Floor Statements

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 477 and am pleased to join with my friend from Indiana and am delighted that we are taking time on the floor today to commemorate homeownership in America.

Recognizing the many benefits of owning a home, the President designated June as National Homeownership Month as he has done for the past 6 years. To complement this designation, H. Res. 477 was introduced by the gentleman from California (Gary G. Miller) to recognize that designation and the importance of homeownership in the United States.

Owning a home is a fundamental part of the American Dream, with economic security and hard work being rewarded. Homeownership is much more than knowing that one has a roof and four walls to shelter one's family. It is the symbol of the American Dream, and it forms the bedrock of our communities.

Many of my colleagues celebrate the designation of this month as National Homeownership Month because in America every citizen, regardless of race, creed, color, or place of birth has the opportunity to own a home of their own.

Today, the national homeownership rate in the United States has reached a record high, about 70 percent; and more than half of all minority families are homeowners. While many gains have been made, minority homeownership rates still lag. With minority households expected to account for two-thirds of household growth over the coming decade, improving the ability of such households to make a transition to homeownership will be an important test of our Nation's capacity to create economic opportunities for minorities and immigrants and to build strong, stable communities.

Buying a home is the largest personal investment most families will ever make. For the vast majority of families, the purchase of a home represents the path to prosperity. A home is a tangible asset that builds equity, good credit, borrowing power, and overall wealth. Not only does homeownership provide economic security for building wealth over time; it also strengthens and builds communities. Homeownership creates community stakeholders and inspires civic responsibility. People who own a home tend to be more active in charities, churches, neighborhood activities and more likely to vote and get involved with their community's growth, safety and development.

Further, families owning a home offer children a stable living environment, influencing their personal development in many positive, measurable ways both at home and in school.

Without homeowners, neighborhoods, schools and local businesses suffer. Homeownership helps fuel the economy. This happens mostly through people who spend money for home improvements.

I hope Congress will continue to explore new ways to put people on the path to homeownership so more Americans can realize its benefits.

In closing, it is apparent that the Federal Government, consumers and the housing industry are linked by our mutual goal of creating housing opportunities for more Americans. And although significant strides have been made, we still have much more work to do to achieve together for the American people, and our best hope of being successful is to work in close concert with each other.

As Congress considers future action to make homeownership more secure and available, we need to take care not to hamper the market's ability to provide opportunities for homeownership, and that way we can continue to open our communities and neighborhoods to new opportunities for growth and prosperity.

The resolution before us, H. Res. 477, recognizes the importance of homeownership in America and dedicates the House of Representatives to fostering an atmosphere conducive to community development and increased homeownership opportunities. Congress has a real opportunity here to forge a better America, an America where homeownership and security abounds. I know we all look forward to continue to work to further the American Dream, and I hope my colleagues will join with me and my colleague, Mr. Donnelly, and join in supporting this important resolution that does just that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I simply rise and urge the passage of House Resolution 477.

I have no other speakers seeking recognition and, with that, yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I want to take you back, because I know as you are sitting

there today you have an independent recollection of what it was like to come here in your first term. Many of us in this Chamber came just in January, took the oath of office, and now what we find is that every week is a new week, all new process we are learning.

So we come in, those of us who are not appropriators, we come into our conference, and we hear this is the appropriations week. Wow, sit down with our staff, staff gets us up to speed, and we hear about earmarks, heard about them a lot in the campaign, and start to get the staff briefing on what are the tools that we have in earmarks.

I heard a lot about them. If you talked to people in Illinois' Sixth Congressional District tonight, and they are awake, and you asked them about earmarks, you would get their attention. They would focus. It was a symbol of an abuse of the process.

So when you sit down as a freshman and your staff comes in, they say, Congressman, this is what you do. You can offer amendments. You can argue with these things. You can challenge them on the floor. As iron sharpens iron, so one makes another better.

So that process, that winnowing process, is what this is all about. That's what every Member has the right to do, except now, because now what ends up happening is our staff tells us, oh, no, but there is this new process, Congressman.

What you get to do is you get to write a letter. Oh, yes, you get to write a letter to the chairman of the committee; and the chairman of the committee is going to open up that letter, and he's going to make a decision about the merits of you, an independent elected Member of Congress. That is who you get to talk to.

You don't get to argue on the House floor. You don't get to light up 435 people. You don't get to talk to millions of people. You get to write one letter. That's where you get to go.

You know, if you think about that, that's absurd. There are all kinds of great things in this bill. No doubt about it. My prior colleague from the State of Illinois articulated many good things in this bill. It's my hope that we can come together and drive towards those things.

