Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday I missed two votes. Had I been present, I would have voted: Roll Call No. 269--YES; and Roll Call No. 270--YES.

Mr. Speaker, this bill also authorizes $24 billion to build a stupid wall.

This bill also says it is going to be harder for family reunification by repealing two laws that already allow it.

This bill also says that 3 million people who have done the right thing and are in line to become citizens are now going to be shunted aside.

Don't kid yourself about what this bill says and what it doesn't say.

This bill also is a sham. You know it and I know it.

Now, previous speakers said that history is going to judge us. You are right. It will.

On this issue, God is going to judge you as well. When you go to those gates and there is a little thing in there that says you went out of your way to use children for your political purposes, you really think that is a good mark to have in your book? I don't think so.

When you talk about compromise, it takes a little bit more than just looking in the mirror and compromising with yourself. It actually means you have to deal with people who sometimes don't agree with you.

This bill is a lousy bill. You know it; we know it; and America knows it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

There are some good things in this bill. I wanted to work with all of you to enshrine the good things and get rid of the bad things. We all did. We all offered it for years because Dodd-Frank is a good law, but it needs amending. We all agree. The limits are on it. We all have admitted that we just kind of picked them at the time. We were in a hurry, in a rush. But the amnesia around this place, I guess, is endemic.

Maybe it is hard for you today to look people in the eye and say: Gee, maybe you can't afford that loan.

But, for me, the hardest thing was looking people in the eye and saying: I am sorry you are losing your home. I am sorry you are losing your job. I am sorry your kids can't go to college because the economy just collapsed.

The numbers are the numbers. But didn't you get those phone calls? Didn't you hear from any of your constituents?

And what was your answer? Oh, the regulatory system is terrible.

You didn't answer that. You tried to help, and you couldn't because the economy had gone down the toilet.

If this bill passes, which it will--I know you wouldn't come to the floor unless you had the votes. I know that. I can count. When people ask you the next time we have an economic collapse, when they ask you what happened, here is the only answer you are going to be able to give them: I voted for this bill today.

Mr. Speaker, the details of this bill, getting rid of HMDA requirements, do you not care about discrimination? Do you not recognize that it is real and that it exists? But, apparently, you don't care.

Do you not care that your constituents had their information sold out from under them and then not protected? But now you are going to give free credit monitoring only for people in the military--not for your mother, not for your sister, not for your student children, just for the military.

The bill has some good provisions in it. I am happy to work with you on some of these.

This bill goes too far, and you are responsible.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, I missed three votes. Had I been present, I would have voted: Roll Call No. 181--Yes; Roll Call No. 182--Yes; and Roll Call No. 183--Yes.

Mr. Speaker, this week I missed two roll calls. Had I been present, I would have voted:

Roll Call No. 167--Yes, and Roll Call No. 168--Yes.

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

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, this is a short bill, an easy bill. It simply tells the STB that they should do something about cybersecurity as directed by their own inspector general.

It is a very simple bill. It is a bipartisan bill. It is something we should pass as quickly as we can.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, again, this is a relatively easy bill and a bipartisan bill. It simply requires that the FRA train people when they report incidents of safety, that they report them in a uniform manner so that when somebody goes to look to see how many accidents there were or a certain type of accident, they can compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges. It is kind of simple. It is a straightforward bill and, again, it is bipartisan.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Gottheimer), the author of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, this week I missed two roll calls. Had I been present I would have voted: Roll Call No. 115-Yes, and Roll Call No. 116-Yes.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, am here to recognize International Women's Day.

We all know that women have made some progress over the years: the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act. We have made progress, but we know there is more to do.

This Congress and this President have to improve the Family and Medical Leave Act. We have to make sure the laws that we have are enforced, equal pay is made, and equal actions happen in the workplace. We are not doing it, and we all know that.

And the truth is--when I am home--I tell people, when you look to Congress to lead, it is always a mistake. Most of the progress in this country comes from the bottom up. We are almost always last. I will give you an example.

Years ago, George Bush vetoed the Family and Medical Leave Act four times. I was the mayor of my city, we did it on our own. The Federal Government didn't make us do it, and the State didn't make us do it.

So I am here today to simply ask all Americans, at every level, to do what you can to equalize opportunity and treatment in this world. We don't have to wait for our government. There are people like me, Rosa DeLauro, and others who are going to continue to push, and we will make progress. But we all have our own individual responsibilities, and I call on all Americans to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am, in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, my amendment simply requires a company to have a policy in place to claw back executives' incentive-based pay if it is materially noncompliant with financial reporting requirements. Now, those words matter because the words ``materially noncompliant'' mean something in the accounting world. It has to be a big change, not just some minor, little accounting error.

This amendment really should be noncontroversial. It is outrageous, not to mention shortsighted, that almost a decade after the crisis that wrecked the economy we still don't have commonsense safeguards in place to ensure that CEOs do not turn a blind eye to problems that lead to a public restatement of their company's financials.

