Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the National Low Income Housing Coalition, or ``NLIHC,'' on its 40th Anniversary.

NLIHC is the only national advocacy organization solely focused on the housing needs of extremely low income households--that is, households with incomes at or below 30 percent of the area median income.

While numerous organizations concentrate on federal housing policy, NLIHC is unique because of its sole focus on the needs of extremely low income people, the only population experiencing an absolute shortage of affordable housing. NLIHC remains firm to its mission, even at times when doing so is not popular.

Since its inception, NLIHC has been a leader in the effort to address the housing needs of those with the lowest incomes. From the time that Cushing N. Dolbeare founded the Ad Hoc Low Income Housing Coalition, a predecessor to NLIHC, the organization has worked to better educate constituents about when and how to make their voices heard.

Ms. Dolbeare authored or co-authored dozens of articles, books and reports, most notably a widely-cited annual report on the gap between housing costs and the wages of low income people. This publication continues to be relied upon on Capitol Hill, and the data included in it are instrumental in making the case for continued federal support for housing programs that reach those in our society with the very lowest incomes.

NLIHC has found through its research that for every 100 extremely low income renter households, there are only 31 affordable and available units. This shortage worsens every year and exists in every state in the country. The need is particularly acute given current funding for HUD programs, which is only enough to reach one in four eligible households. Households who cannot get assistance, even though they are eligible, must spend the majority of their meager incomes on housing, leaving very little for other expenses. Often, something like a medical emergency or job loss leaves a household at risk of experiencing homelessness or another unstable housing situation.

To address the housing shortage, NLIHC's most notable achievement to date has been its work towards creating a National Housing Trust Fund in 2008. The NHTF was initially to be funded by contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The contributions were temporarily suspended in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. The Trust Fund, once it is capitalized, will provide the largest investment in over 40 years for the production, preservation, and rehabilitation of affordable housing for extremely low income households. It would jumpstart construction in our communities--providing both jobs and sustainable housing opportunities to moderate and low-income people.

I have been eager to see the Housing Trust Fund funded, and I call on my colleagues to find additional sources of funding from outside of the appropriations process, to capitalize it. The NHTF, funded to scale, is the most promising way for our nation to end the affordable housing shortage which exists in every state in the country, and advance on the progress we are already making as a country towards ending homelessness.

In addition, NLIHC has been a leading voice in assuring that the rights of renters and extremely low income households are protected as Congress addressed foreclosures.

With hundreds of members across the country, and consistently incisive research and policy analysis, NLIHC is a respected voice in Washington, D.C. that has helped produce policies impacting the lives of millions. I congratulate NLIHC on its 40th Anniversary, and I look forward to working with NLIHC in the future to address the housing needs of the very poorest Americans. There is a lot of work that remains to be done, but I have no doubt that with NLIHC as a partner, we are up to the task.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Rangel for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose H.R. 4, the so-called Jobs for America Act.

Six years ago this week marked the collapse of Lehman Brothers. That bankruptcy on Wall Street quickly spread across our country, bringing small business lending to a halt, causing a devastating number of foreclosures, and pushing far too many of our fellow Americans into personal bankruptcy.

In the wake of this devastation, Democrats in Congress worked diligently to put in place serious and comprehensive safeguards to prevent another collapse. And, today, my Republican colleagues continue their hard work to thwart that effort and roll back meaningful reform.

Indeed, this bill, H.R. 4, places significant additional administrative hurdles on our Federal regulatory agencies, particularly on our independent financial regulators, like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Certain provisions of this bill would impose requirements on our financial regulators to conduct onerous cost-benefit analysis, to submit their rules for review to the Office of Management and Budget, and to delay effectiveness of major rules until Congress enacts an unprecedented joint resolution.

Not only would these provisions limit the independence of our Wall Street sheriffs, it would also tie up their already insufficient resources and put them at even greater risk of litigation for every rule. In fact, this bill would create a constitutional crisis by allowing the ``do-nothing'' Republican Congress to intervene in the actions of our executive branch, which is diligently trying to implement critical portions of the Wall Street Reform Act.

The effect of this legislative effort would be to grind to a halt all meaningful regulation on everything from payday loans to mortgage services to the types of risky trading that caused the 2008 crisis. And, ironically, it would stop JOBS Act implementation dead in its tracks. Worst, this comes at a time when House Republicans want to hold funding for our financial regulators flat, despite their new responsibilities, the increase in the number of entities they oversee, and the growth in the complexity and size of U.S. financial markets.

With our economy still recovering from the $14 trillion financial crisis, we simply cannot, under the guise of so-called ``job creation,'' afford to destroy crucial reforms and hamstring our financial regulators.

I enter the following letter of opposition from Public Citizen into the Record.

Public Citizen,

Washington, DC

A Vote for the ``Jobs for America Act'' Is a Vote Against Public Health

and Safety

Republicans will have you believe that a vote for H.R. 4,

the ``Jobs for America Act,'' is not a vote against clean air

and water, against food safety, against safe consumer

products, against safe workplaces, and against a stable

financial system less prone to excessive risk-taking. But

that is false. The Impact of the ``Jobs for America'' Act is

clear and simple: it will lead to more polluted air and

water, more dangerous workplaces, more tainted and

contaminated food, more dangerous workplaces, and a

deregulated Wall Street allowed to gamble our economy into

the next financial crash. By taking regulators ``off the

beat'' and preventing them from updating and modernizing

basic health and safety protections, the public is once again

dependent on Big Business to ``self-regulate.'' Our public

has seen the disastrous impact of letting industry regulate

itself whether it's the BP Gulf Oil Spill, the West Virginia

Chemical Spill, The Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, oil

train derailment explosions, or the Wall Street financial

meltdown. The solution is not to make our public even more

vulnerable to deregulatory disasters that put Americans in

harm's way and damage our economy as the ``Jobs for America

Act'' would do.

The enormous costs of deregulation

a. West Virginia Chemical Spill: those who were hurt by the

damage caused by the spill are claiming 160 million in

damages from the spill. These include small businesses in

Charleston who were forced to shut down for days and the many

thousands of residents who were forced to buy bottled water

because of the severe water contamination. http:// www.insurancejournalcom/news/southeast/2014/08/12/337282.htm

b. Lake Erie Algae Bloom: a half million Ohio residents

were forced to buy bottled water because their water had

become so badly contaminated from algae. In 2008, the

government estimated algae blooms resulted in 82 million

dollars annually in economic damages: http:// www.cop.noaa.gov/stressors/extremeevents/hab/current/ econimpact 08.pdf the damage to Lake Erie can be directly

traced to successful attempts to roll back the Clean Water

Act by special interests. http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/ blogs/the-toledo-water-crisis-wont-be-the-last/ c. Oil Freight Train Explosions: Trains carrying highly

explosive crude oil are traveling through communities every

day without most of those communities even aware of the

threat. A massive oil train derailment and explosion in

Canada killed 47 people and will cost 2.7 billion in economic

damages over the next decade. http://bangordailynews.com/ 2014/04/17/news/state/after-end-of-the-world-explosion- Quebec-town-tries-to-find-hope/ d. Preventable Workplace Deaths and Injuries: Every day, an

average of 150 workers die from job injuries or occupational

diseases. Every year, the lack of effective workplace safety

protections costs our country 250 billion to 330 billion in

injuries and illnesses. http://www.aflcio.org/content/ download/126621/34645631/DOTJ2014.pdf

e. Climate Inaction: Blocking or delaying new carbon

emission rules from the EPA and other climate change measures

will cost our country up to 150 billion dollars annually in

economic damage in the future. http://fortune.com/2014/07/29/ white-house-in-action-on-climate-costs-150-billion-a-year/ f. BP Oil Spill: This massive environmental disaster in the

Gulf ended up costing more than 42 billion dollars. The oil

spill harmed thousands of Gulf Coast residents and destroyed

many local small businesses. BP has now been found ``grossly

negligent'' in causing the disaster and faces up to 18

billion in fines, some of which will go to Gulf Coast

restoration projects. http://www.edf.org/blog/2014/09/05/bp- oil-spill-ruling-could-jumpstart-gulf-coast-restoration-work

g. 2008 Wall Street Crash: The rampant deregulation that

led to the crash cost our economy anywhere from 6 trillion to

14 trillion dollars or 50,000 to 120,000 for every US

household. In addition, 8.7 million Americans lost their jobs

during or immediately following the crisis. http:// ourfinancialsecurity.org/blogs/wp-content/ ourfinancialsecurity.org/uploads/2012/09/Costs-of-The- Financial-Crisis-September-20142.pdf

The ``Jobs for America Act'' will not create a single job

The bill trades on the fallacy that deregulation leads to

job growth by freeing up capital to invest in labor. There is

simply no neutral, non-partisan empirical evidence to back

this up. In fact, journalists and academics who have

thoroughly studied this claim have concluded that regulations

have no overall effect on job growth. The claim that

regulations kill jobs is the very definition of a baseless

and fabricated talking point.

A thorough investigative report by the Washington Post

concluded that regulations

have no effect on jobs (highlights below): http:// www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/does-government- regulation-really-kill-jobs-economists-say-overall-effect- minimal/2011/10/19/gIQALRF5IN story.html.

Conservative thinker Richard Morganstern (Resources for the

Future): ``Based on the available literature, there's not

much evidence that EPA regulations are causing major job

losses or major job gains.''

Mike Morris, CEO of AEP, one of America's largest coal-

based utilities even admitted EPA regulations will create

jobs: ``We have to hire plumbers, electricians, painters,

folks who do that kind of work when you retrofit a plant''

Morris said. ``Jobs are created in the process--no question

about that.''

