Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon. This bill is something that shows we can work across the lines of politics in this institution.

I began this bill with Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington State, in the House of Representatives a year ago. It passed over there. Now it is over here in the Senate, and the same kind of bipartisanship is working to pass this critical bill which is central for companies like Siemens, Philips, and GE just in Massachusetts that support thousands of jobs in the high-tech sector.

There was a shutdown that was looming, but it was a shutdown in the helium industry. This is one shutdown that we are going to make sure does not happen. I thank the chairman for making this possible because it took a lot of leadership to make sure that House bill, the Hastings- Markey bill, is now over here, and it has been solved in a way that every Member should feel very comfortable voting yes for because it really is going to solve a big problem that was going to hit our high- tech industry in the United States.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Madam President, today I am here to give my first speech on the floor of the Senate. I do so with deep respect and reverence for the history of this Chamber and for the giants of the Senate who have served before us. From Massachusetts, our recent roster of Senators reads like a history textbook: President John F. Kennedy, who inspired a Nation--President Kennedy's desk is right here, and it is so appropriate that my extraordinary partner from Massachusetts, Senator Warren, occupies it today--the legendary Ted Kennedy--he had the vision to make health care a right and not a privilege; Ed Brooke, the first African-American popularly elected to the Senate; Paul Tsongas, a model of independence; for 28 years John Kerry was a champion for the people of Massachusetts. Now he is our chief diplomat to the world, his skill already shown in his ability to bring Russia and Syria to the negotiating table.

America is the greatest country on Earth.

My father drove a truck for the Hood Milk Company. He graduated from the vocational program at Lawrence High School. My mother was going to be senior class president in high school, but her mother died when she was a junior. She had to abandon her college dreams to stay home and take care of her younger sisters.

That was before the New Deal, before Social Security, and before Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In those days the

only social safety net for families was that one of the girls had to stay home.

I was the first in my family to go to college. I drove an ice cream truck to work my way through Boston College as a commuter. I did the same for law school. I took out Federal student loans, like so many millions of American students have to do today.

Thanks to the people of our State, this son of a milkman is now serving the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate.

I am a son of Malden, but I do not come just to occupy a seat in the Senate. I come here to stand and to speak for all those families, to seek change that uplifts those families and their future. To everyone here I say: That will be how I conduct myself here in the Senate.

I come here today to discuss my perspective, formed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, guided by its people, practiced in the House of Representatives for more than 36 years, and open to new knowledge, new ideas, and innovative ways to move our country forward.

From its inception, Massachusetts has thrived because it is a wellspring for the advancement of humanity's ideas and ideals. Nearly 400 years ago the pilgrims braved an uncertain passage to Plymouth as religious innovators, but the pilgrims would likely not have survived the new world's harsh environment without learning new ways from the native Wampanoag Indians--the ``people of the dawn,'' as their tribal name translates.

So our bearings were set early in the Bay State. In a sense, we in Massachusetts are all people of the dawn, looking over the horizon toward a new frontier, striving to forge a better tomorrow.

It is no surprise that when America moved from farms to factories it began in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has survived and it has thrived because of our tradition of innovation and imagination.

We invent the materials that power our economy. We initiate the moral discussions that advance a Nation. We are never satisfied with what we have accomplished, instead, always pushing for progress and embracing the promise of the rising sun. We know from experience that when we invest in the future we create jobs here and now in our country.

During the last few decades, the pursuit of the possible that is hard wired into our Massachusetts DNA has helped us weather tough economies and rough international competition better than many other States.

We have become a high-tech, clean-tech, biotech hub for America and for the world. At places such as MIT and at companies such as Bolt, Beranek and Newman in Boston, the underlying architecture of the Internet was envisioned and set in motion.

Earlier in my career, Congress passed three telecommunications bills on a bipartisan basis that I helped author. They removed barriers for innovation and unlocked opportunity for entrepreneurs, creating jobs in Massachusetts and across the Nation by unleashing more than $1 trillion of private sector investment in this emerging technology area.

Now the future of telecom is mobile. Massachusetts has several hundred mobile companies. We have the strongest robotics centers in the Nation. We have the burgeoning digital games industry centered in our State. We are ready for the next generation of technology jobs because we spent decades building our digital foundation.

Massachusetts was once the Nation's leading power producer, when Melville wrote ``Moby Dick'' by the light of a whale oil lamp. Now we are at the forefront of the most recent energy revolution.

Our electricity is getting cleaner, we are using it smarter, and it is getting cheaper. Massachusetts is now the No. 1 State in the country when it comes to energy efficiency. Just yesterday Boston was named America's most energy-efficient city.

