Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today we're considering a bipartisan legislative package called the JOBS Act, Jumpstart Our Business Startups. This is what our constituents want us to do, and they want to see us get it done.

The JOBS Act is a legislative package designed to move our economy and restore opportunities for America's primary job creators, our small businesses, start-ups, and entrepreneurs. These measures create capital formation, will spur the growth of start-ups and small businesses, and pave the way for more small-scale businesses to go public and create more jobs.

As I said, this has broad bipartisan support. Of the six bills, only 32 Members voted ``no'' on all six of these bills as they moved through the House and the committee.

In his State of the Union, the President asked us to send him a bill that

helps small businesses and entrepreneurs, and that's exactly what the JOBS Act does. We're presented with an opportunity to act in a truly bipartisan fashion that will promote job growth across our Nation. So we should join together, I believe, as Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, to give the President the piece of legislation so he can sign it into law.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the STOCK Act, Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, which strengthens current House rules banning Members of Congress from profiting financially from their position. It is absolutely unacceptable for those in any branch of government--the legislative, the judiciary, or the executive branch--to profit from nonpublic information.

Insider trading is not only unethical; it is illegal no matter who you are. But if it takes a stronger, tougher bill to set the record straight, then so be it. The American people elected us in good faith to lead, and we must do everything in our power to protect that trust.

The bill enhances transparency, something we've continually strived for in this 112th Congress, and I am proud to support the bill. I hope my colleagues will join me in passing this into law.

Mr. Speaker, the natural gas industry is very important to my constituents in West Virginia. Given the exciting opportunities that my state has as a result of the Marcellus Shale, I particularly appreciate the opportunity to discuss ancillary industries that West Virginia has the opportunity to develop as a result of its shale resources. I applaud Congressmen Reed and Critz for organizing a Special Order on the Shale's ancillary industries.

America's current energy policy is highly flawed. My constituents can see its flaws when they are forced to pay higher prices at the gas pump. Newly found shale resources have given us a major opportunity to take advantage of home-grown natural resources like natural gas diversifying our energy portfolio and making us less dependent on foreign sources of energy. Our combined recoverable oil, natural gas and coal resources is the largest in the world. The United States must seize the opportunity to tap into these resources; however the Administration remains intent on enforcing a moratorium on energy production and transportation.

In 2009, the oil and natural gas industry supported 24,400 jobs in West Virginia. It is projected that the next decade could see an increase in 18,000 to 26,000 jobs due to Marcellus investment and production. In addition to the economic boost that this nation can receive by utilizing its own energy resources, we also have the opportunity to strengthen existing industries and to also develop new ones. There are abundant resources present in the Marcellus Shale, including natural gas, oil, propane, and ethane. These resources can be used to heat our homes, power our vehicles and fleets, and to serve as a feedstock for chemical production.

As my colleagues from Ohio and Pennsylvania know, our states are currently competing against one another to attract chemical plants known as ``crackers''. A single cracker would

result in billions of dollars in investment, tens of thousands of construction jobs, and thousands of permanent jobs. It would also create jobs across the region and across the economic spectrum. A cracker would increase the local tax base, allowing local school districts to have more funds available to improve the education offered to our children.

Attracting a cracker to the region will benefit all of our states and the country as a whole, but my hope is that West Virginia is successful at gaining this exciting opportunity. I believe that West Virginia has everything that a company desiring to build a cracker could want. West Virginia has a strong budget picture, an improving tax climate, a ready and able workforce, and a strong history in the chemical industry. I want my constituents to know that I am working with other leaders from West Virginia to attract a cracker. A cracker would give West Virginians what they want the most: good paying jobs that will allow them to put food on the table and live the American dream.

Additionally, production in the Marcellus Shale gives us the opportunity to revive our industrial base. This is especially the case in regions that have historically been dominated by the steel and chemical industries. In order to actually produce the sources available in the shale we must first have steel and industrial equipment. The new demand for these materials will hopefully allow previously shuttered facilities to reopen, new facilities to be built, and existing facilities to increase production. All of this will create jobs.

We are blessed in West Virginia to have abundant, natural resources that power our country. The Marcellus Shale will undoubtedly play a major role in the future of the energy industry, moving us toward energy independence and creating jobs in ancillary industries as well as the energy industry.

Of course we must develop these resources in a responsible manner that ensures our grandchildren have clean air and water. It is essential that a proper regulatory structure is in place, one that balances exploiting this tremendous resource with environmental concerns. However, it is not necessary for the federal government and bureaucrats in Washington to balance these concerns. I fully support States being able to regulate the natural gas industry without undue interference from Washington bureaucrats. I am confident that states have the ability to regulate this industry, West Virginia showed that it had the ability to do so when it passed comprehensive legislation regulating shale gas production.

