Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize a friend, supporter, mentor and trusted advisor to me, both spiritually and politically, Bishop George Wilbert Brooks. After 37 years of service, Bishop Brooks will retire as Senior Pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina on December 31, 2012.

A native of Hillsborough, North Carolina, Bishop Brooks moved to Greensboro to attend North Carolina A&T State University where he earned his Bachelor's degree in Industrial Technology. He received a Master of Divinity degree from Shaw University in Raleigh and a Doctorate of Ministry degree from Friends International Christian University in Merced, California. After being licensed to preach the gospel in March 1975, Bishop Brooks moved back to Greensboro to begin his service as Pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church.

Since accepting the call to lead Mount Zion Baptist Church, Bishop Brooks has set an example for community and civic leadership and involvement that others can only aspire to match. In addition to his important religious role as the leader of a dynamic congregation, he is recognized as a leader in community based self-sufficiency initiatives. He also serves on numerous local, national and international boards and has been named among the ``Most Influential Persons in the Triad'' by The Triad Business Journal each year since 2005.

In addition to his church and community involvement he is a devoted husband of 44 years to Edna Brooks, father of two children and grandfather of five grandchildren.

Bishop Brooks' service to Mount Zion Baptist Church and the Greensboro community is unmatched. He has been a leader and a real inspiration to countless others in word and deed and in other ways that we can only imagine. As I often tell people, he is a ``one-of-a-kind guy''.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sure my colleagues will join me in wishing Bishop George W. Brooks the very best in retirement, although I'm not about to let him retire from the roles he plays in my life as friend, advisor and mentor. I thank him for all he has done for me and for our community.

Mr. Speaker, as we approach Johnson C. Smith University's homecoming and election day, I want to take this opportunity to honor Rose and Hank Sanders.

Rose Sanders is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University, a historically Black College located in my congressional district. She is also a graduate of the Harvard University School of Law. She was Alabama's first female African American judge and was also a lead attorney in the case of Pigford v. Glickman, a class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture which documented racial discrimination in the Department of Agriculture's allocation of farm loans and assistance.

Rose Sanders' husband, Hank Sanders, also graduated from Harvard Law School. He serves in the Alabama State Senate where he has represented the 23rd State Senate District since 1983. He was Chair of the Senate Finance and Taxation Committee and is the longest serving Chair of the Legislative Budget Committee.

Today, however, I want to recognize Hank and Rose Sanders for their tireless work to organize the National Voting Rights Museum & Institute and the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. The Museum and the Jubilee were organized and started to memorialize the events of March 7, 1965 which has come to be known as ``Bloody Sunday''. On that date 600 citizens, including my hero and our colleague John Lewis, were brutally attacked by Alabama state troopers, as they peacefully attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge seeking to provide the

right to vote to all citizens. This attack showed the world the insensitivity and brutality of opponents to voting rights and, ultimately, led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Through the vision and work of Rose and Hank Sanders and their work through the Museum and Jubilee, thousands of Alabama children, residents, tourists and others from around our country and the world have learned about the courageous acts of those who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and others who have fought to advance the struggle to gain the civil and voting rights we now enjoy.

Today, I ask my colleagues to join me and my colleague John Lewis as we commend the efforts of Rose and Hank Sanders and the important work they have done to advance justice, equality and the right to vote in the United States.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6215, which is necessary to correct a technical error in the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 that inadvertently allowed the registration of a Federal trademark to be a complete bar to Federal trademark dilution claims.

The concept of dilution was initially a creature of State law. Massachusetts was the first State to enact a dilution statute in 1947. The purpose of the dilution law is to protect the value and uniqueness of the plaintiff's trademark without requiring evidence about the likelihood of confusion.

Over 50 years after the passage of the Massachusetts statute, the 1996 Federal Trademark Dilution Act provided nationwide injunctive relief ``against a use that causes dilution of the distinctive quality of the famous mark.'' In

2003, however, the Supreme Court in Moseley v. Victoria's Secret Catalog, Inc., considered the question of whether objective proof of actual injury to the economic value of a famous mark--that is, actual dilution--is required to obtain relief under the Federal Trademark Dilution Act. The Court decided that evidence of actual dilution was required, not simply a showing of likely dilution.

The Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 amended the law in an attempt to reverse the Victoria's Secret decision and to expand the scope of State dilution claims banned under the Federal statute. During consideration of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act, however, the provision allowing a Federal registration defense to dilution claims brought under State law was reorganized in such a way as to result in an unintended substantive change in the provision. As a result, the Federal registration defense is available not only against State dilution claims, but also against Federal dilution claims.

The legislative history makes clear that Congress did not intend to allow a Federal trademark registration to bar a Federal dilution claim. H.R. 6215 corrects this error and has broad support in the intellectual property community and bipartisan support on the Judiciary Committee.

I urge my colleagues to support the legislation that ensures that the will of the Congress, as originally intended, is not undermined by an inadvertent drafting error.

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

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, after 6 long years of negotiation, thoughtful consideration, and bipartisan cooperation, we passed a patent reform bill which was signed into law on September 16, 2011, by President Obama. At the time the bill was passed, Speaker Boehner said:

Modernizing our patent system for America's innovators and

job creators is an important part of the Republican Jobs

Plan. This bipartisan measure reflects our commitment to find

common ground with the President on removing barriers to

private sector job growth, and I am pleased to see it signed

into law.

Under the America Invents Act, we the Congress, Republicans and Democrats, directed the United States Patent and Trademark Office to issue 20 implementing rules. Of the 20 implementing rules, seven have already been implemented, nine have been noticed, and four are under development. Under this bill that we are considering today, that entire process would be stopped in its tracks.

Among the most troubling aspects of stopping the rulemaking process in this case is a rule that would be specifically designed to assist micro entities in securing patents for their inventions. It's a law that says, once the rule is adopted by the Patent and Trademark Office, micro entities will get a 75 percent reduction in the filing fees that they have applicable to them.