Our shores will host the first offshore wind energy farm in the Nation. The same winds that brought the pilgrims to Plymouth Rock will now power a new generation of jobs in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts is seventh in the Nation in solar installed per person, even in a State more known for the perfect storm than for perfect sunny days.

In Massachusetts alone, clean energy now employs 80,000 people across 5,000 businesses in our State.

If we continue our commitments to clean energy, we will put steelworkers, iron workers, welders, and electricians to work building a new backbone for a new energy economy in the United States and around the world.

Massachusetts is the hub for biotech on the entire planet. We are No. 1 in per-capita dollars awarded by the National Institutes of Health, supporting 35,000 jobs Statewide. Health is our first wealth, but in Massachusetts it is also one of the best job creators.

We are an idea factory pumping out new concepts, creating new companies that produce new jobs and discover cures for deadly diseases.

In Massachusetts, we recognize that education is a ladder of opportunity that allows every child to maximize their God-given abilities. The first public school in America was established in Massachusetts. Today, Massachusetts students are No. 1 in the Nation in math, in reading, and tied for No. 1 with New York in science.

For students in Massachusetts and around the country, we should never let the big dreams of attending college be thwarted by the small print of overly burdensome loans.

As children learn in an online environment, we need to make sure they can grow, develop, and make mistakes that won't derail a promising future. That is why I will soon introduce my do not track kids legislation on a bipartisan basis to protect the privacy of children online.

The value of our economy grows because it is imbued with our American values. What unites us is the unshakable belief that no matter where you come from, no matter what your circumstances, you can achieve the American dream. We believe everyone should get a fair shot. No one should be left behind.

It is time to get back to the values that made Massachusetts and this country great. It is time to make real progress, creating an economy that works for everyone. It is time to protect a woman's right to choose. It is time to deliver to the LGBT community all of the protections and rights under the Constitution.

It is time that we put real gun control measures on the books. The horrific mass shooting at the Navy yard is the latest deadly reminder that we need to do more to stem the tide of gun violence in this country. Newtown, Aurora--these tragedies are not inevitable, they are preventable. This senseless carnage must end.

We need a ban on assault weapons, and we need a ban on high-capacity magazines. We need universal background checks combined with comprehensive care for our mentally ill. We need to put an end to the partisan gridlock that prevents even the most basic of gun control measures from becoming law.

In the next few weeks we will see our seventh fight over our debt and deficit in the last couple of years. We need to break down this rampant ideology that threatens to turn a government that works for the people into a government that simply shuts down.

We must also end the mindless across-the-board cuts from sequestration. Cutting programs such as Head Start will leave a generation of kids lagging behind. Slashing investments in science means the breakthroughs that create jobs and cure deadly diseases could go undiscovered. Cutting defense spending mindlessly can undermine our security.

We need a new transportation bill that puts union workers back out there working, rebuilding our roads and our bridges.

While many economists have labeled the recent downturn a recession, for our working families and low-wage earners it has become an economic depression. Economic inequality tears at the fabric that makes our country great. It turns ``E pluribus unum'' into ``everyone for themselves.'' We must raise the minimum wage for the people who are struggling to make it into the middle class.

We need to create an end to the era of climate denial. Climate change is irrefutable. It is raising sea levels. It is giving storms more power.

The planet is running a fever. There are no emergency rooms for planets.

We must put in place the preventive care of unleashing a renewable energy revolution in wind and solar, in biomass and geothermal, and in energy efficiency to avoid the worst, most catastrophic impact of climate change on this planet. We are seeing it on an ongoing basis not just here in our country but across the planet.

Our moral duty to future generations calls for us to address climate change, but it also is an economic opportunity to create new jobs here in our country.

I will soon introduce legislation that will call for America, by 2025, to reach a 25-percent target of clean energy and energy efficiency improvements. This bill will create jobs as it cuts pollution. And I will continue to work to pass climate legislation, as I did in the House of Representatives.

I will also introduce legislation to fix our aging natural gas system in Massachusetts and across the country, making it cleaner and more efficient. We can use affordable natural gas and clean energy, built and delivered through the work of union hands, to power new American manufacturing centers. That is a job-creation triple play--generate new energy, build new infrastructure, and manufacture new American products.

We must not massively export our natural gas abroad or I fear we will continue to export our young men and women to dangerous places all over the world and lose opportunities to lower electricity rates here and to increase the manufacturing jobs here in the United States.

Fifty years ago President Kennedy announced the ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon. He told us that we would need a giant rocket made of new metal alloys, some of which had not yet been invented. It would have to be fitted together with precision better than the finest watch. It would have to be able to be returned to Earth safely at speeds never before approximated by humanity. And it would all have to be done in less than 8 years.

