals this background check improvement rule, it also prohibits the federal government from issuing a similar rule in the future.

We've got it backwards. We shouldn't be repealing gun safety rules, we should be strengthening them. Gun violence is an epidemic in this country and we have done literally nothing in Congress about it since Republicans took the majority in the House in 2011.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, we often tell young people that if they work hard and play by the rules, their efforts will be rewarded.

Yet this unjust resolution fails to put our federal government's money where its mouth is.

It will ensure that our tax dollars continue to go to companies that fail to live up to their end of this bargain.

Time and again, reports have cited the glaring frequency with which serial labor law violators receive federal contracts.

In the mid-1990s, GAO identified dozens of companies of violating core workplace protections, like the National Labor Relations Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

And these abuses have continued. Reports in 2010 and 2013 again found that companies with significant labor citations continued to receive federal contracts.

The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule makes certain that our agencies have the information about these violations they need to protect American workers and safeguard our tax dollars.

It makes clear that companies who violate our landmark labor protections, who deny overtime pay or family leave, and who deny workers' rights to organize are not rewarded for repeatedly flouting the law.

It also ensures that workers who have been discriminated against or sexually harassed can have their day in court. They cannot be forced into arbitration.

Our procurement laws already ask that tax dollars only go to responsible contractors, with ``a satisfactory record of integrity''.

Serial labor law violators do not meet this test.

What's more, numerous studies have found that contractors with better compliance records also perform better.

So let's not brush around the edges; this is not about safeguarding tax dollars.

This vote is about allowing labor abuses to go rewarded.

I cannot stand for that. I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me, and for her leadership in so many areas, including her leadership on this joint resolution.

I rise today in strong opposition to the resolution, which would repeal an SEC anticorruption rule. I fail to understand why anyone in this body would want to repeal something that helps us fight corruption.

The SEC rule would require companies registered in the United States to disclose the payments that they make to foreign governments for the development of oil, natural gas, or other minerals.

Unfortunately, there is a long and very sad history of corruption where Big Oil or mining companies strike deals with foreign governments to extract their natural resources. Too often, the money from the oil or mining company ended up going to pay bribes to corrupt politicians and not to benefit the ordinary citizens of the country.

The SEC rule is intended to bring some basic transparency to these deals--that is all we are talking about, transparency--by requiring U.S. companies to disclose the payments they make to foreign governments--who the payments went to, how much they paid, who in the government got the money that should be going to the people.

It tells the people and the country where this natural resources money is going. This is just common sense, and it is outrageous and unbelievable to me that anyone would oppose simple transparency rules that combat corruption.

I have been a long-time supporter of this rule. I spoke in favor of it during the Dodd-Frank debate, and I sent a letter to the SEC urging them to finalize this rule as quickly as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this letter, on which I was joined by roughly 58 of my colleagues.

Congress of the United States,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, June 11, 2014.

Re Implementation of Section 1504.

Hon. Mary Jo White,

Chair, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, let's also be clear about what the SEC's rules do not do. They do not place any restrictions on who companies can pay money to. It doesn't restrict how much money they can pay or what they can pay for. It doesn't stop corruption; it just simply says you have to report it so that the people in the country--and everyone--knows what is going on.

In fact, there was bipartisan support for this rule. The amendment to Dodd-Frank that required this rule was known as the Cardin-Lugar amendment because it was cosponsored by Republican Senator Dick Lugar. Senator Lugar was a long-time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, so he understood the negative impact that these corrupt deals could have on developing countries.

The only reason--and I repeat, the only reason--to vote for this resolution is to help corrupt governments steal money from their people.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to repeat this phrase since people were knocking me out of order.

The absolute only reason they should vote for this--and I want to warn those on both sides of the aisle--is to help corrupt governments steal money from their people; so I strongly urge a ``no'' vote.

Now, several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have pointed out that the foreign and corrupt rule will take care of this, but the foreign and corrupt rule only covers bribery. It doesn't cover unjust enrichment. It doesn't cover governments stealing from themselves.

Use of the Congressional Review Act to strike the rule would prohibit the Commission from promulgating any rule that is ``substantially similar'' to that rule, effectively preventing it from ever fulfilling its statutory mandate in the Dodd-Frank Act, contrary to the will of Congress.

