[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 45 (Monday, March 19, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1776-S1784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS STARTUPS ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 3606, which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3606) to increase American job creation and 
     economic growth by improving access to public capital markets 
     for emerging growth companies.

  Pending:

       Reid (for Reed) amendment No. 1833, in the nature of a 
     substitute.
       Reid amendment No. 1834 (to amendment No. 1833), to change 
     the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 1835 (to amendment No. 1834), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Reid (for Cantwell) amendment No. 1836 (to the language 
     proposed to be stricken by amendment No. 1833), to 
     reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
       Reid amendment No. 1837 (to amendment No. 1836), to change 
     the enactment date.
       Reid motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on 
     Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, with instructions, Reid 
     amendment No. 1838, to change the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 1839 (to (the instructions) amendment 
     No. 1838), of a perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 1840 (to amendment No. 1839), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. President, I rise today to speak 
about an amendment I am cosponsoring with Senator Cantwell as well as 
Senator Graham and Senator Shelby to reauthorize the Export-Import 
Bank. This amendment is important to thousands of workers in Senator 
Cantwell's home State of Washington, and I thank her for offering it 
with me.
  This amendment is not just important to the State of Washington; it 
is important to our national economy. It will create and support more 
jobs than any other provision in the underlying bill before us today. I 
believe this is why there was unanimous bipartisan support last year 
when Senator Shelby and I passed this bill out of the Banking 
Committee, and it is why we should pass it this week.
  This legislation would ensure that the bank is able to continue to 
provide support for U.S. exporters and workers. The amendment extends 
the authorization of the bank for 4 years and will increase the bank's 
lending authority to $140 billion by 2015. It also strengthens 
transparency and accountability at the bank, strengthens restrictions 
against companies doing business with Iran, and provides for greater 
oversight of the bank's financing and any risks it may have to 
taxpayers.
  The Export-Import Bank is the official export credit agency of the 
United States. It assists in the financing exports of U.S. goods and 
services to international markets. Following the financial crisis, the 
bank experienced a dramatic increase in its activities, as many 
companies struggled to find financing in the private market.

  In fiscal year 2010, the bank saw a 70-percent increase in 
authorizations from 2008. Last year the bank committed to almost $33 
billion in support of U.S. exports, a new record.
  The bank has been self-funding since 2008, returning nearly $2 
billion to the Treasury. In fiscal year 2011 alone the bank generated 
$400 million to offset

[[Page S1777]]