The Director of the Patent and Trademark Office has said:

The new micro entity provision in the America Invents Act

makes our patent system more accessible for smaller

innovators by entitling them to a 75 percent discount on

patent fees. By paying discounted patent fees as micro

entities, smaller innovators can access the patent system to

move their ideas into the marketplace.

Although the micro entity definition became effective September 16 when the President signed the bill into law--the date of enactment of the patent reform bill--the discount is not available to these small entities until these rules are passed, and this bill would make it impossible for us to adopt the rules.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me get this straight. We have passed a bill on a bipartisan basis that directs that rules be written, and then we want, when the rules are written, to have it come back to Congress so that we can approve those rules. Tell me, first of all, what sense that makes.

Second of all, the gentleman obviously is not aware of some of the corporations that have started off as micro enterprises if he does not believe that this measures up to his $100 million, or whatever the threshold is. Let me read him some of the companies that started off as micro enterprises.

What about Google or Apple or Instagram or Microsoft or Facebook, a whole litany of people that, were this 75 percent reduction in fees not in effect, might have been discouraged from ever even applying for a patent. So this notion that this doesn't add up to $100 million, or whatever this threshold is, is just false.

The notion that we would tell the administration to adopt a set of rules and then say, okay, we're going to micromanage you and you've got to come back over here so we can cross your T's and dot your I's in a noncontroversial way like this and delay the process of innovation in our country is just nonsensical.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman.

Let me say, first, that this bill is not about sunshine and it's not about transparency. It is about dissatisfaction that some individuals have with the mandate that Congress has given to the Federal Reserve.

The gentleman who just spoke is absolutely right; They are supposed to deal with inflation. That's what we told them to do in their mandate. They're supposed to deal with unemployment. That's what we told them to do in the mandate we gave.

And some people over there are dissatisfied with the fact that--they don't want them to deal with unemployment. They don't want them to try to adjust and make changes that will be beneficial to our economy. And if they don't want that, they ought to just introduce a bill that repeals the mandate that we gave to them.

Don't come and say that we are talking about sunshine and transparency.

Every time I turn on the television now, I hear the Federal Reserve, Chairman Bernanke and members of the Federal Reserve, talking about how the economy is going. That is not lack of sunshine and lack of information. I thought we had dealt with this when Mr. Paul was the ranking member of the subcommittee and I was the chairman.

Mr. Paul's problem is he doesn't like the Federal Reserve. He is avowedly in favor of doing away with the Federal Reserve. That's an honest position. But don't come in and try to cloak it in the guise of this agency is not transparent or it lacks sunshine. If you don't like the mandate that they have, then have the guts to stand up and introduce a bill that says that we are doing away with the Federal Reserve.

If you think we are in trouble now, if you get the politics and the Congress involved in transactions with foreign governments and the decisions about how we get ourselves out of this unemployment situation, if we have some answers about how to get out of unemployment, then I would assume we would come forward with them. And nobody on this floor of this Congress has done anything to take up an unemployment bill. So I'm glad we have the Federal Reserve over there at least trying to figure out how to make some adjustments in our economy that will deal with unemployment.

The last thing I want is for this Congress to be second-guessing--or an auditor that is not elected by anybody to be second-guessing--the decisions of the people who are on the Federal Reserve. An auditor might be a good accountant, he can count, but I want somebody on the Federal Reserve, and hopefully it would be nice to have some people in Congress who can make some decisions about how to deal with unemployment.

Will the gentleman yield?

I just want to be clear that Mr. Frank and I both voted against the bill that you're talking about, so don't try to make it sound like it's Mr. Frank's and my bill. We voted against the bill. This is Ron Paul's bill. We thought it was a terrible idea then, and we think it's a terrible idea now.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding time.

I walked in on the last two speakers, neither of whom said anything I disagree with, except that I can't support the bill because of the pay- for that is in the bill.

I'm convinced that we should repeal the medical device excise tax. I think it's driving jobs and innovation offshore, and a lot of that is happening in my congressional district. I also think it is counterproductive to talk about doing it and paying for it in the way that has been proposed in this bill. And I will therefore unfortunately not be able to support the bill as it is written today and introduced because of the manner in which it's being paid for.

I don't think there is anything complicated about this. We need to find a more acceptable way to do what I think a lot of us agree needs to be done, which is to repeal the medical devices tax. But this is not the way to pay for it, and we must find an acceptable pay-for.

I thank the ranking member for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to make sure that we acknowledge in the Congressional Record the 70th Anniversary of a group of African- American World War II Navy Veterans known as the B-1 United States Navy Band.

The B-1 United States Navy Band was formed in 1942 and was comprised of talented African-American musicians, many of whom were from North Carolina, who were among the first African-Americans to serve in the modern U.S. Navy in roles other than kitchen staff positions. Most of the Band's approximately forty-four original members were affiliated with North Carolina A&T State University, which is located in Greensboro, North Carolina in my congressional district. The Band was stationed at the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight Training School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and provided musical entertainment to pilot trainees during World War II. In 1944 the Band was transferred to sea duty in Hawaii and continued to perform for military personnel and civilians for the duration of the war.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in saluting the members of the B-1 U.S. Navy Band for their service to our country and to join me in commemorating the Band's 70th Anniversary which will be celebrated on April 14, 2012 on the campus of North Carolina A&T State University.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Of course I'm not from Virginia, I'm from North Carolina, but that happens to me and Bobby Scott all the time. We get confused with each other, States and personalities, because we sit beside each other in Judiciary and we're good friends. So I'm never insulted when anybody does that to me.

