[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 100 (Wednesday, June 30, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H5291-H5297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TOPICS OF THE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Critz). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority
leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, thank you so very much for this
opportunity.
I've been here for the better part of this last hour and I've heard
some astounding, astounding accusations and things that are purported
to be fact. And I'm just going, What in the world is happening here?
To think that the President of the United States is to blame for the
blowout is the most extraordinary leap of logic you could possibly
imagine. For the last 15 minutes, we've heard about the President
didn't do this, the President didn't do that, the experts were not
assembled.
That's just not true. If you knew what was going on, instead of just
flapping your lips, you would know that, in fact, shortly, very
shortly, within days and hours after this blowout occurred, the best
minds in America were assembled in Houston and in Louisiana to deal
with this.
The fact of the matter is there is a very, very good reason for the
moratorium and, in fact, my colleagues on the Republican side here said
the reason. They didn't know why this occurred. Was it human error? Was
it a fact? Was it a problem on the rig? Was it a problem down at the
bottom? They don't know. And, in fact, we don't know today, and that's
why we have a moratorium. We have a moratorium because we don't know
why this blowout occurred. We have pretty good evidence that the
blowout preventer didn't work. We have pretty good evidence that the
efforts of the various methods, the standard methods of dealing with
the blowout didn't work. We don't know exactly why this well failed.
And until we do know, we ought not be drilling in deep water because we
certainly cannot afford another blowout.
Now, in 2008, in the Republican administration, two T-38 jets crashed
within 2 weeks. The United States Air Force put every one of those T-
38s on the ramp and said, You're not flying those airplanes until we
know why they crashed. That's called a stand-down. It's called a
moratorium. So we have a moratorium.
BP's to blame for this. And I must tell you, I am just absolutely
astounded by what the Republican Caucus put together that was actually
announced by our colleague from Houston, Texas, the ranking member of
the House committee, when he apologized to British Petroleum because
the President demanded that British Petroleum put together a $20
billion trust fund to pay for the damage.
{time} 2230
The Republican policy is to apologize to BP for the President forcing
BP to do what was right, that is pay for the damages. That's just but
one issue. I wasn't going to talk about this in great length, but I am
just coming off listening to my Republican colleagues here. We have to
deal with the facts as they really exist.
Joining me tonight is Congressman Ellison from one of the great
northern States in the Midwest. And I think he wants to pick up this
issue and maybe carry it a little longer.
Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman will yield, I do just want to take up
this issue of the spill. It is an important issue. And you just
mentioned the very frank and I believe honest comments of
Representative Barton, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce
Committee, in which he apologized to BP.
Some people might be thinking, you know, well, he apologized for his
apology, so, you know, why don't we just drop it. But it doesn't start
with Mr. Barton, it doesn't end with Mr. Barton. It actually started
with the Republican Study Committee, which creates policy, agenda, and
talking points for the Republican leadership. And that's headed by a
gentleman who is a Member of this body named Congressman Price, Tom
Price. He is the one, with the help of the committee itself, not just
by himself, who released a statement calling the compensation fund that
you referred to to help compensate small business people put out of
business by this spill, and people who live on the gulf, people who
suffered, a shakedown. So this term political shakedown emerges from
the very leadership of the Republican caucus.
They say that President Obama is shaking down the British Petroleum,
BP. And from that point, Price makes the statement, this is before
Barton ever does, but Price says, ``BP's reported willingness to go
along with the
[[Page H5292]]
White House's new fund suggests that the Obama administration is hard
at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics. These
actions are emblematic of a politicization of our economy that has been
borne out of this administration's drive for greater and greater power.
It is the same mentality that believes an economic crisis or an
environmental disaster is the best opportunity to pursue a failed
liberal agenda.'' So this is where the whole shakedown conversation
comes.
Then after that, Mr. Barton, following the party line, doing what the
Republican Study Committee has said to do, says, quote, ``I'm ashamed
of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it's a tragedy
of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to
what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion
shakedown.'' Now, it goes on, but in this statement of apology from
Barton I never heard--and maybe I will leave it to the gentleman--any
sort of apology or sympathy for the people who live on the gulf, who
make a living there, who send their kids to school there, and who now
see their economic life ruined.
Mr. GARAMENDI. If I recall correctly, it's not only the extraordinary
economic damage, 11 people were killed in this blowout. Eleven men who
were working on that, who had families, who were trying to earn a
living were killed as a result of it.
Now, for BP, it wasn't their only accident. They have the worst
safety record in the oil industry. So you are quite right, Congressman
Ellison, that the issue of where the Republican Party stands on this,
it's not just one member speaking out of turn. It was in fact the
ranking member of the committee speaking on the talking points
developed by the Republican Study Committee, which is the policy
development committee for the Republican caucus in this House.
Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman would yield back.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Please.