But to act as if the earmark process is insignificant is really patronizing. It's patting people on the head and saying, off with you, be lively, you get to write your letter to the chairman, and the chairman will make a declaration on whether it's a good idea or a bad idea.

Well, one of our colleagues on the Internet recently said this. He said, to his constituents, he said, I will remain no one's Congressman but yours. Doesn't that sound great? I mean, that's great stuff, that's rich. You know, that is rich in the Chamber of Commerce meetings; that's rich in front of the Rotary groups; that's rich in front of the coffee groups. And you go door to door, I'm going to be your Congressman.

But you know what? You end up ceding that responsibility. You end up ceding that opportunity to one person, and that's only if you are lucky enough that he reads your mail.

Well, I say ``no'' to that.

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

Motion to Rise Offered by Mr. Roskam

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would take the conversation this evening in a little bit of a different direction. It simply would postpone the diversion of funds to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund that is created in this bill until such time as Congress stops raiding the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for unrelated government programs.

This year, the majority proposed and passed a budget that assumes it will raid the entire Social Security surplus, an estimated $190 billion, to spend on other government programs, and that amount will increase to $203 billion for the year 2008.

During the course of many of our journeys to this office in this last election cycle, we stood up in senior centers and in conversations and in coffee and corner conversations, and we said, ``We will stand firmly with the seniors on behalf of Social Security.''

The chairman of the Financial Services Committee has sort of quietly admonished the Republicans on this side of the aisle who were here in the year 2005 for voting on a past bill and so forth. But there are 54 new Members of the House of Representatives, and we all took the oath of office. I took it right over there where Congressman

Feeney is sitting, took my oath; my wife was in the audience, my children were by my side, my mom and dad were here. Fifty-four of us all came in, 13 on our side, 41 on the other side, and we took that oath of office. We were not part of the conversation in the year 2005, but many of us campaigned on the integrity of the Social Security system.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know what the parliamentary rule is on referring to quotes and so forth, and I know that it is not what in our family is called cool, so I am not going to name names. But a quick Google search of the new Members of Congress who joined me in this class, the class of 110th, criticized opponents that they defeated for voting to rob the Social Security Trust Fund and spend it on other programs.

``Those were documented votes. Those are budget votes, and they used the Social Security Trust Fund to mask the overall Federal deficit.''

Someone else said, ``We are going to make sure we have real substantive programs about how we make sure Social Security is secure.''

Or, Mr. Chairman, how about this. Another new Member said in their campaign that they would ``fight for Social Security for seniors.''

Or how about this language. That they would ``stop the raids on the Social Security Trust Fund that are used to help cover our Nation's huge Federal budget deficits.''

You get the point.

You know, life is choices. And I respect the chairman and his passion on this bill and the intellectual honesty with which he has approached this. When I saw the chairman, who was injured, I sort of thought that he might have tripped and fell over one of those Blue Dog signs that are littered all over the Cannon Building in my office. They are everywhere. Mr. Chairman, I have a copy of one of the Blue Dog signs that says, ``The Blue Dog Coalition. The national debt is $8.8 trillion, and your share of the national debt is $29,000.''

You know what? Those signs are getting a little bit faded. There is not quite so much interest in that issue right now on the part of the Blue Dogs, it seems to me.

I think we have choices to make, and I would submit that the choice that we have to make is a choice of priorities. And voting ``yes'' on this amendment says our highest priority in this conversation that we are having is to ensure the integrity of the Social Security system. It simply says, it transcends this last hour or two of debate. It doesn't get into the profitability and loss, the shareholders, and so forth. It admits, okay, great idea. But put it on pause, and take the money that the chairman has found, take the money and put it into the Social Security Trust Fund. That is what this amendment says. It says put it on pause, and use it to fund our obligations.

Look, we have got a lot of moving parts in terms of problems in this country. We have got the national debt, we have got veterans obligations, we have got pension obligations. We have got to lower gas prices. You name it. There is one thing after another that we need to do. And all this bill does is it says, great idea, terrific idea even; wrong time.

So I think the majority owes a great debt of gratitude to the chairman of the committee, because he has come up with $3 billion that can be enacted in one rollcall this evening to make the Blue Dog Coalition promise come true.

Here's the point.

Page 2, paragraph I, the term ``actual on budget deficit'' means, with respect to the fiscal years, for fiscal year the total outlies of the government, excluding for Social Security program, exceeds the total receipts of----

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Maybe it is a two-step dance.

Will you yield?

The first step is to push the pause button, Mr. Chairman, and to recognize the current obligation--

Maybe it is a two-step dance.

I thank the gentleman.