I dare say that if folks are watching this proceeding on C SPAN or at home they're wondering, Who in the world is John Sullivan? And I think that's probably the highest commendation that we can give to John Sullivan as a Parliamentarian, because if he had been involved in any kind of controversy or one side or the other in this institution had accused him of misinterpreting rules, then people would know that there's a Parliamentarian that's basically the referee in this institution that both sides have to respect in order for the institution to work effectively.

There has been no controversy--I mean, that the people outside know about. We know inside our institution that the Parliamentarians are dealing with controversial rulings, close rulings, trying to figure out what the precedents are for what we can do and cannot do, what has been done this way in the past and, therefore, represents a precedent for us to be able to do it in the future. But outside, nobody has ever heard of John Sullivan because there has been no controversy, and that's a great thing to have said about him.

He has been absolutely even-handed. You've heard the word ``nonpartisan'' because this is a position that you cannot be or take the Republican side or the Democratic side. You've got to call the rules as you see them. There's nothing worse than at the end of March Madness, at the end of the game, one team saying that the referees influenced the outcome of the game. So that's a high mark for John Sullivan.

When he replaced the prior Parliamentarian, Mr. Johnson, I thought surely we would go into some level of chaos; but the only difference I've ever been able to distinguish between him and Mr. Johnson is that he can't throw a baseball like our prior Parliamentarian did. If he can, he hadn't told me about it.

I just wanted to take this moment to express our gratitude. He's been a tremendous mentor--well, you can't call him a mentor--teacher of those of us who have been in this institution, who have tried to abide by the rules and go to the edge and not violate the rule, but knowing full well that we'll get absolutely nonpartisan advice and counsel from the Parliamentarian about how to do things when we don't know how to bring them to the floor, and about how to maintain the decorum and respect of every single Member in this House.

I thank him for his friendship and the role that he has played in making our institution a much, much better place to live and work.

Mr. Speaker, one of the few important accomplishments of the 112th Congress thus far has been the passage of the America Invents Act, a comprehensive reform of the United States patent system which was signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. There's little disagreement that patent reform was long overdue, and even those who voted against the bill recognized how important it was to the American inventor and to American innovation to update and streamline the patent system.

Our country has always respected and admired inventors. As young children, we were taught about famous inventors such as Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, and many others. Frequently overlooked in the discussion of important inventors, however, have been the accomplishments of African American inventors. Until this year's publication of the children's book, ``What Color is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors'' by basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, we've done little to teach children about the outstanding contributions African American inventors have made to innovation.

I therefore would like to use this time during Black History Month to pay tribute to some of the many, many contributions African American inventors have made. I'm not the first Member of this body to take to the floor of the House to acknowledge the long legacy of inventiveness in the African American community. On August 10, 1894, Representative George Washington Murray, the only African American in the House of Representatives at the time and himself the holder of eight patents on agricultural implements, read the names of 92 African Americans who held patents and described the inventions on the House floor.

Had time allowed, Representative Murray would likely have highlighted the achievements of even more patent holders--inventors such as Thomas L. Jennings, a free person of color and one of the earliest African Americans to patent an invention, who in 1821 was awarded a patent for developing an early drycleaning process to remove dirt and grease from clothing. Or James Forten, another freeborn man who invented a contraption to handle the sails on a sailboat. Or Judy W. Reed, the first known woman of color to receive a patent, who created an improved dough kneader and roller. Or Henry Blair, an inventor who received utility patents on a seed and cotton planter.

If Representative Murray had continued to be a Member of Congress, he would, no doubt, have come to the floor of the House many more times to brag about African American inventors and to acknowledge the major significance of their inventions. He would have reported that by the year 1900, African Americans had patented 357 inventions. And I'm certain that he would have been especially moved to share with this body that by the early to mid-20th century, African American inventors had obtained patents for innovations in countless industries, including medical, chemical, aviation, automotive, grocery, cosmetic, and apparel.

For example, Garrett Morgan invented the gas mask to protect firemen and other rescuers from breathing smoke and poisonous gas when entering dangerous fires and other situations, and he was also awarded a patent for the three-way electric traffic signal. Charles Drew created a method to mass-produce blood plasma, which led to the formation of blood banks to store plasma for victims of life-threatening emergencies. Unfortunately, he bled to death following an automobile accident which occurred in my native State of North Carolina, and his injuries were too severe for the process he invented to be used to save his life.

Frederick McKinley Jones was the first African American member of the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers. He developed a means to refrigerate perishables being transported long distances. Jack Johnson, who was best known as the great African American boxer, received two patents: one for an improvement to the monkey wrench and the other for a theft prevention device for vehicles. I suspect

that my good friend and our colleague Representative Darrell Issa might be surprised to learn that Jack Johnson, an African American inventor, developed a device to prevent people from stealing cars long before Representative Issa got into the business.

I encourage my colleagues to look at the books on African American invention.

Mr. Speaker, one of the few important accomplishments of the 111th Congress thus far has been the passage of H.R. 1249, the ``America Invents Act,'' a comprehensive reform of the United States patent system which was signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. H.R. 1249 authorized the transition from a first-to-invent process to a first-to-file process for obtaining a patent, expanded the prior user rights defense and addressed to some extent (although not to my satisfaction) the diversion of fees collected by the Patent and Trademark Office to the general fund. There is little disagreement that patent reform was long overdue and even those who voted against H.R. 1249 recognized how important it was to the American inventor and to American innovation to update and streamline the patent system.

Our country has always respected and admired inventors. As young children we were taught about famous inventors such as Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford and many others. Frequently overlooked in discussions of important inventors, however, have been the accomplishments of African-American inventors. Until this year's publication of the children's book, What Color is My World?: The Lost History of African American Inventors, by basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, we've done little to teach children about the outstanding contributions African-American inventors have made to innovation. I would, therefore, like to use this time during Black History Month to pay tribute to some of the many, many contributions African-American inventors have made.