President Kennedy urged us to be bold. I say to this Chamber, it is time for us to be bold. In this era of innovation, there are jobs that are not yet imagined in fields that haven't been created with industries that don't yet exist. We should be bold.

America watched with pride as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon and an American flag was planted as a symbol of our success. In this Capitol Building, there is a flag that was brought back from the Moon. It testifies to the returns we receive when we invest in American ingenuity, when we seek the dawn of discovery, when we invest in our people and in our industries, and when we follow the universal American values of justice and tolerance and liberty and equality.

We can use our talents and our tools to help all people everywhere build a more peaceful, prosperous future.

I look forward to working with every Senator in the months and years ahead to make the 21st century more educated, more healthy, more prosperous, and more fair than the 20th century was. That is our challenge. That is our opportunity. But we must do it together.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator.

I thank the gentlewoman very much.

Thirty-seven years ago, I stepped off a plane here, and it was my first visit in my life to Washington, D.C. I had never been here before, and I was sworn in as a Congressman on my first visit to this city 37 years ago.

I am so proud to have been a Congressman here in this Chamber along with all of you. For me, the House is democracy in action, all of us declaring our love of country and our desire for a better future for all of our constituents and for our Nation.

I am honored to have served here. I am blessed to have made so many wonderful friends here. And I am humbled by the dedication of all of you to this great Nation. As I have represented Massachusetts, so too have each of you represented your States with your conscience.

I now go to serve in the Senate, but there is a big part of me that will always be a man of the House after 37 years having served here in this great body.

With that, for the last time, I say: Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Broun of Georgia

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for holding this Special Order. It is truly right and fitting that we honor this legislative giant, this man who represents everything that this institution is all about. I have served with Mr. Dingell for 37 years on the Energy and Commerce Committee. It has been an honor every day to serve with him.

I want to tell you two stories about Mr. Dingell. A few years ago, the Energy and Commerce Committee was made a part of a conference committee that was going to create something called Farmer Mac, which was a new security that was going to be issued. Mr. Dingell and I were not happy that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae had been exempted from the Securities and Exchange Commission jurisdiction. We were not happy.

And so I arrived a little bit late to this conference, which was an Agriculture Committee conference with the Senate. I arrived and I sat next to Mr. Dingell. At the time, I was the chairman of the Securities Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Mr. Dingell had been doing all the negotiating. He turned to me about a half hour into the conference and just wrote out a note and passed it over to me. I read the note, and Mr. Dingell got up and left the room. So I continued to negotiate on behalf of Mr. Dingell and the Commerce Committee.

At the end of the day, we won everything that we were looking for. Farmer Mac securities were going to be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It wasn't going to be like Freddie Mac. It wasn't going to be like Fannie Mae. And so at the end of the conference, I just took the piece of paper and crumbled it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket and I walked out of the conference room.

About an hour later, we were out on the House floor and Kika de le Garza, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, came over to me and he had the piece of paper that was crumbled. He had actually gone into the wastepaper basket to see what was on the note that Mr. Dingell had passed to me. And here is what the note says, as Kika de le Garza is reading it to me. It said:

Mr. Markey, we have just won the first two out of three

issues with the Agriculture Committee. Do not give an inch to

them on the third issue.

And we did not. Chairman de le Garza looked at me and said, You Commerce Committee guys, you're not like the other people here in the House.

And that was John Dingell. It was an important issue. It was ensuring that the Securities Exchange Commission would in fact monitor these securities.

By the way, would we have not been better off all along than allowing these agencies to escape the scrutiny which they deserved?

And so that then brings me to the second little story. The seven most feared words ever uttered in Congress are words uttered by John Dingell as a witness is sitting at the table waiting for questioning, and those seven feared words are, ``I am just a poor Polish lawyer.'' Because that's the beginning of a very bad day for a witness as Mr. Dingell asks for explanations on detailed questions without any mercy shown to an unprepared witness.

For me, it's an honor to be here to honor John Dingell, who is still at the top of his game, still able to perform those same type of cross- examinations of witnesses as they tremble, knowing that this legislative giant is about to cross-examine.

I thank him for his service. I thank the wonderful Debbie for giving him to us for his service here. I thank him for the honor of being able to serve on that committee for 37 years with a legislative legend who will go down in history.

One of the first things he wants you to know when you got on that committee was that there was a map of the entire world--the globe--over his head; and he just wanted us to know, as we got on the committee, that that was the jurisdiction of the committee--the entire planet. And that is how he acted as that giant over all those years.