A recent and exhaustive exploration of the ``job-killing

regulation'' claim by Academics from across the political

spectrum concluded that regulations have no net impact on

jobs: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15183.html

The editors of ``Does Regulation Kill Jobs?'' Cary

Coglianese and Christopher Corrigan conclude: ``the empirical

work suggests that regulation plays relatively little role in

affecting the aggregate number of jobs in the United

States.''

Big business ``job-killing'' claims are always wrong

Big Business groups have been making hyperbolic claims

about regulations killing jobs for decades and it never comes

true. Not only is this talking point patently false, but it

also never dies despite being proven wrong every time. The

following examples are from Public Citizen's recent report,

``It's an Outrage: Regulations are Entirely to Blame for

Unemployment and a Leading Cause of Death, According to

Industry and Allies'' http://www.citizen.org/documents/ regulations-are-to-blame-unemployment-death-report.pdf

1974: OSHA bans the carcinogenic vinyl chloride. The

plastics industry claimed that the OSHA regulation would kill

2.2 million jobs. Those claims were proven completely false

and a new way manufacture vinyl chloride was developed within

a year without any jobs lost.

1975: NHTSA increases fuel efficiency standard. Industry

reports warned of 1.5 million jobs lost. By 1985, auto makers

had met the higher standard without losing any jobs.

1990: EPA sets new pollution standards under the Clean Air

Act. In response the Business Roundtable (BRT) and National

Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) responded with

doomsday hysterics, claiming up to 2 million jobs would be

lost. Those were proven entirely wrong. Instead, according to

the Investor's Business Daily, ``Pollution has been falling

across the board for decades, even while the nation's

population and economy have expand

1995: EPA removes lead from gasoline. A Monsanto official

testified to Congress that the regulation would cost up to 43

million jobs. The removal of lead is now considered one of

the biggest public health success stories while gas prices

did not dramatically increase and no jobs were lost.

The new industry-funded study on regulations doesn't pass the laugh

test

The study just released by the National Association of

Manufacturers (NAM) is not worth the paper it is printed on.

NAM turned to discredited economists whose last study was so

poorly done and inaccurate that it was roundly criticized by

observers in bipartisan fashion, including by the CRS,

Republican economists, and then OIRA Administrator Cass

Sunstein. The study brought so much negative attention that

the agency which commissioned it, the Small Business

Administration, had to formally and publicly disavow it.

Business Media Push Industry-Funded Study On Federal

Regulations Experts Call ``Bogus'': Reuters and CNBC

uncritically promoted a new report claiming that government

regulations cost the economy over $2 trillion each year,

ignoring any benefits of regulation. But the study uses the

same flawed methodology as an earlier report by the same

authors that was so widely panned that even the organization

that commissioned it distanced itself from it. http:// mediamatters.org/research/2014/09/11/business-media-push- industry-funded-study-on-fe/200732

NAM's ``Cost of Regulations'' Estimate: An Exercise in How

Not to Do Convincing Empirics: The bulk of these costs (75

percent) are estimated using a cross-country regression

analysis. This cross-country analysis, however, is completely

unconvincing and should be ignored. http://www.epi.org/ bloginams-cost-regulations-estimate-exercise/

The ``Jobs for America Act'' is a Broken Record

The ``Jobs for America Act'' is just a re-packaging of the

same old and tired legislation that the House has already

passed. Each of these bills, if enacted, will significantly

exacerbate the current problems in our regulatory system.

Collectively, these bills amount to a virtual shutdown of our

system of public protections by blocking federal agencies

from responding to public health and safety crises and

putting forth strong new safeguards to prevent the next one.

1. Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act

(REINS, HR): This bill is a blatant power grab by the House

GOP. Requiring Congressional approval of regulations before

they take effect means, in practical terms, that the House

GOP can unilaterally veto any regulation it opposes. Even

Congressional inaction would kill a regulation. This is a

recipe for extending the same paralysis and dysfunction that

has plagued our lawmaking process to the regulatory process.

2. Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA, H.R. 2122): This

bill would re-write dozens of critical public health and

safety laws, including the Clean Air Act, to require agencies

to choose safety standards not based on whether they are the

most effective but on whether they are the least burdensome

to regulated special interests. This bill is a backdoor way

of gutting laws that the GOP knows are too politically

popular to overturn directly.

3. Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act (RFIA, H.R.

2542): This bill is a small business bill in name only. It

does nothing to help small businesses directly. Instead, it

would delay or block rules that in many instances

disproportionately impact Big Business. For example, the bill

requires agencies to consider the ``indirect'' effects of

their rules on small businesses without ever defining what

constitutes an ``indirect'' effect. Ordering an agency to

discern all indirect economic impacts of any rule, however

small, is akin to ordering a meteorologist to discern the

effects on Washington, D.C. weather of a butterfly flapping

its wings in Japan. Even worse, agencies could be sued by

industry for not complying with this wholly undefined

mandate. Agencies will be forced to waste precious time and

resources looking for small business impacts where there

clearly are none. In the meantime, lives could be lost and

people could be needlessly injured.

4. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA, H.R. 899): Once

again, this legislation forces agencies to pick the least

costly rule to industry, rather than the rule that is most

effective at keeping the public safe. It also undermines the

independence of important agencies that are working to put

new Wall Street reforms and product safety standards in

place. Ironically, the new mandates in this bill do not come

with any additional funding for agencies, making them the

very definition of ``unfunded mandates.''

5. The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act

(H.R. 1493): This legislation targets citizen suits aimed at

spurring agencies to move forward with overdue and

congressionally mandated protections. Consent decrees and

settlement agreements have long been an effective tool to

provide citizens and the courts with a means of ensuring that

Congressional mandates are implemented, whether they are new

environmental safety standards or civil rights and

antidiscrimination measures. This bill would force them to

run a gauntlet of burdensome, time-consuming, and redundant

procedures--furthering slowing agency action. This bill would

weaken the power of citizens to ensure agencies follow the

law--and waste government resources in the process.

6. The All Economic Regulations are Transparent (``ALERT'')

Act (H.R. 2804): This legislation would add a blanket six-

month delay to most rules essential to protecting the health,

safety, and welfare of the American public. When the norm is

federal agencies missing Congressional and legal deadlines

for new public protections, rather than meeting or beating

deadlines, the last thing our public needs is more delays.

Bottom Line

A vote for H.R. 4, the ``Jobs for America Act,'' is a vote

against life-saving public health and safety standards and

will put American lives at risk without creating any jobs. We

need stronger public protections, not a weaker system of

safeguards. We need better enforcement of health and safety

and environmental rules, not more needless delays.

We urge you in the strongest terms to vote against the

``Jobs for America Act.''

Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit the following:

Americans for Financial Reform,

Washington, DC, September 18, 2014.

Dear Representative: On behalf of Americans for Financial

Reform (AFR), we are writing to urge you to oppose H.R. 4,

the ``Jobs For America Act''. Division III of the legislation

contains a number of extremely problematic provisions that

would require regulatory agencies to satisfy dozens of

additional mandates prior to any regulation of Wall Street,

and which would create numerous additional opportunities for

large financial firms to block any government action in

court. AFR has joined the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards

and dozens of other civil society organizations in a joint

letter opposing these provisions.

We would also like to draw attention to Title I of Division

II of this legislation, the ``Small Business Capital Access

and Job Preservation Act''. This legislation would exempt

private equity fund advisors--who include some of the

wealthiest and most significant entities on Wall Street--from

registration and reporting requirements designed to allow

regulators to protect investors and the public and monitor

risk in the financial system.

Prior to the Dodd-Frank Act, hedge and private equity funds

received almost no regulatory monitoring, despite the fact

that they manage some $3 trillion in assets in total on

behalf of numerous investors, including many pension funds.

The Dodd-Frank Act created more transparency for this

previously dark portion of the markets, by requiring hedge

and private equity fund advisors to register with the

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), maintain a code of

ethics and a compliance program, and report basic financial

information relevant to systemic risk. This legislation would

effectively exempt all private equity fund advisors from

these requirements.

Since this legislation was voted on as a stand alone bill

in December, 2013 as H.R. 1105, the SEC has reported publicly

on its basic `presence examinations' of private equity fund

advisors pursuant to its new Dodd-Frank responsibilities.

These examinations found widespread evidence of abuse of

investors and violations of the law. In a recent speech,

Andrew Bowden, the SEC's Director of Compliance Inspections

and Examinations, stated that ``when we have examined how

fees and expenses are handled by advisers to private equity

funds, we have identified what we believe are violations of

law or material weaknesses in controls over 50% of the

time''. The speech details evidence of deception and abuse of

investors in other areas as well. Mr. Bowden also stated that

due to the opaque nature of the private equity model and the

limited information rights of investors, outside investors in

private equity funds ``often have little to no chance of

detecting'' these abuses on their own.

Given the findings of the SEC in its initial investigations

of private equity advisors, it is deeply disappointing to see

that the House is once again pursuing a broad exemption from

registration, reporting, and associated ethics requirements

for private equity advisors. The passage of ``The Small

Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act'' would

effectively remove the SEC's most effective tool for

addressing the evidence of widespread investor abuses

recently uncovered through their examinations. We urge you to

oppose this legislation.

Thank you for your consideration. For more information

please contact AFR's Policy Director, Marcus Stanley.

Sincerely,

Americans for Financial Reform.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 24, a bill that would undermine the Federal Reserve's independence and politicize its monetary policy decision making.

Mr. Speaker, this so called ``Federal Reserve Transparency Act'' has little to do with bringing transparency and accountability to the Federal Reserve. The truth is--this bill is nothing more than an effort to pressure and discourage the Fed from ever again being able to take the extraordinary action it has taken in recent years--action which has lowered unemployment, stabilized prices, and kept our economy from entering a second Great Depression.

Mr. Speaker, the Federal Reserve is already subject to extensive transparency, oversight and disclosure requirements, including regular audits with limited exemptions.