I am not the first member of this body to take to the floor of this House to acknowledge the long legacy of inventiveness in the African- American community. On August 10, 1894, Rep. George Washington Murray, the only African-American in the House of Representatives at that time and himself the holder of eight patents on agricultural implements, read the names of ninety-two African-Americans who held patents and described their inventions on the House floor. Had time allowed, Rep. Murray would likely have highlighted the achievements of even more patent holders, inventors such as: Thomas L. Jennings (1791 1859), a free person of color and one of the earliest African-Americans to patent an invention, who in 1821 was awarded a patent for developing an early dry-cleaning process to remove dirt and grease from clothing; James Forten, another free born man who invented a contraption to handle the sails on a sail boat; Judy W. Reed (the first known woman of color to receive a patent), who created an improved dough kneader and roller; and Henry Blair, an inventor who received utility patents on a seed and cotton planter.

If Rep. Murray had continued to be a member of Congress he would no doubt have come to the floor of the House many more times to brag about African-American inventors and to acknowledge the major significance of their inventions. He would have reported that by the year 1900 African- Americans had patented 357 inventions. And I am certain that he would have been especially moved to share with this body that by the early to mid-twentieth century, African-American inventors had obtained patents for innovations in countless industries, including medical, chemical, aviation, automotive, grocery, cosmetics and apparel. For example:

Garrett Morgan (1877 1963) invented the gas mask to protect fireman and other rescuers from breathing smoke and poisonous gas when entering dangerous fires and other situations and he was also awarded a patent for the three-way electric traffic signal.

Charles Drew (1904 1950) created a method to mass-produce blood plasma which led to the formation of blood banks to store plasma for victims of life-threatening emergencies. Unfortunately, he bled to death following an automobile accident which occurred in my native state of North Carolina and his injuries were too severe for the process he invented to be used to save his life.

Frederick McKinley Jones (1893 1961) was the first African-American member of the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers. He developed a means to refrigerate perishables being transported long distances.

Jack Johnson (1878 1946), best known as the great African-American boxer, received two patents, one for an improvement to the monkey wrench and the other for a theft-prevention device for vehicles. I suspect that my good friend and our colleague Rep. Darrell Issa might be surprised to learn that Jack Johnson, an African-American inventor, developed a device to prevent people from stealing cars long before Rep. Issa got into the business.

Norbert Rillieux (1806 1894) invented a sugar processing evaporator that provided a safer, cheaper, and easier way of evaporating sugar cane juice and made the refinement of sugar more efficient. It is still used for the production of sugar, gelatin, condensed milk and glue, among other things.

Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone (1869 1957) was the first African- American beauty entrepreneur to manufacture a line of beauty products for African-American women. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s she manufactured and sold her products door-to-door. Mme. C.J. Walker, who is often credited with starting the African-American beauty business, was actually one of her sales agents.

Dr. Lloyd Augustus Hall (1894 1971), a pioneer in the area of food chemistry, developed preservative chemicals that were used to keep food fresh without sacrificing flavor. In the 1930s he introduced ``flash- dried'' salt crystals that revolutionized the meat packing industry.

Percy Lavon Julian (1899 1975) developed synthetic cortisone, which provided cheaper relief from rheumatoid arthritis. In 1954 he founded Julian Laboratories to research steroids and in 1961 he sold his company to Smith, Kline and French.

By the start of the 21st century and on into the present day, African-Americans have also been awarded patents in many other categories, including the technology and engineering fields. For instance:

Dr. Mark Dean holds more than twenty domestic patents and was a key developer of computer architecture for IBM.

Dr. George H. Simmons obtained a patent for creating a fiber-optic extension of an optic local area network and another for designing a system to eliminate the unwanted pulses in a dial pulse stream on telephones.

Dr. James E. West is the well-regarded co-inventor of foil-electret transducers, which are the devices used to change sound into electrical signals and are used in items such as lapel microphones, hearing aids and portable tape recorders.

Lonnie Johnson invented the popular ``Super Soaker'' water gun.

I could go on ad infinitum about these and countless other examples of African-American ingenuity, but my time is limited. So I will instead encourage you to investigate for yourselves and learn more about the unique role that African-American inventors have played in the rich history of American inventiveness. For that purpose I direct you to an outstanding book called The Inventive Spirit of African Americans by Patricia Carter Sluby which details the many examples I have discussed, as well as many other outstanding innovations and patents by African-Americans. It is probably the most thorough and best researched and written history of African-American inventiveness available today. I also direct my colleagues to Kareem Abdul Jabbar's recent book written especially for children, entitled What Color is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors. I commend these resources to my colleagues as we honor the exemplary achievements of African-Americans during Black History Month and throughout the year.

Madam Speaker, later this week, the United States Senate is scheduled to consider the President's nomination of Richard Cordray as the person to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And while our rules don't allow us to meddle much in the Senate activities, I do want to spend a minute or two just talking about the importance of the nomination and confirmation of Richard Cordray and the importance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and talk a little bit about the background of why we have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The purpose of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is to promote a fair, honest, and transparent marketplace to help consumers compare cost, benefits, and risk of consumer financial products. Consumer financial products are perhaps among the most complicated products that consumers have to deal with; credit card terms, mortgages, and the kinds of things that resulted in a financial meltdown in our economy.

Now prior to the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, there was, in every one of the regulatory bodies, a responsibility to deal with consumer protection. Unfortunately, none of those agencies had consumer protection and education as their highest priority. All of them were looking at--not very well, I will say to you--the safety and soundness of the financial industry, the banks and various components of the financial industry. And generally, they interpreted safety and soundness to be, as long as these institutions are making a big profit, they are safe and sound. And they turned their backs on the interests of the consumer, not knowing that if the consumers purchased a lot of very bad mortgages and got themselves into a lot of very bad financial transactions, that that would cause the whole system to come tumbling down.

