Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, Joshua Wheeler, a Master Sergeant in the United States Army, was killed in Iraq in October 2015 during a battle with ISIS. A highly-decorated combat veteran, he was awarded the Silver Star, Purple Heart, and Medal of Patriotism. Shortly before his death, he and his wife constructed a new home where they planned to raise their infant son together. The Wheeler's mortgage lender and servicer, Ditech Financial LLC, partnered with Lt. Colonel Richard Cantwell (Ret.), Chairman of the Patriot Military Foundation, to ensure Ashley was financially able to keep the home. I am happy that entities like this recognize the enormous sacrifice of all service members and their families, particularly Gold Star families like the Wheelers.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 448, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 449, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 450, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 451, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 452. ``

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his kind remarks. I remember the first time we met. It was across the street, and I approached him about wanting to serve on his committee. Little did I know that I was headed back to graduate school. He gave me a binder about 6 inches thick and said: Go study it. I had to look up all the acronyms, about 100 of them, and memorize those to get started.

Mr. Speaker, Chairman Hensarling's leadership and the quality of person he is, he got out in front. He enabled us to become leaders, he enabled us to learn, to give focus, direction on important issues relative to the security of this country, relative to the economic freedoms of this country, and for that, I have the deepest sense of gratitude and respect that he empowered us as he led us.

That is a great testament and a legacy I think that he will carry throughout this United States Congress, and the model that he has been for each of us as we have watched, not just his work ethic, but his character and who he is and how that translated into the public policy for the good of the American people.

So, Mr. Speaker, let me say in my deepest heart my appreciation and my love for him and his sweet wife and his wonderful kids. What a tribute it was to be there with him yesterday when they unveiled the painting that will go in the Financial Services room, to the accolades of the Vice President and Senator Phil Gramm and so many others who were there to pay tribute to a great leader for our country. So I thank the chairman.

And as Chairman Hensarling spoke to the issues relative to FIRRMA, yes, we have great challenges from nation states who seek to exploit our laws, who have sought to secure proprietary technology for their own interests and objectives, and particularly, as Chairman Hensarling mentioned, China.

China, since 2015, has acquired 50 technology companies, semiconductor companies, many of them a part of our Department of Defense. These are critical companies for our own national security. They have been able to circumvent our laws through joint ventures, through minority partnerships to be able to obtain this technology.

In fact, on one occasion, Chairman Hensarling and I were coming back from Asia, and we stopped in Anchorage and we visited our base there, and they showed us the Stealth F-22. And as the general was showing the incredible aspects of this remarkable plane, the greatest aircraft we have, he said: By the way, the technology of this plane, the engine was sold to China by GE.

Companies have been forced, extorted in a sense, to gain access to Chinese markets. This is wrong. It is morally wrong. It is ethically wrong. It is wrong for our national security.

The FIRRMA bill, which Chairman Hensarling recognized and helped pass, it wouldn't have happened without his total commitment and leadership. So this country is more secure today because of what passed regarding the FIRRMA bill.

The rules will be written over the next year or so. We trust that all that was done will come out and close off these loopholes that have allowed foreign entities to exploit our Nation's national security.

So this bill and our interests are even more secure as a result of the jobs bill that the chairman has advanced for us today. It does continue to ensure the security against predatory Chinese investments by modernizing our securities laws to reclaim the U.S. IPO market, all of this as China lays out its blueprint for dominance in the tech industry.

This package would also cut down on the regulations that burden our small business community. This is key to continuing the innovation and economic growth we are seeking today.

This tax relief and jobs package would continue the innovation and economic growth and would allow investors to have legal certainty by allowing them to interact with entrepreneurs without fear of securities violation.

Furthermore, the cost of initial compliance for an IPO filing now exceeds over $2 million. This hinders small businesses that are ready to go public but can't afford these regulatory costs.

So, Mr. Speaker, I commend this bill. JOBS 3.0 would lengthen ``on- ramp'' exceptions for IPO compliance, helping small business owners navigate one of the most expensive aspects of securities law.

It also allows companies to test the waters before going public to help give them time for their IPO to have a better chance of success.

These provisions are vital to encourage business growth and to reassure the small business community. I strongly encourage the Senate, therefore, to pass this bill.

So, yes, Mr. Speaker, what Chairman Hensarling has done through this legislation has helped give greater financial empowerment and liberty and freedom to the American people, that is what it is all about today, is freedom. So my gratitude to him for the leadership that he has given us.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to say a word of thanks to some other folks who I have probably this last moment to address in this Chamber. As Jesse Helms used to say, a wonderful man from North Carolina: That turtle didn't get up on the fence post by himself. And that is true, I think, for each of us in this Chamber, but I know it is true for this Member of Congress.

