Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise today to join my fellow Georgians in commemorating the passing of a lifelong resident of the Atlanta suburbs, Mrs. Ollie Ruth Hunter, who passed away on August 28, 2018, at the age of 84. Mrs. Hunter was a proud nurse who committed her life to care for her fellow citizens.

Mrs. Ollie Ruth Hunter was born on March 31, 1934. Having spent her entire life as a resident of Atlanta, she attended school at Ben Hill Elementary School, then on to Booker T. Washington High School. After high school, Mrs. Hunter continued her education at the Belmont Nursing School and Grady Nursing School. During her career, Mrs. Hunter worked as a nurse for Holy Family Hospital, various nursing homes, and individual private duty assignments. Subsequently, Mrs. Hunter held several jobs, but the one that allowed her to contribute most to her community was her job as the first black manager of Barricini Candies at Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta, GA. As a trailblazer, she provided the opportunity for numerous young black women to work their first job.

Mrs. Hunter loved to travel, especially, to Florida, but according to her, the best places to be were church, home, ball games, and car races. She was an active member of several clubs and lodges, including the Three Rose Social Club, Eastern Star, Heron of Jericho, and, her favorite, the Red Hat Society. She was the founder and Queen of the Red Hat Gems of Atlanta.

I celebrate Mrs. Hunter for her admirable service to the city of Atlanta and her family. My colleagues and I extend our heartful condolences to her surviving family members which include her three children, three grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren. Mr. Speaker, I would like to extend my deepest sympathies to Mrs. Hunter's family and friends during this difficult time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Maxine Waters for the excellent leadership she has provided in working with our chairman, Jeb Hensarling, in putting together this very good package.

I also want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Loudermilk), my Republican colleague, and his staff for his leadership on what is title 8, the exchange regulatory improvement title, which mirrors the work that I did, as the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Maxine Waters) mentioned, as the Democratic lead on H.R. 3555.

Mr. Speaker, I want to also mention that we spent about a year working on this because it was so important that we give clarification and modernization to the term ``facility.'' That term dates all the way back to 1934. That is 84 years ago. So we needed to make some changes because of the fact that there are many business lines, such as e- mortgage registries, data analytics, and regulatory compliance software, that are obsolete now and have nothing to do with and are completely unrelated to the exchange's core business, which is facilitating transactions.

What my colleague Mr. Loudermilk and I are simply trying to do is this: If there is a product or business that the exchange has that is totally unrelated to the transactions of the exchange, then that product should be exempt from SEC oversight. Our bill does this by simply asking the SEC, or Securities and Exchange Commission, to set forth the facts and the circumstances that it considers when determining whether a business line is, in fact, a facility.

I want to make this final point, and I want to be crystal clear here. It is vitally important that the SEC retain oversight of the important exchange functions.

We ran out at 2 minutes there. But this is very important, because when you are making changes, you want to make clear that you are not taking away any important and critical oversight and authority from the SEC.

So I want to make a point that we work hard to make sure that the SEC retains oversight of important exchange functions, such as those related to exchange market data, listing standards, member and market regulation, colocation, and order routing services. We, the drafters of the bill, do not take away any authority from the SEC.

Mr. Speaker, during the votes held on May 17, 2018, I unintentionally voted No on the Foxx amendment to H.R. 2. I am fully committed to reforming the sugar program and increasing access to the world market for our food manufacturers and lowering food costs for all Americans.

Mr. Chairman, let me make it very clear at the very beginning, that this is a racist farm bill. Make no mistake about it.

The good Lord said: Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And the truth is that this is, unfortunately, a racist farm bill. Let me tell you why.

After the Civil War when the South was utterly destroyed, they established land-grant colleges, and then 30 years later, because there was so much struggle without adequate freedom for my people--African Americans--they established the 1890 land-grant colleges because they had Plessy v. Ferguson, the separate but equal doctrine. Yeah, they were separated already, but never equal.