Mr. ELLISON. It didn't stop after Mr. Barton made his apology, which
seemed sincere. After that, Michelle Bachmann, our colleague, says to
the BP president about the $20 billion escrow fund, she says, ``If I
was the head of BP, I would let the signal get out there, `We're not
going to be chumps, and we're not going to be fleeced.' And they
shouldn't be. They shouldn't have to be fleeced and made chumps to have
to pay for the perpetual unemployment and all the rest.''
So I mean if you just contemplate that statement for a moment, here
our friends on the other side of the aisle just got through talking
about how it's BP's fault. That's what they say now. Right after the
fund was developed by the President to make sure that victims of this,
both economic and physical and others, had a basis of compensation, the
Republican caucus's initial gut reaction, which is I think their most
sincere reaction, is to say that it's a shakedown, it's to say we're
not going to be chumps, it's to say that BP shouldn't have to pay
unemployment.
I mean it didn't stop there. Let me add one more before I hand it
back to you. Our good friend Steve King, Congressman King from Iowa:
``I think Joe Barton was spot on when he called it a shakedown.'' So
then, no repentance, no remorse. Let me yield to the gentleman.
Mr. GARAMENDI. The thing here, if you would yield for a moment, is
where do you stand? With whom do you stand? What side are you on? We
just heard an extraordinary rendition of falsehoods, in my view, from
the Republican side here that somehow this blowout, this BP accident
was the fault of the Federal Government. Hello. Well, the regulations
that they were so excoriating are absolutely necessary to prevent this
kind of thing from happening.
In fact, the regulations that were relaxed during the George W. Bush
administration allowed this company to proceed with minimum safety
requirements. And we heard this talk about the governor of Louisiana,
and a State that is heavily impacted and tragically impacted by this
oil. What is their response plan? Pointing fingers at the Federal
Government, which the governor is doing. And at the same time, what is
the response plan for Louisiana? It's virtually nonexistent.
The State of California, where I come from, we have a heavy duty
response program that goes back 20 years. We make the oil industry pay
for it. Does Louisiana have such a program? No, they don't. But they
are willing to point a finger. Let's take a look. What is this?
Mr. ELLISON. Well, if the gentleman would yield back, they do have a
plan.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Really? What is it?
Mr. ELLISON. Their plan is the taxpayers can pay for it.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Ah, the taxpayers who they were so concerned about a
moment ago. They don't want BP to pay; they want the American taxpayers
to pay.
Mr. ELLISON. Right. The GOP-BP bailout is that the American taxpayers
should pay for the expenses associated with BP's failure to observe its
own regulations and the catastrophic consequences that it caused. So
that their plan is the taxpayers can pay because heaven forbid we ask a
privately held corporation to pay for its own damages.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Is this the corporation called BP that had a $58
billion profit last year?
Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman would yield, yeah, BP is well heeled
and doing fine based on the profits they have made. So I would yield
back.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Quite possibly they are so well heeled and have such
big profits because they cut so many corners that resulted in the death
of I think 13 people at their oil refinery in Texas, and another 11 at
their rig in the gulf, the Deep Horizon situation, and who knows how
many else around the world. This is the company with the worst safety
record because they cut corners. It gives them a fat profit. Now it's
time for them to pay.
Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman would yield; if you observed the safety
rules and regulations that are designed to save lives and save our
natural environment, it may take you a little more time, and yeah, it
may cost you a little money. Maybe you won't have that enormous,
exorbitant profit, but you will make good money, and people will be
alive so that they can go home at the end of the day, and we will be
able to have a Gulf of Mexico that bears some resemblance to the way
the good Lord intended it to be.
{time} 2240
Right behind you are graphic photographs. I mean, look at that bird
right down at the bottom.
I yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. GARAMENDI. This mantra that started from the Republican Party, I
think it was the Presidential candidate, if I recall correctly. It was
called ``drill baby drill.'' And what we found out was that this drill
baby drill results in ``spill baby spill.'' It is a terrible situation.
It's not new, though; and it's not unusual.
In the last 17, 18 years in the Gulf of Mexico in these shallow
water, deepwater drilling operations, there have been 38 blowouts. None
as catastrophic as this. But this is not a new situation. In the Indian
Ocean, west of Australia last year, there was a blowout of similar size
by one of the international drilling oil companies. And it took them
even longer--I think it was over 120 days, maybe a little longer than
that--to drill a relief well to finally stop that blowout.
There was another major blowout on the Mexican side of the Gulf of
Mexico several years back that resulted in a huge oil spill for a long
time, and there was yet another off the coast of Brazil.
This is not new. But what is new is the extraordinary damage that's
taken place and the irresponsibility of BP in this particular case
where they cut corners, where they did the least that they thought they
needed, instead of maximum, to be prepared; they did exactly the
opposite. And now we're faced with this catastrophic event.