What I have been able to do, by the grace of God and through the enablement and empowerment of my chairman and others, will hopefully last, but it happened because of people along the way who stood with me, who supported my efforts.

Of course, I start with my family. I have the most wonderful family in the world. I have ten grandkids I get to go home to, 10 years and younger. I am Pitto to them, and that is all the world to me, and we have a fun time chasing around.

But my team, my staff, enabled me to serve the Ninth Congressional District of North Carolina, those people that I love, those eight counties out

there that I am endeared to, but the people who really helped them were the folks back home in my district, in my office. I speak specifically of Linda Ferster, Chris Sullivan, Jamie Bowers, Graham Long, Robert Becker. They were with me from day one. They stood with me the whole 6 years. Nobody flinched, nobody went anywhere. That team was so incredible.

Robert Becker is one of the greatest leaders we have in North Carolina for our veterans. He gets calls from all over the State and he says: What do I do to help this veteran?

Linda Ferster has been working these issues in the bureaucracy for 18 years.

These are great, faithful people who have stood up for my constituents in my district, and all the good that happened in that district was because of them. And I just gave them a door to say: Go through it and you go serve. And they served like they were missionaries. They love those people. Every day they wake up thinking, who can I help today? You know, whose life can I change in a positive way today? And that is the nature of the service that my team provided, the same type of leadership that I had up here in Washington.

My role in FIRRMA just didn't happen by myself. There are many people on my team up here that supported that effort. Clark Fonda was a great leader for me in that. There are other people outside Congress. Heath Tarbert, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, a remarkable individual who served this country so well over such a key part of what we did in this national security bill on FIRRMA.

So my heart is just filled with gratitude for the privilege of serving the good folks in the Ninth District of North Carolina; my gratitude for the body in this Chamber; my gratitude for being able to serve on the Financial Services Committee under the leadership of Chairman Hensarling. It couldn't be greater. I couldn't be more fulfilled in the 6 years that I had here. I will always treasure and remember this time.

So, Mr. Speaker, I thank you, I thank Chairman Hensarling. He is an absolute important friend for me, and I hope we can continue to work together for many years to come. God bless you.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his exemplary leadership on behalf of our military and in defense of our country. We are deeply grateful for him.

Mr. Speaker, I say today how pleased and grateful I am that our Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act is being included in the NDAA bill. To that end, I thank Chairman Hensarling, Ranking Member Waters, Heath Tarbert with the Treasury Department, Clark Fonda, my chief, so many people, Andy Barr, who contributed to this process to make sure that we are in a position of strength.

For over 2 years, I have led these efforts to prevent Chinese and other adversarial nation-states from acquiring our sophisticated technology in our military. This bill, this Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, was the result of countless meetings throughout our assembly, as well as throughout this district, of talking to multiple people in the industry, as well as our intelligence community and defense, to make sure that we had done the job to allow adequate oversight for these investments.

FIRRMA will broaden the jurisdiction of CFIUS in several key areas, including minority noncontrolling investments and certain real estate transactions close to national security sites. FIRRMA strengthens our export control laws and creates an interagency review to cover overseas joint ventures. Overall, this bill closes several key loopholes in the CFIUS process.

Today, I do believe that the passage of the NDAA and FIRRMA legislation will help improve national security and combat aggressive Chinese efforts to secure our technology.

I thank all who participated in this process, and I commend this bill to our Congress to pass.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the House amendment to the JOBS and Investor Confidence Act. This bill that was cosponsored with my good friend, Keith Ellison from Minnesota, is part of 32 combined bills.

Our bill, the Credit Accuracy and Inclusion Act, will allow 100 million Americans to gain better access to credit. That is what this bill is all about. Just think about it: an individual now can take their rent payment, their car payment, and their utility payment and use that to apply toward increasing their better credit application to the credit reporting agencies.

Mr. Speaker, I commend this bill. This is important for our economy, and it is important for the American people to be able to go out in the market and acquire what they need to acquire in homes and cars to build their own wealth.

So I thank the leadership, I thank Mr. Hensarling, and I thank Ms. Waters for her leadership in this bill, and I commend them for this bipartisan effort.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the chairman for his leadership on this very important legislation, H.R. 5841, FIRRMA.

I would also like to thank Chairman Royce, Congressman Barr, and Congressman Heck for the significant leadership role that they played with this bill, as well as my chief of staff, Clark Fonda, and Assistant Secretary of Treasury Heath Tarbert. They have put in countless hours, working through details and language on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have worked on CFIUS-related issues for nearly 3 years. Prior to FIRRMA, I spent my efforts identifying problematic transactions and engaging in a public media campaign to raise awareness and stoke government action. Three years later, I am so happy to the say that we have had a robust impact on this issue.