I urge my colleagues to continue fighting to ensure that we are able to take advantage of our domestic resources to create the jobs that Americans so desperately need.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I want to get a chance to react. The gentleman can proceed.

I withdraw my reservation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland) for his leadership on this topic. He has been very dedicated to finding a solution here. He's worked with both sides of the aisle to find a way to get to the transparency and accountability that we need to have in terms of the examination process with our community banks, and I know he has been a tireless advocate for the communities in his district.

We actually went to Mr. Westmoreland's district, to Newnan, Georgia, and had a legislative hearing, and we learned about the bank closures and the financial examination procedures. Regulators were all there. Financial institutions were there. But I think the one thing that struck me more than anything in the course of the conversation was, when a bank fails--and a lot of times a community bank is the only community bank, local bank, local ownership, know the people down the street. When that bank fails, it really guts the community in a way that's hard to describe.

The larger banks are there; branches are there. But, still, losing that community anchor in a community bank can be a devastating thing, not just for individuals and families but also for the shop owner, the car dealer, the individual farmer, the folks that rely on the relationship banking that you get so spectacularly through a community bank. You lose that and, unfortunately, never to come back again in a lot of cases. I think that he's very concerned about that, and the people of Newnan, Georgia, in that district, are very concerned.

This study I think will help us to see what's really going on here, pull the curtain back, look at the practices and the examination procedures. I know that Senator Levin made some technical changes in this, and I would like to thank Mr. Westmoreland for working with the Senator.

Now, maybe that should be a life lesson for us here in terms of what's going on today, but I think we've reached a good consensus and a good agreement. We will hear the results of this study in our subcommittee and in our full committee to find out if we need to work with the regulators to change the regulations, make it so that what the banking institutions are hearing on the ground from their regulators is actually what is moving forward in their written reports that are sent to Washington, et cetera, et cetera.

One of the things that we are challenged with here in Congress certainly is creating jobs and creating a climate where banks are going to lend and creating a regulatory climate where banks are going to lend and want to lend to small businesses. This issue that Mr. Westmoreland has highlighted I think will help us with that and, hopefully, will undo some of the needless shackles that some of our examiners are placing on our smaller institutions or on our community banks to be able to get back lending, and then our small businesses and job creators can then get back to the business of creating jobs so we can grow our economy.

I would like to again thank everybody for their efforts, and I look forward to the passage of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, Americans have made their lists for the holidays. Drum roll, please.

Number 10, pass the doc fix for doctors who treat Medicare patients;

Number 9, continue the payroll tax holiday for American workers;

Number 8, approve the Keystone pipeline in the name of creating jobs;

Number 7, extend and reform employment benefits;

Number 6, repayment of subsidies and reduce all fraud, waste, and abuse;

Number 5, prevent the EPA from destroying jobs by onerous boiler MACT regulation;

Number 4, allow businesses to expense their costly purchases;

Number 3, include spectrum auctions for more broadband services;

Number 2, do all of this without adding to the deficit; and

Number 1, please create American jobs.

To my colleagues, don't be a grinch. Please help grant America's holiday wishes.

And to the President, make this your list, check it twice. America wants and needs jobs for the holidays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend William Thompson of his service to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and to congratulate him on his upcoming retirement.

Mr. Thompson began his career in 1971 with the U.S. Marine Corps after his service with the Marine Corps in 1975. He returned to college and became a co-op student with the

Social Security Administration in 1977 and stayed until 1980. He worked for the State of West Virginia for 18 months before going to work for the U.S. Defense Investigative Service in 1982 and subsequently became what is known today as U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Mr. Thompson's role has been Special Agent in charge of conducting Federal Security Clearance Investigations.

For his dedication of 37 years, I offer Mr. Thompson my most sincere congratulations and best wishes for a well-deserved retirement.

I thank the chairman of the committee, for recognizing me.

I would like to speak in support of the gentleman from Connecticut's legislation, H.R. 1965, which would amend the securities law to establish certain thresholds for shareholder registration.

We all recognize that capital is tight for lenders and for businesses, and this bill, along with several others that were passed out of the Financial Services Committee, will address the issue of capital formation and allow institutions much needed resources to stimulate our economy. More capital equals more jobs, equals more people back to work, equals a growing economy.

Cost of public companies to register with the SEC can be very, very burdensome, and this cost is augmented when it's applied to smaller institutions. They don't have the resources to be able to meet the demands that larger companies do. So this bill would allow banks and bank holding companies access to more capital for that very precious and much needed impetus of job creation.

By raising the threshold from 500 to 2,000, it would permit easier deregistration, and the expenses that are tied up with registering would then go to stimulating our economy. More lending, more lending for a florist, a restaurant. I noticed in Charleston, a long-time restaurant that had been out of business was reopened under new ownership just this morning. And that's good news, and that's the kind of capital that small businesses need to be able to create jobs and stimulate the economy.