Our colleagues across the aisle were talking about nothing happening.
In fact, numerous efforts have been made, unsuccessful to date. The
capping, the effort to activate the blowout preventer, on and on and
on. And hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will have one of the
relief wells intersecting the existing well that blew out, and we can
bring this thing to a stop.
However, we need to recognize that as long as we drill, we will run
the risks. And as we run those risks, we also commit even a greater
problem for
[[Page H5293]]
this planet, and this is as long as we can drill, we will be dependent
upon oil, whether it is domestically produced or foreign produced.
This oil is not only contaminating the ocean and the beaches and the
marshes; it's also contaminating our atmosphere, and that carbon
doesn't disappear. And it also leads us to more dependence upon oil.
It's time for us to break that addiction to oil.
Yes, use this catastrophic event to call our attention, to focus our
minds on what we must do to break America's addiction to oil. This is
not a new effort. We have been at this since the 1970s with the first
oil crisis. We have yet to break it. In fact, we've continued the
addiction. We must move away from this, and our energy policy must move
us in a different direction.
I know you've spent a lot of time working on these issues, and let me
put up another one. As horrible as this spill is, we need to understand
what the oil industry is all about. The oil industry has been operating
in America for about 140 years, maybe a hundred. Since the turn of the
last century, 1900, it really got under way. And for a century now, the
oil industry--well, let me just ask a question because this is what
this asks. Which of these industries receives the most Federal
subsidies? Read tax dollars. Subsidies are tax dollars. You want to
talk about taxes, my Republican friends? Where do your tax dollars go?
Well, let's find out.
It looks like solar panels, right? Okay. Do they get more? Do they
get the most subsidies? How about windmills? Well, let's call them wind
turbines, the modern word for them, wind turbines. This is an
interesting one. It has been around for years. This is using the ocean,
the waves and the ocean or the current in the ocean or even in the
rivers. And this is an interesting one. This is really a brand-new one.
And these are algae, algae-producing biodiesels. Or the oil industry.
Now, my question to you, Mr. Ellison, is which of these receive the
greatest subsidy, read tax dollars, from the public?
Mr. ELLISON. Do we need a drum roll first, Congressman Garamendi? I
think we know. I'm just going to take a wild guess. The oil industry.
Mr. GARAMENDI. You are a brilliant legislator and a fine arbiter of
the question. It turns out you're right. It is the oil industry.
And let's take a look at this.
Our tax dollars: Where do they go? Let's see here. This side is the
oil industry, and this is from 2002 to 2008. So we got some numbers up
here for fossil fuels between 2002 and 2008. This is the oil and a
little bit of the coal: $72.5 billion of direct subsidies, our tax
money, being taken out of our pocket and given to the oil industry--
$72.5 billion in just 6 years.
So where does it go? Let's see here. Traditional fossil fuels. Oil
and coal. There you have it.
Now, on the other side, renewable energy. Well, we have the corn
ethanol industry, and they have received about $16.8 billion. And then
the traditional renewables, these would be solar and wind and the like,
about $12.2 billion. So taken together $29 billion for renewables in
the same 6-year period that the oil industry received $72.5 billion.
Now the question of public policy is this: What if we flipped this
over? What if we flipped this around and we took the $72.5 billion and
spent it on renewables and we can continue a little bit of the subsidy
if they really need it, which they really don't--not if you have $58
billion of profits. Doesn't seem to me they need much help. But, okay.
We'll just flip it over, and they'll take $29 billion, and we give the
renewable industry the $72 billion. What would happen?
Mr. ELLISON. We would be a lot healthier. We wouldn't be burning
hydrocarbons and spewing them into the air. Our planet would be
healthier. We would see ourselves, our technology, and our creativity
would blossom as we subsidize these renewable sources of energy. It
would be a good thing.
Mr. GARAMENDI. It would be a very, very good thing. And most
economists who look at the international markets and the next great
industries don't look to the 19th century energy industry, coal and
oil, as being the growth industries and where the jobs will be created.
Those economists and futurists who look at these things tell us that
the great energy industries of the future are the energy industries of
this century, the renewables of all kinds. All that we had up here and
even more than I had on that little chart. That is where the jobs will
come there.
And our policy ought to be to encourage those industries and those
things, the wind turbines, the solar, even the nuclear systems and the
rest, that they be built in America.
Mr. ELLISON. Let's not forget about the efficiency. The fact is there
are a lot of jobs to be had by retrofitting buildings and conserving
the energy that we already have. A lot of jobs, a lot of putting a lot
of people back to work in making homes and buildings energy efficient.
And you put that together with renewable energy, that is an employment
driver. That is an economic driver. That is an environment driver.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's bring this issue that you just raised right back
to this Chamber in the present moment.