It was an honor to have served with you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill being considered today, H.R. 1256, the Swap Jurisdiction Certainty Act. Although couched as an innocuous bill to ensure that US banks have clarity about how swaps and derivatives trades are to be managed between U.S. and non-U.S. entities, in reality this bill will significantly impede efforts to apply strong regulations on Wall Street banks trading in these financial products.

The size of the global swaps market is staggering. According to the Bank for International Settlements, at the end of last year, the total notional value of outstanding over-the-counter swaps was over 632 trillion dollars. Again, 632 trillion dollars. In comparison, the gross domestic product of the entire United States was just 15.1 trillion dollars at the end of last year. The swaps market is over 40 times larger than the entire U.S. economy; in fact, the swaps market is 10 times larger than the entire global economy.

This market is also truly global in scope. Many of our major Wall Street banks, such as J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs, have significant foreign subsidiaries. Bank of America alone has subsidiaries in approximately 40 countries. Given the massive size of this market, we need the strongest possible rules over swaps transactions in foreign subsidiaries that could adversely affect U.S. banks and bank holding companies.

Unfortunately, this bill will prevent our primary regulator of the swaps market, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, from finalizing strong regulations. The CFTC has spent years crafting strong rules governing cross-border swaps and derivatives and has received a large amount of industry input on these rules. The most recent draft was circulated on May 16, 2013. If this bill passes, that entire process will be stopped in its tracks, even as the rules are supposed to be finalized within the next 30 days. Enacting this bill now is tantamount to tripping the CFTC at the finish line.

Even beyond the poor timing of this bill, the bill will substantially weaken the CFTC's ability to regulate the global swaps market. Under the text of H.R. 1256, the CFTC and the SEC are to jointly release rules governing cross-border swaps. Yet, as part of that rulemaking, the CFTC and SEC are required to assume that a foreign person in compliance with the regulations of any of the nine largest combined swap jurisdictions is also in compliance with all U.S. swaps rules. Given that the United States sets the global standard in financial matters, this provision effectively makes all global swaps rules only as strong as the rules of the weakest country among the nine largest jurisdictions. In other words, it will prompt a regulatory race to the bottom, which is a recipe for disaster.

Have we learned nothing from the excesses of the Bush Administration, when financial deregulation allowed excessively risk derivatives driving a financial market collapse? Just five years after that experience, this is a bill that allows for increased deregulation of some of Wall Street's most dangerous financial products at a time when we need more regulation of swaps. It was only one year ago that J.P. Morgan experienced its ``London Whale'' fiasco, where bad decisions by J.P. Morgan personnel in London resulted in New York based J.P. Morgan taking a loss of $6.2 billion. No one in senior management, risk, legal, or compliance was aware of the risks or liabilities being assumed by people in the London office. Yet, if CFTC's cross-border swaps rules were in place, maybe that disaster would not have happened.

U.S. based swaps dealers are increasingly fragmented, and we need strong central rules to minimize the risk of swaps trading causing another financial crisis. At a time when we are just four years removed from the worst recession since the Great Depression, a recession sparked by insufficient regulation of the swaps market, this bill is the wrong solution for the wrong problem at the wrong time. I urge my colleagues to vote no on H.R. 1256.

Madam Chair, I rise today in strong opposition to Representative King's amendment offered last week to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2014, H.R. 2217. This amendment would restrict the use of funds to finalize, implement, enforce or administer the Memo authorizing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or Dream Act-eligible youth.

This amendment punishes young individuals who are Americans in every way but on a piece of paper. Brought to this country through no fault of their own, these students are striving to educate themselves and contribute to the country that they know as home. Targeting them with limited immigration enforcement funding is unwise, thoughtless and just plain wrong.

Just two months after the Marathon bombings, we should have voted last week on a straightforward bill that funded the department of Homeland Security, a bill that assisted the agencies that performed so bravely on that tragic day. It is an important bill. It keeps us safe. The legislation also included my bipartisan amendment to prevent knives from being brought onto planes for the first time since September 11, 2001.

However, by passing this amendment targeted at the DREAMers of our country, Republicans attacked everything our country stands for as a beacon of hope for a better life. That is why I voted against this amendment. This language should be stripped from the final version of the bill.

We need to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform. That is why I will keep up that fight for a better life for immigrants and for all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing the Protection from Rogue Oil Traders Engaging in Computerized Trading, or PROTECT, Act. I am introducing this bill because we need some common-sense rules and regulations on this growing element of trading. High speed traders are pursuing increasingly creative and potentially risky strategies, and if we've learned anything from the last decade, it's that Wall Street shouldn't be left to experiment without some regulatory supervision.