So when we passed the Dodd-Frank bill, we put into the bill a provision to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau so that there would be somebody in the Federal Government, some agency whose sole responsibility is to look out for the consumer; and of course, a number of my colleagues, both in the House and the Senate, have been fighting this whole concept from day one. They don't like the fact that there is a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and they have vowed not to confirm any nominee that the President sends over there to head this agency. The agency is doing good work already, but it needs a director.

Despite not having a director, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched a number of initiatives, most notably the ``Know Before You Owe'' project which aims to simplify mortgage disclosure forms and helps students better understand the financial aid process and repayment options. These are things that are important to consumers. They don't necessarily make up the focus of financial entities, the big banks, the lenders, but our whole economic system is based on an educated consumer. And when consumers get into bad transactions, we suffer, as we have in this financial

meltdown. We have lost more wealth from mortgages being under water than from any other financial kinds of transactions. And if we had had a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in place when this calamity was taking place, we wouldn't be in the financial mess that we are in today.

I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding time. I regret that I have to be the skunk at the party today in opposition to this bill.

While I support innovation on the Web, I do not support it at the expense of consumer privacy. I believe we've rushed this bill to the floor without sufficient development and, consequently, without giving any thought to its implications for consumer privacy.

The bill would amend what is widely considered to be one of the strongest protections of consumer privacy records in the United States, the Video Privacy Protection Act, without receiving testimony from a single privacy expert. It also ignores the impact this bill may have on State laws providing similar or greater protections. At a time when we know that technology that's pervasive and invasive has become almost commonplace, our responsibility as policymakers is not to surrender to technology and to sacrifice the values that we have held dear since the founding of this Nation.

Technology and privacy are not incompatible. We can and should promote technological innovation while simultaneously preventing the unwarranted, uninformed dissemination of personal information. This bill falls short of that objective. The supporters of this bill point to the widespread sharing already taking place over the Internet, but they neglect to publicize the privacy lawsuits, some of which are still pending, against those video and music sites that permit their users to share their playlist.

The Video Privacy Protection Act was not only a reaction to the publication of Judge Robert Bork's rental records during his nomination proceeding to the United States Supreme Court. The committee report also noted where an attorney obtained video records in a custody dispute to demonstrate that the father was unfit to have custody of his children based largely on his video rental records. Many of the lawsuits today reflect consumer concerns with precisely this type of abuse and misuse of rental records and other equally private information.

The stated purpose of the bill is to respond to the new commercial video distribution landscape by empowering consumers to do more with their video consumption preference, including sharing names of new or favorite TV shows or movies on social media in a simple way. But when you really peel away the layers, you have to ask yourself one question: Who does this bill benefit? It really doesn't benefit the consumer. The consumer already has the capacity to share his or her video preferences online however she pleases.

The bill instead benefits companies by relieving them of the burden of protecting consumer records by getting a one-time universal consent to disclose users' viewing history in order to share them on social media sites. But because social media sites are often dynamic, with users' rosters of friends ever changing, a consumer's consent today to allow access to their viewing history is clearly not informed by who will be their friend tomorrow.

Today, when online bullying of teens or young adults is increasing and leading to depression or suicide, we should have greater care to ensure that their interests are not cavalierly disregarded. Allowing video service providers to release information as private as a person's viewing history, which clearly shows to the world their loves, likes, and dislikes, should not be done without careful contemplation and consideration.

In closing, I would just emphasize that I believe that technological advance and innovation are both extremely important. It is the future of America's economy. I don't question that. However, allowing the release of truly private consumer information in the name of innovation without careful consideration is reckless on our part, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this legislation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding once again.

And in response to my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), we have in fact been trying to work out our differences. The problem is that his definition of protecting privacy is not as extensive as my definition of protecting privacy. And I think my definition of protecting privacy is more consistent with consumers, because consumers keep filing these lawsuits to try to protect themselves from the disclosure of their personal information.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has been at the forefront of ensuring privacy protections for consumers in the information age, just last week secured a victory for Facebook users when its complaint to the Federal Trade Commission resulted in a settlement requiring Facebook to establish an extensive privacy program. Analytics Company and Web video Hulu.com have been hit with another privacy lawsuit over their alleged use of supercookies to track people.

There is case after case after case of consumers' information being used, abused, and misused, and here we are making it easier for that to occur by saying you can give one time--they already have the authority to release the information when they download a movie now, but this will give one-time, universal coverage to release everything that I view on video. And that's inconsistent with what I think is necessary to protect the privacy of people in this electronic age.

Now, I understand that there are people who have an interest in this; I mean, there are people who profit from mining this kind of information. But our interest should be in protecting the rights of consumers, protecting them from having this kind of private information--I would think since the original Video Protection Act was about protecting the privacy of Judge Robert Bork and people going into his records to review his video viewing privacy, that my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle would be the most vigorous in trying to protect this. But here we are giving in to the interests that will make money out of this and exposing our children and our own viewing habits to this kind of intrusive action on our part, and we are doing it without the benefit of any testimony at a hearing to talk about this. We should simply not be doing this.

I would like to submit for the Record a letter dated December 5, 2012, from the Electronic Privacy Information Center in which they aggressively oppose this legislation. They say they are a nonpartisan public interest research organization.

The Video Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1988, following disclosure of the private video rental records of a Supreme Court nominee by a video rental store to a news organization. There was broad-based support for passage, and the act was signed by President Ronald Reagan. This act is considered a model privacy act in many respects. It is technology neutral.

And this bill undermines this Video Privacy Act that was the model act that was designed to protect a Republican nominee to the Supreme Court and was signed into law by a Republican President. And here we are in this Congress getting ready to send a bill over to the Senate-- which hopefully they won't act on; they will save us from our own ineptitude--which would undermine the key provision of the Video Protection Act, which is the right of users to give meaningful consent to the disclosure of their personal information.