For example, we helped prevent the Chicago Stock Exchange from falling into the hands of opaque Chinese ownership. We protected our defense supply chain by helping stop Lattice Semiconductor from being purchased by a Chinese state-owned investment fund. We helped prevent the Chinese from exploiting important personal data during an attempt to purchase MoneyGram.

Our successful initiatives have garnered the attention of Senator Cornyn. We began a yearlong process to draft the original version of

Mr. Speaker, to this end, I am encouraged by the progress we have made on this issue, and I am grateful for the opportunity to help move forward important legislation to reform CFIUS and export controls.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership and for providing this opportunity tonight for us to highlight the significance and the importance of this tax bill for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, when I lived in Washington, D.C., in 1980, it came out of the malaise of an economy that wasn't growing. No jobs, no opportunity. And Ronald Reagan had a vision for a different America, and I worked hard on his campaign. He changed the whole structure of our Tax Code and reduced the regulations that moved this economy forward. Unprecedented growth in jobs. Eighteen million jobs came out of that economy.

And that is what this vision of President Trump and this Congress is about today. Who would have thought a year ago--just a year ago--that America would be experiencing what it is today: companies like Apple reinvesting $350 billion; ExxonMobil, $50 billion. You have unemployment that has plummeted to a 49-year low. U.S. manufacturing is expanding at the fastest rate in 14 years. Consumer confidence is at a 17-year high. Wages are up. Opportunities are up.

I had a gentleman come to me just this last week who owns two restaurants in Charlotte. He said: Thank you for your tax cut. I am now going to expand and build another restaurant out at the lake, and I can do that because I have got the capital to go reinvest.

You know, we have constrained this economy and the American people by these burdensome tax rates that are not competitive. Companies have been going to the rest of the world--Ireland, U.K., Germany--and leaving America because we weren't competitive with our Tax Code. Now they are coming back. Now companies in America are expanding.

You take just an individual. I had a lady at a gas station the other day. I was getting my gas, and she was pumping her gas. She looked at me, and she said: Are you Congressman Pittenger? I said: Yes, ma'am. She said: Thank you. I am a single mom. I have got that little baby in the back seat, and what you have done for me is give me another $150 a month, and I really can't tell you how much I appreciate what you are doing.

Eighty-two percent of American people are going to get a pay raise. They are getting it right now. And that is the difference. The proof is in the paycheck. Americans know that. Regardless of what the left says, the media says, or anyone else, the reality is jobs are expanding, paychecks are going up, people are getting bonuses.

In Charlotte alone, we have Bank of America giving out bonuses; we have Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, SteelFab, American Airlines, so many. Five hundred companies in this country have given out bonuses to their folks, and probably so many more we don't know about.

So I want to commend Chairman Wilson for his leadership. I thank him for making sure that the American people know what is yet to come. We have just scratched the surface on the opportunity and the growth and the jobs that will be there for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his exceptional leadership on this important consideration and legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the gentleman from Arkansas, as well and the whip of the Financial Services Committee, for his work on H.R. 4790, the Volcker Rule Regulatory Harmonization Act.

Mr. Hill's legislation streamlines the rulemaking process by granting the Federal Reserve sole authority to make exemption determinations under the Volcker rule. This simplification is a vital change from the confusion and the regulatory inconsistencies of the current Volcker rule by resolving the problem of having five different regulators weighing in on the same issue. This bill also exempts community banks under $10 billion in assets from the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I want to note that, according to the FDIC, community banks with less than $10 billion in assets represent 92 percent of the insured institutions. Now, more than ever, actions like this need to be taken to provide relief to community banks and smaller financial institutions.

Look no further than my State in North Carolina, which has lost 50 percent of its banks since this financial crisis and the inception of the Dodd-Frank bill. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Hill for his work on this bipartisan piece of legislation. It is long past time that we provide commonsense reforms to overly complex regulations passed under the Dodd-Frank Act. This is why I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on H.R. 4790.

Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks, I have joined many of our colleagues to rise in honor of Dr. Billy Graham.

Today, I rise in honor of one of the quiet heroes who helped make his worldwide ministry possible. Ms. Stephanie Wills served as Billy Graham's secretary--she always refused fancier titles--for over 45 years, traveling the world to help Dr. Graham at each crusade and at countless meetings.

My first conversations with Stephanie were in the early 1970s, when I served for 10 years as the assistant to Dr. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

It was a blessing to see Stephanie at Dr. Graham's funeral, as she was still faithfully serving him.

Stephanie is legendary. She is highly competent, fiercely loyal, and unflappable.