These 1890 colleges have never gotten the financial support that they have needed to even come close to the White 1860s that were there. And so we tried to make amends in this farm bill to come up with a very noble idea. With the shortage of younger people not going into agriculture, not going into science and technology and research to feed the future, we established scholarships to go to the 1890s.

But you know what? When they took our bill, put it into the farm bill, they took the money out--just like they did back in the 1890s. Black people in this country have suffered too long, and we need to put a stop to it. I am here. I know that this House will not put the money back in. It was just $1 million a year for each of the 5 years to try to get people in. And these land grants knew.

Every Black man does not necessarily want to play football or basketball. They want to feed the future. This is a terrible bill.

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Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman, well, my friend, you got that right.

Zell Miller was my friend, my partner, and my mentor. I got into politics quite a little bit early, just as I graduated from the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania, and landed in Atlanta. Two years later, getting down there--you mentioned Andy, getting in his campaign. And then 2 years later, there I am winding up in the Georgia House of Representatives.

So my story intersects on so many different angles and ways with that of Zell Miller, and I can truly stand here and tell each of you that I truly loved this man, and I still do; and I would not be standing here as a Member of Congress if it weren't for that friendship, that partnership, and that mentorship with Zell Miller.

Let me, perhaps, I think, as I tell you about this, I am thinking of a scripture that best sets the story for this great man; that evolves everything, the history and the steps, the many positions, all that he had done.

Before I get to that scripture, Zell Miller helped me. I mean, I got there as a young person. I got over in the Senate. My two Senate officemates, one was Paul Coverdell, the other Julian Bond. And with us three, Zell Miller called us three his three horsemen.

It was then that he was laying the foundation for that vision, for the HOPE Scholarship. Zell Miller appointed me to be chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee; first African American at that position.

But more than that, he appointed me at that position at a time when he was giving birth to one of the greatest public affairs programs in Georgia history, the HOPE Scholarship. And for me to be there as the chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee, in that pivotal position, and then to be able to go across Georgia in churches and schools and help sell the HOPE Scholarship and what it meant, and then that paved the way for me to later become Rules Chairman with Zell's endorsement.

So there I was, as Rules Chairman; as you know, Buddy, nothing gets on that calendar if it don't get through the Rules Committee. And I was there to make sure none of those bills--because you know it was tough. They had other bills coming to try to remove the HOPE Scholarship.

So let me just conclude by sharing with you what his life meant to me and, I think, to the Nation and the world is best captured in God's first psalm.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the

ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, or sitteth in

the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of

the Lord, and in the law of the Lord he does meditate day and

night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of

waters, bringing forth his fruit in his due season. And none

of his leaves will ever wither, and everything, everything,

whatsoever he does, shall prosper.

Such a man was Zell Miller. God bless you, Zell Miller, and I thank God for sending Zell Miller our way.

Mr. Speaker, during the votes held on April 13th, 2018, I was away handling important matters related to my District and attending my 15th Annual Jobs Fair held in Atlanta. If I had been present I would have voted ``yes'' on H.R. 4790--the Volcker Rule Regulatory Harmonization Act.

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Hensarling and my distinguished ranking member, who has some very serious concerns.

I want to take a moment to explain that the bill is basically my bipartisan amendment that Mr. Zeldin and I worked on that passed in committee, and I think it is very important for me to work through this to explain how it will not affect as my ranking member has stated. However, I want to make sure that people know we have got things in here to address.

It keeps intact the essence of what we were trying to accomplish with stress tests in Dodd-Frank. Now, my amendment essentially rewrote this bill, as I said, so that we are left with just three simple things, tweaks that we are making.

The first one is, in today's CCAR test, banks are now required to run stress tests that have, one, a baseline, adverse, and severely adverse scenario. My amendment simply removes the adverse requirement.