We have voted here three times, I believe, on what are called
programs for energy conservation. One of them was called cash for
caulkers. We had the cash for clunkers, which really helped the auto
industry. And we decided, well, let's try something, cash for caulkers,
which is exactly what you talked about. It's about bringing about
energy conservation. And in doing that, two good things happened: we're
employing people. Taking our tax dollars. Get this back up here. We
don't have conservation on here, but if we were to add conservation,
taking our tax dollars instead of giving them to the coal and the oil
companies, give it to men and women in the communities that are doing
the insulation, doing the window caulking.
{time} 2250
As that is done, homeowners and renters see their energy bills drop.
What happened on this floor when those bills came up? What is your
memory of how the votes turned out?
Mr. ELLISON. Well, I don't remember any ringing endorsement from the
party opposite.
Mr. GARAMENDI. My recollection is that the Democratic side said,
Let's give people jobs. Let's use the public's tax money to employ
people to do energy conservation. The Republicans, to a person, voted
``no.''
Whose side do you stand on? Are you going to take those tax dollars
and continue to give them to the oil industry and to the coal industry
or are you going to take those tax dollars and put people to work,
achieve the energy conservation and allow homeowners and renters to see
their energy bills go down?
The Republican Party made a very clear decision on who they stand
with. They do not stand with the homeowner. They do not stand with
those who could get the jobs. Instead, they voted ``no'' on those three
conservation programs that would put people to work.
Mr. ELLISON. Well, they stand with BP against the residents of the
gulf and the businesspeople there. They stand with the oil and gas
companies, with their subsidies, as opposed to standing with the people
who want a clean, green future. They consistently stand against
progress. I mean the thing that I find so astounding is that they will
come down to the House floor and continue to repeat these things.
Quite frankly, I am quite proud of President Obama for demanding that
BP start an escrow fund so that we can have some relief for the people
suffering such horrendous hardships on the gulf coast. I think it was
an act of responsibility. It was what he should have done. The
administration was responsive to this spill, and the administration did
get engaged right away. The Congress is holding hearings right now to
get to the bottom of what happened, to prevent it and to put policies
in place to do something about it. Yet, all along the way, what we are
getting are apologies to BP and, really, no help at all.
We are not discouraged, though. Congressman Garamendi, you know very
well that we are stout of heart. Every time we get a chance to do
something for this economy, for consumers, for the environment, the
Democratic Caucus is counted on to do it.
Mr. GARAMENDI. You are quite correct.
I am going to go through a list of specific things to help the
economy,
[[Page H5294]]
but before I go to that, I think we ought to set the stage here. There
was a lot of talk in the previous hour about deficits and where the
deficits came from.
Mr. ELLISON. Oh, brother.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Oh, brother.
Where did the deficits come from?
Well, first of all, let's understand that public policy doesn't
change the moment a President comes into office. There is the
continuity of the previous years' policies that stay in effect for a
while until those are changed. Even then, it isn't an immediate night
to day. It takes a while for the policies to go into effect. So the
charts that were shown earlier are just plain disingenuous, if not
outright false.
The George W. Bush administration came into office with a significant
surplus that was created in the last 3 years of the Clinton
administration. I think it was about a $500 million annual surplus that
was projected to go on into the future. The George W. Bush
administration, together with the Republican-controlled Congress and
Senate, did four things that created the deficit that we have today,
which the Republicans want to pin back onto Obama and the Democrats.
Here are the four things they did:
First of all, they instituted one of the largest tax cuts ever in
American history for the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, not for
the everyday workers--not for the people who are out earning salaries
day by day or who are earning hourly wages--but for the wealthiest.
That is fact one.
Fact two, the prescription drug benefit for seniors was not paid for,
and they specifically put in a provision that prevents the Federal
Government from negotiating prices with the pharmaceutical companies.
Fact three, two wars were started and paid for with borrowed money--a
most unusual event. That is fact three.
Borrowing money, reducing taxes, starting two wars. Right now, those
wars have cost us well over $1 trillion, nearly $1.1 trillion.
Fact four, the continuing escalation of health care costs, okay?
Those are the four reasons we have the deficit today. Let me give you
a fifth reason.
The fifth reason is the crash of the American economy.
Those all happened during the George W. Bush administration, and they
didn't stop the day Obama came into office. We are now changing those
policies. For example, the health care reform, which not one Republican
in this House voted for--not one--will, over its lifetime, actually
reduce the deficit because it reins in the cost of medical care. In my
view, it's not enough, but nonetheless, it does that.
Secondly, the other policies have been allowed to continue. Now, the
tax policies of the Bush administration will expire. That will help. As
for the prescription drug benefit, we are working on that. That was
part of the health reform also. The wars continue. Fortunately, the
Iraq war is winding down while the Afghan war escalates.
So we have to understand how we got to this place we are today.