High speed trading, better known as high frequency trading, is trading driven by computer algorithms that place buy and sell orders automatically. Once set in place, these algorithms run until they are taken offline, and they can be programmed to trigger trades by just about any event: by a commodity's price ticking up several trades in a row, by small differences in the price of a commodity between different exchanges, even by the appearance of certain key words in social media. These algorithms operate at terrifically fast speeds--they can trigger trades in milliseconds or even microseconds. As Futures Magazine reported back in 2011, ``the main activity of HFT is speed. While some such algorithms exist, the majority of high-frequency traders are making a bet like everyone else and attempting to gain an edge through speed.''

High frequency trading is becoming the dominant form of trading in our commodity futures markets. Prior to 2006, the New York Mercantile Exchange did not even allow electronic trading to occur while the markets were open. Yet, high frequency trading has exploded over the last seven years. According to one estimate by Sandler O'Neill and Partners L.P., high frequency trading was responsible for 47 percent of trade volume in futures markets in 2008 and now generates 61 percent of futures market volume. That's a torrid increase in only a few years, and it occurred despite commodity prices crashing during the 2008 financial crisis.

High frequency trading is changing the composition of our markets, and it's imperative that regulators have the ability to keep up with that change. Twenty-three years ago, I authored and helped enact the Market Reform Act of 1990, which gave the Securities and Exchange Committee the power to regulate practices that caused excessive volatility in our equities markets. As I informed former SEC Chairman Elisse B. Walter in January via letter, I believe the Market Reform Act empowers the SEC to take steps to regulate high frequency trading in equities. In response to my letter, the SEC confirmed that the Market Reform Act provides a ``valuable source of authority'' regarding excessive volatility and that the Commission is contemplating using it and other authorities to regulate high frequency trading in the equities markets.

Unfortunately, the rising role of high frequency trading in futures has not been fully appreciated until recently, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission does not currently have explicit authorization to regulate high frequency trading in futures. As a result, the only protection we have at present is Wall Street's willingness to self-regulate. And as we all viscerally experienced during the last six years of a financial crisis and devastating recession prompted by risky Wall Street investments, when Wall Street's experiments blow up, Main Street catches on fire.

The PROTECT Act will ensure that CFTC has the power to step in when necessary to protect Main Street companies and consumers from trading explosions caused by high frequency trading. This bill requires all futures traders making use of high frequency trading to register with the CFTC. It mandates that futures traders using high frequency trading technology establish reasonable safeguards on their systems. It prohibits simultaneous purchase and sell orders for the same commodity contract in significant quantities using high frequency trade technology. These so-called ``wash trades'' can be used to manipulate markets and generate an artificial appearance high levels of trading activity are occurring. It empowers the CFTC to establish rules and regulations on high frequency trading to address fraud, manipulation, or disruptive practices or that are otherwise ``in the public interest.'' And it raises penalties for market manipulation from $140,000 for companies to $10,000,000 or triple the total amount of proximate losses. Given that our futures markets involve trillions of dollars in trades, it's critical that the scale of the penalties match the size of the market.

High frequency traders are racing to develop ever more sophisticated technology because a technological advantage in this field can be worth millions of dollars. Yet, the commodity markets do not exist just for a few firms dabbling in high frequency trading--they are important tools for hedging and price discovery, and we should not allow the market's proverbial tail to wag the dog. Moreover, the actions of a few Wall Street HFT firms do not just affect Wall Street. High frequency traders can exact a hidden tax on other market participants by inserting themselves between buyers and sellers, and portions of that tax are then passed along to consumers. And when our markets crash, retirement accounts can be depleted, businesses can go bankrupt, and people can lose their jobs.

As the CFTC says on its website, ``The CFTC's mission is to protect market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, abusive practices and systemic risk related to derivatives that are subject to the Commodity Exchange Act, and to foster open, competitive, and financially sound markets.'' It is critical that the CFTC have the power to regulate high frequency trading so that rogue traders do not get in over their heads and damage the rest of the economy. The PROTECT Act will ensure that some common-sense rules can be set over high frequency trading in our futures markets, and I urge all of my colleagues to co-sponsor this critical legislation.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall vote No. 179, Final Passage of H.R. 3: Northern Route Approval Act (Keystone XL Pipeline), my vote is not recorded. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Chair, I rise today in opposition to this bill, H.R. 1062, the so-called SEC Regulatory Accountability Act.

This bill provides an extremely detailed list of factors that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will have to consider from now on in its rulemakings: every available alternative to a proposed regulation, market liquidity in the securities markets, and even whether the regulation ``is tailored to impose the least burden on society, including market

participants, individuals, businesses of differing sizes, and other entities (including State and local governmental entities).''

Yet, I notice that one phrase is missing from this list: investor protection.