I believe this is a good piece of legislation whose effect on the economy will far outweigh any risks that it could propose, and I heartily endorse the gentleman from Connecticut's legislation, H.R. 1965.

Thank you. I want to thank my colleague for sponsoring this Special Order. I know we're running close to being out of time, but this is such an incredibly important topic for us as daughters, as granddaughters, as nieces and sisters. We spend a lot of time going to senior centers. I do in my district. I believe, as my colleagues have mentioned tonight, one of the resounding themes of our seniors right now is they're afraid, they're concerned, they're worried. They don't know what the future's going to be because of all the rhetoric surrounding Washington.

The statistics that we've heard, a lot of them tonight, some of the ones that I've heard is that on top of more seniors living longer, we're going to have, the number of disabled elderly persons is projected to rise by one-third by 2030. As of January 1, 2011, each day 10,000, baby boomers turn 65. The numbers just aren't going to fit.

We've talked about the Republican plan to reform Medicare, to not touch those benefits of our present seniors, but to reform it for future seniors, for the baby boomers to come that are going to be turning 65 and going to have to rely on and need to rely on Medicare.

I'd like to talk about something in a personal way. We have a personal story, a lot of us. I'm in the sandwich generation. My parents are both in their eighties, and they're really having a pretty rough spell of bad health. And what it's done for my brother and sister and me, is we've had to spend--and we lovingly do this--but spend many, many hours trying to figure out how to meet their health care needs, try to figure out how to pay for all of their obligations and the worry of talking with doctors, trying to make sure they're comfortable.

This is a real worry for all families across the Nation. In our country, 66 percent of these caregivers are women, and I think that's why we, as women of the House, particularly Republican women of the House, wanted to discuss seniors and care. So, with this sandwich generation, with the rising incidence of Alzheimer's, which touches every family--and my family is no exception--it brings a different type of need to this country on how we're going to address these very difficult medical issues.

But if we don't address them--and we've heard this tonight--if we don't address them, if we just let them lie, let them stay the way they are, the way they are right now today, they will not be there. They cannot exist.

One of the ways I think that we can really help our seniors is to have an economic program in place to grow our economy so that their 401(k)s that they look at monthly, that they rely on for income, are growing rather than just dissipating and shrinking, which is another huge problem for our seniors. Many of our seniors planned very, very well for their retirement. They've kind of thought of them as their golden years, the times when they're going to be able to travel or visit more with their grandchildren and have the ease of life of the day-to-day obligations being met. And with the downturn in the economy, with the lack of growth in our economy, our seniors aren't able to do that. They put their heads on the pillow at night, and they're concerned about whether they're not only going to meet their obligations for their health care, but the gas, the food, and the payment for all of their needs.

We need to realize that we have plans. We have plans for our seniors. We know how important Social Security and Medicare are to our seniors. Maintaining it and making sure it's there for future generations is absolutely critical. I want to thank my colleague for inviting me here this evening and getting a chance to talk about something that I care deeply about, and that is our Nation's Greatest Generation.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for having this Special Order to discuss two really important issues: America's energy supply and our transportation infrastructure. And I'm really pleased that we have a bipartisan group here. We started like this several years ago. We all kind of closed ourselves into a room, Members only, to discuss our Nation's great needs. Many of us share the same types of States, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, where we know energy production. We know the jobs that it creates, we know how valuable it is to our country, but we also know that certain parts of our country are more reliant on certain sources of energy, particularly a State like mine, and Pennsylvania and Indiana, as well, I believe, with coal and other fossil fuels.

And so in concern of disadvantaging certain parts of our country because of our abundance of energy and our reliance on certain resources, we got together to try to solve some problems. And so H.R. 1861, I think, goes a long way. Mr. Murphy has talked a lot about what this means in terms of our reliance on foreign sources of oil, he's talked a lot about the direct translation of energy into jobs.

We share a portion of our States bordering one another where we can see the energy sector exploding around the Marcellus shale. I'm from the northern part of West Virginia that borders on the Pennsylvania area where the shale is most prevalent, and just to see the creation of not just jobs in that industry, but jobs in the car lots, jobs in the county courthouse, jobs in the local restaurants and hotels, is exciting for a downtrodden area of our country. And so we know that further exploration on our Outer Continental Shelf will explode in terms of jobs. So he has a bill.