This is not something hypothetical. It happens on a pretty regular basis. It is not relegated to just the past. Everybody here is pretty familiar with Wells Fargo Bank. It has generated scandal after scandal by ripping off its own

consumers. Last year, the bank settled an 11-year lawsuit with the Department of Justice because it overcharged veterans who applied for home loan refinancing. At the same time, we learned of hundreds of thousands of car loan customers charged for car insurance that they never agreed to purchase.

In 2016, we learned of millions of fake deposits and credit card statements opened up by Wells Fargo and then charging their customers. Last September, the bank failed to refund insurance payments made by customers who paid off their car loans early. And most recently, we found out that they delayed mortgage closing dates in order to jack up their own fees.

These abuses come on top of $10 billion in fines by that bank that has been paid in recent years for everything from mortgage fraud, illegal marketing, kickback schemes, insider trading, racial discrimination, and student loan scams. Yet the bank believes that this kind of consistent misconduct is not materially financially important enough to require a restatement.

Wells Fargo has only ever clawed back a few tiny dollars from its executives. All this recommit does is simply says that if you commit an act that requires a material change in your public statements, you shouldn't profit by it. That is all. Not basic pay; just the incentive pay tied to those actions.

The underlying bill goes in the opposite direction. It makes it more likely that there will be material inaccuracies in certain public companies' financial statements. If this is what Congress is going to do, we should, at the very least, not incentivize that bad behavior. Title III of this bill allows new public companies to get out of independent audit requirements for 10 years--ten years.

Now, we all think, well, that is fine for a small company. Small company? Up to $700 million of company shares? That is a small company? Those are significant companies that put lots of people at risk, shareholders and investors.

In 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act--I want to repeat, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act because Mike Oxley was the Republican chair of the Financial Services Committee at the time--requires companies to issue stock to publicly report their internal control structures and procedures for financial reporting. Those reports have to be attested to and covered in an audit report.

There is a reason why an independent audit of large corporations is a good thing: it makes it harder for them to hide bad actions. This recommit, again, it is simple. It doesn't change the underlying bill. It simply says: If a corporation makes a material change to its publicly stated financial records and an executive's incentive pay has been tied to the profits made off of that now-changed policy, the company has to have a policy in place whereby to claw back those ill- gotten profits. I don't think that is controversial. I don't think that is partisan. I don't think that is antibusiness. I don't think that is overregulation. It is simply fair.

We don't let bank robbers keep their money. We don't let other people who commit wrongdoings keep the profits that they have. Why should we let corporations who go out of their way--some, not all, only a handful go out of their way--to make sure that they hide their bad actions, report them badly? And when they get caught and have to report them appropriately, they still get to keep the ill-gotten gains.

That is all this recommit does. It is simple. It is straightforward. And I would hope that my friends on not just the other side but on both sides of this aisle see this as a thoughtful, insightful, and commonsense approach to amend this bill.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, on January 18, 1958, sixty years ago today, a 22-year-old Boston Bruins winger stepped onto the ice of the famed Montreal Forum to battle the Montreal Canadiens, forever changing the face of the National Hockey League. Though he played in only two NHL games that year and forty-three more during the 1960-61 season, this player's lasting impact upon the League and the sport of ice hockey continues to this very day. In remembrance of his historic accomplishment, I want to take a few minutes to pay tribute to Willie O'Ree, on the anniversary of his becoming the first black person to play in an NHL game, and for his continued efforts to grow the game and personify the belief that hockey is for everyone.

Without question, life was not easy for the few black hockey players trying to break into the professional ranks in the 1950s. America was still dealing with segregation and Jim Crow, and racism was an everyday reality for black people everywhere. No black person was immune to this reality, not even a young black Canadian hockey player from Fredericton, New Brunswick. While chasing his boyhood dream of becoming a professional hockey player, Willie O'Ree faced more than his fair share of racial epithets and abuse from players and spectators alike. However, his inner strength, dedication, and determination propelled him above his racial antagonists and set him on a course that would ultimately prove historic and transformational.

And not only did Willie overcome the racial climate of his day, he also overcame a potentially career ending injury that almost no one knew about. When Willie was a 19-year-old playing junior hockey in Canada, he was struck by an errant puck that left him blind in his right eye. The doctors that treated him told him he would never play again. Thankfully for us, he followed his heart and not their prognosis. But Willie did keep the fact that he was blind in his right eye a secret from coaches, players, and even his family for fear that they might keep him from the sport he loved.

Following his time with the Bruins, Willie spent most of the remainder of his career in the Western Hockey League, where he played for both the Los Angeles Blades and San Diego Gulls. He ended a successful 21-year professional hockey career in 1979. However, the best was yet to come with respect to Willie's relationship with hockey and the NHL. For as much as he was a historic game changer on the ice in 1958, today he is recognized as one of most influential and respected advocates for the game off the ice.