The fact is, since 1982 the Government Accountability Office has had the authority to audit the books of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. And in 2009, as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress required GAO to audit the emergency lending facilities created in response to the financial crisis. This has already been accomplished and the results of the audit are posted on the Federal Reserve's website.

If that wasn't enough, the Board's financial statements are audited on an annual basis by an outside auditor--and the results are published in the Board's Annual Report.

In addition to audits of its financial statements and emergency lending programs, the Federal Reserve provides comprehensive communication on monetary policy deliberations--releasing statements, publishing minutes and issuing transcripts following the completion of Federal Open Market Committee Meetings.

Furthermore, since 2011 the Chairman of the Federal Reserve has held regular press conferences to discuss the outlook for the economy and explain the rationale for its Federal Reserve policy decisions.

I find it baffling that we are here debating whether the Federal Reserve should be more open and transparent--even as Janet Yellen is scheduled to hold a press conference to discuss the outlook for monetary policy tomorrow afternoon.

While the Fed's decisions are--and must continue to be--transparent, it is also imperative that monetary policy decision making remain insulated from short-term political pressures--in order to promote economic growth and keep inflation in check.

But Mr. Speaker, this legislation would empower the GAO to investigate any and all policy decisions made by members of the Federal Reserve's rate setting committee, including decisions about when, and how, to unwind the Federal Reserve's ongoing stimulus program.

Doing so would wipe out all of the statutory protections that ensure deliberations, decisions, and actions on monetary policy matters are shielded from second guessing.

By empowering the GAO to challenge the decisions of Fed policy experts, and make legislative or administrative recommendations to the Congress, this measure aims to inject political pressure into monetary policy decisions--something that would undermine Fed's ability to make the tough--and sometimes unpopular--decisions that are necessary for the good of the economy.

But this is not the Republican Majority's first politically motivated assault on the Federal

Reserve's independence. We've seen this time and again.

Earlier this year Financial Services Committee Republicans took up and passed the ``FRAT Act'', a bill which virtually eliminates any discretion the Fed has to set monetary policy--by forcing it to make decisions in accordance with a mathematical formula and by requiring GAO to investigate any deviation from it--even in the case of changing economic conditions.

Such absurd constraints on the Federal Reserve would inevitably increase uncertainty surrounding policy decisions, and decrease the public's confidence that the Fed can act appropriately in response to new economic realities.

In closing I would reiterate that it is important for the American people to understand that these bills are not designed to address real problems, or a lack of transparency. Rather, the FRAT Act--and the bill before us today--are unnecessary.

They will cause needless uncertainty and undermine the Fed's ability to conduct monetary policy in an independent manner.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today not only in opposition to this legislation but to a process that has been conducted in secret and in bad faith.

Tonight, the House will debate two legislative packages that have been brought to the floor over the objections of the minority and without regard for due process or the opportunity for robust debate.

Mr. Speaker, make no mistake: these measures are being advanced for no other reason than political gain.

The bill we consider presently is H.R. 5405, a newly created package that combines 11--11--separate Republican-authored bills. These complex and wide-ranging measures have been hastily merged together and rushed to the floor for a vote. The expedited process in which the Republicans have engaged, over my objections, have denied Members the opportunity to debate how these pieces will interact with each other and the problems that may occur as a result.

Keep in mind that H.R. 5405 is so far-reaching that it amends the Securities Act, the Commodity Exchange Act, the Securities Exchange Act, the JOBS Act, the Bank Holding Company Act, and the Investment Advisers Act, not to mention that many provisions interact with the Dodd-Frank Act.

With this omnibus proposal touching so many different aspects of our directives and securities laws, Members ought to have the chance to offer amendments on the floor and debate whether this laundry list of provisions is the right approach.

Again, this is a substantial piece of legislation with the package requiring three separate reports by the SEC and another robust cost- benefit analysis.

Keep in mind that the majority is placing all these new rule-writing and reporting requirements on the SEC at the same time that they are denying the Commission the funding they need to do their job efficiently and be the tough sheriff for Wall Street that we need them to be.

I, for one, oppose this last-minute attempt to circumvent the legislative process. At the eleventh hour, it seems the majority is using all the tricks at their disposal to prove to the American people that they are more than the do-nothing Republican Congress. I think the American people are smarter than that.

Again, I think the American people would agree that Members of this House should be afforded the opportunity to discuss what is in these packages, offer amendments, and have a robust debate on these bills.

Tonight, in a mad dash for political victory, that fundamental element of democracy will be thwarted; furthermore, the chairman has broken with the tradition of a bipartisan suspension vote process by putting forth more than 15 pieces of legislation in exchange for one Democratic bill. This is just unacceptable.

Unfortunately, as with flood insurance legislation, the Export-Import Bank, and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, the ideological wing of the Republican Party is unable and unwilling to work together to get things done for our Nation's citizens. I am dismayed that they continue to put partisan interests ahead of job creation, certainty for our businesses, and the democratic process.

Mr. Speaker, to preserve the principle of fairness for the minority and to ensure the democratic process continues as it has for centuries, I am, indeed, opposing this legislation as well as the Insurance Capital Standards Clarification Act that we will consider shortly.

I believe that if gone unchecked this type of legislating could increase and soon become commonplace. We must not circumvent our time- honored traditions for political gain.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Some Members will come to the floor, and they will support this legislation because they may have one bill in this package, and I understand that. Some Members may have cosponsored a bill or worked on one bill. These Members, no matter how well-intended they are, cannot speak to the other 10 bills in the package because they don't know what those other 10 bills are all about.

Many don't have a clue about these other bills. Members will not even remember how they voted for or against bills that have been placed in this package.

What is being asked of the Members of this House is to forget about what really works for all Members. What they are asking Members to do at the last minute, before we close down this session, is to vote for a bill where they have packaged this large number of bills without understanding what they are or what is in them.

Just vote for them because we want a political package that says, ``We are doing something about jobs. We are going to present this as a jobs package. We are going to do more than anybody else for jobs.''

This is unreasonable. It is actually unconscionable. They should not put this burden on the Members.

I am going to ask Members to vote ``no'' on this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

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

You have heard from me and Congressman Ellison why this process is a process that we cannot in any way allow to take place without the kind of criticism that we are putting forth about this. This rises to the point of being shameful. This rises to the point of being disrespectful. This rises to the point of placing all of our colleagues in a position where, if anybody asked them about what is in this bill, if any of their constituents wanted to know what they voted on, they would not be able to tell them so.

They would not be able to tell them so because most of the Members, for the most part, that are going to come to this floor and vote on this bill just simply have not had the time, even if they had the background, to look into this bill. They have not had the time to ask others in their caucus about this bill. They have not had time to ask any of the advocacy organizations about this bill, for or against.

Now I understand again, and I want to repeat this, why some Members feel it absolutely necessary even though they don't like it. They have got one bill in here that they have worked on, that they have put a lot of time in and that they believe in, and they want desperately to have their bill passed.

So they are going to swallow what is being done to them in order to get, perhaps, an opportunity to get their bill, but they don't like it. And they will tell you, not on this floor, but behind the scenes, that they don't like it. They don't like the way they are being treated.

As a matter of fact, if we had the time for a real debate on this floor tonight and we asked any of the Members on the opposite side of the aisle to go down and debate these 11 bills that are in this first package, you wouldn't find two or three that would be able to do it. And the same thing on the second bill that is going to come up that talks about some issues in the insurance industry.

This should not happen. And the fact that the suspensions process has been hijacked is something that this floor and this Congress is going to have to deal with for the future. This should not happen.

We know why it was intended, why suspensions are necessary to expedite or when you have noncontroversial bills, but it was not intended for this kind of hijacking. It was not intended where you could take a whole bundle of bills, throw them into one, behind one bill that was hastily put together, that is going to do a lot of damage, and somehow call it a legitimate suspension bill.

So, Mr. Speaker and Members, let this be a lesson to all of us that we are going to have to pay attention to the rules of suspension; and if there needs to be a modification or change that will not allow this kind of thing to happen, some of us are going to have to take up leadership in doing that modification, coming forth with some new kind of ruling that will not allow this to happen.

And more than anything else, if my friends on the opposite side of the aisle get away with this, we can just throw our hands up because what they will do for the future is save all the difficult bills, add to it a bill, and then package them all and put Members in the kind of position that they are trying to put them in tonight.

It is unfair. It should not happen, and I am going to ask for a ``no'' vote on this bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3374, the American Savings Promotion Act, which has been offered by my colleague from Washington (Mr. Kilmer). This bill is an example of the innovation Democrats bring to addressing the concerns of the chronically unbanked.

Building on the success of credit unions offering such programs, this bill enables banks to offer similar products, vastly increasing the reach of this creative savings product.

Prize-linked savings accounts encourage customers to set aside savings by combining the more mundane task of setting aside money with the excitement of playing the lottery. Customers are always eligible to withdraw the principal of their savings account but forego accrued interest for the chance of winning all of the interest of participants in the program.

Such programs have been offered in South Africa, resulting in more than $200 million being set aside in savings accounts by more than 750,000 individuals who had largely not set up a bank account. In Washington State, credit unions that offer such accounts have found that these accounts are helping to build an ethic of frugality.

Today, credit unions are permitted to offer such programs if State law permits them, which includes four States: Washington, Michigan, Nebraska, and North Carolina. However, even though these States permit prize-linked savings accounts, Federal banking laws prevent banks from offering them because of a decades-old prohibition on participation in a lottery.

Mr. Kilmer's bill retains the general prohibition against lotteries but permits banks to offer prize-linked savings if the bank's State also allows them.

It is not a secret that this country does not save enough, that we are not preparing for the unexpected or even for how we will afford college tuition expenses or retirement. We also know that, once someone begins to pile on debt, it can be nearly impossible to dig out. Mr. Kilmer's bill enables our constituents to say ``no'' to debt by encouraging good savings habits.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Kilmer), the author of the bill.