I also have a bill out that has a little bit narrower focus, and it is H.R. 2983, and I've nicknamed it the REBAR bill. As we all know, good nicknames for bills are always catchy. My bill has the same premise, which is maximizing our energy resources in the Outer Continental Shelf to generate billions of dollars. Mine has a more narrow focus because of the 9.1 percent unemployment situation that we find ourselves in right now and in the near future. I focus mostly on, or exclusively on, really, infrastructure development in terms of roads and bridges, and then our water and inland waterways. West Virginia also borders the Ohio River. We've got aging infrastructure. Some of our locks are over 100 years old. The Inland Waterways Trust Fund cannot possibly meet the demands of the need that is apparent on our waterways. We also have large estimates of $930 billion for roads and bridges. We all know the gas tax is not going to meet this demand. We have been funding the trust

fund for our highways for years. In recent years it has been to the tune of billions of dollars every year to meet the shortfall. States can't plan, companies can't hire, and equipment makers can't produce. There's all kinds of stalling that's gone on because of the uncertainty in our Highway Trust Fund.

We've set up a structure where you have a bill that lasts for 6 years so that you can plan, so that you can look at the future of all of our transportation needs. But if we don't fund that, we're not going to go anywhere, and we're not going to create the jobs that are going to be immediately created by a good and robust infrastructure bill.

The President talks about infrastructure. Many Members talk about infrastructure. But the next question doesn't get asked: How are we going to pay for this? And that's what I think is particularly creative about this bill, and I would say along the same lines as the bill that I had put in for consideration.

So I think it's something that obviously crosses party lines. The urgency is there. The win/win situation for a bill such as this is apparent on energy production, job creation, and infrastructure development. Those are the three pillars of a--I'm going to say it's a three-pronged stool. These are the three pillars that grow from this act. I think we should act on this. I think we've got critical mass in this House to be able to push something like this through.

As a member of the bipartisan energy group, I'm going to keep working with my fellow colleagues here today to see that we push this forward and that the American people understand the great importance and the great future that this will hold in terms of the growth of our country.

I thank my colleague on the Rules Committee from South Carolina.

I would like to ask the gentleman from Massachusetts who's been talking a lot about the jobs bill and the President's jobs bill, and my question to him is: If it's such a great jobs bill, why does it only have three cosponsors on the bill? I don't think that says much for the emphasis on your side of the aisle or in this whole House behind the President's jobs bill.

But today I want to rise in support of the rule of H.R. 2273, and I want to congratulate my colleague from West Virginia (Mr. McKinley) for his very dutiful work in this area. To me, this legislation is in response to the EPA's ideological war on Appalachian jobs.

The EPA is intent on regulating coal as a hazardous material. It is a wrongheaded move, given that the material has been used in household construction for years.

This bill simply allows States to regulate coal fly ash under their long existing solid waste disposal programs. This bill is environmentally and economically responsible because it allows the EPA to set enforceable minimum standards but leaves ultimate regulations and enforcement to the States, where it belongs.

If the EPA is permitted to regulate coal ash as a hazardous material, it could have a devastating effect on my State's economy. We generate 97 percent, maybe up to 99 sometimes, of our electricity from coal naturally, because we're a very large coal producer.

Regulating this as a hazardous waste would result in less coal use and would throw thousands of coal miners out of their jobs. Electricity prices would skyrocket, which would hurt manufacturers and households.

I just think that we're talking about jobs. Let's talk about creating jobs, but let's not destroy 316,000 jobs in the process of this regulatory regime that we've seen over the last several years. We know from the EPA's own statements that they don't really consider job loss or economic loss when they put forward these onerous provisions, so we cannot afford to let the EPA put more Americans out of work.

I support the rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 1315 and to insert extraneous material thereon.

I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, a year ago, the President signed into law the most sweeping financial regulatory reform package in nearly a generation. The centerpiece of the Dodd-Frank Act was the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. While there was nearly unanimous agreement that improvements were needed in the regulatory structure for financial services and consumer credit, we as Republicans did not agree that the best answer to the problems was creating an entirely new bureaucracy.

No legislation is perfect, and Dodd-Frank is a law that needs to be improved and refined. The legislation before us today marks an important step

in improving the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

I would like to thank both Chairman Bachus and Mr. Duffy for their leadership on this issue.

The creation of the CFPB presents the first time in which consumer protection and safety and soundness regulation will not be handled by the prudential financial regulators for institutions over $10 billion in assets. While we do not disagree that many of the prudential regulators failed to uphold their responsibilities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, there is a legitimate concern in separating consumer protection from safety and soundness.

This is why H.R. 1315 is a much needed improvement to the Dodd-Frank Act. The act gives the Financial Stability Oversight Council, also known as FSOC, the ability to override a CFPB rule or regulation. However, the threshold is set so high for the FSOC to consider the overturning of a CFPB rule or regulation that, in reality, it will never happen. Furthermore, a two-thirds majority of the FSOC is needed to overturn the rule or regulation once the petition is filed. This simply sets the bar too high and further exacerbates the problem presented by separating consumer protection from safety and soundness.