This blanket consent, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center--and I agree with them wholeheartedly. The blanket consent provisions transfer control from the individual user to the company in possession of the data and diminish the control that Netflix customers would have in the use and disclosure of their personal information.

``While we recognize that other companies routinely report on the activities of their customers, we note that Facebook users have never been particularly happy about this. The history of Beacon is well known--and also that the routine disclosure of video viewing activities is not something that most Facebook users are clamoring for.''

In fact, Facebook, as we just indicated, just entered into a settlement of a privacy lawsuit. And here we are on the floor of the House saying that we value the business interests more than we value the personal privacy interests of individual citizens.

This is a bad idea. It shouldn't be here on the suspension calendar as if it's a noncontroversial clarification of

the law. This is a dramatic undermining of the Video Privacy Protection Act. We are doing a disservice to our constituents by giving this authority. They already have the authority to do it on a case-by-case- by-case basis. It may be inconvenient to the companies to get the authority given to them that way, but that's the way it should be given to them, not in some blanket authority that just allows the companies to go in and use this information willy-nilly and without regard to the privacy.

I thank the gentleman for yielding again. And I may ask him to yield again depending on what happens--oh, he says he's not going to yield to me anymore.

I just think my colleagues should vote against this bill, defeat it on suspension, and let's at least debate it under regular order on the floor of the House or send it back to the committee so we can have some hearings about the privacy implications so we can get this done.

Electronic Privacy

Information Center,

Washington, DC, December 5, 2011.

Congressman Mel Watt,

Rayburn HOB,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congressman Watt: Thank you for your request for

comments from the Electronic Privacy Information Center

(``EPIC'') regarding H.R. 2471, which would amend the Video

Privacy Protection Act (``VPPA''). EPIC had hoped to provide

comments at a hearing on the bill, but as the sponsors of the

legislation chose to push through the legislation without the

opportunity for public discussion, we appreciate the

opportunity to share our views in response to your request.

EPIC is nonpartisan, public interest research organization,

established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging

privacy and civil liberties issues, We maintain two of the

most popular privacy sites on the Internet--EPIC.ORG and

PRIVACY.ORG--and testify frequently in Congress. We have also

represented the interests of Facebook users over the years in

a wide range of privacy matters.

The Video Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1988

following the disclosure of the private video rental records

of a Supreme Court nominee by a video rental store to a news

organization. There was broad-based support for passage and

the Act was signed into law by President Reagan. The VPPA is

considered a model privacy law in many respects--it is

technology neutral, focusing on the obligations of businesses

and the rights of customers in the collection and use of

personal information. It makes clear the circumstances when

personal information may be disclosed and it provides a

private right of action when violations occur.

The VPPA makes no specific references to particular

technologies. First Amendment concerns are addressed in the

Act by recognizing that when the press seeks to publish

information, Congress may not limit the rights of the press.

However, businesses that collect information from their

customers have an obligation to safeguard that information

and to ensure it is used only for appropriate purposes. As

with most privacy laws, the VPPA contains a consent provision

that allows individuals to disclose their personal

information to others if they wish. There is nothing in the

Act that prevents individuals from so doing.

H.R. 2471 would undermine the key provision in the VPPA,

which is the right of users to give meaningful consent to the

disclosure of their personal information. Such blanket

consent provisions transfer control from the individual user

to the company in possession of the data and diminish the

control that Netflix customers would have in the use and

disclosure of their personal information. While we recognize

that other companies routinely report on the activities of

their customers, we note that Facebook users have never been

particularly happy about this--the history of Beacon is well

known--and also that the routine disclosure of video viewing

activities is not something that most Facebook users are

clamoring for. If anything, most Netflix users seem to be

unhappy about the company's disregard for its customers.

The proposal is particularly surprising in light of the

recent decision by the Federal Trade Commission concerning

Facebook and privacy, which found that when companies seek to

change the privacy defaults of their users, they are

essentially engaging in an unfair and deceptive trade

practice. That would be the practical impact of this

amendment--to take away control of the user's information

after the user had subscribed to the service. There is

nothing in the proposal that would ``modernize'' the Act; it

simply allows Netflix to post more information about the

activity of its customers, whether or not the customers would

choose to post such information themselves.

EPIC would therefore recommend that members of Congress

vote NO on H.R. 2471. Users remain free to disclose their

video viewing habits if they wish; there is no reason to

change the default. EPIC would also recommend a hearing on

the legislation so that all views, both for and against, can

be presented, and Members are provided an opportunity to

fully assess the proposal.

Privacy is the number one concern of Internet users today.

It would be foolish to adopt an amendment that weakens

privacy legislation already in place.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any further

questions.

Sincerely,

Marc Rotenberg,

President, Electronic Privacy

Information Center (EPIC).

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

Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to welcome Reverend Dr. Cathy C. Jones as the guest chaplain today for the United States House of Representatives. Since July, 2009, Dr. Jones has served as pastor of Parkwood Institutional CME Church, which is located in my congressional district in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Reverend Dr. Jones is a native of Chatham County, North Carolina. She received her associates, bachelor's, and master's degrees from Justice Fellowship International Bible College in Raleigh, North Carolina. In May of 2010, she received her doctorate in Biblical Studies from Justice Fellowship Bible College in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Dr. Jones has been a pastor and served on different committees at the local and district levels during her time with the CME Church. She's married to Theodore Jones and has been blessed with 7 children, 19 grandchildren, and 3 great grandchildren.

On behalf of my constituents in the 12th Congressional District and my colleagues here in the House, I thank her for her service to her community and for her prayer this morning.

I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

I haven't heard this said since I've been sitting on the floor listening to the debate, but if anybody has said it, I want to express my agreement with them. We cannot continue to spend more year after year after year than we receive. That is unsustainable, and with that, I cannot argue. However, I disagree that we need a balanced budget amendment to make that point.