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

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

I rise today in support of H.R. 2866, as amended, a bill which provides appropriate recognition for the outstanding work conducted by Boys Town, a nonprofit organization which selflessly promotes the interests of children and their families across the Nation.

Boys Town, which takes its name from Father Flanagan's Boys' Home, impacts the lives of more than 2 million families across America each year through its counseling services, outreach, and education. I am also pleased to report that, each year, Boys Town directly touches the lives of 45,000 Californians through its community support services and homes for troubled youths.

Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town, focused on the inherent good in children and built a world-class organization that emphasized the rehabilitation of troubled youths rather than punishment. It is this compassionate approach and commitment to love, training, and guidance, regardless of race, creed, or color, that has made Boys Town such a success story and a lifeline for countless children and their families.

In commemoration of the organization's centennial anniversary, the bill before us today will require the U.S. Treasury Department to mint and issue $5 gold, $1 silver, and half-dollar clad commemorative coins. Surcharges associated with the sale of the coins will allow Boys Town to raise needed funds that will be dedicated to making a positive impact on the lives of children and families from underserved communities across America. I am also pleased to report that the passage of this bill entails no net cost to taxpayers.

I would urge my colleagues to join me in passing this commonsense, bipartisan bill without further delay.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I must correct the gentleman from Michigan when he talked about our unwillingness to look at Dodd- Frank in any critical way and our unwillingness to modify, amend, or do anything to Dodd-Frank. It is absolutely not true.

As a matter of fact, I am recorded time and time again--even in my speech before the Chamber of Commerce, where I have said and I have acted in this manner and in this fashion--that where there were complications, I was willing to work with the opposite side of the aisle to try to deal with those complications so that everybody would understand what was intended. Where there appeared to be conflicts, I would work to undo those conflicts.

I have no problem with changing or modifying or dealing with problems in Dodd-Frank, and I have acted that way time and time again.

Today, I rise to express my disappointment with a Republican Party

that has politicized consensus legislation that would provide real, tangible regulatory relief.

When we began this Congress, Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee both agreed to support technical fixes to the Dodd-Frank Act that have broad bipartisan support.

In that spirit, the gentlewoman from New York, Representative Carolyn McCarthy, who is on this floor this evening, worked hard, provided leadership, helped to straighten out any confusion, and worked with both sides of the aisle to come together in a consensus around the legislation that we are going to hear so much about.

I worked with Mrs. McCarthy. I worked with both sides of the aisle also. We came up with targeted, bipartisan insurance capital standards, and we fixed it, and our hard work paid off.

After months of holding hearings and building consensus, we delivered to our chairman a bill with no opposition. Democrats and Republicans supported the measure, as did outside experts on financial reform and the financial services industry.

It was a bill that unanimously passed the Senate, a bill that represented the kind of work Congress should be doing. In other words, Mr. Speaker, virtually no one opposed these reasonable changes to insurance capital standards; but, instead of passing the measure, this noncontroversial technical change has been ``repackaged'' into a broader and more controversial bill by attaching provisions that make substantive changes to Dodd-Frank that, unlike the insurance capital standards fix, are nontechnical in nature and are not universally supported.

The reality is, by circumventing and politicizing the process, this commonsense legislation is going nowhere in the United States Senate. Countless Senate Democrats have made clear that any changes to Dodd- Frank must be targeted and have overwhelming bipartisan support; and Republicans, like Senator Collins, whose contributions to the Dodd- Frank Act we are fixing today, are opposed to it as well.

Her statement was unequivocal, saying, ``I would hate for a bill, after many months to have achieved consensus, to get bogged down in unrelated issues.'' She went on to say, ``This isn't reopening a major issue in Dodd-Frank. It is simply bringing clarity to a provision that I authored that the Fed has misinterpreted. I think, given how closely we've worked with everyone, it really is more of a technical correction.''

Senator Johanns, another author of the ``clean'' Senate bill, also wants to see an up-or-down vote on the House side; and he said, ``My hope is that we can do this in a straightforward way and get it done.'' He went on to say, if changes were made to the bill, he has to ``start all over.''

Mr. Speaker, this Congress has been infamous for its inability to get anything done; but, on this one issue, we have managed to get the policy right and get incredibly broad support. We have a clear path to getting something done; but, unfortunately, the chairman has decided to throw a wrench in the works at the last minute for no reason.

Finally, it is clear that this is an exercise in political theater. It is well-known and widely reported that Republican leadership has privately told insurance industry stakeholders that they would bring up a ``clean'' insurance capital standards bill after the midterm elections.

It simply shows the disgraceful nature of this debate and the partisan, dilatory tactics that create more distrust in the political process. Rather than do what is right and enact legislation that everyone has agreed on, the chairman has decided to create a fight where there was none.

Make no mistake, but for the chairman's intransigence, the insurance capital fix bill could be on the President's desk for a signature tomorrow.

I oppose this bill due to the particularly flagrant affront to bipartisan efforts to fix narrow issues in the Wall Street Reform Act, an important and complex bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am so proud to yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), a distinguished member of the Financial Services Committee. She is a woman that has worked hard to bring a clear bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have left?

Oh, very good. I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

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

Mr. Speaker and Members, I think the argument that we had a piece of legislation here authored by Mrs. McCarthy and Mr. Miller that truly had bipartisan support, that had been worked on so long and so hard by the gentlewoman from New York, that could have passed, and it should have, not been placed in this controversial position. This bill should have been a clean bill that was put forth in a way that would allow the Senate to support it, and to place it--well, the Senate--we would put this on the President's desk if, in fact, we just passed this bill out as a clean bill. It is quite unfortunate.

My colleagues can say all that they want to say about jobs and creating jobs. They talked about bills that had been supported in the committee and bills that had even been supported on the floor. Why are you bringing them back again? Why are you repackaging them? Why are you taking bills that you are identifying as having had all this great support and passed off the floor, passed out of committee, why are you repackaging them? I will tell you why you are repackaging them: because you are trying to create this picture that somehow you have this great jobs bill, that somehow you have worked in some extraordinary ways to put together, despite the fact that you are just repackaging bills that, as you said, had support.

The gentleman from Michigan said he is confused. Yes, I think you are, and I think you are confusing others, and that is my point. My point is it doesn't matter whether or not we have bills that were jointly supported or passed out of committee or passed off the floor. This process and this procedure that you are employing is one that is not fair to the Members of this House.

You are putting forth a process that is complex, that is not easily understood, and now the Members who come to the floor, if they have to take a vote, are going to try to decide did I support that or didn't I support that.

I think that the way that you are doing this is somewhat dangerous; and I can just envision that for the future that we may have a situation where you will hold all of the bills that perhaps do not have bipartisan support, and again you will package them with maybe one bill, as you are doing with this one, with support, and we will never have an opportunity to have the kind of debate and amendments that we should have.

It is about process. It is about procedure. It is about making sure the American people understand what we are doing and how we are doing it. It is not about being slick. It is not about being cute. It is not about trying to take the process and package it in such a way that you can get what you want with a big title of jobs to make people think you have done something new, creative, and extraordinary.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, today we have Democrats on the Financial Services Committee here where we have gathered on the House floor to talk about the Export-Import Bank, which supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and levels the playing field so that American businesses, large and small, can compete successfully in the global markets.

Tomorrow, Speaker Boehner and the Republican leadership will leave town for a 5-week congressional recess, and legislation to renew the Export-Import Bank hasn't even seen a vote in our committee. When we return in September, there will be just 10 legislative days to renew the bank before its charter lapses on September 30.

This ideological push to abolish the Ex-Im Bank is an irrational crusade to destroy an agency that supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and propels economic recovery without costing taxpayers a dime. The result could be the end of an institution that, over the past 5 years, has supported 1.2 million private sector American jobs, and over 200,000 jobs last year alone.

Additionally, the Ex-Im Bank reduced our deficit by returning over $1 billion to taxpayers last year alone through interest and fees. Still, critics of the bank say it is a risk to taxpayers, that it picks winners and losers, and that it interferes in the free market and, therefore, creates a less efficient economy. For all of those reasons, it should be abolished, they say.

But first, let me say, this notion that there is such a thing as pure free enterprise, that if left to its own devices would flourish with total efficiency and self-discipline and allocate resources and spread risk in such a way that accrues to the benefit of everyone in society, this notion of just pure free enterprise simply doesn't exist.

In fact, I thought one of the lessons we learned from the recent financial crisis is that markets must be embedded in systems of governance. The idea that markets are self-correcting, many of us thought, had received a mortal blow.

Regardless of the outcome, Republicans have already created uncertainty for thousands of American companies trying to compete against businesses in China, Korea, and across Europe, all of which have their own version of the Ex-Im Bank.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into the Record a letter from Mr. Steve Wilburn, who is the CEO of the

green energy company FirmGreen, who lost $57 million in contracts because of uncertainty surrounding the future of the Ex-Im Bank.

At this time, and before us sharing this information with you, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Beatty).

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material in the Record on the topic of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker and Members, I will read into the Record a letter from Steve Wilburn, CEO of the green energy company FirmGreen, who lost a $57 million contract because of uncertainty surrounding the future of the Ex-Im Bank. I will read you excerpts from his letter.

Mr. Wilburn attended the Ex-Im Bank panel I organized in April, and last month we invited him back to be one of our Democratic witnesses at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the Ex-Im Bank. He is among the best witnesses we have ever had at a hearing.

In his letter, Mr. Wilburn explains that FirmGreen's export potential has been directly affected by the uncertainty of reauthorization of Ex- Im Bank U.S. and the aggressive financial terms offered by the Korean Ex-Im Bank.