And why is that? Because, in talking about how we can stimulate more growth for our banks while at the same time maintaining the proper stress test, we heard that the adverse scenario rarely proved or shed any light on the health of the bank that isn't already shown when testing a bank for a severely adverse scenario. So we didn't need the other one if one is doing it, and so we eliminated that.

Secondly, my amendment eliminated the Fed's ability to reject a capital plan solely on what we refer to as the qualitative portion of the test. Now, Mr. Speaker, we did this because stress tests are tests of both the bank's books, which is the quantitative side, and a test of the bank's internal controls, which is the qualitative side. So rejecting a capital plan solely on the qualitative portion of the test generates a lot of uncertainty within our banking system for banks, and it is something that the Federal regulators already, earlier last year, stopped requiring the banks under $250 million from having to do. So we simply removed that.

And then, lastly, my amendment eliminated the midyear tests that banks are required to do internally. Why did we do that? Because right now, if you are a bank above a certain

asset size, you are required to do internal tests. My amendment just changes this so that the tests are done.

Mr. Speaker, I want to urge my colleagues who are looking at this that I very carefully listened to my ranking member, and I have made sure, when we worked it in the process, that we adhered to that. No phase of this stress test is eliminated.

And the thing I want to add, over in the Senate, in the reg bill, S. 2155, two of the three parts of this bill and my amendment are already captured in S. 2155, which received 67 bipartisan votes.

So it is with gracious affection to my ranking member, because oftentimes we have to work together, and respect to my chairman that I urge all our Members, both Democrats and Republicans, to support this very important and worthwhile legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an extraordinary Georgian and a great American, Lasa Joiner.

Lasa has been involved in Georgia legislative issues for over thirty years, and is well known throughout the State of Georgia and around the country for her interest and expertise in mental health issues.

Lasa Joiner first began serving as an advocate for and advisor to the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association during the 1988 Session of the Georgia General Assembly and became their Executive Director in 2003. So respected for her leadership, the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association awarded her with the 2008 Dancing Elephant Award for excellence in administrative leadership.

Lasa was the first woman to Chair the Board of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, the largest department in state government. She also chaired the Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Committee and the Rehabilitation Services Committee.

Lasa Joiner's years of outstanding advocacy for psychiatric professionals and their patients and her tireless efforts to improve access to quality mental health care in Georgia, have undeniably made our state a better place for all of its residents.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Lasa Joiner on her retirement, and extend my sincerest wishes for her continued health and happiness.

God bless Lasa Joiner.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I stand to anchor this special hour because this Nation is faced with a very serious threat. As a matter of fact, it is a devious threat to the labor unions, our great labor unions that have played a most fundamental role in establishing the greatness of the economy of our great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, this evening, first I want to thank the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Mr. Cedric Richmond from Louisiana, for his great leadership. I appreciate him giving me this opportunity to anchor this special hour.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank the staffs of the CBC, Ms. Caren Street, who has worked very closely with my staffer, Ms. Seema Ibrahim, who has done a remarkable job.

Our whole team of many Congressmen from every sector of this country, every part of this country, is going to come before this House of Representatives in these next 60 minutes to explain and expose to the American people two important things.

First of all, we want to illustrate our deep understanding of the great value of the labor unions to this great country.

We also want to expose the great threat that is now being faced by our labor unions. The first group of our labor unions that is facing this threat are the public sector unions, most pointedly because in a matter of a few weeks, the Supreme Court will take up a case, Janus v.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

It is very important, as he has mentioned, to note that we are talking about not just AFSCME, as I said, but we are talking about nurses unions, educators, the teachers that teach our children, our police, firefighters, everyone. It is very important that the people of this country really get informed about this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Representative Dwight Evans, who normally anchors this hour and does a great job.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis), a leader and a fighter from the very State where Mr. Janus is from.

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased that the gentleman mentioned the important fact of the fantastic role that labor has played. Without organized labor, there would be no middle class in America. There would be no 40-hour workweek. Child labor laws would not be on the books.