This is Mr. Duffy's bill, and it will lower the threshold for petitioning the FSOC to ``regulation which is the subject of the petition that is inconsistent with the safe and sound operations of United States financial institutions,'' and will require a simple majority of the FSOC to overturn a CFPB rule or regulation. This is a critical improvement to the CFPB that will ensure that CFPB regulations strike the balance between consumer protection and safety and soundness.

The Rules Committee Print also includes two bills that the Financial Services Committee has reported favorably. The first represents an important change to the leadership structure of the CFPB that will provide greater stability in leadership and moderation in rulemaking. As we have seen over the last 9 months, the current leadership structure provided for the CFPB is subject to toxic political fights. Individuals and groups from across the political spectrum have advocated for whom they believe to be the ideal candidate and, in some cases, the only acceptable candidate. This is not good for consumers, and it is not good for the legitimacy of the agency.

Rather than a single director, we are advocating for a five-person commission. This strengthens the leadership of the CFPB in two ways. First, a commission provides greater stability in leadership. We are all aware of the challenges in the Senate's ability to approve nominees. A commission where the individual commissioners are staggered in their terms will provide greater stability by ensuring there is always some form of leadership at the CFPB. A commission will also provide greater consistency, not only in rulemaking, but also in administration. I fear that a single director will set up a situation in which the leadership of the CFPB will be subject to the variances in ideology from one administration to another when the director is appointed. Consumers stand to lose the most if we have a situation in which the directorship of the CFPB swings back and forth between the extremes of the political spectrum.

Finally, H.R. 1315 includes legislation that I introduced to prevent the transfer of full powers to the CFPB, which should begin today, until there is a Senate-confirmed director or chairman in place.

Personally, I think this is really good government. We are talking about an agency that is sailing into unchartered waters without a captain of the ship. It is irresponsible to proceed without a leader confirmed by the Senate. In conclusion, I know that the creation of the CFPB is a source of great passion, and I look forward to discussing these bills. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 6 minutes to the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), and I thank him for his leadership on this bill and many others.

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the chairman of the committee.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I really am just amazed at the hyperbole of the dismantling and the ruining of the agency and the weakening of the agency. The Bureau will go forward with all of the consumer protections that it's empowered with in the Dodd-Frank bill. The original intent was a commission. We go back to a commission.

Let me just tell you, the President has had an entire year to nominate this very important person to lead this Bureau, and it wasn't until the beginning of this week, Monday, did he finally get around to it. What kind of signal does that send? At least to me, it sends a signal that it really isn't all that important to have that person there Senate-confirmed, as the minority leader said, with the oversight of the United States Senate.

And let's talk about the Financial Services Oversight Commission. There are 10 people on there. I am going to go through them quickly because I don't want to use too much time.

Secretary of the Treasury, he's confirmed; Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Bernanke, he's confirmed; Director of the CFPB, somebody was nominated 4 days ago, empty; Chairman of the FDIC, Acting Director, a nomination, but nobody confirmed; Controller of the Currency, Acting Director, no one confirmed; Chairman of the NCUA, confirmed; Chairman of the SEC, confirmed; Chairman of the CFTC, confirmed; Director of the FHFA, Acting Director, no nominee; and he just nominated the insurance specialist. Five of the people on this 10-person commission are not even permanently----

No, I will not.

So I say to myself, what kind of priority is this administration putting on this marquis part of the Dodd-Frank bill?

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), our vice chair.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert), a leader on our Financial Services Committee and chairman of the Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the author of the bill, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), and I thank him for his hard work on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to the time remaining, please.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to say today is a nice day, but we have 9.2 percent unemployment. It is not a day that I want to keep repeating when there are so many people out of work.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt), a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind the other side that we're not changing, taking any powers away from the CFPB. We're not reforming any of the reach of the CFPB. We are simply looking at the accountability structure of who is going to be governing the CFPB.

The gentlewoman from New York was very helpful in committee when we amended the commission to have one commissioner particularly looking at specialty issues concerning veterans and elderly and children, and I thank her for her input on that.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Grimm), a great member of our committee.

I yield 2 minutes to a member of our committee and chairman of the Capital Markets Subcommittee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a few points in closing.

First of all, I want everyone to understand that nothing in this package weakens or changes the ability of the CFPB to make rules and regulations for consumer protection.

Now, the ranking member was criticizing me for trying to change something that I didn't support. Well, guess what: I'm a realist. This is law, this is now a part of our government, and my chore is to try to make it better. If I wanted to get rid of it, I'd be sitting here arguing for a bill that totally dismantled the entire Bureau, but I'm not doing that and neither are my colleagues, because we accept the reality that the Bureau is going to exist, and we want to see it exist in the best form. That's why we're trying to make changes to it.

We can argue back and forth about whether a commission or an individual director is better or not. We believe a commission is better. Their original bill stated that. There are others on the other side of this building who believe that to be true as well, to mirror some of the other regulatory bodies that we have in the financial arena and other arenas.