In the same way, Mr. Chairman, you have demonstrated it to the committee, and you have been a leader in this dance, basically, by saying, ``Trust me in how we are going to fund this.''

I thank my colleague for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is important within this context to realize who has the gavel and who has the majority.

Mr. Chairman, you have the majority. You have the ability to direct vast sums of money. And what I am suggesting is that in your earlier conversation regarding those that were a part of the 2005 vote that you sort of felt like was somehow binding into perpetuity, 54 of us, Mr. Chairman, were not part of that conversation, and 54 of us didn't really find it informative.

There are 54 of us that came in this Congress totally new, fresh. We are the Etch-A-Sketch that is clean; 41 on your side of the aisle and 13 of us.

And so what I am suggesting is in the course of the campaigns that brought us here, many, many of us, and I Googled and searched several of yours and I didn't want to string them out by naming names and so forth. But many of your new freshmen said they were champions of Social Security. Well, you know what? They have got an opportunity to vote in favor of this bill.

Let me make my point, and I will reciprocate. But, like you do, you tend to finish your point.

Mr. Chairman, we have to make priorities.

You know, I come from the O'Hare Airport area. O'Hare is in my district. And you know, the biggest challenge in O'Hare and why everybody hates flying through it is because there are so many planes in the air. This puts another plane in the air when nationally, you know what, we've got so many things circling, we've got one obligation after another that we're not doing well.

I commend the chairman. Look, you found $3 billion. The Democrats should give you a legislative, well, I was going to say something that was a little over top. They should congratulate you for finding that type of, those type of resources. And what I'm suggesting, Mr. Chairman, is that we put this on pause. I'm not getting involved in the debate earlier about whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. Say, for the sake of argument, it's fabulous. Say, for the sake of argument, western civilization won't process forward without it. I still say that there are higher priorities. And I named any number of them.

And what you have done, Mr. Chairman, in your advocacy and the way that you have asked us to, I would characterize it as trust you on how this is going to be articulated and distributed in the future based on legislation that you will have a profound influence on. And I would also say that we've got the ability, it's a two-step process.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate my colleague's instruction on germaneness. I have drunk of that cup. I offered what I thought was a relevant but nongermane amendment and sort of learned the hard way the buzz saw of the parliamentarian on a previous bill and sort of learned my lesson. I thank the gentleman for that.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from New Jersey will continue to yield, we can have a wonderful conversation about germaneness. But getting back to the chairman's point earlier about what I characterize as a ``trust in me'' argument. No, you didn't use the ``words trust in me,'' but I think it is important that the body not be left confused about the implication at least that we took about a verbal interchange that the chairman had with the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) when she asked, and I am quoting from the committee transcript: ``I know we have discussed the fact that there might be other ways to do this, but it seems if it is the chairman's plan to reconsider the details of the housing fund in the future, why not just take the fund out of here and then have the hearings and then make the decision.''

And at that point Mrs. Biggert continued: ``I cannot remember a time where we put something in and said maybe we will do this in this way but then we might do it another way and then we will go back and re-do it.''

And then she yielded to the chairman, who then said: ``The reason I do not want to leave it out now is I am very strongly committed to it, perhaps more than some other members. It is, I think, a rational part of this bill. It is a part of, frankly, an agreement.

``Let me be very clear. I believe that there is a great deal of interest on the part of the administration and some others in having a greatly increased regulatory structure for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

``Not everybody who wants an increased regulatory structure for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is committed to that Affordable Housing Fund. If the Affordable Housing Fund was not established in this bill and was a stand-alone bill, it might get vetoed.

``I think it is less likely to cause vetoing of the whole bill. I like very much the idea of the Affordable Housing Fund. I do not believe it could stand on its own necessarily, and that is the reason for including it in this bill.''

Now, I took from that, and I think it is a very reasonable inference, Mr. Chairman, the ``trust in me'' argument, and I think that that is a consistent argument.

Mr. Chairman, I am always one to learn and I am always open to instruction, and I appreciate that very much. But the point is when a question is asked in committee and the ranking member of a subcommittee asks it and it is essentially not answered, I think the subtext is ``trust in me.'' And I think that the opportunity as we move forward is to say, look, we have got an opportunity to take a $3 billion fund here that has been created that the chairman of the committee has found and to do the right thing with it.

Offered By: Mr. Roskam

Amendment No. 27: Page 128, line 14, strike ``paragraph

(2)'' and insert ``paragraphs (2) and (4)''.