Federal spending and bring down the budget deficit. It is not often 
that we discuss government programs that reduce the deficit. So let me 
repeat that. The Export-Import Bank returned $400 million to American 
taxpayers last year.
  We cannot take future success for granted, however. So I am pleased 
this legislation will implement reforms to help ensure that the bank is 
working as efficiently and effectively as possible to protect the 
taxpayers. We must not forget American companies are competing in a 
truly global marketplace. The Export-Import Bank plays a vital role in 
ensuring that the global marketplace is also a fair one. When other 
countries are helping their own companies with export financing, we 
cannot afford to unilaterally disarm in the face of this global 
competition.
  Let me be clear. This is the JOBS bill. The Export-Import Bank 
charter directs it to use exports to create and maintain jobs at home. 
Last year the Export-Import Bank supported almost 290,000 American 
jobs. These are jobs in cities and towns across the Nation, at large 
companies as well as small businesses. In fact last year, the Export-
Import Bank financed more than $6 billion in exports by small 
businesses, the engine of economic growth.
  In my home State of South Dakota, Ex-Im has worked with large and 
small businesses to help export goods all over the world. In the last 5 
years alone it has helped support over $20 million worth of export 
sales. This support has been critical to many companies in my State as 
they look to expand their customer base. More importantly, Ex-Im 
financing has helped support good-paying American jobs in South Dakota, 
something we need to make sure there are more of.
  I believe while the bank is doing a good job, they can and must do 
more. I believe this legislation will help the bank reach that goal. 
This measure was a bipartisan effort in the Senate Banking Committee. I 
thank Senator Shelby for his support. In addition, I thank Senator 
Warner, Senator Bennet, and Senator Hagan for their important input 
into this legislation.
  The bank's current authorization expires on May 30, 2012--in just 2 
months. It is important that we pass this jobs amendment today. I hope 
my colleagues will support the Cantwell-Johnson-Graham-Shelby amendment 
to ensure that the bank continues to carry out its mission of 
supporting American jobs and exports.
  I would also like to briefly address a filed amendment on which 
Majority Leader Reid and Senator Udall have spoken, the credit union 
member business lending amendment. As chairman of the Banking 
Committee, I held a hearing on this issue last June. My staff and I 
have told the leader and his staff since then that this is a very 
controversial matter.
  From the testimony of the credit union and banking industry witnesses 
at that hearing, and the ongoing competition over the past month, it is 
clear there is no consensus. If the Senate chooses to go forward on 
this issue, I urge the Senate to move forward carefully.
  Finally, with respect to the underlying House bill, I would like to 
make a few comments.
  This is not the bill I would have drafted. Over the last several 
months, I have worked to enhance the investor protections contained in 
the capital formation proposals passed by the House in a thoughtful 
manner while helping to support entrepreneurs, grow small businesses, 
and put Americans back to work.
  I will have a separate statement laying out my views in more detail.
  I am pleased to have assisted my colleagues in crafting the Senate 
substitute amendment that addresses investor protection concerns. I 
urge my colleagues to support the Senate substitute.
  If this body chooses to reject the enhanced investor protections in 
the Senate substitute, we must remember that all Members of Congress 
have a duty to keep an eye on the effects of these changes. We are 
plowing new ground here, and we have a shared responsibility to ensure 
that, going forward, the new changes we enact into law will truly 
benefit, and not undermine, both startups and investors alike.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I support the chairman of the Banking 
Committee and his call for us to come together this week to support the 
expansion of the Export-Import Bank. It is an extremely successful tool 
to use to help small, medium, and large businesses to be able to 
compete overseas and to give small businesses--particularly Main Street 
businesses--the help they need to succeed in overseas markets, which 
can be very daunting. I thank the chairman for his strong support and 
the way he worked in a bipartisan manner. I plan to vote for that 
amendment tomorrow.
  The biggest vote we are going to take tomorrow is not on the Ex-Im 
Bank. That is something that I think there is generally broad support 
for, a general understanding, and a general level of comfort with, 
although there will be some who do not vote for the expansion of the 
bank because they philosophically are opposed to a muscular role of 
government. Those of us who believe that the private sector, the 
government, and nonprofits all need to have muscle working together on 
behalf of the people we seek to serve will most certainly not allow 
ideology to get in the way of voting for a good idea such as the Ex-Im 
Bank.
  That is not our problem. Our problem is the IPO legislation. I call 
this the ``ill-advised political opportunity'' bill, the Jumpstart 
America bill, the JOBS bill. It has several names, but what it does is 
deregulate financial markets under the guise of job creation.
  Over the weekend, there were literally dozens and dozens of 
editorials against the House bill that we are going to vote on 
tomorrow. I know we are not coming fully into session in the morning, 
as not all the Senators are back in Washington at this hour on Monday. 
But I know their staffs are watching the goings-on on the floor. I want 
to call everyone's attention to this IPO bill flying over here from the 
House of Representatives. It is not what you think it is. It is not 
what you have been told it is. It is flying under the guise of job 
creation. It is flying under the guise of democratizing the credit 
market. It is flying under the guise of we have to do something to get 
money into the hands of mom-and-pop operators.
  I said this last week. I don't think anyone has spent as much time on 
the floor of the Senate arguing to get more credit into the hands of 
small business. I hope my credibility on that issue raises some 
questions, at least, if I am on the floor saying vote against the House 
bill; do not vote for cloture on the House bill. I hope Senators can 
support the substitute, which I have offered in good faith with 
Senators Levin and Reed, the second ranking member on the Banking 
Committee, and Senator Levin, who chairs the investigatory committee 
for the entire Senate, the committee that has looked into financial 
scandal after financial scandal. And I am chair of the Small Business 
Committee. We have come together, the three of us, to say: Wait a 
minute, slow down; this bill coming from the House, which had broad 
support, no doubt, is not what it looks like. It needs more work. It 
needs more investor protections. It is a major change in the way people 
can raise money, which is illegal now, for private companies on the 
Internet. If you want to start a company in America, you can ask your 
friends, your parents, your children, or your neighbors--you can do a 
small circle of investors. But once you sort of make that known 
publicly, in a public way, such as in a radio announcement, or on a 
billboard, or in a public way, such as on the Internet, there are rules 
and regulations you have to follow to make sure you are telling the 
truth. Those regulations, in large measure, have been taken out of the 
House bill, generally.
  Let me share with you, besides this name ``ill-advised political 
opportunity''--and look, some good people voted for the House bill, 
people of good will, but I kind of think this bill got cobbled together 
because the majority on the House side can sort of put something in a 
Rules Committee and that is the way it will be and, thank you, if you 
have any opposition, the minority voice is quelled over there. That is 
the nature of the House. But the minority should not be silent over 
here, and our rules allow for a more full debate.
  This is the time for the Senate to act as the Senate and slow this 
down, cool