Attached to his letter is another letter from a company in the Philippines, Green Energy Solutions, informing him that his business lost a $57 million contract. The letter begins: ``Dear Mr. Wilburn, in view of the uncertainty of the reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank and project finance structure you proposed have become problematic. We have made the decision in May, this year not to proceed with your project offering.''

Mr. Wilburn goes on to say: ``In summation, as a combat-decorated veteran, small business owner, job creator, exporter, and concerned citizen, I believe we should not unilaterally disarm and abandon the very governmental agency that allows U.S. manufacturers and other U.S. exporters to fairly compete on the world's trading stage.''

Mr. Speaker and Members, the main criticism of the bank that I would like to discuss right now is the assertion that the bank is the embodiment of corporate welfare, benefiting a handful of large companies, which they claim represents crony capitalism.

Last April, I held a panel on the Ex-Im Bank which included a number of small business owners from across the country. They came here to Washington to discuss their work with the bank and how the bank helped their companies compete in the global marketplace. Every one of those panel members were extraordinarily decent people, hardworking business owners who create jobs and pay taxes and have families and a civic sense of duty. And this is why I am so offended by this label of ``crony capitalists'' that critics like to attach to users of the bank.

Those of us who know what it is like to live behind a label understand how they work. Once you are able to put a label on something or to someone and it sticks, then you could be done with them. And if enough people can be convinced that customers of the Ex-Im Bank are crony capitalists, well, there is nothing left to do but get rid of them.

It is so important to note that while a good amount of the bank's support goes to large companies, the vast majority of Ex-Im transactions--nearly 90 percent--help small businesses. In fact, if the Ex-Im Bank were abolished today, it would affect small- and medium- sized businesses just as much, or more, as large exporters--perhaps more, given the distinct challenges and risks small businesses face when looking to export.

Moreover, large U.S. exporters that benefit from high dollar values of Ex-Im financing also have large domestic supply chains which consists largely of small- and medium-sized businesses that benefit indirectly but in very important ways from Ex-Im support.

At a later time, I will be entering into the Record excerpts from Brek Manufacturing and Hansen Engineering.

This letter is from Mr. Greg Lay, vice president of Hansen Engineering. I will read this letter first from Hansen Engineering:

Hansen Engineering company is one of many small businesses

in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, California, that is

dependent on Boeing contracts to support the business. Ninety

percent of our contracts support Boeing aircraft, either

directly or indirectly, through our prime aerospace companies

throughout the world. My company staffs approximately 60

employees who live in the South Bay and surrounding areas and

depend upon the support of Boeing for the well-being of their

families.

Without the reauthorization of Ex-Im Bank, it would be

impossible for us to have a big impact on the health of our

businesses and its employees and their families.

Next we have a letter from Brek Manufacturing:

Brek Manufacturing company is a small business in

California with 170 employees who have a critical interest in

foreign sales of Boeing commercial aircraft. The Export-

Import Bank plays an important role as an intermediary in the

sale of these aircraft.

This letter is to express our support for the Ex-Im Bank,

as it is key to securing additional sales of Boeing

commercial aircraft.

He goes on to say:

Our representatives who support the military should also be

concerned with the Ex-Im Bank because of the role it plays in

supporting jobs and companies like ours, both large and small

across the country.

He further states:

We supply critical aircraft structural components which are

key to successful, safe air transport and air defense. There

are many others like us who represent thousands of high-

skilled and well-paying positions with good benefits.

Please express our support for the Ex-Im Bank to your

colleagues. We are counting on them to do the right thing and

support American manufacturing jobs.

At this time, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Heck) who is a leader with the bill that would reauthorize the Ex- Im Bank, if we could get the support from the opposite side of the aisle that we need.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green), and I thank him for the leadership and the support that he has shown for the Export-Import Bank.

Mr. Speaker, Members, you have heard about businesses in any number of districts that receive the support from the Ex-Im Bank.

I would like to read to you excerpts from a letter from Chairman Hensarling's district. This is from Fritz-Pak, and this letter is about how the Ex-Im Bank helped save his business.

His name is Gabriel Ojeda, president of Fritz-Pak Corporation, and this is the excerpt I would like to read:

During the past 5 years, we have grown our international

sales from 15 percent to over 35 percent of our business. We

now have major trading partners in over 30 different

countries, including Brazil, Russia, India, and Taiwan. Most

recently, we exhibited our products at Bauma International

Trade Fair in Munich, Germany.

So what is Fritz-Pak Corporation today? We are an American

manufacturer of the best concrete admixtures in the world,

and we sell them as far as Yellowknife, Canada, and as far

south as Wellington, New Zealand. We may be small, but we

think big. In an age where everything seems to be made

someplace else, we are thriving here in the USA and in no

small part due to the services provided by Ex-Im Bank.

Lastly, I would like to read excerpts from Mr. Mike Boyle of BES&T in New Hampshire. The CEO and president of BES&T is Mr. Michael Boyle, and he sent us a very good letter last week.

Mr. Speaker, at a later time, we will enter into the Record these letters that we are not able to read this evening. I thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time. I would also like to thank Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, Transportation Security Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson, and Ranking Member Cedric Richmond for introducing this bill and bringing it to the floor.

I rise to support the passage of H.R. 4802, the Hernandez Airport Security Act.

This bipartisan bill was introduced in response to last year's horrific November 1st shooting incident at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in my congressional district. The bill was named in honor of Gerardo Hernandez, the Transportation Security Officer (TSO) who was killed in the line of duty on that tragic day. As we debate this bill, we offer our deepest condolences to the family of Gerardo Hernandez, and we honor all of the TSO's, police officers, and other first responders who risked their lives to stabilize the situation and protect the public during that terrible incident.

Following the shooting, Congress conducted several congressional hearings, including a field hearing in my district on March 28, 2014. These hearings revealed serious security lapses at LAX, which interfered with incident response efforts. For example, there were emergency phones and panic buttons that did not work properly, problems in coordination between various police and fire departments, and incompatible radio systems. These security failures are unacceptable.

The Hernandez Airport Security Act requires the Department of Homeland Security to conduct outreach to airports to verify that they have working plans to respond to security incidents, including active shooter incidents, acts of terrorism, and incidents that target passenger-screening checkpoints like the one where Officer Hernandez was killed.

It is imperative that major airports like LAX have a state-of-the-art emergency response system. The safety and security of our nation's airports and all of the workers and travelers who pass though them is of paramount importance.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill and send it to the President's desk.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that will address provisions within this legislation that threaten the independent funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that has been remarkably successful in standing up for consumers and taxpayers who have been subject to the deceptive practices of bad actors in our financial system.

To those who have ever fallen victim to a payday or predatory loan, to those who have had a dispute with a credit card company over excessive late fees or interest rates, to those who have had issues with a bank account, mortgage loan, or even a credit score, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is your watchdog. It is your advocate. It is your cop on the beat. And, thus far, your advocate has done an outstanding job. To date, 12.6 million consumers have received more than $3.8 billion in direct refunds because of the CFPB's enforcement actions.

In large part, the CFPB is able to accomplish these tasks because of its political independence. It is able to prosecute bad actors without regard for the political blow-back. This is directly due to the CFPB's independent funding stream. But, Mr. Chairman, this legislation would end the Bureau's independence by tying its funding to the highly political congressional appropriations process.

The result will be a weakened CFPB, one unable to properly advocate on behalf of our Nation's consumers. And if enacted into law, we would be one step closer to the Republican goal of ending the CFPB altogether--and its work on behalf of our students, seniors, families, and servicemembers.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would end this reckless attempt to politicize

consumer protection by removing this provision and replacing it with language that allows the Bureau to maintain its independent funding.

Unfortunately, the rules of the House make it impossible to restore CFPB's current funding mechanism. Therefore, this amendment funds the Bureau through the collection of a fee imposed upon banks and financial institutions that have more than $50 billion in assets. I hope my colleagues on the other side would agree with an approach that preserves the independence of our Nation's only consumer financial watchdog without costing taxpayers a dime.

Mr. Chairman, while it is certainly a possibility, ruling this amendment out of order would simply demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Last week, in a letter to Chairman Sessions, I expressed my concerns about this and other provisions that inappropriately legislate on an appropriations bill. I asked him not to protect these from a point of order. Since he and his Republican colleagues have refused, I am now forced to offer this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to include for the Record this letter.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Financial Services,

Washington, DC, July 9, 2014.

Hon. Pete Sessions,

Chairman, Committee on Rules,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Sessions: I write to respectfully request

that the Committee on Rules not protect sections 125, 501,

625, 626 and 632 of H.R. 5016, the Financial Services and

General Government Appropriations Act of 2015, from points of

order, as these sections place improper funding restrictions

on our financial regulatory agencies and inappropriately

authorize on an appropriations bill.

Specifically, section 125 of H.R. 5016 places improper

funding restrictions on the Office of Financial Research

(OFR), the office specifically created in the wake of the

worst financial crisis to study systemic risk across the U.S.

economy and inform the decisions of the Financial Stability

Oversight Council (FSOC). Section 155 of the Dodd-Frank Wall

Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-

203) explicitly funds the OFR through assessments on both

bank holding companies with more than $50 billion in assets

and nonbank financial companies supervised by the Federal

Reserve. Congress provided the OFR with a funding source

similar to many FSOC member agencies to ensure that the OFR

always had sufficient funding to conduct the research needed

to monitor threats to our financial system. Section 125

disregards existing law by subjecting the OFR to the

appropriations process beginning in 2015.

Additionally, section 501 of H.R. 5016 consists of

legislating on an appropriations bill. This section alters

section 1017 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which establishes the

process by which operations of the Consumer Financial

Protection Bureau are independently funded by the Federal

Reserve System. It has been well-established that Congress

intended for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's

funding to be free of political influence, similar to other

independent banking regulatory agencies. Sources of funding

for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have been

appropriately debated during the current Congress in the

authorizing Committee of jurisdiction. I therefore ask that

section 501 be exposed to a point of order.