Page 129, after line 22, insert the following new

paragraph:

(4) Limiting contributions to affordable housing fund when

the government has an on-budget (excluding social security)

deficit and an off-budget (including social security)

surplus.--

(A) Limitation.--For any year referred to in paragraph (1)

that immediately follows a fiscal year in which the

Government has an actual on-budget deficit and an actual off-

budget surplus, the amount of money required to be allocated

to the affordable housing fund shall not exceed the amount

allocated to such fund in the preceding year.

(B) Definitions.--For purposes of this paragraph:

(i) The term ``actual on-budget deficit'' means, with

respect to a fiscal year, that for the fiscal year the total

outlays of the Government, excluding outlays from Social

Security programs, exceed the total receipts of the

Government, excluding receipts from Social Security programs.

(ii) The term ``actual off-budget surplus'' means, with

respect to a fiscal year, that for the fiscal year the

receipts from Social Security programs exceed the outlays

from Social Security programs.

(iii) The term ``Social Security programs'' means the

Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the

Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 634, the American Veterans Disabled for Life Commemorative Coin Act introduced by Mr. Moore and by my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Madam Speaker, occasionally we disagree on the floor of this great Chamber, and we heard some of those disagreements aired a couple of minutes ago, but now there can be no disagreement about the goals of this legislation, honoring the heroes who have been grievously injured in the defense of this country, in defense of liberty, in defense of democracy.

There are plenty of monuments, as well there ought to be, for those who gave their lives for those causes, but I know of no monument to those who lived, but whose lives were drastically altered, whose bodies were broken, but whose spirits are still strong. But now they will have their own monument, and it is only right, Madam Speaker.

This memorial will be for the World War II vet who came back without a hand, the Korean War vet who uses a wheelchair, the Vietnam vet who uses the white cane of the blind, and for the veterans of the conflicts in the gulf, who came back to us forever changed.

In 2000, Congress approved the building of the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial. It will be a $65 million privately funded memorial just west of the Rayburn Building, across from the Botanic Garden and in full view of the Capitol. The Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission approved the conceptual design in 2004 and reaffirmed it in 2006.

The memorial will express our Nation's gratitude to those who paid the terrible cost of defending freedom. It represents the values of duty, of courage and of sacrifice that are the lifeblood of American democracy.

I urge Members, staff and the rest of the country to look at the Web site of the memorial at avdlm.org.

About half of the money for construction already has been raised, and this legislation, through surcharges on the sale of silver one-dollar coins to be issued by the U.S. Mint in 2010, could raise another $3.5 million to be used for construction or to maintain the dramatic memorial.

Madam Speaker, I am glad to be one of more than 300 Members of Congress who have cosponsored this bill, which is supported by the VFW, the American Legion, the DAV, and thousands of veterans and veteran organizations across the Nation who have contributed to the memorial's creation.

Madam Speaker, I ask for the immediate passage of H.R. 634 and urge all Members to support it.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the sponsor of the bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

The other day, Mr. Chairman, when we originally debated the bill, the chairman of the committee gently admonished one of the other speakers, one of the gentlemen from California, for selectively quoting a particular article.

We all do that, though, don't we? He was making the point Wednesday, when we discussed this bill, about this particular issue, and the chairman, in sort of a gentle nudge, teased him a little bit, but sort of called him out and said, you know, read the entire article.

It seems to me that the chairman of the committee may be falling into that same trap a little bit. Because coming to this floor now and having a conversation of the range of the Securities and Exchange Commission and sort of, by implication, giving the imprimatur of approval on rules that the SEC promulgated is not a great celebration necessarily of the entire framework of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It is not as if we have a choice today. We are in the minority. We don't get to set the debate. It is not as if we get to take the Etch-A- Sketch of Securities and Exchange law and go and shake it today and come up and create a new thing.

Now, if the gentleman from Georgia says, well, within the context of this, there is something that is decent that is happening here that the SEC has done, then so be it. But that is not an imprimatur of everything----

I would be happy to yield.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would suggest the chairman should resist the temptation to overcharacterize a particular argument.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I think in response to the chairman's observations about the gentleman from Florida's amendment, I do take the chairman at face value that what you are trying to do and the way you are looking at it is trying to create a neutral framework by which these matters are determined. No question about that. But it seems to me that the beauty of this amendment is that it really does seem to get at the heart of the matter that is really prompting this sort of national conversation.

In other words, I think the gentleman from Florida has come up with a more surgical way to accomplish the very task that the chairman of the committee is trying to do. So while the chairman's bill in and of itself is a bit of a blunt instrument, I think that the gentleman from Florida's amendment sharpens that blunt instrument and helps to really cut to the cause and the issue that is before the Congress, and I urge its passage.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, it is interesting, the majority has now slipped into I think the same arguable bad habit that the chairman accused us of, because now the SEC has been criticized as Presidential appointees lacking the wisdom that Congress has.