In 1998, forty years after his initial impact as a player, Willie again significantly impacted the NHL and the game of hockey, but this time as the League's Diversity Ambassador and Director of Youth Development. Since reconnecting with the League, Willie has been a passionate and tireless teacher, mentor and friend to tens of thousands of young kids, from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, who have come to embrace and play the great game of hockey. His legacy continues to be on display in organizations like the Ft. Dupont Ice Hockey Club, here in Washington, DC, which is the oldest minority ice hockey club in North America, and SCORE Boston, an inner-city hockey program located in my district. Willie's legacy also can be seen through the NHL stars of today and the future stars of tomorrow. Last year's NHL All Star game featured the largest contingency of black players ever, with one of the players, Wayne Simmonds, being named the game's Most Valuable Player. Next month, Jordan Greenway, a member of the Boston University hockey team, will be the first African American to play hockey for the United States in the Olympics.

Earlier this week, we celebrated the national holiday honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Universally recognized as one of the world's most eloquent and passionate defenders of civil and human rights, Dr. King, in his now famous ``I Have a Dream'' speech, talked of one day living in a nation where we will be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. Mr. Speaker, I think it is fitting that during the same week we are celebrating Dr. King's legacy, we are acknowledging the accomplishments of Willie O'Ree: a man whose character allowed him to overcome the challenges surrounding the color of his skin and, in doing so, changed the sport of hockey forever.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday I missed three votes. I wish to state for the record how I would have voted had I been present: Roll Call No. 685--NO, Roll Call No. 686--YES, Roll Call No. 687--YES.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me.

Mr. Speaker, this is one of those mundane issues that 95 percent of America doesn't understand. I didn't understand much about it a while back because I don't have any proxy advisers. I do have money in retirement funds. I do get those 100-page documents in the mail, saying, ``We are having a proxy fight and you should read it,'' in the smallest print possible, and I do what 95 percent of America

does when I get those: I throw them right in the trash.

Now, that doesn't make me smart. It just means I can't read through that stuff. I can't understand what they are doing with my pension funds. I kind of have to go on faith that they are not sticking it to me. That is what most of us do, and most anybody listening to this, that is the only thing they have to do with this issue.

So I went out and found out what is a proxy adviser. Here is what it is.

The pension funds--not always, but mostly pension funds--that invest my pension money do it all across the board. Many of them are small. Some of them are big. And when it comes time to reading those 100-page documents and the thousands of companies they invest in, they go and hire somebody to help them do it, a proxy adviser. They go through those documents with accountants and actuaries and give them advice. Not a demand--advice.

Now, I don't know about you. I get advice from my lawyer on occasion. I get advice from my accountant on occasion. I get advice from my priest on occasion. And it is none of your damn business what advice they give me, because two of them I am paying and one of them loves me.

When a person or an entity hires someone else to give them advice, it is no one else's business what that is. This bill says it is. It now would be the business of the company about whom they are giving the advice.

I paid them. Why should I share that information with you? That is what a proxy adviser is. It is not some big swami sitting in the back sticking it to big corporations. It is a paid adviser.

Now, we have heard, oh, terrible things that these advisers do.

Who do they work for? Well, they work for pension funds--mostly pension funds, by the way, that are public pension funds, not all. They have the pension money of teachers, firefighters, police officers, trash collectors, water workers all across this country.

And then there are private pension funds that work for union members: the AFL-CIO, the Bricklayers, the SEIU. That is who is doing most of this investing on behalf of little people like me who don't have the knowledge or the time to be able to go through 100 pages of really fine print, really detailed stuff, to determine which person I should vote for on a board of a company I don't know much about. That is it.

Mr. Speaker, let's figure out who are the worst of the worst of the people who hire these people.

Well, it turns out the Dominican Sisters hire a proxy adviser. Oh, they are put together for the very purpose of ripping the heart out of corporate America. Those Dominican Sisters, they are evil investors.

Let's not forget the Daughters of Charity. Oh, terrible, terrible people. They are so busy caring for the poorest people in the world that they take time out of that in order to find a way to stick it to the biggest corporate people in the country.

Mr. Speaker, they use proxy advisers.

Let me see. Who wants this bill? Every corporation in America. Why? They don't want you knowing what they are doing.

Let's see. Whose side am I on? I think if I have a choice between being on the side of the biggest corporations in this country or being with the Dominican Sisters, I am choosing the Dominican Sisters. They are doing God's work. They use and need proxy advisers. Leave them alone.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Luetkemeyer), who has been a wonderful person to work with, and the many members of the committee on our side of the aisle, particularly Ranking Member Waters and Mr. Heck from Washington.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. Again, I would like to repeat what has already been said: this is a classic example of how this place is supposed to work. It takes a little time, but it works out in a bipartisan manner and in a thoughtful manner and deals with an issue that, though not important to some people, is very important to a handful of people in this country to simply level the playing field.

I want to, again, thank all of the people involved in this. It is nice to be involved in a piece of legislation that I can be proud of and that went through the process the right way and worked out the right way.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe the gentleman from Missouri has stated everything that needs to be said. This is a simple bill that is a technical amendment to the Volcker rule that I strongly support. I know that many others have opposition to that. This is a minor change.

When you do a bill like Dodd-Frank, or any major bill, there are always things you make a mistake on and that you didn't see coming. This is one of them.

It is very simple. This simply allows a company to use names that they have been using forever. That is really all it is. I appreciate the gentleman's willingness and the committee's willingness to hear this simple bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.