[[Page S1778]]

it off, get the right safeguards, and maybe it can be an excellent 
opportunity for changes to our financial markets. But it has to go 
through the process. This bill didn't even go through the Banking 
Committee. It was going to go through the Banking Committee, and then 
the decision was made to step on the gas, let's go for it, before it 
went through a markup in the Banking Committee. A part of it came 
through our committee. We didn't even have a markup, but the two pieces 
from the SBA are not controversial, and we would be happy to mark up 
the bill if given a chance. We could do it later this week.
  Let me share with you some of the headlines. The New York Times, 
which, if there was any newspaper in America that understands Wall 
Street, both its great strengths, its weaknesses--if there was any 
newspaper that understands the financial markets, the New York Times 
would be one of them. They said--and they are talking about the House 
bill--they said the JOBS Act is ``Paving a Path to Fraud on Wall 
Street.''
  We don't need to go back. We are just leaving the path to fraud. We 
are moving away from fraud. Now what are we going to do? Turn and go 
back to it?
  The Washington Post said: ``Wall Street Credo: Ripping Out Their 
Eyeballs.''
  The PC World: `` `JOBS Act Would Revive Dot-com Abuses,' official 
claims.''
  Investment News: ``Job Act Merits Greater Scrutiny.''
  Most shocking to me was the Bloomberg News: ``Small Biz JOBS Act Is a 
Bipartisan Bridge Too Far: View.''
  They wrote an excellent piece on this, which I will read some of into 
the Record. Senator Jack Reed spoke about this. I am saying, Members, 
whatever you have been told about this bill, please read the details 
and please read some of the very credible articles that are being 
written about the House bill.
  There are good parts to it. I am a general supporter of crowdfunding, 
which is what I described--to make it legal for the first time in 
history for people to go on the Internet and raise money for private 
entities. I think the idea is a very good one. With the right 
safeguards in place, it could be a boon to small businesses and growing 
businesses that sometimes are shut out of those very fancy boardrooms 
where decisions are made behind closed doors and in very secretive 
meetings. I have been an advocate my whole life for opening this, so 
that ordinary people, middle-class people, can get involved in creating 
wealth through investing, instead of it being a small club of those who 
may go to the same school or go to the same social events and have the 
same social network. We want to move beyond that. America is a great 
experiment on how to create a middle class and give ordinary people the 
opportunity to create great wealth. We do that very well.

  America has also been a place where we almost took down the whole 
world financial community with us. That is how big we are, how strong 
we are, and how careful we must be. We are not being careful; we are 
being too political with the House bill. We are not being careful.
  What does Bloomberg say? They say this:

       A spirit of bipartisanship is sweeping Capitol Hill, with 
     lawmakers poised to approve a package of bills aimed at 
     reducing regulatory burdens on small businesses. We wish we 
     could raise a glass. This moment has been too long in coming. 
     But the legislation it has spawned would be dangerous for 
     investors and could harm already fragile financial markets.