I find it a little bit amusing that the ranking member keeps saying, well, you're only talking about one section. So let's talk about the other section, the ability to overturn a rule that's been promulgated by the director of the CFPB. He says we're trying to make it so that those rules can be overturned. Well, guess what: His bill makes you able to overturn the rules. He voted ``yes'' on that and so did everybody else who voted for this bill. So the concept of overturning a rule and a regulation is reality. It's already in the bill. We're simply saying, if you're going to have a rule that says you can overturn a rule and a regulation, or a law that says that, let's make it workable. Their standard is the whole safety and soundness of the entire financial system. Please. What rule could possibly do that? I'm sure there's one out there, but I'm not sure what it is. We've got to get over some of the over-exaggerations of what we're trying to do here today.

The last part of the bill is actually my bill, and that is saying that I don't think that we should be turning over the reins of the CFPB to a single person. Number one, I don't agree with that. But if I accept reality--remember, I said I'm accepting reality--if it is one person, like it's written, then let's make sure that the intent of that is a Senate-confirmed person. That's the way it's written in the law. It's a Senate confirmation. I'm saying in my part of the bill, I don't like the fact that we're going to throw everything into this Bureau and have somebody who's not been confirmed overlook this, and then we don't have the oversight that we have as Members of this Congress.

Those are the three sections of this bill. None of the provisions that we're talking about destroys consumers' ability to be looked after by this Bureau. None of this bill undoes any of the bureau's ability to undo deceptive and abusive practices. We certainly think that that's a laudable goal. We don't like the way it's maybe been constructed, but we lost that fight. The reality is this Bureau is here, and so let's make it better. Let's make it better for the consumers, because this is who we're talking about.

I've had strings of people in my district, before our committee, saying, we can't hire people because there's too much uncertainty. There's a regulatory structure here in the financial institutions that we don't understand, we don't understand what it is, we don't understand what it's going to mean, and it's constraining our ability to help small business owners, and that's constraining our ability to grow jobs in this country.

That's what we're talking about today. We're talking about getting back up on our feet, weeding through this bureaucracy, and making sure that the financial institutions that are the heart and soul of this country can grow the jobs, grow the economy, and get people back to work.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

I would like to just start by saying I am absolutely amazed at this amendment and that my ranking member is in favor of it, considering that she voted for the bill and that she is voting to strike the section of the oversight, of the FSOC, that she and others who wrote the bill put in there, because that's basically what this amendment does.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy).

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

I oppose the amendment because I am in support of the bill, Mr. Duffy's bill, which puts a workable and a more reasonable standard that could actually look at consumer rules and regulations that, as he has said, and I think very eloquently, takes in consideration Main Street, the community bankers and the credit unions.

I would like to remind the gentlewoman from Texas, as we were reminded by the gentleman from Massachusetts, that car loans are exempted from this, so we don't have to worry about car loans in terms of their being part of the rule and regulation. That is part of the Dodd-Frank bill. Anyway, I think that a simple majority makes a lot of sense.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy).

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy).

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

I would like to tell the gentleman I really see what he's getting at here. And I do think that some of his ideas have merit because of the revolving door appearance of--and in reality probably in some cases preconceived opinions. But I think that if a person is qualified to lead an agency, if a person is qualified to be the Secretary of the Treasury, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Director of the CFPB, Chair of the FDIC, Comptroller of the Currency, Chairman of the SEC, and there are 10 members on this board, that if we agree to this amendment, we might be narrowing the scope of really talented and qualified people.

I think the vetting process--all of these folks have to be nominated and confirmed by the Senate. I think that any conflicts of interest or possible conflicts of interest could be vetted through the confirmation process.

I think by disqualifying some folks, I think that it, as I said, I think we might miss some good talent. We might chase away folks that have good ideas and vibrant ideas in the area of finance.

With that, I would oppose the gentleman's amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

I thank the gentleman for the clarification. I didn't address that in my statement, and you're absolutely right. But I would just continue to oppose the gentleman's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I think I understand the gentleman from North Carolina's amendment. But I would like to just start, in the 5 minutes that I have, to remind everybody who is on the council that is going to be able to allow sleazy financial products to go forward to save the safety and soundness of an institution. That's what the gentleman said.

So we've got the Secretary of the Treasury. We've got the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Director of the CFPB, who is the person who is making the regulations, Chairman of the FDIC, Comptroller of the Currency, Chairman of the NCUA, Chairman of the SEC, Chairman of the CFTC, Director of the FHFA, and an insurance representative. That's 10 people, professional regulators that are working in certain areas of the financial markets overseeing our financial stability. It's not Tom, Dick, and Harry off the street trying to figure out if a certain provision, sleazy provision should be allowed to go forward. And I think, in order to convince these folks, or to put your argument forward as to why the rule or regulation would harm the safety and soundness of an institution, I would imagine that these professionals would require much due diligence and proper background work, probably touching on some of the things the gentleman's already talked about, who would be influenced and an analysis of the practice that is the subject matter of the regulation or provision.