I urge a strong ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 724, which would rescind the President's refugee ban that impacts green card holders like the woman located in Iran with her 3-year-old U.S. citizen daughter.

Madam Speaker, look at this picture. Where are the women?

Yesterday, the President signed an executive order affecting and restricting health care for millions of women across the world while no woman was present. Clearly, he did not hear the voices of the millions of women who marched for their rights and for their health care this past weekend. Reinstating the global gag rule will cut off funding for global healthcare organizations that offer reproductive health care for women from some of the poorest and neediest countries in the world.

I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the global gag rule and any other assault on women's rights in America or around the world.

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from the great State of Massachusetts for his extraordinary leadership on this issue and so many others and for standing up for women. The right to speak is a very special one.

Madam Speaker, the right to choose is meaningless without the access to choose. That is what this bill is about. It is cutting off access to choice. That is why the anti-choice movement is so strongly behind this bill.

H.R. 7 is a cynical attempt to use the Federal Government's power of the purse to restrict a woman's access to her constitutionally protected right to an abortion.

I oppose the Hyde amendment and believe that we should be increasing access to comprehensive health care, not reducing it. But this bill makes the Hyde amendment permanent. It goes further. It prohibits the Affordable Care Act tax credits for individuals and employers who choose plans that cover abortion.

H.R. 7 would restrict abortion coverage or make such coverage too burdensome or expensive for many Americans to afford. It is a step back towards a dark and ugly time when anti-abortion laws took a substantial toll on women's health and, in many cases, cost them their very lives.

I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``no'' on this rule and the underlying bill.

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

Here we are more than 3 months into fiscal year 2017, debating a budget which is not really a budget resolution. Even the majority admits it is nothing more than a shell to help them repeal the Affordable Care Act. It doesn't contain any way to grow jobs and it doesn't contain any new ideas to grow our economy.

With all of the majority's rhetoric about deficits over the last decade or more, this budget explodes the deficit and adds $2 trillion-- as in T--to the national debt, only to set the stage for repeal of healthcare assistance to millions of Americans.

What is more, the Congressional Budget Office has told us that repeal of the Affordable Care Act would increase the deficit by $353 billion over 10 years. Now, many of my colleagues have noted the devastating effect of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the effect that it would have on millions of Americans' health. Thirty million Americans would lose insurance, including 4 million children. The cost of prescription drugs would go up for our seniors. Young people would lose the coverage on their parents' health care. Women wouldn't be protected, and men with preexisting conditions. Pregnancy would no longer be covered.

The Affordable Care Act has made critical progress for Americans. Millions have gained health care that they never had before. Our uninsured rate is now at 8.9 percent. It is the lowest rate in the history of our great country. It is nearly halved from before the Affordable Care Act took place, as you can see from this chart. This is something we should be proud of. We have allowed more and more and more Americans to have health care when they need it. It is literally a life-and-death situation to millions of Americans.

This reckless repeal of the Affordable Care Act will also cause economic havoc. It not only hurts people; it hurts our economy. Now, just last month, our economy added 144,000 private sector jobs--the 75th straight month of job growth in the United States of America. That is something we can all be proud of. That is the longest stretch of job creation since 1939 in our Nation's history.

That is in stark contrast to the way things were at the time that the last Presidential transition took place. When Barack Obama took the oath of office, our economy was shedding a staggering amount of jobs. In December of 2008, the economy lost 695,000 jobs. The next month, another 598,000 jobs gone. We were losing, over a period of time, roughly 700,000 jobs a month. The banks were teetering, lending had halted, the auto industry was exploding, our Nation was in economic turmoil. The combination of a bursting asset bubble and bank panic brought this country to the edge of collapse. It was the worst financial crisis in global history, according to the head of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke--in global history.

Today we have a very different story. Thank you, President Obama. Our unemployment rate, which had soared up to 10 percent, is now at 4.7 percent. That is a great achievement. In 2016 alone, our country added 2.2 million jobs, bringing the total to over 15 million new jobs created over the last 7 years. Instead of shedding jobs and losing jobs under the prior administration, we were gaining.

Just look at this chart. We moved from the deep red valley of political devastation, economic loss of jobs and suffering, to moving out of our economic troubles to a continued growth of blue job creation. In the job creation and in our economy, we also expanded health care to help our people. Just look at this chart. It tells the story--the deep red valley of economic devastation caused by the last Republican administration and the steady job growth under President Obama.