How we got there were through the basic policies of the Clinton
administration. It left a surplus, a continuing surplus, for the George
W. Bush administration. Had they not changed the policies, it is
estimated that, by the middle of this decade, we would have wiped out
the American debt--period, gone, history--but, no, they changed the
policies, and now we are saddled with this debt.
The crash. The crash of this economy was caused by reckless action on
the part of Wall Street, by reckless, irresponsible action on the part
of Wall Street, basically driven by the grossest greed you could
possibly imagine. There were all kinds of inducements to homeowners to
engage in mortgages they could in no way possibly pay.
I know that you are faced with this in your community. There was
action taken on this floor not more than 5 hours ago--and we will be
coming to that in just a moment--but share with us the experiences in
your community about mortgages, about all of the problems of the
housing industry, about the crash, and about what has happened in your
community.
Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman will yield, that is so right. When you
look at this whole financial crash, it is a chain of events, and it
starts out in the neighborhood.
There is something that we need to talk about, something called a
``yield spread premium.'' What that is is the amount of money that
somebody selling a loan can get if somebody steers you from a loan you
may qualify for to a high-cost loan. So there are a lot of people who
might have qualified for prime loans but who were literally steered.
Then you had another development, something called a NINJA loan--no
job, no assets. Yet you could get money to buy a house. Then there is
something called a ``liar loan''--now, that is a curious thing to call
a loan--because it was stated income. You could just write down
whatever you said your income was, and there was no verification of
that income. Then, after you got into these loans, they had terms and
conditions, like prepayment penalties, so that, if you wanted to get
out of this loan and get a fairer loan, you really couldn't do it
unless you paid somebody off down the line.
So people got into these loans. They were being sold. The people who
made those loans really didn't need to make sure they were well
underwritten. It didn't matter if any of these folks could pay the
money back, because they would simply sell that paper on the secondary
market.
Now, what was the effect in the neighborhood? The effect in the
neighborhood was, once the housing values began to flatten and decline,
people couldn't pay them. Once they couldn't refinance because they had
negative equity in their homes, they couldn't make the payments, and
they ended up getting foreclosed upon. It happened in neighborhoods all
across this country. California, your State, was hit hard as well as
Florida and Arizona. Yet, even in my State of Minnesota, we were hit
very hard. People started being foreclosed on, and short sales began to
happen. Property values began to decline, and neighborhoods began to go
in the wrong direction.
{time} 2300
And so there was a lot of difficulty right there on the front line.
The front line was foreclosure of homes, abandoned properties, high
grass, dead dogs. Expenses to the local government. Because if you have
a house where people are paying property taxes, that's coming into this
local government. But if you have an abandoned property, that's an
expense to the local government. More pressure on local government
budgets, intense difficulty, tough times on Main Street.
I yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. GARAMENDI. The gentleman is absolutely right. I know I see this
in my own district, and in fact in my own neighborhood and in the
families of my staff. We have on my staff families who have lost their
home; who have had to do the short sale; who got into these mortgages
that they couldn't possibly pay. They had these readjustments. All of
those things. Now what was causing that? It was Wall Street. Wall
Street was making it happen by creating these collateralized debt
obligations, by the fancy financial manipulations. And why were they
doing this? So they could make a big profit. And they did.
Now, today, on this floor today we took up the Wall Street Reform Act
and Consumer Protection Act. And it's very, very interesting how the
Republican leader characterized the effort that the Democratic Members
of this House and the Senate have made to address the excesses of Wall
Street. This is the most substantial reform and adjustment of the
horrendous Wall Street practices that took this country to the very
edge of an extraordinary Depression. And yet our Republican colleague--
let me just get this chart because it is so interesting.
Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman will yield while you're getting the
chart. You know, Mr. Speaker, Congressman, you would have thought that
America didn't lose 2.8 million homes to foreclosure last year,
listening to the Republicans. You have would have thought that Lehman
Brothers and Bear Stearns and Freddie and Fannie and all these huge
Wall Street titans didn't go down the tubes and cause a depressed
market and hurt the economy. You would have thought that we didn't have
10 percent unemployment. You would have thought that there was nothing
but responsible behavior, and all of a sudden the Democratic Caucus
[[Page H5295]]
is just trying to take over the banking system. We were really in a
magical world here on the House floor. But, thank goodness the House
Democrats, led by Barney Frank and many others, were putting the things
in place to preserve our economy.
Mr. GARAMENDI. You said something that caused me to pull up a chart
that I wasn't going to use. The financial meltdown nearly bankrupted
the world. Not just America, but the entire world's economy came very,
very close to a total meltdown. What it meant to mom and pop back home,
what it meant to their 401(k)s that instantly became 201(k)s was this:
$15 trillion of wealth destroyed in the last 18 months of the Bush
administration. Say whatever they want on that side but the fact is
that's what happened. What's happened since then is we put into effect
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and we're beginning to see
the stock market come back, we're beginning to see the wealth return.