Back in 1937, then SEC Chairman, and later Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas noted that:

We have got brokers' advocates; we have got Exchange

advocates; we have got investment banker advocates; and WE

are the investor's advocate.

That historically always has been the role of the SEC--to serve as the investor's advocate in our nation's securities markets. That is why Congress established the SEC, and why Congress has expanded its duties and responsibilities over the years. The goal of investor protection was similarly an animating force behind Democrats' efforts in the 111th Congress to enact the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. Any bill that asks the SEC to look at myriad factors when developing regulations but not investor protection is off-course from the starting block. It's a bill whose compass is broken.

Yet, this is not just a bad bill. It's an unnecessary bill. Back in 1996, during the first Congress under Republican control in forty years, Democrats and Republicans came together to enact the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996. This bill was authored by a conservative Republican from Texas (Rep. Fields), and supported by the then Chairman of the Committee (Mr. Bliley of Virginia). It was also supported by the Ranking Democrat of the Committee (Mr. Dingell) and myself. As I said at the time, ``when the history of this Congress is written, there is no question that this securities overhaul and the telecommunications overhaul will be at the top of the list in terms of constructive, productive use of this Congress.'' Among the reforms in this bipartisan bill was a requirement that: ``Whenever pursuant to this title the Commission is engaged in rulemaking, or in the review of a rule of a self-regulatory organization, and is required to consider or determine whether an action is necessary or appropriate in the public interest, the Commission shall also consider, in addition to the protection of investors, whether the action will promote efficiency, competition, and capital formation.''

The 1996 Act, which is current law, therefore makes sure that the SEC already is required to consider impacts on efficiency, competition and capital formation whenever it utilizes its inherent rulemaking powers to determine if an action is in the public interest.

But part of the deal that we reached back then on a bipartisan basis was that such an analysis could not be utilized to override the primary goal of the federal securities laws: investor protection. I see no reason why this House should throw out a good, bipartisan law for a clearly inferior update.

Yet, it is worth asking: given the requirements of existing law, exactly what purpose does this bill before us today actually serve?

I believe that this question has only one answer: to tie the SEC's hands and make it effectively impossible to release rules that help protect investors from depredations of rogue traders or dishonest Wall Street brokers. When Democrats in Congress enacted Dodd-Frank in 2010, we frequently included in that Act mandates that the SEC and other agencies issue various specific rules to regulate Wall Street. In many cases, Congress effectively gave the SEC a full, detailed directive for regulatory action and simply ordered the SEC to implement it. An example of this process can be found in Dodd-Frank Section 1504, which mandated in great detail how the SEC should promulgate a rule to require that companies disclose in their annual securities filings any payments they made to governments in connection with natural resource extraction projects. Notably, in many of those Dodd-Frank rules, Congress did not ask the SEC to consider the costs and benefits of a rule, because we in Congress already did so during the legislative process.

This bill makes that kind of legislating impossible. If this bill becomes law, any rulemaking mandated by Congress must receive cost benefit analysis, and if the costs are deemed by the SEC to outweigh the benefits, the rulemaking cannot be released.

And such outcomes--which should really be called agency vetoes, because they allow an agency to override a congressional mandate--are likely to happen because of the unfair playing field this bill sets up. Under this bill, the SEC will always have to consider the monetary costs to firms and liquidity, but the more amorphous dangers of not regulating--the risk of market crashes, the risk of bubbles, the risk of financial crises--are much harder to estimate. And even if the SEC does manage to get a good rule, by ordering the SEC to create an established record of why the options not taken might also be worthwhile, this bill forces the SEC to create a blueprint for Wall Street firms to fight the regulation in court. This bill will make what is already a difficult fight to protect Main Street from Wall Street even harder.

One thing is certain--this bill strongly biases the SEC against any regulation to protect investors regardless of the issue, and at a time where the American People are crying out for more regulations on Wall Street, not less. We need to ensure that the SEC continues to be the ``Investors'' Advocate.'' I therefore strongly urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in remembrance of the victims of the terrorist bombings that struck the City of Boston during the 117th running of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. I rise also in prayer for the recovery of all those who were injured in this horrific attack and to honor the heroism of the responders to this tragedy.

Krystle Campbell, a resident of Arlington in my Congressional District and graduate of Medford High School, lost her life at the Boston Marathon finish line doing what she loved to do: support other people. She was 29 years old, just a few weeks from her 30th birthday, with a lifetime of helping more people ahead of her.

Krystle's annual pilgrimage to the marathon represented who she was, says her family. When people needed support, Krystle was there. When her grandmother needed help following surgery, Krystle moved in with her for two years to help her recover.