We are now seeing stronger job growth after years of stagnation. Over the past year, average hourly earnings rose to 2.9 percent; another great success. But now we are considering a heartless and, I would say, reckless plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act; a move that threatens to undo our progress and will turn millions of lives absolutely upside down across this great Nation.

A report issued this month by The Commonwealth Fund outlined the disastrous economic consequences of the majority's plan. In just the first year of repeal, our economy will lose nearly 2.6 million jobs and over $255 billion in economic output. Over the course of 5 years, our economy will lose over $1.5 trillion in output.

These devastating job losses are not limited to the healthcare industry. As was pointed out by many Democratic speakers, our whole industry is intertwined. You can't cut the Affordable Care Act without also impacting not only people, but also the delivery of services through our hospitals, and also Medicaid and Medicare. It is all intertwined. It is reckless to move forward and say: Oh, we are going to come up with a good plan.

Well, where is it?

You have had years to come up with it. We have never seen it.

We will lose not just two-thirds, over 1.6 million, of jobs just in health care, but also in related industries--construction, retail, and other sectors. What is more, this repeal plan would also place massive financial burdens on our State budgets.

The Commonwealth Fund report estimates that in just the first year, States would lose out on $8.2 billion in tax revenue. Over 5 years, our States would lose over $48 billion in tax revenue. That means hits to our schools, our roads, our first responders, and our neighborhoods.

Of course, repealing the Affordable Care Act will hurt the millions of people who have directly benefited from it. People have come up to me and told me on the street: I finally have health care; I have health care for my children; I know if they get hurt, they are going to be taken care of.

People in my home State of New York will be hit very hard. Over 2.7 million New Yorkers have healthcare coverage today that they did not have before because of the Affordable Care Act. Now their health care is on the line, for they are among the 30 million who would lose health coverage under the majority's repeal plan.

This not only hurts people, it cost economic development--a loss of $89.7 billion in gross State product for my State of New York alone.

This is the way it is all across the country. Americans of every political stripe, who work hard and play by the rules and think they finally have health care, who have at long last gained it, are now worried about what is going to happen to them tomorrow. They deserve better. They deserve what they already have. They, at least, deserve a plan.

We should not repeal. We shouldn't repeal it in the first place. But if you are going to repeal it, let's be responsible about it and have what it is you are going to put back in place to help people. It is reckless to repeal it.

In the most advanced, most economically prosperous country in the history of the world, our people deserve the certainty that they can have access to health care for themselves and their families. With all that is at stake--health care for millions, the loss of 2.6 million jobs, economic havoc--it is simply irresponsible to move forward with a budget, and reckless to repeal the Affordable Care Act without any real solution to help people.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote against this budget resolution, which is nothing more than a plan to take health care away from Americans.

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

Mr. Chairman, first, I would like to apologize to two dedicated members of the committee on which we serve: Mr. Beyer and Mr. Delaney, who have been sitting here, waiting for a long time. But Mr. Nadler tells me he has an absolute pressing emergency and must go first.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Virginia (Mr. Beyer.)

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Delaney), another distinguished member of the Joint Economic Committee.

Mr. Chair, I urge a strong ``no'' vote. This budget resolution jeopardizes the very health of our citizens and puts our economic recovery at risk. I urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 78, the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act. This bill would require the SEC to do an absurd amount of time-consuming, duplicative cost-benefit analysis before they can even propose a rule. This is the fourth time, Mr. Chairman, that we are voting on this partisan bill because the previous three times the bill has been rejected by the Senate and President Obama has strongly opposed it.

But let's be clear about what this bill is not about. It is not about ensuring that the SEC conducts a cost-benefit analysis on the rules. If that were the case, then no legislation would be necessary. The SEC is already required to conduct a cost-benefit analysis and has already adopted internal guidance on economic analysis that mirrors the exact requirements of this bill before us today. So the problem is not that the SEC doesn't currently conduct cost-benefit analyses or that it does it poorly; the real goal of this bill is simply to give the industry more chances to sue the SEC on cost-benefit grounds when it issues rules the industry does not like. That is essentially the only thing that would change if this bill were signed into law.