Let's just discuss this amendment for a minute, because I really do think it is a good amendment. It gets to the heart of this matter. And it basically, for purposes of our discussion today, Mr. Chairman, it accepts, I think, the premise of the chairman. It says, here we go. Let's go back to the underlying bill and just focus our conversation for a minute. The underlying bill says, let's put a nonbinding referendum on the ballot. The chairman has made a number of arguments in favor of it. But the gentleman from Georgia, essentially says, in this amendment, okay, let's do that, but first, just hit the pause button. Just put the pause button on just for a bit and let the Securities and Exchange Commission, who, over the past day or so of debate, have risen to the point of almost Superman status, they have been so widely complimented and called wise and so forth by the other side of the aisle. Let's ask that commission what their opinion is. Let's study it. Let's look at it. And if, if, if, they say no problem, then there is no problem. No harm, no foul.

The bill is put into place and on we go. But if the Securities and Exchange Commission says that public companies enter into a competitive disadvantage because of this, then ought we not consider that? Shouldn't we then hit the stop button? Because we have heard the other side get up on the floor today and over the past few days and talk about the free market and how they are in favor of capitalism, and we have heard the gentleman from Oregon a couple of minutes ago telling us that the reason that companies are going to Europe is somehow because they don't have shareholder rights, and the logic was so dizzying, I couldn't even follow it.

But accepting everything that the other side says for the sake of argument is then implicit in accepting this amendment. Because all this amendment says, and let's be very clear about it, is it simply says hit the pause button for 90 days. Just wait 90 days. So let's assume for the sake of argument that this blows through the Senate. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it is signed into law on June 1. I would submit to you between June 1 and September 1 we can wait to take the temperature to find out if this is a good idea or if somehow this hinders us competitively.

Mr. Chairman, my only point is that the 2009 date, and that is a fair observation on your part that it's not going to happen tomorrow, but if this becomes law, it's going to happen no matter what. So even if the SEC comes up and sends a signal flair and says, hey, this is going to be a train wreck, this is going to be a real problem; and we're going to see more and more companies either going private, unwilling to go public, which is sort of the subtext of a lot of what's going on, or ultimately going to Europe, my point is that this will not stop.

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

I rise, Mr. Chairman, in opposition to H.R. 1257. But first of all, I want to compliment the chairman and the ranking member who ran a very good process, had fruitful hearings, but nevertheless I think came up with a faulty product.

We all tend to sometimes argue in the alternative, picking and choosing those things that we want to focus on, and I find it ironic that the chairman has, in one way, this very, very high view of the marketplace and, in another way, demonstrates a fairly low view of the marketplace.

This is all about the level, Mr. Chairman, at which we choose to intervene. We saw the marketplace respond positively just a couple of weeks ago. Morgan Stanley, at their annual meeting, those shareholders decided not to take up this question of executive compensation. The same thing happened, Mr. Chairman, at the Bank of New York recently.

So what is the question before the House today? The question before the House is, when there is a difficult situation that comes forward, admittedly a difficult situation that the chairman recently called a fact of nature, and that is overly compensated executive employees, what does the House do? Does the House rush in?

I would suggest that the bill as presented currently is an overreaction. It is reaching in, and if we are going to be dabbling in this notion of executive compensation, Mr. Chairman, then I would suggest that we need to go all the way and try and take on other highly compensated employees.

What we will hear, I think, from the various speakers on our side of the aisle is trying to lay out a rationale, trying to lay out how we ought best to do this because I will tell you this. I think the great challenge before us as Members of the House is, how do we create the environment where people want to invest in our country, how do we create the environment where the best and the brightest among us want to go into public companies because I will suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the reaction of the past Congress or two on some of these things has unfortunately created an environment that is regulatorily very, very difficult, and it now creates among us the problem of people who say, look, it is simply not worth my time to go into a public company. I am one of the sharp ones; I am going to go into the private equities and so forth.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Mr. Chairman, just a couple of observations before I yield to my distinguished colleague.

You know, the gentleman from Georgia said that one of the goals of this legislation is that there be transparency and accountability. I would submit, I think there is a transparency and accountability in the current state of the law. The transparency comes in the disclosure of executive compensation, and the accountability comes in the ability to sell shares if you don't like it. That is a very, very, very powerful tool.

My friend from Missouri, the distinguished gentleman who spoke recently kind of criticized a number of individual CEOs. I'm not going to rise to their defense, and I don't think they really deserve defense. But it is an old adage of the law that if what we are doing is creating a statute toward an exception, we tend to make bad statutes.