I think that the standard is high in any scenario. Certainly, it's impossible in the existing bill. But in Mr. Duffy's bill, which brings the standard down more in line with protecting community banks and credit unions and other institutions on Main Street and the consumers that so rely on them, that, I think, really this amendment just further complicates, places in jeopardy, I think, makes it more cumbersome, more impossible to meet a standard where the FSOC would be able to oversee a certain rule and regulation.

So I would oppose the gentleman's amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

What we have done in our bill, as the gentlewoman said, is to give the FSOC as much time as necessary to evaluate the effects of the CFPB rule.

It's easy to imagine, under any scenario, that some of the effects, good effects or bad effects, take more than 3 months to really surface. I mean, we saw what happened with the subprime issue. It didn't bubble up in 90 days. It bubbled up over a period of time. Should it have been stopped? Absolutely. Were people asleep at the switch? Absolutely. And that's why we think that you should have not constraints on the time, but you should have an open-ended time period to find out any different pitfalls that may occur from a certain rule and regulation. And so that's why I would oppose the gentlelady's amendment going back to the 90 days.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I appreciate the gentlelady's passion for this. And I would like to say that as the 90-day rule stands right now, it doesn't say that the rule can't go forward. It simply says that the ability to have a look back to what consumer rules or regulations are put forward, it widens the window there.

So some of the effects of rule and regulation that may, as I said earlier, may not bubble up for a year or two, it may have a cumulative effect, it may have a regional effect. I mean, we have friends in Georgia right now who have had a lot of bank foreclosures. It's more regionally placed, all the foreclosure problems.

I live in a place, actually, where we avoided a lot of the foreclosure problems, but I understand my fellow Members from California and Florida and Texas and Michigan and Ohio, they have regional issues. This doesn't say that you can't allow the rule to go forward. It simply says that it allows you to look back for a longer period than 90 days.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, but I am not opposed to the gentleman's amendment.

I would like to congratulate the gentleman on an amendment that provides for sunshine and transparency. When we did the markup, we actually had another amendment along the same lines. I would support the gentleman's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition, but I am not opposed to the gentlelady's amendment.

I would like to thank the gentlewoman for her amendment.

I would like to also highlight, in the Dodd-Frank bill, and I'm sure she is well aware of some of the provisions that are already being made through the CFPB for multilingual outreach and understanding.

During a conference call with a large number of bipartisan congressional staff, the senior officials at the CFPB indicated that the Bureau would have the capacity to translate into 180 languages. That is a very broad reach, I think. And there are other foreign language disclosures outreach by the Secretary of the Treasury to help persons facing language barriers and other aspects around the same issue that the gentlelady is speaking about.

I am delighted that she wants to amend the Commission because, as we know, and I have spoken more than a few times on this in just the last several hours, about my ardent support for the Commission. There is one Commissioner who is charged with overseeing some special segments of our population, and certainly ones who have language barriers would be included in this.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

I am opposed to the amendment offered by the gentlelady, my ranking member. We work really well together, I think, on the subcommittee. We obviously have differences, and this is one.

The portion of the bill that she's talking about is actually the portion that I created. It was really a creation of a couple of months ago. Probably in April, I began to think to myself: The President hasn't made an appointment to the marque bureau to protect consumers, and he's had almost an entire year to do this. The handwriting was going to be on the wall in terms of trying to get a Senate confirmation. Certainly, you're not going to get one in 4 days, which is what he tried when he nominated somebody on Monday, finally.

So the thought for me is that we have enormous powers vested in one individual. The bill was written to have them. The minority leader was down here saying the oversight that is provided by Senate confirmation is the Congress's stamp of approval of the direction this individual wants to take this bureau. Yet, we have a situation where we have a President who's waited an entire, let's see, 361 days before making an appointment, and we're in a position where we're going to have an acting or recess appointment with a very powerful position without any input or oversight in the nominating process that moves forward and is vested in the United States Senate.

I just think that's a problem. I think that the President had had due time to accomplish this, and we're going to say to the Treasury Secretary, We're going to give it to you. Quite frankly, I think the Treasury Secretary is pretty busy right now dealing with debt limit issues and trying to solve other problems that we have in front of us financially. Our economy, we have 9.2 percent unemployment. We've got to get the wheels turning here, and I'm sure that's where the Secretary is putting his energy, appropriately so.

I just think that this is an agency that's starting with one hand tied behind their back because of the fault of the chief executive who has not appointed a person that could seek and get Senate confirmation, and I think that without that person, with the oversight of a Senate confirmation, taking the reins of this very powerful bureau that's just been created, we would be getting off on the wrong foot.