The SEC's cost-benefit analysis would be the same, but the industry would have more opportunities to sue the SEC over alleged flaws in the cost-benefit analysis. And the threat of a lawsuit would force the SEC to divert even more of its scarce resources to cost-benefit analysis, which would delay the key reforms and undermine the SEC's ability to protect investors--their core mission.

So I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, as they have in three previous votes before this body.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I enter into the Record the following letters of opposition to H.R. 78 signed by the Consumer Federation of America, Americans for Financial Reform, the California State Teachers' Retirement System, and the Council of Institutional Investors. These institutions represent various groups such as investors, consumers, public pension plans, labor unions, and communities of color.

Consumer Federation

of America,

January 10, 2017.

Vote NO on H.R. 78, the ``SEC Regulatory Accountability Act''--Bill Would Paralyze the Agency's Ability to Protect Investors and Promote

Market Integrity

Dear Representative: This week the House is expected to

vote on H.R. 78, the ``SEC Regulatory Accountability Act.''

The bill imposes burdensome new rulemaking requirements that

would prevent the agency from responding in a timely manner

either to emerging threats in the marketplace or to industry

requests for guidance or legal interpretations. As such, it

threatens to undermine the stability and integrity essential

to healthy capital markets, with harmful consequences for

investors, capital formation, and the overall economy. I am

writing on behalf of the Consumer Federation of America to

urge you to vote no when the bill is brought to the floor for

a vote.

The bill is being promoted as a measure to enhance cost-

benefit analysis at the Securities and Exchange Commission

(SEC). And, in that regard, certain of the bill's

requirements are relatively benign, such as the requirements

that the agency discuss the nature and scope of the problem

it is intending to solve when it engages in rulemaking,

carefully analyze available alternatives, and consider the

costs of the various alternatives as well as their relative

effectiveness in determining on a course of action. But these

are things the SEC already does, having learned the painful

lesson that failure to do so can result in its rules' being

overturned in court. Indeed, both the Government

Accountability Office and the SEC's Office of

the Inspector General have in recent years praised the agency

for the extent and quality of its cost-benefit analysis.

Other of the bill's provisions are far more harmful. The

following are among the most serious problems with this

legislation:

It requires the agency to adopt, not the most cost-

effective regulatory approach, but the least burdensome

approach. As such, it prioritizes minimizing regulatory costs

over promoting regulatory effectiveness.

The bill requires the agency to consider a number of

specific factors in assessing regulations, including their

effect on efficiency, competition, and capital formation as

well as investor choice, market liquidity, and small

business. Not included are any specific requirement to assess

their impact on investor protection or market integrity,

stability, and transparency.

If the Conunission fails to address concerns raised by

``industry groups'' related to costs and benefits, it must

explain its reasons. There is no comparable requirement to

explain any decision not to address investor concerns.

It imposes these burdensome new requirements, not just on

regulations, but also on agency orders, interpretations, and

other statements of general applicability ``that the agency

intends to have the force and effect of law.'' Firms seeking

a timely response from the agency staff on issues important

to their business are likely to face significant delays if

the legislation is enacted.

It requires the agency to engage in a constant

retrospective review of all its regulations every five years,

regardless of whether there is any cause for concern with a

particular regulation. Since the bill doesn't include any new

funding authorization to provide for this review, and

Congress has been highly reluctant to provide funding

increases commensurate with the agency's workload, the

inevitable result is that the agency will be forced to take

resources away from other more important regulatory

priorities to fund this generally meaningless exercise.

While a reasonable and balanced analysis of costs and

benefits can promote effective rulemaking, this legislation

goes far beyond what is reasonable or balanced. It would tie

the SEC in procedural knots, keep its focus on an endless

review of existing rules rather than emerging issues, provide

endless grounds for legal challenge, causing a serious drain

on agency resources, and undermine the agency's focus on its

central mission of protecting investors and promoting market

integrity and stability. Indeed, the bill would exacerbate

rather than ameliorate the most serious short-comings in the

agency's current regulatory process--its inability to

complete rulemakings regarding pressing issues in a timely

manner.

For these reasons, we urge you to vote ``No'' when H.R. 78,

the ``SEC Regulatory Accountability Act,'' is brought to the

floor for a vote. The only ``accountability'' this

legislation promotes, is the SEC's accountability to the

firms it is supposed to regulate rather than the investors it

is supposed to protect.