What I would say is, look at the totality of what executive leadership has brought us. From 2002 to 2006, the market capitalization of American companies has risen to $8 trillion. That is something to celebrate and not something to criticize.

I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul).

(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Just kind of a point of interest, and that is, in response to Chairman Frank

calling, observing Mr. Castle's quotation. And I would just point out that the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey has been sort of selective, I think, in the attributes of England that he finds attractive. One of those that he didn't find attractive apparently is a loser-pay litigation system which would also maybe drive part of that debate.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the ranking member.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I will insert into the Record three letters opposing this legislation by the

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, HR Policy Association and American Bankers Association.

The Association of Senior

Human Resource Executives,

Washington, DC, April 18, 2007.

RE HR Policy Opposes H.R. 1257, Shareholder Vote on Executive

Compensation Act.

Hon. Spencer Bachus,

House of Representatives, Rayburn House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Bachus: On behalf of the HR Policy

Association, I am writing to urge you to vote no on H.R.

1257, the Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act,

when the House considers it this week. We believe that the

bill will have significant negative effects on corporate

governance and will not appreciably increase shareholder

input into the executive compensation process.

HR Policy Association is a public policy advocacy

organization representing the chief human resource officers

of over 250 leading employers doing business in the United

States. Representing nearly every major industry sector, HR

Policy members have a combined U.S. market capitalization of

more than $7.5 trillion and employ more than 18 million

employees world wide. Our members are especially concerned

that a shareholder vote would undermine the authority of the

Board of Directors with respect to compensation and is

unnecessary as a tool to increase communications with

shareholders.

At the outset, it is important to note that last year, the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission completed an overhaul

of its executive compensation disclosure regulations. The

full effect of these changes on executive compensation

practices will not be known until after the 2009 proxy

season, the first year in which companies will have to

present three years of data. At a minimum, the House should

defer any action on the legislation until after the effect of

the new rules can be fully evaluated.

The Association believes that H.R. 1257 would seriously

erode the authority of the Board of Directors to determine

appropriate executive compensation levels. Under our system

of corporate governance, the Board manages the company on

behalf of the shareholders. In turn, the shareholders have

the right to vote on strategic matters, such as mergers, and

remove directors if they believe the corporation is not being

managed in the shareholders' best interests. This delegation

of authority is necessary because of the considerable amount

of detailed and confidential information that Board members

must consider when making decisions regarding corporate

strategy and executive compensation. Providing a shareholder

vote on compensation would be unprecedented because it would

provide a referendum on the results of the Board's decision,

rather than on a framework for making decisions, as occurs in

the case of shareholder authorization for equity compensation

or mergers.

More importantly, a shareholder vote would potentially open

up other Board decisions to a shareholder vote, such as the

decision to pursue merger talks or settle certain lawsuits,

thus substantially slowing the ability of the Board to make

quick decisions and undermining competitiveness.

Fundamentally, an advisory shareholder vote would not

provide meaningful information to companies about the

practices shareholders find objectionable. It is simply an up

or down vote, with no explanation attached, leaving

substantial questions about its meaning. Under current law,

shareholders already may file advisory resolutions with any

publicly held company seeking changes in specific executive

compensation practices. There is no need for legislation

adopting a mandatory framework that will have a negligible

impact on most of the 15,000-plus publicly held companies.

Counter to arguments made in support of the bill, new

mechanisms of communications between companies and

shareholders are not necessary. Most large companies already

hold periodic meetings throughout the year with their largest

shareholders on a variety of subjects, including

compensation.

In addition, the shareholder vote concept has been imported

from the United Kingdom, but the U.K. regulatory and legal

systems are substantially different from those in the U.S.,

and the results of a shareholder vote are likely to be

fundamentally different. In the U.K. the two largest

investors control roughly 30 percent of the market while in

the U.S. ownership is more diffuse, making shareholder

consensus much more difficult. The U.K. has voluntary

corporate governance standards with less rigid standards for

Board member independence, and Board members may avoid all

liability with an advisory shareholder vote. In the U.S.,

Board members have fiduciary liability, and are subject to

shareholder derivative actions, regardless of a shareholder

advisory vote. The threat of litigation acts as a check on

Board actions.

The U.K. shareholder vote requirement also has had

significant negative effects that would negatively impact the

management of U.S. companies. These effects include

encouraging executives to seek positions with private equity

firms; making pay arrangements more standardized, rather than

customized to the company; increasing diligence among

compensation committees similar to that already occurring in

the U.S.; and, increasing the power of the proxy advisory

services and hedge funds as institutional investors outsource

their compensation research, engagement with boards and vote

administration duties. These negative effects outweigh the

benefits of a shareholder vote.