I have no balanced budget amendment to operate my household. Some years I have borrowed money and gone in debt, and some years I have accumulated a surplus and paid down that debt. I'm sure that's the way every American citizen operates their life, trying to make responsible decisions and not hiding behind some subterfuge like a balanced budget amendment.

Being responsible, I went into debt to go to college. It was a wonderful investment because I wouldn't be here today if I had not done that. And I paid that debt back in some years where I generated surpluses in my household--as a result of going to college. I went into debt to buy a house. It's been a wonderful investment. The house has a lot more value now than what I paid for it. It is part of my assets. And one of these days, I'm going to pay that debt off. But I'm still, if you count that, operating in a deficit situation. There are some years that I'm in surplus. There are some years that I'm in deficit. The one thing I do know, whether I'm in deficit or surplus, I count the income, and I count the expenditures.

Balancing a budget is not just about how much you spend; it is also about how much you take in. And the government's only source of taking in money is tax revenues. So for somebody to come in here and lecture me about a balanced budget amendment, when they jumped up from discussions and said, I'm not going to talk about revenues in an effort to balance the budget, I'm just going to have you talk about expenditures--that is unacceptable to me.

Let's grow up in this institution. Act responsibly and make tough decisions, and we can get out of this deficit situation, and we can pay off the debt. We have proved it. We proved it while I was here in this body. We got to the point that Chairman Greenspan at that time was saying, hey, I'm worried that you're going to pay off the national debt too fast and it's going to be deflationary. Republicans were not in control then. We didn't have a balanced budget amendment then.

We didn't have a balanced budget amendment then. We acted responsibly, and not with a single vote from the people who are here lecturing us today and saying they need a balanced budget to stand behind. That's like standing behind my mother's skirt.

Grow up. Make responsible decisions. Quit going into wars that we can't afford to pay for and not paying for them. Make some responsible decisions, and you won't need this skirt to stand behind. We don't need this. It's irrational. The American people know it's irrational because they know that balancing a budget is a function of income and expenditures.

Will the gentleman yield?

I was rising to claim time in opposition because I am opposed. But if the gentleman is going to yield me time.

I thank the Chair.

Let me say this: This is kind of an awkward conversation because we did have this discussion in committee. We were advised in committee that the preemption language would be corrected between the committee and the floor. It was revised. And the amendment does take a step in the right direction, so I won't ask for a recorded vote on the amendment, but it doesn't take a step far enough in the right direction because the amendment still preempts States from having the pre-review of these offerings that they now have. Even though it reserves to them the authority to do something about fraud, it does not reserve to them the authority to get involved in the review process. And in that sense, it continues to preempt State law.

I want to applaud my friends, both Mr. McHenry and Mr. Perlmutter, for making a step in the right direction, but this still preempts State law, and States ought to have the prerogative to be involved in this. The State of North Carolina, from which Mr. McHenry hails, the Secretary of State is adamantly of the opinion--and I agree with her-- that this amendment does not go far enough.

When we get back into the full House and I can offer a letter into the Record, it will note that the North American Securities Administrators Association does not think the amendment goes far enough to protect States' rights.

I'm not accusing anybody of bad faith. I think they made a good faith effort to try to find grounds. But this raises the exact issue that I raised in the committee, which was the appropriate place to have done this and made this amendment and debated it and thought it out--in the committee, not on the floor of the House. And when you leave it to just a couple of individuals to work out something between committee and the floor of the House, sometimes it doesn't get to where people would like for it to be.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

North American Securities

Administrators Association, Inc.,

Washington, DC, November 3, 2011.

Hon. John Boehner,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Speaker: I am writing on behalf of the North

American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) to

express my opposition to H.R. 2930, the Entrepreneur Access

to Capital Act, which is scheduled to be voted on by the

House of Representatives this week.

This legislation is well intended, but structurally flawed.

While intended to promote an internet-based fundraising

technique known as ``crowd-funding'' as a tool for

investment, this legislation will needlessly preempt state

securities laws and weaken important investor protections.

Crowd-funding is an online money-raising strategy that

began as a way for the public to donate small amounts of

money, often through social networking websites, to help

artists, musicians, filmmakers and other creative people

finance their projects. The concept has recently been

promoted as a way of assisting small businesses and start-ups

looking for investment capital to help get their business

ventures off the ground.

State securities regulators are acutely aware of today's

difficult economic environment and its effects on job growth.

Small businesses are important to job growth and to improving

the economy. However, by placing unnecessary limits on the

ability of state securities regulators to protect retail

investors from the risks associated with smaller, speculative

investments, Congress is poised to enact policies intended to

strengthen the economy that will very likely have precisely

the opposite effect. If this legislation is enacted in its

present form it will prohibit states from enforcing laws

designed to minimize the risks to investors. As currently

written, H.R. 2930 would only allow states to address

investor losses after they occur. Under this scenario, the

public will lose confidence in this business funding method,

thus, hurting the efforts to make crowd-funding a viable

means for raising capital.

Preemption of State Law

Section 4 of H.R. 2930 would preempt state laws requiring

disclosures or reviewing exempted investment offerings before

they are sold to the public. The authority to require such

filings is critical to the ability of states to get ``under

the hood'' of an offering to make sure that it is what it

says it is. Moreover, as a matter of principle and policy,

NASAA ardently believes that review of offerings of this size

should remain primarily the responsibility of the states. As

the securities regulators closest to the investing public,

and in light of our demonstrated record of effectiveness,

states are the most appropriate regulator in this area. State

regulators are closer, more accessible, and more in touch

with the local and regional economic issues that affect both

the issuer and the investor in a small business offering.