Krystle's smile, hard work, and constant happy demeanor is what her family and friends will miss. But most of all, they will miss what she was always known for: being there when you needed her, being a joyful, active participant in the lives of her family and friends.

In our grief, we know that Krystle is still there, still cheering all of us on, still there in our hearts. Today we honor her memory and the joy she brought to so many lives.

Martin Richard, an eight-year old boy from Dorchester, Massachusetts, had his entire life ahead of him.

He loved to play sports, draw pictures, and was dearly loved by his family, friends, classmates, and community;

Lu Lingzi came to the United States from China to study statistics at Boston University. She posted to her friends that morning of April 15th that she was enjoying her day. Lu Lingzi reminds us of our common humanity, and that these senseless acts of terrorism are crimes that have no borders.

In the seconds, hours, and days following the bombings, Massachusetts and the nation witnessed the courage, dedication, and sacrifice of law enforcement officers and other first responders. Officer Sean Collier of Wilmington, Massachusetts, gave his life, the ultimate sacrifice, during this ordeal.

Sean was an outstanding officer of the MIT police force on his way to a position on the Somerville police force. Yesterday the Somerville Board of Aldermen unanimously voted to posthumously name Sean Collier a Somerville police officer. Somerville's Mayor Joseph Curtatone said ``This person was exemplary as a public servant and a human being. He would have been an outstanding member of the Somerville Police Department.''

Officer Collier was on his regular shift, protecting the students at MIT, when he was assassinated by two twisted individuals as Officer Collier sat in his police cruiser.

We mourn his loss, along with his family, the MIT community, Massachusetts, and Americans everywhere.

Officer Collier was known by his family, friends, and co-workers as a generous, kind, and dedicated individual and officer. His friends say he was always armed with a sense of humor, and his roommate who trained with him at the academy said his only fault was that he was too brave.

Officer Collier represents the best of Massachusetts and of law enforcement. We honor his memory and know that his life of service and sacrifice will never be forgotten by Massachusetts or the nation.

In the early morning of Friday, April 19, 2013, after a week of searching for suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, and just hours after an MIT officer had been assassinated, Massachusetts law enforcement spotted and engaged the two brothers who were accused of committing the bombings.

The officers who exchanged fire with the two brothers were met with heavy resistance by the suspects. 200 or more rounds of ammunition are reported to have been fired on the corner of Dexter and Laurel Streets in Watertown, Massachusetts, in my congressional district. The bombers also hurled explosives at the officers, turning a city street into a battlefield.

One officer of the MBTA police force, Richard Donohue, Jr., was struck in the leg during the firefight. He likely did not know then, but his academy classmate and friend, Sean Collier of the MIT police force, was the officer felled by the bombing suspects hours earlier.

Officer Donohue of Woburn in my congressional district raced to help his fellow officers--not a surprise for an officer known as an avid runner and a dedicated public servant. His family notes that his great- great-grandfather even won the Boston Marathon, where Officer Donohue started his week working a shift at this iconic race.

Officer Donohue is being cared for in the hospital, with his family by his side. An entire Massachusetts family of citizens remains forever in his debt for putting his life on the line to keep us safe.

We mourn the innocent victims who lost their lives on Patriots Day at the Boston Marathon: Krystle Campbell, Martin Richard and Lu Lingzi. We grieve for Office Sean Collier, who was killed by the bombers as he protected the students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We pray for the recovery of MBTA Police Officer Richard Donohue, Jr. and all those injured in the blasts. We honor the heroism of all of our police officers, fire fighters, medical staff and other emergency responders.

We will never forget. We will always remain ``Boston Strong''.

Mr. Speaker, parev, pari yegak (Hello, welcome!).

I am very proud to represent Watertown, Massachusetts in Congress. Watertown has the third highest percentage of Armenian-Americans of any community in the Nation. I

am also a proud member of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues led by Representatives Pallone and Grimm.

The Armenian-American community is one of the greatest success stories in this Nation's history. I was meeting recently with a group of my Armenian-American constituents to discuss some of the current issues affecting US-Armenian relations and I commented that in my experience, I have never met an unsuccessful Armenian!

As an Irish-American, I know what it is like to come from a troubled land. My grandfather and grandmother came to Boston from Ireland in 1902. Just as the core of the Irish-American community was formed out of the refugees of the Potato famine and the Irish Civil War, the core of the Armenian-American community was formed from those who fled the Genocide and their descendants.

Today, we remember and commemorate the Armenian Genocide, the first of many genocides we saw in the 20th Century. The Armenian Genocide that began in 1915 is sometimes called the ``forgotten genocide,'' but we must never forget!