For all of these reasons, we oppose H.R. 1257 and encourage

the House to reject it. If you have any questions, please do

not hesitate to contact Tim Bartl of our staff at 202-789-

8670. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey C. McGuiness,

President.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have offered this amendment to clarify some possibly misleading language in H.R. 1257, and it simply strikes ``or other meeting of the shareholders'' and inserts ``meeting of the shareholders or a special meeting in lieu of the annual meeting,'' at page 4, line 14 and page 5, line 7. The bill would allow, as we have discussed, a separate, nonbinding shareholder vote to approve the compensation of executives for any proxy, consent or authorization for an annual meeting. As currently drafted, the language in the bill asserts that this would be an annual meeting or other meeting of the shareholders. This language could potentially lead to allowing multiple nonbinding shareholder votes throughout the year instead of just at the annual or special meeting in lieu of the annual meeting, and, therefore, clarification of this language is needed. Hence, the reason for the amendment.

My concern is that if the current language were to be placed into law, that multiple votes would be forced to be taken throughout the year which would distract the board and the executives from their primary responsibility, that is, ensuring that they put in place good business practices that benefit the shareholders' investment instead of being distracted multiple times by a whole host of votes.

The greater concern would be that these potential multiple votes would ensure fiscal and business priorities are not in the forefront of the board members' minds, ultimately having the ill effect on global competitiveness of American business. I spoke to the chairman earlier, and I believe that it's a noncontroversial request to clarify language.

I urge all of my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I rise to point out that there is some dizzying logic going on. Basically, we are being told, here is a piece of legislation, and if you are clever enough to come up with a germane amendment, we will sort of humor you and listen to you. But if there is a larger suggestion, then it is very difficult to move forward.

I would just suggest to the chairman of the committee that the perfect is the enemy of the good. It strikes me that the gentleman from Massachusetts is an incrementalist. Those who survive most in this arena are incrementalists, and he has survived for a long, long time, Mr. Chairman, and flourished and been very successful as a legislator.

But it just seems that this is a good faith effort on the part of the gentleman from North Carolina to put forward something substantively. Is it the totality of making every problem go away? No. There is no way to do that.

And it is a little bit of a procedural Catch-22 that he is in.

Offered By: Mr. Roskam

Amendment No. 12: Page 4, line 13, strike ``In general''

and insert ``Annual vote''.

Page 4, beginning on line 14, strike ``or other meeting of

the shareholders'' and insert ``meeting of the shareholders

(or a special meeting in lieu of the annual meeting)''.

Page 5, beginning on line 7, strike ``or other meeting of

the shareholders'' and insert ``meeting of the shareholders

(or a special meeting in lieu of the annual meeting)''.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the DARE Students of the Year from Grove Junior High School in Elk Grove Village.

These students participated in the Grove Junior High DARE program during the 2006-2007 school year to learn about the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol. In recognition of their outstanding classroom participation and positive attitude, Anthony White and Christian Barajas were named DARE Students of the Year and Jaela Gibsob and Dahee Will were named runners-up.

These students have learned to resist peer pressure and live productive drug, gang, and violence-free lives. I commend these students for their hard work and encourage them to continue to set a good example for their peers.

Anthony, Christian, Jaela, and Dahee, your families, your school, and your community are extremely proud of what you've accomplished. I wish you all the best in the future.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support and admiration of the goals and efforts of Illinois' ``100 Women Who Care'' organization.

These 100 local women have seized on the remarkable idea that a small group of individuals pooling their talent, energy, and resources together can exercise an exponentially greater ability to affect positive change in our communities.

The concept is simple. ``100 Women Who Care'' meets four times a year to select a worthy local charity to support. At each meeting, its members contribute the seemingly insignificant sum of $100. But taken together, these 100 checks for $100 amount to the very significant sum of $10,000. This money has an incredible ability to impact the important community service work of local charities.

Already this year, ``100 Women Who Care'' has enabled Outreach Ministries in Carol Stream, Illinois, to provide two apartments for single, homeless refugee women and their children as they work to get back on their feet.

I commend the women of ``100 Women Who Care'' for their dedication to serving others. This organization is a wonderful example of how working together can have a huge impact on our local communities. I wish these ladies all the best for the future. Keep up the good work!

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Kendall Ciesemier of Wheaton for her outstanding volunteer efforts and service to others.

At just 14 years old, Kendall is the founder of Kids Caring 4 Kids, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS epidemic currently devastating Africa. Through community outreach and fundraising, Kendall has made an incredible difference in the lives of AIDS orphans in a village in Zambia.