The fundamental problem still remains in the housing industry, and that
we have to address.
Once again, all of the legislation dealing with the mortgage markets,
all of the effort to try to rebuild the housing industry has been done
by the Democratic side. We have had no help from the Republicans. Just
say ``no'' is their mantra. The result is that we push forward with
great difficulty. The Senate is a major problem for us because you have
the power of one senator over there that can stop things. But,
nonetheless, we pushed forward with an effort to try to restore the
housing markets with various plans and mortgages. And today it's time
for us to come to what happened today.
Today, on the floor of the United States Congress, the most far-
reaching, most important revamp of the financial industry in this
Nation's history since 1936 took place, and it was a vote on the Wall
Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In that very important piece
of legislation there are several sections that deal directly with the
housing market, outlawing--outlawing, making illegal the kind of liar
loans, the kinds of revamp and mortgages that were the genesis of the
problems. Also, in the housing market, holding brokers responsible.
Holding them accountable. Holding the banking industry accountable for
what it does and setting up a consumer protection agency.
Now, this is something I understand. I was the insurance commissioner
in the State of California, elected statewide twice--1991 to 1995, and
again 2003 to 2007--and I built a consumer protection agency. It's
absolutely essential. The capitalistic market is driven by profit
motives. Now, wise companies understand they've got to take care of
consumers. But the profit motive drove this Nation and this world right
to the edge. You need a countervailing power. And the consumer
protection agency in this bill would do it by setting out a series of
regulations to protect consumers and allow consumers to speak out, to
get assistance, and to get help. It didn't exist--only in the insurance
marketplace--which was regulated previously by the individual States.
But not in the financial and banking markets.
Now when the Senate acts, which hopefully they will do in the next
couple of days, we will have a bill going to the President that will be
the most important reform of the financial markets in more than 80
years now. It has to be done. Otherwise, we're going to slip right back
to where we were. This is not big government. This is wise government.
This is the kind of government that we need to set the boundaries.
Think of it this way, Mr. Ellison. NFL football. Now you play that in
Minnesota, don't you? What's that team in Minnesota?
Mr. ELLISON. The Minnesota Vikings.
Mr. GARAMENDI. The Packers.
Mr. ELLISON. The Packers, they're next door.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Okay. We've got the Packers playing the Vikings. They
do that on occasion, don't they? Imagine that if the sidelines were
erased and imagine if the referees were put back in the locker room.
What would happen?
Mr. ELLISON. I think you would have a lot of injured players. You'd
have a really funny outcome. People wouldn't trust the outcome. Maybe
teams would stop playing because they would believe that the rules
didn't matter any more. And certainly you would give an incentive to
the biggest cheap shot artists on the field, the people who are willing
to do the dirtiest things--the clipping, all of those things--they
would prevail.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I played football for the University of California in
a bygone era, and of course we would never engage in such a thing if
the referees weren't there. But that's the analogy of exactly what
happened in Wall Street. The regulators were absent during the Bush
administration. They simply left the playing field. The referees left
the playing field. They put the rule books aside and it was Katie bar
the door, because anything was allowed.
This bill that we voted on today puts tough new regulations in place,
regulates this market, and puts in place the referees, strengthens the
Securities Exchange Commission.
Mr. Ellison, please.
Mr. ELLISON. I was just going to say, as an old football player
yourself, didn't good refereeing make for a more competitive game?
Didn't that allow competition to really flourish? You could find out
who the better team was if you had a well-regulated football game. Is
that right?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Absolutely true. Similarly, we have a well-regulated
financial market, which we will when this bill is finally is signed,
then we will. The point that I want to make is this, and that's why I
brought this thing up: Where do you stand? Where do the Democrats
stand? We clearly voted today for a major overhaul of the banking
industry, the financial industry, and the mortgage markets, to put in
place strict rules and regulations. That's where we stand--to protect
consumers with the consumer protection bill.
Where do the Republicans stand? Well, why don't we just quote the
Republican minority leader, whose name I won't mention, but let's just
say he represents the Republicans in this House. He is their leader.
{time} 2310
So in an interview with a newspaper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he
said that this bill was a nuclear weapon to kill an ant. I have got the
exact quote here. Maybe I should just read that. I don't want to
misquote him because what he said was so outrageous.
Let's see. Oh, that's the Social Security which we ought to come to
here in a moment. And Social Security, just touching on it, he said,
``We ought to raise the Social Security age to 70 so we can finance the
Afghan war.'' Oh, wait a minute. Did you really mean that, Mr. Leader?
He said, ``This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon,'' when
referring to the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection bill.
``Killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.'' Well, I'm sorry, but it is a
clear indication of where the Republicans stand. They're clearly
standing with the big banks. And on the Senate side, in the last 2
days, the financial regulation to pay for this was going to be paid for
by the big banks. But the Republicans in the Senate said, No, no, no,
no, no. You can't make the banks pay for the regulation. You can't make
the NFL football team pay for the referees. No, no, no, you can't do
that. What you've got to do is to make the taxpayers pay for regulating
the banks.
Whose side are you on here? It's perfectly clear, when you look at
all of these, whose side you are on. When the minority leader, the
Republican leader, says, The effort to rein in Wall Street and protect
consumers is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon, well, I'm sorry.
Wall Street is not an ant. The five, six biggest banks control about 70
percent of all of the financial markets. These are not ants. These are
gigantic anteaters, and we're the ants that they're eating. So we've
got to get this straight: Whose side are you on?
The financial meltdown, the biggest downturn since the Great
Depression, 8 million jobs lost. It's not an ant. This is my neighbor
who lost his job. This is the homeowner who lost their home, and this
is the unemployed person that's begging for our help in continuing the
unemployment insurance because this economy has not yet turned around.
These are very, very serious things.
[[Page H5296]]
There are a couple of other things we really ought to get here. And
if you can work with me on this, we talked earlier a little bit about
health care reform. It's not Big Government. In fact, health care
reform is exactly very similar to the reform in Massachusetts which was
authored by a Republican Governor who went around this Nation taking
great credit for it until it became a national model. This is really
insurance reform. It's not a takeover of the health care industry, not
at all. And it's not anywhere even close to socialized medicine.
In fact, the public option is not in the legislation at all. It is a
reform of the insurance marketplace. It's the kind of reforms that
allow my 23-year-old daughter to stay on my health insurance rather
than becoming uninsured. It's the kind of reform that allows the young
baby that's born with an illness to be able to get insurance. It's the
kind of reform for a 50-year-old individual who has lost their job to
be able to buy an insurance policy at a reasonable rate. It's the kind
of reform that ends the discrimination that every single woman in this
Nation faces when it comes to getting insurance. If you were a woman in
America prior to this health care reform, you had a preexisting
condition that could, and probably would, keep you from buying a
policy.
Those discriminatory actions by the insurance companies are over as a
result of this reform.
Mr. ELLISON. Well, as a woman, you certainly would pay a lot more
than a man would of comparable age and condition. The fact is that
there's a string between all of the things that we've talked to
tonight. We started out talking about the oil spill. We moved on to
talk about financial reform. Now we're delving into health care, but
there's a string connecting them all. One is that the Democratic Caucus
is consistently on the side of the consumer, of the investor, of the
small business person. And the party opposite, the other caucus, is
consistently on the side of the corporate giant, the huge well-moneyed
lobbyist, and the people who stand to gain from the status quo. This is
a consistent stream.
And so you continually ask the question, Congressman Garamendi, Whose
side are you on? This is a fair question. The question must be answered
that the Democratic Caucus is on the side of the people. The party
opposite is on the side of the powerful, the well-to-do, the large
giant corporate entities. And this is something that I think Americans
have got to try to put their hands around, that there is a party who is
going to be the one to say, We're going to restrain Wall Street; we're
going to make them play by the rules; we're going to enhance the
functioning of the marketplace by making sure that there are referees
on the field and not in the locker room.
And this string is a consistency. It ties us together as a
consistent, coherent theme and a message, that the Democratic Caucus is
on the side of the American people.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very, very much for making that clear.
You go through all of these pieces of legislation, and the Democratic
Caucus is there. On the other side of the aisle, on the Republican
side, they're standing with Big Oil, big banks consistently, and the
big health insurance industry.
Now, let me make this point perhaps more clear, and that is, the
Republican minority leader not only said that we ought to take on this
issue of Wall Street reform as though it was some sort of a nuclear
weapon killing an ant. He also talked about health care, and he said
that if the Republicans take control of the Congress after this next
election, if they win enough seats after this next election, they are
going to do everything they possibly can to stop the Patients' Bill of
Rights and other health reforms.
They are out to repeal the reform that Americans desperately need so
they can get affordable health insurance. They want to kill those
reforms. They want to turn back women's opportunity to get an insurance
policy and say, We don't care whether you have a preexisting condition;
you are at the mercy of the health insurance company. If they deny you,
that's your problem. You shouldn't have gotten sick in the first place.
If you are a 23-year-old, you will lose the ability to be on your
parents' benefits.
That's what the Republican Caucus wants to do is to repeal all of the
efforts of consumers and to build into this system a method of keeping
us healthy.
So, okay, whose side are you on? There is a string here. There is a
logic to all of this. One more thing--and I couldn't believe this when
I heard this, and it just came, I guess, in the last day or two. Now,
Social Security is an insurance policy. You and I pay into Social
Security. As Members of Congress, a certain percentage of our pay goes
for Social Security, and so it is with every other person in America
who is working legally. They are paying into Social Security.