Further, several sections of H.R. 5016 place improper

restrictions on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In particular, section 625 prevents the SEC from spending

from the Reserve Fund for the next year. The Reserve Fund was

created under section 991 of the Dodd-Frank Act in order to

facilitate long-range planning and budgeting by the

Commission, particularly since the Commission's technology

systems have traditionally lagged behind dramatic market

changes. Also, the Reserve Fund was created because Congress

recognized that the Commission requires resources to respond

to unforeseen crises such as the so-called ``Flash Crash'' of

May 2010, when U.S. stock markets plummeted approximately 9

percent in just a few minutes. Congress already has robust

oversight over the use of the Reserve Fund, with the SEC

required under the Dodd-Frank Act to notify the Committee on

Financial Services and the Committee on Appropriations within

10 days of making a Reserve Fund obligation. Section 625

would overturn existing law, and create uncertainty both for

the future of the SEC's efforts as well as the stability of

our financial markets.

Additionally, section 626 of H.R. 5016 violates Rule XXI,

clause 2, by making changes to SEC's existing authority to

regulate the disclosure of material information, which may

include political contributions made by corporations. The SEC

has broad authority to protect investors by requiring that

companies disclose information to the public so that

investors can make informed decisions. Although there are

questions as to whether political contributions made by

companies are material to investors, section 626 would

prevent the SEC from even considering this issue. As a

result, this provision would hamstring our securities

regulator from fulfilling its statutory mandate.

Finally, section 632 of H.R. 5016 consists of legislating

on an appropriations bill. This section would substantially

alter section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires

financial institutions with access to the federal banking

safety net to spin-off certain swaps dealing activities to

separately capitalized affiliates. The underlying section in

Dodd-Frank is subject to significant debate, and its

inclusion in a spending bill is inappropriate. I therefore

also ask that section 632 be exposed to a point of order.

In order to uphold the integrity of the appropriations

process, I ask that the Committee on Rules submit to the

requests contained within this letter. The funding process

for our financial regulatory agencies should not be used as a

way to side-step the proper role of authorizing Committees in

Congress.

Sincerely,

Maxine Waters,

Ranking Member.

My amendment is a simple effort to ensure the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau remains an effective advocate for American consumers. It is an attempt to correct just one of many bad provisions in this legislation, which underfunds our Wall Street regulators, impedes our ability to identify systemic risk across the United States, and harms the ability of regulators to properly protect our Nation's investors and retirees.

Mr. Chairman, I am saddened to be back here fighting to preserve the CFPB. I am disappointed that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have aligned themselves with predatory lenders and other bad actors in the financial system at the expense of protecting consumers. It is shameful that, once again, this House is forced to spend precious time and resources tearing down this first-of-its-kind agency which ensures that consumers have an advocate at the highest levels of government--with the power to fight for them.

So I would urge the adoption of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I would like to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, as I said in my earlier presentation, I sent a letter to Chairman Sessions, and I expressed my concerns about this and other provisions that inappropriately legislate on an appropriations bill. While the gentleman from the opposite side of the aisle is saying that this is inappropriate, certainly it has been inappropriate to legislate on this appropriations in the way that they have done in order to remove the protection from the CFPB and allow it to be at the mercy of the politics of the appropriations process in this House, and so I would ask that my amendment be recognized and that we would have a vote on this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of my amendment to fully fund the Securities and Exchange Commission, one of Wall Street's top sheriffs, at the President's request of $1.7 billion and at no cost to the taxpayer.

The United States has the most vibrant capital markets, which are the envy of the world. Both large and small businesses looking to raise capital are able to do so with incredible efficiency and at minimal cost. Businesses are able to do this because their investors know that there are strong rules of the road and a regulator that will hold them accountable.

The underlying bill, however, undermines the SEC by cutting nearly $300 million or nearly 20 percent from the requested level. Wall Street's cop is woefully underfunded already, and one need only look as far as its IT budget compared with just a few of the entities it oversees.

In fiscal year 2013, the IT budgets of the six largest financial institutions equaled an amount more than 100 times that of the SEC. Although my Republican colleagues suggest that they are generously providing an increase, they use budget gimmicks to mask real cuts to IT infrastructure.

The world's capital markets have grown at an ever-accelerating rate, and likewise, so has the SEC's responsibilities. Today, the SEC oversees 11,000 investment advisers, 10,000 mutual funds, 4,450 broker- dealers, the securities exchanges, clearing agencies, credit rating agencies, and other self-regulatory organizations. The SEC also reviews the disclosures of nearly 9,000 public companies.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Congress significantly increased SEC's responsibilities by requiring oversight of hedge funds, municipal advisers, and certain derivatives by passing Dodd-Frank. My amendment is needed to support all of these activities.

The Republican bill also includes substantial carve-outs, which will lead to cuts to enforcement and examinations. The SEC will have to impose hiring freezes for lawyers that would have brought enforcement cases against bad actors.

Last year, SEC recovered $3.4 billion in 2013--or twice the amount that would fully fund the agency. The SEC will also have to furlough examiners under the Republican bill, examiners that are needed to reduce the backlog of investment advisers that have never been visited by the SEC.

There is broad opposition to the Republican funding level. The White House says:

At this level, the SEC will be unable to add critical

positions in market oversight, compliance, and enforcement to

carry out its financial oversight responsibilities.

What is really disappointing is that Congress can fund the SEC at any level without affecting the debt and deficit. There are no budget savings from cutting the SEC. That is because the SEC's budget is paid through tiny fees on securities transactions.

Here is what CalPERS, the largest public pension plan in the United States, says about SEC funding:

The Commission's work can't be achieved without the

resources it needs to be effective. The SEC needs to be given

the tools to do the job: full and independent funding.

In addition, investor advocates like the AARP, the Consumer Federation of America, as well as industry groups like the Investment Adviser Association and the Financial Planning Association all support fully funding the SEC, and so should you.

A fully-funded SEC helps America's entrepreneurs raise funds to finance jobs and development. A fully-funded SEC ensures that our markets operate efficiently. A fully-funded SEC protects hard-earned savings funding our Nation's retirement and our children's education.

I urge adoption of this amendment.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman and Members, listening to my friend on the opposite side of the aisle you would think that the SEC has no additional responsibilities.

As I quoted in my presentation:

The world's capital markets have grown at an ever accelerating rate, and likewise, so have the SEC's responsibilities. Today, the SEC oversees 11,000 investment advisers, 10,000 mutual funds,

4,450 broker-dealers, the securities exchanges, clearing agencies, credit rating agencies, and other self-regulatory organizations. The SEC also reviews the disclosures of nearly 9,000 public companies.

And, following the 2008 financial crisis, Congress increased SEC's responsibilities by requiring oversight of hedge funds, municipal advisors, and certain derivatives by passing Dodd-Frank.

So, my friend on the opposite side of the aisle disregards all of this as if the SEC doesn't have these expanded responsibilities. They certainly do, and they should be paid for. Again, this does not increase any debt. This is paid for through the many companies that have to pay a small fee, and they will not allow those fees to be used to support the work of the SEC and the IT needs that they have. It does not make good sense.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment is a commonsense provision that would help reverse some of the damaging efforts directed at the SEC we have seen this Congress, efforts that have been squarely aimed at hamstringing the Commission, including: underfunding the SEC by $300 million, or 20 percent below the President's fiscal year 2015 request; bogging down the SEC in onerous cost-benefit analysis provisions that would divert resources away from important efforts, like enforcement; and myriad attempts in the Financial Services Committee to limit the information available to retirees that make decisions about whether to put their hard-earned money into public companies.

My amendment would help to counteract these efforts by providing the SEC with the authority to impose and collect reasonable user fees on federally registered investment advisers for the purpose of increasing the number and frequency of SEC examinations. This is consistent with my bill, H.R. 1627, the Investment Adviser Examination Improvement Act, which I have coauthored with Representative Delaney.

Today, investment advisers may go more than a decade before being visited by the SEC. It is absolutely essential that we improve the oversight of investment advisers, the people that manage the assets of millions of individual and institutional investors across the country. This is particularly true if we are underfunding the SEC by $300 million, as this underlying bill proposes.

The SEC currently only examines approximately 9 percent of advisers annually out of the almost 11,000 advisers registered with the Commission. The legislation and this amendment provide the SEC with additional resources to conduct more examinations and protect investors.

I believe this amendment and our bill provides the simplest, most efficient solution to the problem of inadequate adviser oversight. Also, because the user fees contemplated in the amendment would only be used to fund the regulation of investment advisers and not to subsidize other functions at the SEC, I think that this option would be more cost-effective for the industry. In fact, a study by the Boston Consulting Group supports that point.

This amendment will help the SEC to close this resource gap. By entrusting this responsibility to the Commission, it will also leverage their 70-year history of experience in this regulatory role and prevent the establishment of a duplicative SRO bureaucracy.

In addition to consumer and retiree advocates, my bill is supported by the investment adviser industry, including the Investment Adviser Association, the Financial Planning Association, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisers, and the Certified Financial Planner Board. They support my bill because they know that clear rules of the road and robust examinations bolster public confidence in the market and ultimately help their bottom line.

I urge the adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Offered By: Ms. Waters

Amendment No. 9: Page 104, after line 21, insert the

following:

Offered By: Ms. Waters

Amendment No. 8: Page 85, line 19, insert after the dollar

amount insert the following: ``(increased by $300,000,000)''.

Page 86, line 16, insert after the dollar amount insert the

following: ``(increased by $300,000,000)''.