Respectfully submitted,

Barbara Roper,

Director of Investor Protection.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green), a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Al GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I am absolutely amazed this legislation has progressed to this point. This is not a panacea. This is not legislation that will prevent some harm being done to mom-and-pops. This is about Wall Street. This is about multimillion-dollar corporations. It is not unusual here for those who would benefit from the use of those who live on Main Street, they would benefit from it by saying that the bill is for Main Street when in fact it is for Wall Street.

This bill should properly be labeled the bill that the SEC rulings would come under stagnation, litigation, and decimation as a result of, because the way the bill is worded, there will be much litigation, and that litigation will tie the SEC up in court for many years. That will create the stagnation

which will cause the SEC to be ineffective; and, as a result, the SEC, in terms of its rulemaking, will be decimated.

Let's talk for a moment about a cost-benefit analysis. That is a very simple formula that can be used if you want to refinance your home and you want to get a different interest rate over a different period of time. All of the numbers associated with it are quantifiable. But if you want to do cost-benefit analysis in terms of fraud prevention, the prevention of fraud is not quantifiable; it is not knowable.

Bernie Madoff made off with approximately $64 billion, and in so doing, he perpetrated one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the United States of America, the American people. If we had a regulation in place to prevent that fraud that Bernie Madoff perpetrated, there would be no way of knowing that he would have perpetrated the $64 billion fraud. You can't quantify legislation that prevents the fraud.

If we had legislation in place to prevent the downturn in 2008, that would have prevented the 327s, the 228s, the teaser rates that coincided with prepayment penalties, the no-doc loans. If we had regulations in place to prevent it, then we would never have known the harm it would have caused the economy.

That is what this bill will do. It will put the SEC in a position such that it cannot produce the rules to prevent the fraud that we can never measure. It is not knowable how much fraud will be prevented by the rules that the SEC promotes and produces.

This legislation also does not allow the SEC to move at the speed of innovation. Innovation moves quickly. The SEC has to be able to produce rules to match the speed of innovation. This is why it was difficult to do something about what was happening to the economy leading up to 2008. We didn't have the speed necessary, and now we are going to put a further burden on the SEC such that the SEC won't be able to respond to these new products that are coming on the market. And make no mistake, they will come on the market.

The stock market crash of 1929 was something that rules and regulations could have prevented. They were not there. They put them in place. Glass-Steagall was one of them. It took 66 years, but they got Glass-Steagall. I don't know how long it is going to take them, but they intend to get Dodd-Frank. This is the first step in the direction of making Dodd-Frank impotent.

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

I would like to share with my colleagues and the American public how American organizations that work day in and day out to fight to protect investors, consumers, minorities, workers, and pension plans view this bill.

The director of investor protection of the Consumer Federation of America states: ``This legislation goes far beyond what is reasonable or balanced and, indeed, the bill would exacerbate, rather than end the most serious shortcomings in the agency's current regulatory process, its inability to complete rulemaking regarding pressing issues in a timely manner.''

The general counsel of Council of Institutional Investors stated: ``We believe the provisions of H.R. 78 would unnecessarily impede the ability of the SEC to issue proposals in furtherance of its mission, its mission to protect investors.''

Finally, the Americans for Financial Reform stated: ``This legislation is transparently an effort to paralyze the SEC and to empower Wall Street lawyers to overturn its decisions and sue and not to improve its analysis or decisionmaking process.''

I urge my colleagues to heed these warnings and to really hear what these representatives of the public are saying; and I urge them to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.

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

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

My Republican colleagues, regrettably, want to impose cost-benefit analysis that tilts towards industry costs because they know something that they don't want the American people to know. An impartial cost- benefit analysis of Wall Street reform rules would inevitably demonstrate how wildly beneficial such rules are to the U.S. economy and to the lives of everyday Americans.

Earlier this week, the bipartisan think tank, Third Way, found that Dodd-Frank's bank capital rules will add $351 billion--as in B, billion--to the U.S. economy over the next 10 years. This report presents a cost-benefit analysis that shows that, while lending becomes slightly more expensive when banks are required to maintain higher capital levels, the benefits of mitigating another financial crisis greatly exceed any costs. This report is one of many which Republicans intentionally ignore.

