[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 121 (Friday, September 5, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 TRANSPORTATION AND TREASURY, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 
                               ACT, 2004

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. MICHAEL G. OXLEY

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 4, 2003

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 2989) making 
     appropriations for the Departments of Transportation and 
     Treasury, and independent agencies for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2004, and for other purposes:

  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2989, the 
Transportation-Treasury spending bill for fiscal year 2004. While there 
are several important provisions in this legislation that I support, 
the bill also includes a provision that encroaches on the jurisdiction 
of the Financial Services Committee and undermines the public policy 
goals of the landmark Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial modernization law.
  Title I of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which Congress approved in 1999, 
allows financial holding companies and banks to engage in a broad range 
of activities that are considered ``financial in nature'' or 
complementary to such financial activities. In addition, GLB grants the 
Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department the ability to 
identify additional activities that they deem to be financial in nature 
or incidental to such activities, and therefore permissible for 
financial holding companies and financial subsidiaries.
  Over two years ago, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, acting 
under their grant of authority in GLB, issued a regulatory proposal to 
permit banks to conduct real estate brokerage and management 
activities. The National Association of Realtors, in an attempt to 
avoid a new source of competition and preserve their monopoly in the 
real estate brokerage business, launched a scorched earth lobbying 
campaign to derail the Fed-Treasury proposal. Bowing to this pressure, 
the Appropriations Committee has now adopted in two successive 
appropriations cycles language that prohibits the Federal Reserve and 
the Treasury from moving forward with their proposal, thereby denying 
consumers greater choices in obtaining real estate brokerage services 
and the benefits of increased market competition.
  Legislative attempts to stymie the rulemaking process--particularly 
as part of the appropriations process--are counterproductive and 
undermine the future of any legislation that relies on the expert 
judgment of regulators for its implementation. The amendment that the 
Appropriations Committee has chosen to include in this bill serves only 
to needlessly delay innovation in the financial services industry and 
runs contrary to the clear congressional intent of GLB, which was to 
encourage free market competition and increase consumer choice.

                          ____________________