I was proud to be present at the opening of the Armenian Heritage Park in Boston in May of last year. This beautiful park and its haunting monument are a lasting testament to the 1.5 million Armenians who were slaughtered by the Ottoman Empire. This monument reminds us that we must be ever vigilant and not allow such horrors to occur again.

In order to prevent future genocides, however, we must recognize those of the past. For many years the U.S. House of Representatives has had before it a resolution which clearly affirmed that the Armenian Genocide did occur.

I have been a strong supporter and vocal cosponsor of this resolution in every Congress, and I remain so today.

Almost one-hundred years have passed since the Armenian Genocide, yet the suffering will continue for Armenians and non-Armenians alike as long as the world allows denial to prevail.

Already, 43 states and 22 nations have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide, and it is long overdue for the United States to do the same.

Unfortunately, the Republic of Armenia's challenges have continued even after it gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

In the face of ongoing blockades from Turkey and Azerbaijan, the United States must provide assistance to Armenia while working to reestablish the Turkish government's commitment to normalized relations in order to ensure peace and stability in the Caucasus region. I strongly support these efforts.

The Armenian people are true survivors. Despite the reappearing themes of invasions and land loss that the Armenians have dealt with for over 3,000 years, coupled with the loss of between one-half and three-quarters of their population in the early 20th century, the people of Armenia have prevailed.

The journey of the Armenian people continues today, with our shared responsibility to ensure that the Armenian people are able to build their own, independent and prosperous future.

I look forward to continuing to work with the Armenian-American community to address the issues facing this longtime friend and important ally of the United States. Together we can continue to build something positive, something hopeful, something good for the future-- an Armenia that is respected and honored by its allies and neighbors.

And this cannot come without universal acknowledgement of the horror that was the Armenian Genocide.

Shnorhagal em (Thank you).

Mr. Speaker, in the early morning of Friday, April 19, 2013, after a week of searching for suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, and just hours after an MIT officer had been assassinated, Massachusetts law enforcement spotted and engaged the two brothers who were accused of committing the bombings.

The officers who exchanged fire with the two brothers were met with heavy resistance by the suspects. 200 or more rounds of ammunition are reported to have been fired on the corner of Dexter and Laurel Streets in Watertown, Massachusetts, in my district. The bombers also hurled explosives at the officers, turning a city street into a battlefield.

One officer of the MBTA police force, Richard Donohue, Jr., was struck in the leg during the firefight. He likely did not know then, but his academy classmate and friend, Sean Collier of the MIT police force, was the officer felled by the bombing suspects hours earlier.

Officer Donohue of Woburn in my congressional district raced to help his fellow officers--not a surprise for an officer known as an avid runner and a dedicated public servant. His family notes that his great- great-grandfather even won the Boston Marathon, where Officer Donohue started his week working a shift at this iconic race.

Officer Donohue is currently still in critical condition at Mount Auburn Hospital. His family has been at his side, and a Massachusetts family of citizens remains forever in his debt for putting his life on the line to keep us safe.

Mr. Speaker, in the seconds, hours, and days following the Boston Marathon bombings, Massachusetts and the nation witnessed the courage, dedication, and sacrifice of law enforcement officers and other first responders.

One officer, Sean Collier of Wilmington, Massachusetts, gave his life, the ultimate sacrifice, during this ordeal. Sean was an outstanding officer of the MIT police force on his way to a position on the Somerville police force.

Officer Collier was on his regular shift, protecting the students at MIT, when he was assassinated by two twisted individuals as Officer Collier sat in his police cruiser.

We mourn his loss, along with his family, the MIT community, Massachusetts, and Americans everywhere.

Officer Collier was known by his family, friends, and co-workers as a generous, kind, and dedicated individual and officer. His friends say he was always armed with a sense of humor, and his roommate who trained with him at the academy said his only fault was that he was too brave.

Officer Collier represents the best of Massachusetts and of law enforcement. We honor his memory and know that his life of service and sacrifice will never be forgotten by Massachusetts or the nation.

Mr. Speaker, Krystle Campbell, a resident of Arlington and graduate of Medford High School, lost her life at the Boston Marathon finish line doing what she loved to do: support other people. She was 29 years old, just a few weeks from her 30th birthday, with a lifetime of helping more people ahead of her.

Krystle's annual pilgrimage to the marathon finish represented who she was, says her family. When people needed support, Krystle was there. When her grandmother needed help following surgery, Krystle moved in with her for two years to help her recover.

Krystle's smile, hard work, and constant happy demeanor is what her family and friends will miss. But most of all, they will miss what she was always known for: being there when you needed her, being a joyful, active participant in the lives of her family and friends.

In our grief, we know that Krystle is still there, still cheering all of us on, still there in our hearts. Today we honor her memory and the joy she brought to so many lives.