Mr. Boehner, the Republican leader, has said that what he wants to do
is to increase the retirement age from 65 to 70 and use the savings to
finance the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And I'm going, Excuse me, wait a
minute. That's my insurance policy. That's my mother's insurance
policy. That is the insurance policy of the working men and women out
there, and you want to take it away to finance the Afghan war. I don't
think so.
But that's once more sign, a signpost--we're following a path here--a
signpost of where the Republicans stand. Big business, ending Social
Security; and in fact, their budget, put out by the Republican Study
Committee, their budget called for the end of Medicare, the
privatization of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
{time} 2320
That's their policy. If that's what the public wants, then those
folks are going to win this election and they're going to come and
they're going to control this House and they're going to try to do it.
I think this would be a serious problem for every American. Medicare,
Social Security privatized? I don't think so.
Mr. ELLISON. Well, if the gentleman will yield, I want to say that,
in my opinion, Social Security is one of the greatest pieces of
legislation this country has ever seen, and so is Medicare. These
programs are very important because they signal that we really are in
this thing together and that we're not going to let our seniors descend
to the level where they're eating dog food or making choices between
medication and a meal. But it's going to require an aware population to
get it, that, you know, there are real things at stake here, big things
at stake here.
And the question keeps being asked: Who's side are you on?
Why don't you go through some of those critical things?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's just go through this. Who's side are you on?
Democrats supporting jobs and bills. We talked about the Cash for
Caulkers and other programs and the jobs bill, every single one of them
opposed. No jobs bills.
Unemployment insurance. People are losing their unemployment
insurance because of the Republican Party. What are they going to do?
The economy hasn't come back. They're going to lose their jobs. They're
going to lose their home. We're going to start another downward spiral.
We talked about the health care effort. Not one Republican voted for
the health care bill. Excuse me. One in this House. One Republican
voted for the health care bill.
Wall Street. We talked about Wall Street reform. Republicans vote
against it; the Democrats vote for it.
We talk about the Consumer Protection Agency. The Republicans are
opposed to it; the Democrats support it.
We talk about small business reforms which are in this bill and in
other bills. The Republicans consistently vote against small business,
the increase of the Small Business Administration.
We can go back through the major bills that this House has voted on.
The American Recovery Act, known as the stimulus bill, Republicans
voted against it.
You look at the energy and climate to break our addiction to oil.
Democrats vote for it; Republicans vote against it.
You look at the Wall Street reform and the Consumer Protection Act.
Democrats vote for it; Republicans consistently and in en bloc vote
against it.
You talk about the gulf oil spill, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The Republicans blame the government and want to apologize rather than
the instigator of the problem, BP.
[[Page H5297]]
On Social Security, the Republican leader wants to extend the age to
70 in order to get Social Security.
You talk about health care reform. We've discussed that already. The
Republicans vote against it. They want to repeal it. They get into
power in this House, they're going to repeal the reforms.
And unemployment and jobs, every single jobs bill they vote against.
Every effort we have made to put people to work, whether it was in
transportation--and that is in the American Recovery Act--or in the
current jobs bills, keeping teachers employed, we want to employ
teachers. They talk about the next generation, yes. But you don't
educate that next generation, we're in trouble.
All of these things add up and it is, as you say, there's a string,
there's a path, there are road signs here. Who's side are you on?
The Republicans have consistently sided with Big Oil, big health
insurance companies. It's time for us to recognize the difference.
Mr. ELLISON. Well, I just want to say the gentleman, I think, is
absolutely right. And I just want to say this as I think we're coming
down to the final moments.
Mr. GARAMENDI. We are.
Mr. ELLISON. Look, the Republicans had their chance, and we are still
reaping the bitter fruit of what their leadership has brought this
country. They had 12 years between 1994 and 2006 in the Congress, and
then they had 6 years with a Republican President. In that time, they
did nothing about reforming Wall Street, though they had two Houses and
the Presidency. They didn't do anything about reining in these banks.
They didn't do anything about reforming regulation. They did nothing on
health care.
And now they have the audacity to want to say, We want the wheel
back. Yeah, we drove the car into a ditch, but we want the wheel back.
We want to drive again. And you know what? It just can't happen.
I yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. GARAMENDI. The final point is this: In the 8 years of the George
W. Bush administration, about a million net jobs were created. In the
last 8 months to 9 months, more jobs have been created than in the
entire George W. Bush administration. Now, that's a fact. Read it any
way you want.
We're on the right road here. We want to continue that path.
Mr. Ellison, thank you so very much. And it's good to know that the
Packers are your team.
Mr. ELLISON. No, the Vikings. I like the Packers, but more, I like
the Vikings.
Mr. GARAMENDI. But remember, in an NFL football game, you need a
referee, and on Wall Street, you need a referee also.
____________________