NASAA sincerely appreciates the effort of Congressman Ed

Perlmutter (D-CO) to work with the bill's sponsor to produce

a bipartisan amendment that would alleviate states concerns

with the preemptive provisions of H.R. 2930. Unfortunately,

the Perlmutter-McHenry amendment that was made in order by

the Rules Committee on November 2 falls far short of this

goal. By simply clarifying that states ``retain jurisdiction

. . . to investigate and bring enforcement actions with

respect to fraud or deceit,'' the amendment essentially

restates the preemptive provisions as they existed in the

original bill. The Perlmutter-McHenry amendment fails to

address the fundamental concern that states have had with

H.R. 2930 since its introduction: the preemption of state

authority to review securities prior to their offering.

Congress should refrain from preempting state law.

Preempting state authority is a very serious step and not

something that should ever be undertaken lightly or without

careful consideration, including a thorough examination of

all available alternatives. In the case of crowd-funding,

state securities regulators are not only capable of acting,

but indeed, are acting, and Congress should allow them the

opportunity to continue to protect retail investors from the

risks associated with smaller, speculative investments.

Individual Investment Cap

One of the fundamental tenets of securities law is that an

investor is protected when the seller of securities is

required to disclose sufficient information so that an

investor can make an informed decision. Post-sale antifraud

remedies provide little comfort to an investor who has lost a

significant sum of money that is unrecoverable. Any effort to

remove or weaken the up-front registration and disclosure

process should not happen without adequate alternative

safeguards.

NASAA appreciates that the concept of crowd-funding is

appealing in many respects because it provides small,

innovative enterprises, access to capital that might not

otherwise be available. Indeed, this is precisely the reason

that states are now considering adopting a model rule that

would establish a more modest exemption for crowd-funding as

it is traditionally understood, with individual investments

capped at several hundred dollars per investor.

By contrast, H.R. 2930 goes far beyond anything that is

being contemplated by the states or traditional advocates of

crowd-funding. By setting an individual investment cap of 10

percent of annual income, or $10,000, H.R. 2930 will create

an exemption that will expose many more American families to

potentially catastrophic financial harm. Given that most U.S.

households have a relatively modest amount of savings, a loss

of $10,000, in even a single case, can be financially

crippling.

Aggregate Investment Cap

H.R. 2930 would permit businesses to solicit investments of

up to $2 million, in increments of $10,000 per investment.

Such a high cap on aggregate investment makes the bill

inconsistent with the expressed rationale for the crowd-

funding exception. A company that is sufficiently large to

warrant the raising of $2 million in investment capital is

also a company that can afford to comply with the applicable

registration and filing requirements.

Registration and filing requirements at both the state and

federal level exist to protect investors, and any company

raising up to $2 million can afford to comply with them.

Thank you for your consideration of these important issues.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or

Michael Canning, Co-Director of Policy, at the NASAA

Corporate Office at (202) 737-0900.

Sincerely,

Jack E. Herstein,

President.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time, although I won't take it.

I want to express my thanks also to Mr. Perlmutter, and to my colleague from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry). As I indicated, they made an effort to move this in the right direction. They, in fact, moved it. This amendment is better than the underlying bill, which totally preempted State law. So it moves in the right direction, it just does not move far enough in the right direction. Because of that--I mean, I'm not going to vote against the amendment. I'm not even going to ask for a recorded vote on the amendment itself. But it will make it necessary for me to oppose the bill itself. And I thought it was important enough for me to come down and express this because there are a significant number of people out there, including a number of State Attorneys General and/or Secretaries of State who believe this does not go far enough.

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

Mr. Speaker, last Friday, the President signed the patent reform bill; but before the ink is dry on the patent reform bill, the agreement that led to the passage of it that all of the fees that are collected by the Patent and Trademark Office will be used by the Patent and Trademark Office is reneged on in this continuing resolution.

This is a job-creating bill, an innovation-creating bill, and because we have been taking the money of the Patent and Trademark Office for years and diverting it to the general fund, we have, in effect, imposed a tax on innovation in this country. The appropriators promised us that they were going to correct this problem, but there is nothing in this bill to address that promise. I don't see how I can support a continuing resolution that does not honor the commitment that was made in our patent reform bill.

Just last Friday, the President signed the America Invents Act (AIA), a bipartisan bill that promises to stimulate innovation and create jobs and add fuel to our economy. The AIA created a mechanism for USPTO, beginning in FY2012, to access all of the fees it collects by allowing USPTO to notify Congress that the Office will need the excess fees to support its operations and hire the staff required to reduce the staggering backlog of patent applications. Now, despite this hard fought deal--one which I opposed precisely because it depends upon an annual commitment to honor and implement the deal--the CR before us fails to put the USPTO on the firm, stable footing we all agreed was necessary for it to dig out of the backlog, avoid a tax on innovation, and stimulate job growth.

Under the current CR, for at least 7 weeks the USPTO will be held to a spending rate based on last year's FY11 appropriations, a rate that ignores Congress's directive and authorization that the USPTO be able to use the fees it collects in order to support implementation of the act and that those funds not be diverted to pay for wars, government waste and other Federal Government operations. I will resist the temptation to say, ``I told you so,'' because that would not advance the debate or solve the serious problem I have identified before and identify again today. What is most compelling is that ensuring that the PTO has access to all of its funds costs nothing to the American taxpayer. It is, therefore, confusing why we are again facing such a heavy lift to simply give the PTO access to the funds it earns through its operations. But what is clear to me is that, without a provision to ensure adequate funding for the PTO, the bill the President just signed will not serve the important purposes it was designed to serve. This CR does not provide such funding, and I cannot support the CR. I urge my colleagues who say they believe in reducing the tax burden on businesses, large and small, those who fought to ensure that the independent engines of economic growth run at full throttle, I urge them to vote no on the rule and against this CR and work to get the funding the USPTO needs and that this Congress promised it would have.