The role that organized labor has played cannot be communicated better than our next speaker, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), who is a legend in standing up and fighting for working people and labor unions. I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, it is so right that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., because this year is the 50th anniversary of his assassination. And what was he doing?

As you pointed out, he was in Memphis helping the garbage workers. It was Local 1733 that had just got their charter. And when the threats were out about him, they wanted him to leave. He said: ``No. I don't know what would happen. We have got some difficult days ahead, but I just want to do God's will.''

Mr. Speaker, that is what we are doing here tonight.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver), a dear friend, a leader in the fight for unions and working people who loves this Nation immensely, and who works with me on the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Reverend Cleaver for his comments.

Mr. Speaker, there are 7.1 million members of just the public sector unions. Thirty-four percent of all of the employees in public service belong to unions, and this Supreme Court case would be devastating to these 7.1 million families.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke), who serves on the very influential Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, it was so good of the gentlewoman to mention the why in all of this because, Mr. Speaker, in 1977, 41 years ago, in the Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, it was ruled constitutional, and now they want to come back 41 years later and say it is not constitutional. That is the big why we are going to get to answer as we move with these great speeches from our Members from across the country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison), a tireless fighter for working people, who is also the vice chairman of our Congressional Progressive Caucus as well as the vice chairman of our Democratic National Committee and a good friend. We work together on the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Ellison for his comments. Well done.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee). And you talk about a fearless fighter, Mr. Speaker, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee for her comments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the Congressman from the great State of New Jersey (Mr. Payne), who is a strong fighter on behalf of unions.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I really appreciate that.

I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), who is a leader on the Judiciary Committee and who knows full well how wrong it would be for the Supreme Court to reverse itself and take away a right that was given to labor unions just 41 years ago and then switch it back. That is not fair.

I thank the gentleman so much for his comments.

It is with great pleasure that I yield to the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester), who also served as the former secretary of labor of Delaware, whom I have worked with on our Agriculture Committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is very important to recognize that Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee is a senior member of the Judiciary Committee as well and has vowed to lead this fight in the committee, and we appreciate that.

It gives me great pleasure to yield to the gentlewoman from Orlando, Florida (Mrs. Demings). And may I say, Mr. Speaker, that Mrs. Demings is the former chief of police of Orlando. Who better to speak to the damage that this Supreme Court Janus decision could have on our police officers than the former chief of police.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Heck), a strong fighter for labor unions.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Perlmutter may have 4 minutes as our final speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I had so many Members that I couldn't get them all in. But I appreciate it, and I hope that I have shared with the American people tonight this case and the threat it holds for our very valuable unions.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a very, very important issue. I come at this from one who has worked with my good friend, Mr. Duffy, on this issue. More than that, I voted with Mr. Duffy for this bill in committee.

However, there are some troubling things about this bill that could do one very damaging thing. It could put many of these proxy firms out of business.

I want to take a moment to explain what the danger is in the bill that made me change my mind. I chatted with Mr. Duffy about it. He understands it. This is not to shed any negative light on his objective, but it is what he is doing to get to that objective that disturbs me and, I think, should disturb the people of this Congress and this country, and that is this:

It could be summed up in, basically, 2 words: unilateral authority.

That is what this bill provides to the Securities and Exchange Commission: unilateral authority to set the requirements, first of all, for what it means to be a proxy firm.

When you put unilateral authority into the hands of a regulatory agency, we know the damage that can be done. And I agree that there may be some things that need to be done, but these words, ``unilateral authority,'' would mean that the Securities and Exchange Commission could establish any number of hurdles for these proxy advisory firms to jump over in order to just stay in business.

Unilateral authority to do such things as setting financial requirements, one would say that nothing may be wrong with that; but other hurdles that the Securities and Exchange Commission could put up likely will be arbitrary, illogical, such as them setting requirements for how many employees a proxy firm should have.

