Michael G. Oxley

Mr. Speaker, behind every successful Member of Congress is a good staff. When I was elected in 1981, I was told that my first and most important decision would be to find an outstanding Chief of Staff who could build a loyal and effective team.

That first decision turned out to be my best. Jim Conzelman has been my only Chief of Staff during an amazing 25 years in the history of the House of Representatives and our Country. He is a trusted aide and personal friend who has played an integral role in our accomplishments on behalf of the Fourth District and the Nation as a whole.

Jim came to me from that hotbed of political activism--Bozeman, Montana--with credentials from the Ford presidential campaign, the Select Committee on Assassinations, and a Member office. I was the newest recruit of a minority party near its low ebb in the House.

But it was a good time to be young and a Republican because the Reagan Revolution had begun. As I cast votes to advance the President's agenda, Jim assembled a support team that allowed me to meet my twin objectives of becoming a respected legislator in Washington and a persuasive advocate for my constituents.

The foundation that Jim built proved to be a lasting one during the quarter-century that followed. There have been memorable legislative battles, from telecommunications reform to financial services modernization to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In 2001, we made the unprecedented move from the Commerce Committee to the newly created Financial Services Committee. As counselor to the chairman, Jim helped me organize a committee soon recognized for its productivity and responsiveness to all of its members.

Jim inspires great loyalty by treating everyone he meets with respect. Considering the transient nature of most staff, the retention rate in my office is unheard of. My core staff when I announced my retirement had combined legislative experience of more than 250 years, a true tribute to Jim's management skills. Many other staffers have gone on to successful careers after getting their first ``break'' from Jim, who remembers the feeling of starting a career in a city where the U.S. Capitol exerts a magical influence.

In a town where success often depends on the relationships you build, Jim has thrived professionally through the strength of his personal character. It is evident in both his work on the Hill and his volunteerism for charitable causes like the Multiple Sclerosis Society. I am reminded of the observation that Doris Kearns Goodwin made in Team of Rivals, her book about Lincoln, that ``the qualities we generally associate with decency and morality--kindness, sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and empathy--can also be impressive political resources.''

Jim's ideals have remained the same since the day he arrived in Washington from Montana. He came for the same reason we all come--to serve the people and our Country. It is above all a privilege, but that should not prevent us from showing appreciation to those who have done the job well. With gratitude, ``Team Oxley'' salutes Jim Conzelman for his service.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 3938, the Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act of 2006, a strong compromise between the House and Senate versions of bills reauthorizing this country's vital export credit agency. This is the second time as Chairman of the Financial Services Committee that I have been involved with the Ex-Im Bank's reauthorization and I remain a strong supporter of the Bank primarily because it continues to create and sustain American jobs.

Since our last authorization in 2002, the Bank has provided guarantees on loans to buyers of U.S. exports and insurance products numbering close to 11,500 total transactions--of which $7 billion of authorizations supported over $63 billion in export value. Alongside these numbers is the very impressive fact that last year alone the Bank returned over $1.7 billion to the U.S. Treasury in the form of fees, far outstripping the $145 million appropriated.

Madam Speaker, I also am proud to note that like many of the bills we have passed throughout my chairmanship of the Financial Services Committee, this was an overwhelming bipartisan effort, led by Chairman Deborah Pryce and Ranking Member Carolyn Maloney as well as Representatives Biggert, Velazquez and Manzullo and with the strong support of this committee's next chairman, Barney Frank. This bill also represents important input from the Committee on Small Business, various export and banking experts, representatives of both small and large businesses, environmentalists and even a former president of the Bank.

Madam Speaker, the bill before us makes changes necessary to keep the Bank vital through the five years of this reauthorization. The greatest of these changes will be the creation of a permanent Small Business Division whose function will be conducting outreach programs and tailoring Bank products to be more user-friendly for small businesses. This division will better equip the Bank to meet its mandate of making 20 percent of its total loans and guarantees available to small businesses, with particular emphasis towards helping small businesses owned by women, minorities, and the socially and economically disadvantaged. Additionally the bill contains a number of reporting requirements that will allow Congress to better monitor the Bank's activities.

Madam Speaker, passage of S. 3938 will enable the Bank to be even more successful during the next five years. I urge its passage today.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5637) to streamline the regulation of nonadmitted insurance and reinsurance, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material thereon.

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

Mr. Speaker, today is a historic moment in the evolution of our insurance marketplace. The Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act is an important reform for consumers, helping American homeowners and businesses to obtain more available and more affordable insurance coverage. It will especially help consumers in high-cost areas, such as coastal regions and urban cities vulnerable to terrorist risk. But equally important, this bill is the next critical step in a long journey towards comprehensive reform of how insurance is regulated at the State and Federal levels.

In 1995, I chaired some of the first hearings in the new Republican Congress on insurance reform and helped shape the largest financial services modernization bill of the last decade, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. We finally got GLBA enacted in the waning days of 1999, but it wasn't easy. The Congress had been working on regulatory reform for some 66 years, enough time for three generations of lobbyists to put their children through college.

The debate on GLBA underscored the importance of the financial services industry to our country and the critical need for additional reform. To facilitate further legislative reforms and continue building on our hard-fought success, the House leadership created the Committee on Financial Services, which I have had the privilege of chairing for nearly its 6 years in existence.

Since then, we have had dozens of hearings with hundreds of witnesses on insurance regulation. We have heard that, starting back in 1871, the State insurance regulators committed to modernizing their regulations to provide for more uniformity and coordination and that they continue to hope to some day reach that goal. We have sorted through numerous State and Federal proposals to address the problems of a sluggish insurance marketplace beset by inefficient regulation and the threats of terrorism and other catastrophic disasters. And we have completed numerous investigations of how insurance providers and regulators have lived up to their promises to consumers and the marketplace.

After Gramm-Leach-Bliley, the heads of the State insurance regulators approached our committee to work together in forging several formal policy papers making a commitment towards uniformity and reform, culminating in an agreement to pursue Federal legislation to help the States achieve their own modernization goals.

These policy discussions culminated in the State Modernization and Regulatory Transparency Act, or SMART, as a template for further reform. Two of the SMART titles that appeared to have the greatest bipartisan consensus now form the basis of the legislation before us being moved forward by the leadership of Representative Ginny Brown- Waite, Representative Moore, Capital Market Subcommittee Chairman Baker, Representative Wasserman Schultz, and several others.

Insurance reform is never easy and never quick. Believe me, it is never quick. Each success that we have had has been the result of strong bipartisan cooperation in working together to overcome the turf and vested interests that will always cling to the status quo.

I am proud though to have had the opportunity to work with my colleagues to finish one stage of modernization and help launch the next, and I wish my colleagues well as they continue down this long journey towards modernization of insurance regulation.

I again compliment the bill cosponsors, subcommittee Chairman Baker and Ranking Members Frank and Kanjorski for their help and leadership. I look forward to passing this measure to improve the availability and affordability of insurance and taking another giant leap forward in this historical step towards insurance reform.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite), one of the leaders and the lead sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Bucks County, Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to recognize the chairman of the Capital Markets Subcommittee, Mr. Baker, for 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this was, again, in the great tradition of our committee, a good bipartisan effort by a lot of members that have been mentioned heretofore, and it is really what makes our committee very special. I am very proud of the work product that was put out. It is a somewhat controversial subject, the overall issue; but to be able to take a chunk of this, a very important chunk, and move it separately I think was a wise decision that our staff participated in as well as the members.

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

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