I would first like to thank my colleague from California, Congressman John Garamendi, for this time, and I congratulate him for organizing this evening's Special Order on Alzheimer's disease.

John, I would like to tell you that those charts that you just presented tell the story very clearly. It identifies the extent of this disease, and it also lays out that we need to do more with research.

We need to invest more in research, but you also showed, for those diseases where we have invested in, that they have reduced the death rates dramatically. I think your presentation needs to be seen by everybody because it does paint the picture of what is going on with this disease.

As the cochair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease, I know how devastating this disease can be on patients, families, and caregivers. The task force works on a bipartisan basis to increase awareness of Alzheimer's, strengthen the Federal commitment to improving the lives of those affected by the disease, and assist the caregivers who provide their needed support.

I am pleased that the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) has decided to take an active role in the work of the task force, and what a great job he has done.

Alzheimer's disease has touched millions of American families. However, most of us are probably unaware of the statistics behind the disease and the significant public health threat it poses to our Nation.

In the United States, someone develops Alzheimer's every 67 seconds. According to recent data, women have a one in six estimated lifetime risk of developing the disease at age 65, while the risk for men is nearly one in 11.

The Alzheimer's Association estimates as many as 16 million Americans over age 65 could suffer from Alzheimer's by 2050. It is now the fifth leading cause of death in California.

Right now, nearly 15 million people--mostly family members--provide unpaid care for individuals with Alzheimer's or dementia, a market value of more than $220.2 billion.

In California alone, approximately 1.5 million unpaid caregivers grapple with the tremendous challenges of Alzheimer's disease or dementia every day. Caregivers include spouses, children, even grandchildren.

Caregivers face a variety of challenges, ranging from assisting patients with feeding, bathing, and dressing, to helping them take care of their medications, manage finances, and make legal decisions.

I want you to know that I have friends who are taking care of both their father and their mother who have Alzheimer's. Caregiving is something that we have to pay attention to.

We have to give support to these families because not only is it a tremendous responsibility that so many people are taking on--as compared to caregivers for other diseases, Alzheimer's caregivers disproportionately report being forced to miss work, reduce work hours, quit their jobs, and change jobs due to caregiving demands. They are more likely to experience financial hardship, report health difficulties, experience emotional stress, and suffer from sleep disturbance.

These are just some of the reasons why I introduced the Alzheimer's Caregivers Support Act, H.R. 2975, last year. This bill authorizes grants to public and nonprofit organizations to expand training and support services for families and caregivers of Alzheimer's patients.

With the majority of Alzheimer's patients living at home under the care of family and friends, it is important that we ensure these caregivers have access to the training and resources needed to provide proper care.

The families and communities facing Alzheimer's also must deal with the difficult problem of wandering. According to the Alzheimer's Association, more than 60 percent of Alzheimer's patients are likely to wander away from home. In addition to being distracting for law enforcement, wanderers are vulnerable to dehydration, weather conditions, traffic hazards, and people who prey on vulnerable seniors.

In fact, the Alzheimer's Association estimates that up to 50 percent of wandering Alzheimer's patients will become seriously injured or die if they are not found within 24 hours of their departure from home.

To combat this, I have introduced H.R. 2976, a bill to reauthorize and improve the Missing Alzheimer's Disease Patient Alert Program, a small but effective Department of Justice program that helps local communities and law enforcement agencies quickly identify persons with Alzheimer's disease who wander or are missing and reunite them with their families.

The program is a valuable resource for first responders, and it enables law enforcement officers to focus their attention on other security concerns in our communities.

Of course, nothing can be more valuable for Alzheimer's patients, their families, caregivers, and communities than a cure for this terrible disease.

To that end, we must significantly expand the government's insufficient investment in Alzheimer's research. It is essential that Congress appropriate robust funding for cutting-edge research at the National Institutes of Health.

The private sector also has a role to play in funding Alzheimer's research, as do donations from concerned individuals. A simple way for Congress to encourage the public to contribute is to require the U.S. Postal Service to issue and sell a semipostal stamp, with the proceeds helping to fund Alzheimer's research at NIH.

This would be similar to the popular and successful breast cancer research semipostal stamp. A bill to do this, H.R. 1508, was introduced by now-Senator Ed Markey prior to his election to the Senate, and I am working very hard to pass it.

So as we continue to search for a cure, our Nation is at a critical crossroads that requires decisive action to ensure the safety and welfare of the millions of Americans with Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

Together, let us commit to take every possible action to improve treatment for Alzheimer's patients, support caregivers, and invest in research to find a cure for this disease.

Once again, I want to thank my colleague, John Garamendi from California, for organizing tonight's Special Order. It is important that we do as much as we can to educate the public, to gain widespread support, to make sure that we have the support that is necessary to get more funding for research.

You are doing a fine job of getting us focused. I appreciate that.

Absolutely. I have been watching for some time what caregivers go through in an attempt to provide the care that is needed by Alzheimer's patients, and you hit it on the head when you said: If only these individuals had had a little help in understanding the disease--what is it like? What is likely to happen? What can you anticipate? How should you react, and what can you do to get some help?

If that information simply was available, it would be of tremendous help to caregivers, but in addition to that, many of the caregivers put their own well-being at risk in so many ways.

Not only do they oftentimes have to lose time from work--which causes difficulties--but many times, the caregivers themselves have health problems that they are addressing that are exacerbated by the fact that they have additional responsibilities in giving care to their Alzheimer's relatives.

Yes, I have seen a lot of this, and I know the pain that families go through. As I saw my own mother age--and they said: Ms. Waters, what you are seeing now is dementia.

I watched this very vibrant, energetic woman, who lived to be 97 years old, eventually go into a state of being that certainly was not the woman that I had known that had reared me, had been so energetic all of her life.

The lapses in memory and finally, toward the end, the inability to recognize her family was a very traumatic and heartbreaking thing to see.

So I want for every family the ability to deal with this. I want their government to be of help to them. As you have said, we have got to get our priorities in order. That $80 billion that you mention is a tremendous amount of American taxpayer money that is going toward an effort that most of us don't even understand. There is no reason that we should be in this situation.

I am looking at this chart, ``Investments in Health Research.'' That is shameful what I am looking at, only $566 million as compared to what we are putting into other diseases. We don't mind the money that is being put into other diseases. We see how it has reduced debt. We just want attention also to Alzheimer's. I think you have made it very clear this evening with the information that you have presented.

I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to our H.R. 4413 legislation that would reauthorize the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This measure addresses an important goal for this Congress: reauthorization of the CFTC, our regulator whose mission it is to ensure fair rules of the road for the majority of derivatives traded by U.S. firms.

I know that Representative Peterson and Representative Scott, the ranking members of the committee and subcommittee respectively, have worked in good faith to improve this legislation and that they care deeply about making the CFTC work for farmers, manufacturers, and other businesses that use futures and derivatives. I thank them for their efforts.

However, I am concerned about provisions in the bill unrelated to the reauthorization of the Commission that I believe would undermine the CFTC's authority and hamstring its ability to

regulate a complex and important marketplace. Mr. Chairman, this legislation imposes heavy administrative burdens that will prevent, delay, or weaken CFTC's efforts to implement important reforms called for by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

H.R. 4413 would also make it much more difficult for the CFTC and the SEC to regulate derivatives transactions involving foreign operations of U.S. banks. It does so by establishing hard-to-overturn exemptions that allow their operations to substitute Dodd-Frank rules in favor of more lenient foreign rules in foreign markets, despite the fact that the risks may come back to the United States.

These types of derivatives transactions contributed to the massive taxpayer bailout of AIG in 2008, created enormous losses to JPMorgan in the London Whale episode in 2012, and brought down the hedge fund Long- Term Capital Management in the 1990s. This bill makes the job of the CFTC and the SEC to police derivatives operations of large U.S. banks and their foreign affiliates much more difficult.

In addition, under the guise of cost-benefit analysis, the bill imposes heavy administrative hurdles and new litigation risk on the CFTC, significantly impairing the Commission's ability to do its job of regulating our derivatives markets.

Like other agencies, the CFTC already considers the costs and benefits pursuant to numerous existing laws, and unlike any other regulator, the CFTC goes even further, considering the protection of market participants and the public, the effect on futures markets, price discovery, sound risk management practices, and other public interest matters.

Even the courts have weighed in, finding that the CFTC has fulfilled its duty to consider the cost and benefits.

H.R. 4413 not only burdens an agency already facing limited funding with additional administrative burdens, but it also opens up new avenues for special interests to endlessly challenge the CFTC in court.

Former CFTC Chairman Gensler noted that, if this provision in H.R. 4413 is enacted, ``It may well be hard to get any rule out of the building.''

Together, these changes undermine the CFTC's ability to guard against some of the most complex and risky activities in our financial system, and it is all just part of a multifaceted Republican effort to undercut laws and regulations that protect consumers, investors, and the economy.

It also comes just a week after House Republicans proposed an appropriations measure that dangerously underfunds the CFTC at 22 percent below the President's request, a level which will lead to either agencywide closures or employee layoffs.

Mr. Chairman, we cannot continue to undercut and underfund Wall Street's top derivatives cop with the authority to ensure compliance with the law. This bill is widely opposed by the Obama administration, the AFL/CIO, broad coalition groups like Americans for Financial Reform and the Consumer Federation of America, as well as derivatives end users like the Petroleum Marketers Association of America.

So I would urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation. I insert in the Record the opposition, including the White House opposition to this legislation.

Public Citizen,

June 16, 2014.

Dear Representative: Public Citizen opposes H.R. 4413,

``The Customer Protection and End User Relief Act.'' Several

provisions will severely undermine financial reform. These

include:

Adding unworkable cost-benefit analysis requirements that

will only empower industry interests to bring litigation that

will delay or negate important rules and do nothing to

improve Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)

regulations.