Mr. Speaker, this is a step too far, especially during a time in our country when Federal regulators have used their powers to attack the American people at any and every level.

Mr. Speaker, second, let me give you an example of how you can put too much regulatory authority into an agency.

When HHS, this year, used their powers to attack women's health, that happened; or when the Department of Justice used their powers to reverse community policing reform at the Department of Justice.

All I am saying in this particular argument, Mr. Speaker, is that Mr. Duffy is well-intended, but this goes too far, and I urge my colleagues to reject and vote ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, as the Democratic lead on this bill, it is very important for me to point out that I worked very closely with Chairman Barney Frank and the Obama administration, both of which admitted at the time that it was a mistake, a blunt instrument, to be able to just put an arbitrary figure of $50 billion and say they are a threat to our financial stability.

No. Our banking system deserves better than that. The American people deserve better than that. It is not the amount of money that you have got in your assets that caused the problem; it was what they were doing that caused the exposure.

So we want to substitute the $50 billion to make sure that we have a five-point test that the Feds will give that will be able to determine if they are a threat to our security and then tailor a program of advanced supervision that would prevent them from causing us this problem.

It is a great bill. It is time we corrected it, and I ask all of my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to do the right thing for the American people, and let's have a resounding ``yes'' vote for this SIFI bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to pay honor to an extraordinary, great American.

Mr. Tim McVay, vice president and general manager of WSB Television, is retiring after 39 years as a top executive with Cox Media Group television stations across this Nation, from Dayton, Ohio, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; to San Francisco, California; and to Atlanta, Georgia, earning Tim McVay the highest awards in television, including the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Peabody Award, the Emmy Award, the Alfred I. duPont Award, and induction into the prestigious Silver Circle of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Tim McVay is a great American, deeply rooted in his love of country and his love of family: his loving wife, Cindy, and his sons, Sean and Ryan.

His son, Sean, Mr. Speaker, is head coach of the Los Angeles Rams. He is the youngest head coach in the history of the NFL.

His father, the legendary John McVay, was the head of football operations for the San Francisco 49ers and won five Super Bowls.

What a great all-American story. But there is more, Mr. Speaker, that I must tell you about Tim McVay. Tim McVay's life has been like that shining light on the hill, reaching out, helping other people, loving his neighbor as himself, that most sacred of commandments, whether it is helping the hundreds of television journalists, young people in their careers who are now leading in the television industry, or helping me and hundreds of our companies and employers, corporations in Georgia with our annual jobs fair where we have gotten over 12,000 jobs for Georgians; or our health fair that we have every year where we give breast cancer exams and prostate exams to those individuals who, for reasons of income, don't have insurance, saving lives; and our veterans, the work that Tim McVay has helped us with our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you, it was Tim McVay, under his leadership at WSB Television in Atlanta, Georgia, and his WSB reporter Aaron Diamant who exposed to this Nation the tragically high suicide rates of our veterans and then got behind me and my Republican fellow Member of Congress, Larry Bucshon of Indiana, and helped us pass legislation to get more psychiatrists into the VA.

God bless Tim McVay, and God bless the United States of America, land of the free and the home of the brave.

Mr. Speaker, I want to deal with two things quickly in my 2 minutes. I want to deal with the CFPB's directorship, but let me start with clarifying a few things.

First of all, manufactured housing is the cornerstone of affordable housing in this country. Nobody argues that. Manufactured housing is in every State in this Union. In my State of Georgia, it accounts for 12 percent of all the affordable housing units. In some States, it is even higher than that.

I just simply want to clarify why I support the bill. It is because of two things:

One, it is because of the devastating Federal regulations that are on it for these hundreds of thousands and millions of customers. What it is doing is making the American people unable to purchase manufactured housing. I think we have to look at that.

It is also eroding the home values of existing owners of manufactured housing.

Our bill simply moves to correct it by doing three things: we just simply do some technical clarifications to the definition of ``mortgage originator,'' ``loan originator,'' and ``high-cost mortgage.''

