[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 31 (Thursday, March 3, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H1576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

            By Mr. RUSH:
        H.R. 900.
        Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant 
     to the following:
       To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the 
     several States, and with the Indian tribes. U.S. Const., Art. 
     I, Sec. 8, Cl. 3. The Interstate Commerce Clause serves as 
     the constitutional basis for this legislation. In 1984, the 
     Federal Trade Commission issued ``The Funeral Rule'' pursuant 
     to its authority under Sections 5 and 18 of the Federal Trade 
     Commission Act, which permits the FTC to promulgate trade 
     regulation rules that define with specificity unfair or 
     deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce. The 
     Funeral Rule applies only to funeral homes. Its primary 
     purposes are ``[t]o ensure that consumers receive information 
     necessary to make informed purchasing decisions, and to lower 
     existing barriers to price competition in the market for 
     funeral goods and services.'' The traditional marketplace for 
     funeral and burial goods and services has dramatically 
     evolved. Over the past 20 years, waves of cross-state funeral 
     homes & cemetery consolidations and combinations, increasing 
     cremation trends, challenging legal questions over 
     portability of death-care sales contracts and pre-need 
     insurance policies, and a significant rise in the number of 
     third- party sellers of death care goods and services now 
     warrant regulatory parity among the death care industry's 
     sectors. Accordingly, this legislation would expressly 
     authorize the FTC to promulgate and to enforce, along with 
     the States rules promoting competition and protecting 
     vulnerable consumers from severe economic and emotional 
     harms.