Prohibiting the CFTC from supervising US swap operations

overseas, which will invite riskier activity and raise the

potential for more bailouts;

Eliminating the ability of the CFTC to require certain

safety rules for swaps.

New Cost-Benefit Requirements Don't Pass The Cost-Benefit Test

Wall Street has exploited the courts to delay, dilute and

even overturn needed reform laws intended to return the

financial industry to safer practices. Instead of making the

CFTC more effective and efficient by bolstering their

authority and improving their standing vis a vis the courts,

H.R. 4413 actually makes the CFTC even more vulnerable to

Wall Street lawsuits. The net effect will be weaker rules

that will take the CFTC longer to finalize and will be more

prone to reversal in court. In sum, this legislation will

significantly damage, not improve, the CFTC's ability to

adopt strong financial reforms that protect consumers and the

public.

H.R. 4413 patently ignores the fact that the CFTC takes

their cost-benefit requirements very seriously. In September

2010, the CFTC's General Counsel and Acting Chief Economist

directed staff to produce cost-benefit analyses in proposed

rulemakings and conceptual cost-benefit analyses in adopting

releases. This is above and beyond existing CFTC

requirements. In a follow-up memo, rule-making teams were

directed to ``incorporate the principles of Executive Order

13563'' when writing rules. This order applied cost-benefit

analysis requirements for departments overseen by the

President. In May 2012, the CFTC, in an unprecedented move,

entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Office of

Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) where OIRA provides

``technical assistance'' to CFTC staff during implementation

of the Dodd-Frank Act, ``particularly with respect'' to cost-

benefit analysis.

Thus, the litany of additional cost-benefit analyses

imposed by H.R. 4413 in no way improves the existing and

extensive cost-benefit analysis practices at the CFTC. Rather

the direct effect will be to convert the cost-benefit

analyses the CFTC already conducts as a matter of best

practice into numerous new legal grounds for Wall Street to

challenge CFTC rules in court. Thus, the beneficiaries of

these changes will be big Wall Street banks and their high-

priced lawyers while the public pays the price of a far

slower CFTC that must jump through even more hoops before

putting common-sense Wall Street reforms in place.

Evading US Supervision

Some of the most dangerous financial practices by US firms

leading to the financial crisis of 2008 were conducted

overseas. AIG sold a form of bond insurance called credit

default swaps from its London office, out of view of American

supervisors. When AIG could not pay massive claims from bond

defaults, taxpayers bailed out AIG's clients with $160

billion. More recently, JP Morgan's ``Whale'' transactions

used US deposits for speculative derivatives trading in

London, leading to a loss of more than $6 billion.

Section 359 nullifies the CFTC's rubric for overseeing

American firms with foreign-based swaps business. Instead, it

permits US firms to establish foreign-incorporated affiliates

that would escape US supervision altogether. Already, certain

US firms have begun to exploit a loophole in the CFTC's

current rules to escape US supervision. This involves

removing the guarantee of the US parent for the foreign-

originated swap.

Permitting foreign supervision is misguided because foreign

supervisors won't have the same motivation as US supervisors

to enforce prudential rules since a failure would fall on US

taxpayers. In fact, foreign governments would be incentivized

to relax oversight so as to attract more traders and the

associated income tax revenue they would generate. The

financial sector provides more than 11 percent of total tax

revenue for the United Kingdom. Not only does this

legislation increase the chance for another US taxpayer

bailout, it would sacrifice US tax revenue by incentivizing

American firms to relocate their derivatives business abroad.

Safety margins prohibited

Unregulated swaps were at the heart of the financial crash,

as derivatives dealers who failed to back up their swaps with

adequate collateral spread financial contagion. This

legislation removes some of the tools that the CFTC could use

to promote safety. For example, H.R. 4413 prohibits the CFTC

from requiring that end-users post margin collateral. The

CFTC has declared that it would not require such margin, but

it is important for the agency to retain this power if the

market becomes unsafe in the future.

This is just one example of the flaws of this bill. There

are many other sections that limit the ability of the CFTC to

accomplish its mission of protecting investors and the public

from misconduct in the $700 trillion swaps market. We believe

Congress should be exploring ways to strengthen the agency,

such as with self-funding and a larger budget, rather than

working to undermine it.

We urge the House to reject H.R. 4413.

For more information, please contact Public Citizen's

Congress Watch Advocates: Amit Narang, Regulatory Policy

Advocate at [email protected];, or Bartlett Naylor,

Financial Policy Advocate, at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Amit Narang.

Bartlett Naylor.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I urge support for this amendment to ensure that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission can adequately regulate our financial markets and address some of the very practices that so seriously harmed our economy just a few years ago.

This amendment modestly improves the onerous cost-benefit considerations included in this bill, a provision that would open the Commission up to expensive legal challenges.

It does so by adding in language from the President's executive order on cost-

benefit analysis that prohibits judicial review. The bill's sponsors cite this order as the model of good analysis and incorporate many provisions of that order in this legislation.

However, the measure before us today inconsistently omits the order's prohibition on judicial review, thereby subjecting the CFTC's most cost-benefit considerations to increase litigation risk--risk that no other agency complying with the executive order has faced.

My amendment would correct this oversight and prevent special interest groups from using the cost-benefit provision as a club to delay, weaken, or kill financial reform.

My colleagues--Representative DelBene, Representative Gibson, and Representative Vargas--share my concerns and have proposed an amendment that would establish a heightened standard of judicial review.

While I support this amendment, it does not go far enough, in my view, to fix the problem. I believe that judicial review with regard to the heightened cost-benefit provisions in the underlying bill should be prohibited entirely.

Make no mistake, even if the amendment offered previously by my colleagues on judicial review--or, for that matter, my amendment--is adopted, the bill would still impose heavy administrative hurdles on the CFTC.

The Commission is already required to consider the costs and benefits when promulgating rules and issuing orders pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Congressional Review Act, and the Regulatory Flexibility Act, as other agencies do.

Unlike any other financial regulator, the CFTC is also already bound by the Commodity Exchange Act to consider the impact of their rules on the full range of market stakeholders.

The courts have weighed in as well, finding that the CFTC has fulfilled its duty to consider the costs and benefits, as in the rule related to commodity pool operators.

The CFTC will still have to expand resources to comply with this provision that Republicans are unwilling to provide. Instead, the CFTC will have to take funds from examinations and enforcement to pay for redundant economic analysis.

Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense amendment that will simply prevent our Nation's top directives cop from spending excessive time and resources fighting off superfluous legal challenges and would make the underlying bill consistent with the President's executive order.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire as to how much time I have remaining on this amendment?

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to make clear my opposition to anything other than preventing judicial review on cost-benefit analysis.

Again, I am very appreciative to my colleagues who also share my concerns and, again, have proposed an amendment that would establish a heightened standard of judicial review, and I support that amendment.

I do not want anyone to be confused that I believe that that amendment would solve the problem. I still think that, if that amendment is adopted, the bill would still impose heavy administrative hurdles on the CFTC.

This is not about simply reauthorization at any cost with anything in the bill. This is about having a CFTC that really works, that is not burdened with the kind of cost-benefit analysis that we have seen burdening other of our agencies that have tried to do their job, including the SEC.

I would ask my friends who are listening to differentiate between that amendment of my colleagues, who are addressing this concern in their way, and my amendment that would prevent judicial review altogether.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Thank you very much for yielding additional time to me to talk about cost-benefit analysis.

I think the gentlelady has made a real case for what we are dealing with here.

First of all, we know--and I guess we all agree--that prior to the meltdown that we had that caused the recession in this country, we did not have the kind of oversight that we needed on derivatives.

We worked very hard to bring about transparency. We worked very hard to get a handle on the role that derivatives played in this meltdown we had that caused us almost to go into a depression. And here we are trying to implement the reforms, trying very hard to protect the American public and those ends users that have been talked about so much today.

Cost-benefit analysis is just another way that has been injected into this whole attempt to regulate that would place unreasonable burdens on the CFTC and basically prohibit them from doing their job.

In offering this amendment, the gentlelady has made it very clear, and she has added additional support to what we have been talking about today relative to cost-benefit analysis. And so I hope that not only the information we have presented, but the information that she has presented is enough to have people understand what we need to do in order to protect the CFTC's ability to do its job and to carry out its mission.

I would like to thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, as the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, I feel it is extremely important to support this amendment. It is extremely important because we know that the work that we did on the reform measure, the Dodd-Frank measure, is so important to try to correct the lack of attention we were giving to our consumers and the fact that we needed to strengthen our financial services agencies.

So when I see there is an attempt to weaken something such as the CFTC or the SEC or the OCC or any of our regulatory agencies, it is important for me to speak out and help people to understand what is being attempted.

I urge support for this amendment to ensure our derivatives cop can protect our financial markets and economy.

Make no mistake, even with this amendment, inadequate Republican funding for the CFTC furthers a larger effort to undermine the oversight of derivatives.

While more funding is needed, this measure will at least prevent layoffs.

The CFTC thwarts Wall Street from manipulating the price of things like oil, corn, and gold. Without it, every American will feel the pain at the pump and the dinner table. The CFTC enforces laws Democrats enacted to rein in companies like AIG, whose activities led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Despite overwhelming need, Republicans would undercut the CFTC under the guise of a modest IT increase, believing that if it just had the right computers, the CFTC could eliminate employees.

What they don't understand is that it takes real people to bring about justice and accountability. With funding far below the requested amount, the CFTC cannot operate without temporarily closing or sacking valuable talent, causing immediate harm to our markets with delays to agency guidance, to investors and businesses, examinations of companies entrusted with your funds, punishment of bad actors, and recovery of victims' money.

This is a continuation of an effort by Republicans and special interests to undercut laws and regulations that protect our consumers. I am not going to stand for it, and I urge Members to support this amendment.