Reducing the likelihood of another financial crisis does not come without cost, but the costs are worth it. Let us not forget the widespread human suffering that has been felt across this Nation because of the financial crisis. The 2008 financial crisis destroyed 8.7 million American jobs, wiped out $2.8 trillion in retirement savings of ordinary Americans, and led to the foreclosure, the loss--15 million Americans lost their homes due to financial mismanagement in this country.

If those aren't significant costs for policymakers to consider, then what else is?

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

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

I want to point out that with Dodd-Frank and the reforms that the Democrats put in place, our economy bounded back faster and stronger than all of Europe. And I must say that one of the areas that we need to work on, where we are falling behind in our economy, is exports. We need to support exports.

Despite all the talk that we hear from Republicans about enacting policies that support jobs and job creation, and the slew of tweets from the President-elect discouraging American companies from moving U.S. jobs overseas--and I support his efforts to stop our companies from going overseas--one proven job creator has remained on the sidelines, and that is the U.S. Export-Import Bank. This Bank has played a critical role in opening up international markets to U.S. exporters, which, in turn, helps create and preserve jobs here in America.

The export-import banks of our competitors are supported by those countries five times more than what we do here in America. In fact, the ability of the Export-Import Bank to even operate, even though it makes money and has succeeded in building up American exports, has been hamstrung by the leadership of my good friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

In recognition of the Bank's success and supporting U.S. jobs over the past 80 years, in December of 2015 the House and the Senate voted with overwhelming majorities to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. Despite this broad support, the Bank has remained hamstrung because, with three empty seats on its five-member board, the Bank lacks the quorum it needs in order to approve transactions over $10 million.

Although President Obama nominated two individuals to serve on the Ex-Im's bipartisan board, the Senate Republican leadership refused to consider them, and Ex-Im's board remains without a quorum. They can not approve these exports. I think it is a national scandal.

Indeed, it has been more than 18 months since the Export-Import Bank's board was last able to consider transactions, which has limited its ability to ensure U.S. workers and businesses of all sizes are able to compete around the world for contracts, as well as support jobs for the many small businesses that contribute to the supply chains for these high-value exports.

In fact, the bank currently has 50 transactions in its pipeline valued at nearly $40 billion, which, if approved, would support more than 100,000 American high-skill and high-wage jobs. I intend to bring this to the attention of the President-elect.

So, as we talk today about how these Republican bills will create American jobs, I think it is important that we look at the GOP's full record on job creation or, might I say in this case, job prevention. As their record shows, Republican leaders have been all too willing to let U.S. jobs slip away to our foreign competitors.

Until Congress restores Ex-Im to full functionality, U.S. companies selling expensive capital goods such as aircraft, locomotives, nuclear reactors, and turbines will remain at a unique competitive disadvantage because their foreign competitors all enjoy ample financing from their home-country export credit agencies--enough to easily knock U.S. companies out of the competition. This is unfair.

We cannot compete and win in the global economy unless we support our businesses. We will lose global market share in key sectors such as the satellite industry, aerospace, and telecommunications. We will lose tens of thousands of jobs as some of the biggest U.S. exports suffer declining overseas sales, and, eventually, some of

these companies would be forced to move jobs to where export credit is still available. We have seen this reported in the news daily where they are moving to our competitors.

So, in short, we need to support the Export-Import Bank. We need to not hamstring the SEC by requiring it to have unnecessary, time- consuming, duplicative rules that are already in place and that allow people to sue them more easily.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who care, as President-elect Trump does, about job creation to be opposed to this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, residents in New York City had a special reason to celebrate as this new year began. The very first new subway in over 60 years and the largest subway in the country opened its doors and carried passengers at 12 noon on New Year's Day. This new line is expected to carry over 200,000 travelers a day, reducing commute time, reducing costs, operating with efficiency, and boosting small businesses.

It is a project that has been on the books for over a century and one that I fought for every single day that I have been in Congress. It is the gift that keeps on giving. It has already generated over 16,000 new jobs. It has spurred over $840 million in good wages. The regional plan says that it is responsible for over $2.5 billion in new economic activity. They just opened their doors.

Let's work together and support other good, important infrastructure projects in our country. It is good for Americans; it is good for America.