I would oppose the gentlelady's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I demand a recorded vote.

I would just like to tell the gentleman I support his amendment. I think it lends itself, again, to transparency and full accountability. I thank him for bringing it forward. Good work from the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of H.R. 1315, the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, and cross-references and to make such other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to accurately reflect the actions of the House.

Thank you.

I would like to thank my colleagues here today for the opportunity to talk about something that is extremely important to every woman in America, every person in America. It is not really a man or woman thing, or a child or a grandparent thing. It is all of us. So I look at things a lot of times, like a lot of people, I try to put my own life filter over what is going on here.

I'm in the sandwich generation. I have elderly parents who are having bumpy roads with their health. I just today for the very first time had my only and most beautiful granddaughter with me today on the House floor. I realized poor little Celia has $45,000 worth of national debt on her head. And then I think of my parents trying to manage their health care and their finances in their senior years: have they prepared enough, and did they make the right choices. I think about all of the in-between generation, the sandwich generation which I am, and I know that we want to make the right choices for ourselves so when our children are taking care of us, those decisions can be easier for them and we can be well prepared.

Quite honestly, with a $14 trillion debt, I don't think we're going to be prepared. What kind of handcuffs are we putting on our future generation?

I think about times in my life when maybe I have gone up to the limit on my credit card or maybe things haven't been as--particularly when we were younger, trying to buy a house for the first time and trying to figure out how we were going to manage the dollars when we were first getting started, and when we realized maybe we were going a little over the limit or spending too much, was the first thing we thought about, was it let's get a loan, let's ask our parents for more money?

No, the first thing you think about is how are we going to cut back? How are we going to save? How are we going to live within our means? Because that is the reasonable and rational way. That is the way that our parents did it, and that's the way we've tried to do it.

But that's not the way things go on here in Washington. A lot of people say why is it only about cutting spending. Because if we don't prove and show we can cut spending at the beginning before we talk about anything else, we are never going to do it. I think those are the hard decisions. Those are the kitchen-table decisions. All great change in America begins at the dinner table. That is a Ronald Reagan quote. That is absolutely true. That is why I think the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill that we passed yesterday makes so much sense to a lot of American women around the kitchen table because that's what they're doing.

And so I think when we think about it in terms of the balanced budget, when I listened to the debate yesterday, I think about my home State of West Virginia. We have a balanced budget. We have hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus right now because we are not permitted by law to spend more than we bring in. And so we had a good year this year for a lot of different reasons. But I think some of it is the smart budgeting that we did up front as a State--make tough decisions as a State to make sure that at the end of the year we're not dipping into the rainy day fund, that we're not finding ourselves saying the only way we can save ourselves is to raise somebody's taxes. It's because the spending decisions that were made in the front end with a budget--we have a budget for the first time in, I think, 3 years in the House.

And everybody around their kitchen table makes a budget. If they don't make it every year, certainly when they're in trouble they start making a budget. You do really simple things like decide not to go out to eat, stop your magazine subscriptions. The easy things first and then the really hard decisions. That's where we are right now are the hard decisions.

I think as a daughter and as a mother of a daughter and a mother of now a granddaughter, I think women make a lot of these decisions. I see the generations changing. I see the decisions maybe that my mom made were not as involved as the ones that I'm making. And I certainly can see that my own daughter, independent, on her own, is going to be so much more empowered financially to make decisions. So let's not leave her and the next generations holding a big IOU on their back. Let's take the opportunity.

Another question I get is that we've raised the debt ceiling how many times in the past--numerous times in the past. I think they were quoting 17 times under Ronald Reagan or something like that, if I recall correctly. And that is correct. We have raised the debt ceiling. I've voted to raise it before. But this is different. We need to seize this opportunity. Because if we don't seize the opportunity to clamp down on the spending now when the American people realize what an issue and what a problem and what a generational burden we're passing on--we have the ear of the American people, and that's the difference. That's the difference.

A lot of things in our lives are all about timing. Certainly political lives are all about timing. Sometimes you can have the greatest candidate in the world, and if it's not the right time, they can't make it. And this is the time. This is the time for us to grab the reins, to say to the Senate and the President and the American people, We're ready, you're ready, and let's join together and do this.

So I look forward to hopefully Cut, Cap, and Balance making it through the Senate. But at least if it doesn't make it in the form we pass today, the concepts within this--cutting, capping, and balancing our budgets--are everyday events in people's lives. We need to do it here. I look forward to joining with all my fellow women Republicans we're talking with today, with the rest of the women in the country, but also every man, woman, and child in this country, because it's all about every American, and we don't want to see an overburden on either the older generation, the younger generation, or the generations to come.

Thank you for having us. I look forward to working together.