Let me just say this. I was an original sponsor of Dodd-Frank. What we put in there, we made sure that mortgage protection and Dodd-Frank is protected in here, including anybody steering anybody into any kind of loans with predatory implications. So all that is in there.

This is a great debate. There are two sides to it. But when you look at it, it is the millions of Americans who are suffering from the inability to get the mobile homes, the inability to keep them, and all we are doing is simply making these minor adjustments.

I do want to clarify about the CFPB Director, and I want the American people to listen to me.

In section 1011 of Dodd-Frank, paragraph 5, it states this: the Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Board shall be appointed by the Director and serve as acting Director in the absence or unavailability of the Director.

We wrote this. This is the law. We must abide by it.

Madam Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Neal. I appreciate this time.

Madam Speaker, my heart is heavy tonight, and it is heavy because we are faced with the absolute, most dangerous, destructive, and deceitful tax reform bill in the history of this Congress. Now, let me tell you why.

On the other side, you have heard Member after Member on the other side get up and tell you: This is going to get a tax cut, we are going to give the wealthy a tax cut, we are going to give the corporations a tax cut. But none of them have told you, or the American people, how they are going to pay for it.

And the great tragedy is, the most deceitful thing about what my colleagues on the other side are doing to the American people is they are doing these tax cuts for the wealthy, the tax cuts for the corporations, on the backs of the poor, the middle class. Let me tell you why.

They won't tell you that they are paying for this tax cut because on--$1.5 trillion that they will cut from Medicaid, from Medicare.

Madam Speaker, Medicaid is for the children. There are literally millions of children on there.

You heard one of my colleagues go down. We are losing 20 veterans to suicide every single day. No mention of that. Yet they will cut the veterans program designed to help them to pay for this tax cut.

Not to mention the student loan interest rate. Young people across this country, you need to rise up. Seniors, we need to rise up.

We need to rise up and stand and fight for this country. Let our minds go back to 1770, in Boston, at the harbor, when they threw the tea over that founded the foundation of our great democracy.

I ask the American people to stand up and help us Democrats defeat this dangerous bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Waters for yielding.

First, it is very important for us to understand that flooding, Mr. Speaker, is no longer just a coastal lawmaker's problem. Flooding is now running rampant in every part of our country.

So I think that every Member on the floor today and every Member of Congress needs to ask themselves a question, and that is: Are you really willing to put your name on this bill? Are you really willing to vote for this bill that will drastically raise premiums on your constituents without putting the necessary guardrails in place so those who can't afford the high costs can still buy flood insurance?

Now, one example I am talking about is this, Mr. Speaker--and I want to make this clear. I hope that there are listeners on C-SPAN who will tune in. Call your neighbors, call somebody. So you listen to this: This bill, H.R. 2874, will require policyholders to pay for any assistance they get when their States create affordability programs.

Here is an example: Mr. Duffy's bill allows for the creation of a voluntary State-run affordability program. But here is the catch, Mr. Speaker: there isn't one dime of funding provided in this bill to set up and implement this program.

Instead, Mr. Duffy's bill says the cost of any discount given to policyholders will have to be offset by fee increases on other policyholders within the same State.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is the Achilles' heel in this flood insurance business. I can guarantee you that this would have a gravely negative impact on all of us who are low to middle income.

Mr. Speaker, I made it clear to Mr. Jeb Hensarling, our distinguished chairman; and to Mr. Duffy that we are willing to walk across party lines.

But we offered this, as the ranking member said, as an excellent opportunity. This summer, we spent week after week on this bill so that we could move this bill forward in a way that would address affordability, which was a major concern of mine, of the ranking member's, and those of us on our side of the aisle.

There is no affordability in here. It is very important for us to point out that this plan will put an overburden on the States, and then they have to pass it on in fees to the others.

Unfortunately, it is a terrible bill. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''