In spite of her recent personal struggle with two liver transplants, Kendall has tirelessly directed her remarkable talent and energy to serving others. To date, she has raised over $50,000 and just this week was recognized as one of the nation's top youth volunteers by the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program.

I commend Kendall for her strength of character and selfless community service.

Kendall, your family, your school, and your community are extremely proud of what you've accomplished. I wish you all the best in the future. Keep up the good work!

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, we are here to debate a House Concurrent Resolution, and the root verb of ``resolution'' is resolute. I just want to challenge the House today to consider the resolution of our enemies. I would like to read three quotes to you.

Resolved, by Osama bin Laden. The whole world is watching this war, and the two adversaries, the Islamic nation on the one hand and the United States and its allies on the other. It is either victory and glory or misery and humiliation.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, like so many others who have come to the floor today, I rise in support of the underlying bill, H.R. 547. The underlying measure, without question, is one that is worthy of our support.

All of us, many of us in the course of our journeys to come here, gained the confidence of the electorate by talking about alternative energies and alternative fuel sources. I come from Illinois, which ranks second in corn production and is one of the leading producers of ethanol. In my district, I have over 140,000 residents who are directly employed in manufacturing, and they would greatly benefit from having clean fuels, that is, moving products around.

But as I was evaluating and meeting with my staff to talk about the underlying bill, there was a word that kept popping up in the analysis and that was a key word, new, N-E-W.

I know that in the course of my journey to come here, one of the things that I heard consistently throughout the course of the campaigning was that my constituents, Mr. Chairman, wanted us to live within our means. And so the amendment that I have offered is very, very simple. It directs the EPA that $10 million authorized for these three new programs that don't currently exist, created under the bill, would have to come from funds that are already appropriated. It is the simple measure of pay-as-you-go. You see, we don't get it both ways. We don't get to act as if we are fiscally disciplined, and yet at the first opportunity, not act fiscally disciplined.

My dad has a phrase that he communicated to me over and over and over when I was growing up and that was this. He said, ``Life is choices,'' and I think we have a choice today to make. This is our first opportunity, with this open rule, to amend a new program that we have seen created in the 110th Congress. We didn't have that opportunity in other bills that have come along. But this is our first opportunity.

A $10 million appropriation, Mr. Chairman, or a $10 million authorization, is comparatively small, if you compare it to the overall EPA budget of $7.7 billion. It is less than one-tenth of 1 percent. But my argument is simple: that we need to show the American taxpayers that they can have confidence in us in these comparatively small programs, so that as we move in and continue through this Congress, as new programs are considered, that they are within the context of fiscal discipline.

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today to focus the House's attention on it and to bring the attention of the Nation to it.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

It strikes me that everything the gentleman has said is actually consistent with the underlying amendment.

The amendment that is before the House simply says that it needs to make priorities and make those priorities clear. I take the gentleman at face value that the underlying program and the underlying $10 million is worthy of investment. But we don't get to have it both ways, it seems to me.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of House Concurrent Resolution 5, which we have heard spoken about frequently in the past few minutes; but it is deeply personal to me.

My life was influenced greatly, Madam Speaker, in 1944, and it was actually 17 years before I was born. A fellow named George Jenkins took the beach at Normandy and was killed there. He was an Iowan. And his mother and dad, Roy and Ella Jenkins, decided to do something with his life insurance money. They took it and they chose a young man, who happened to be my father, V.R. Roskam from Iowa, and they plucked him out of adversity and plucked him out of a bad situation. And they paid his tuition, room, board, books, fees, spending money; and they even bought him this class ring that I have on my hand today.

Madam Speaker, it was the generosity of the Jenkins family in honoring a veteran that literally changed my life and the trajectory of our family, even before I was born, even before I was thought of. And so I rise in proud support today of this notion of singling out veterans.

It is an area where so many times in our public life today there is a great deal of strife, it seems, among us. But it is this group of people that we can universally come together and honor and celebrate and hold up high.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Wheaton Warrenville South Tigers football team for their remarkable victory in the Class 8A Illinois State championship on November 25, 2006.

After a close first quarter, Wheaton Warrenville South pulled ahead with three touchdowns in the second quarter. The Tigers' Jim O'Brien sealed the deal with an incredible 95-yard kickoff return to defeat Mt. Carmel 44-21 and claim the Illinois State championship. The Tigers finished the season with a perfect 14-0 record.

I commend the Wheaton Warrenville South players and coaches for their intensity and dedication throughout the season. Their incredible performance in the State championship is a tribute to long hours of hard work, both on and off the field.

Tigers, your families, your school, and your community are extremely proud of what you've accomplished. You have continued the great legacy of Wheaton South football. I wish you all the best in the future. Go Tigers.