I have said several times that Dr. Graham was a great man because he was faithful to the mission that God had given to him. The same can be said of Stephanie Wills. She has been a faithful servant of Jesus Christ, playing a quiet yet enormous role in sharing the Gospel around the world through her dedicated and tireless support of God's servant, Dr. Billy Graham.

Well done, Stephanie, a wonderful servant of God.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of North Carolina State University senior Michael Macchiavello, who, on March 17, won the NCAA Division I National Wrestling Championship at 197 pounds.

Mr. Macchiavello is a graduate of Sun Valley High School in Indian

Trail, North Carolina, where he was a 4A State champion wrestler in 2013, when he posted a 61-1 record. His college coach says Michael is constantly improving and that his work ethic, discipline, attitude, and commitment put him in position to compete for the national title.

Mr. Macchiavello is not just a champion inside the ring. He has already completed a bachelor's degree in finance and is working on a master's of arts.

Congratulations to Michael Macchiavello on winning the NCAA Division I National Wrestling Championship. Indian Trail, Union County, and the entire Ninth Congressional District are mighty proud of him. We wish him the best in what we know will be a great success for him in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the state champion Forest Hills High School basketball team that won the North Carolina High School Athletic Association 2-A Championship on March 10.

Forest Hills High School is located in Marshville, North Carolina. This is their first basketball championship in school history.

Yellow Jackets junior guard Jai Rorie made four free throws in the final 14 seconds to lead his team to a 63 to 59 victory.

Congratulations to the team: Brandon Barrier, Dillon Wright, Cam Richardson, Jaquan Williams, Asiah Byrd, Trey Belin, Jaleel McLaughlin, Tanner Lowery, Tyquan Rushing, Jamylan Blakeney, Garrett Horne, Jalen Huntley, Keeshawn Tyson, Nasione Tyson, Jai Rorie, and Josh Owens;

Congratulations to head coach Matt Sides; and assistant coaches Danny Bailey, Garrett Malone, and Keith Sides.

Go, Yellow Jackets.

Madam Speaker, I rise in memory of Homer Vaughn Wagnon, Jr., a veteran of World War II who left this world on November 29, having ``just satisfied his life's ambitions,'' per the obituary provided for him.

Mr. Wagnon served our country in the infantry, fighting his way across France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany as he and his fellow members of the Greatest Generation pushed back against tyranny.

He continued his service to our country in private business, helping to build a post-World War II incredible economy as a mechanical engineer. His range of new products included mechanical rubber goods, radio and TV equipment, and items for naval ships and aircraft applications.

Mr. Wagnon leaves behind the love of his life, Darlene Raitt Wright, and Wagnon's 6 children, 11 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren. His grandson Tariq Bokhari followed his grandfather's example: In distinction, he now serves as an outstanding member of the Charlotte City Council.

Madam Speaker, please join me in expressing condolences to the Wagnon family.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to convey my deep appreciation to my colleague on the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Tipton, for his efforts to improve and reform the examination process for our Nation's financial institutions.

H.R. 4545 is designed to address enduring concerns about the lack of consistency and quality in the bank examination process. The current exam process can be both opaque and secretive. Coupling this with overburdensome regulations and increased compliance costs have forced many community banks and credit unions to close up shop or reduce their ability to provide for consumers.

Look no further than my State, North Carolina, which has lost about 50 percent of its banks since the financial crisis. In my own city of Charlotte, a decade ago, we had six community banks. Today, we only have one because of the burdensome and costly compliance requirements.

Mr. Tipton's legislation creates a fair and impartial process for financial institutions to appeal their examinations, which gives the necessary clarity for banks and credit unions to provide services to their customers, leading to a job creation and economic prosperity environment.

That is why I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado for working on this bipartisan piece of legislation. It is long past time that we provide commonsense reforms in a transparent approach regarding regulators' decisionmaking during the examination process.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of Scotland County, North Carolina, Deputy Alexis ``Thunder Eagle'' Locklear, who was killed in the line of duty last Thursday while rushing to the aid of a fellow officer.

Deputy Locklear was just 23 years old and had only been on the force for 10 months, yet those who knew him best said he died doing what he loved.

My friend, Scotland County Sheriff Ralph Kersey, said that Deputy Locklear made friends everywhere he went. Sheriff Kersey said: ``He wanted to be a law enforcement officer, and he chose the Scotland County Sheriff's Office. It did not take a long time spending with Thunder to know that he would fit right in with this family.''

Deputy Locklear leaves behind a 4-year-old daughter as well as his parents, grandparents, and six sisters.

Last week, Scotland County lost a hero, but a hero remembered never dies in our hearts. Please join me in offering condolences to the Locklear family, Sheriff Kersey, and the Scotland County Sheriff's Office.