  This is Bloomberg. Please listen. Bloomberg is not right on 
everything--no one is, no publication is, no Senator is; but this is 
Bloomberg, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, and this is the 
head of the Securities and Exchange Commission saying the bill is good 
but it lacks investor protections that are essential for its proper 
implementation.
  They go on to say:

       We agree that redtape can needlessly tie up small 
     companies. We also agree that security laws that bar start-
     ups from harnessing the power of the Internet to raise funds 
     could use updating. And it makes sense to allow, as the bill 
     does, an initial public offering onramp, which could give 
     start-ups a chance to grow. But the JOBS Act goes too far. It 
     would gut many of the investor protections established just a 
     decade ago in Sarbanes-Oxley. A wave of accounting scandals 
     had upended Enron and WorldCom and destroyed nest eggs of 
     millions of Americans and upended investor confidence in Wall 
     Street.

  We have to be careful. That is why the AARP sent out a strongly 
worded letter. This is one of the most powerful organizations in the 
country. Some of their members--the ones who were so grossly hurt by 
the greed of Wall Street and the insatiable appetite of some of these 
large investment banks to make more money, because people need to make 
more than $5 million a month. I don't know how you spend $5 million in 
a month, but some people think they are entitled to make $60 million or 
$240 million a year. It is beyond comprehension. It wasn't enough for 
them. They had to make more and more and more.
  Millions of people whom I represent, and some in New York and in 
Florida, lost their life savings. Are we going to go back to those 
days, just because we want a bumper sticker that says we are about 
creating jobs here? We are creating jobs now in America. Maybe it is 
not fast enough for everyone, but every month the reports come out. 
Let's not rush and do something that will set us back.
  This is what AARP said:

       We are writing to reiterate our opposition to the lack of 
     investment protections in H.R. 3606.

  If you vote for cloture on H.R. 3606 tomorrow, I hope when you go 
back home, the members of AARP--the largest and one of the most 
politically powerful groups in the country--will ask you why did you 
vote on that bill? Please don't tell me it is about creating jobs. It 
is really about pulling the rug out from under investor protections, of 
which many older Americans who have a lifetime of savings in 
investments are disproportionately represented among victims of 
investment fraud.

  They go on to say:

       We share the concerns raised by SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, 
     the North American Securities administrator, law professors, 
     investor advocates, and others that absent safeguards 
     ensuring proper oversight, the various provisions in H.R. 
     3606 may well open the floodgates to repeat the kind of penny 
     stock and other frauds that ensnared financially 
     unsophisticated and other vulnerable investors in the past. 
     AARP urges the Senate to take a more balanced approach.

  Mr. President, that is what we are trying to do, to take a balanced 
approach. I am not trying to kill the crowdfunding idea. I am not 
trying to kill the IPO onramp idea, which is to help fast-growing 
gazelles, they call them, to grow a little before they have to bear the 
burden of some of those regulations, which, while important, can be 
burdensome. I understand that. My committee has been working for months 
coming up with some very interesting ideas about how to get capital 
into the hands of small businesses. It is not something that I am 
unaware of, but the House bill is not the way to go.
  Even President Obama sent a statement. The White House sent a 
statement that I will get in just a minute because I think it is 
important to see the nuances. Yes, it is true the President supported 
the House bill. It is true some very good Democrats who are very good 
watchdogs on this issue voted for the bill. But let me read the last 
sentence of the President's latest Statement of Administration Policy 
because the nuance is important.
  The administration did say it supports the House passage of the 
bill--meaning H.R. 3606--but the last sentence says:

       The administration looks forward to continuing to work with 
     the House and the Senate to craft legislation that 
     facilitates capital formation and job growth for small 
     business and provides appropriate investor protections.

  The nuance is very important. The White House is signaling that while 
they do support H.R. 3606, they would also welcome additional work to 
put investor protections into the law. I think that is good. I know 
this President, this administration has worked hard to clean up Wall 
Street. They have kept the automobile industry from the brink of 
financial collapse and have brought it back. That has restored 
confidence in Wall Street, under great controversy and great criticism. 
I know it is one of the proudest achievements of this administration. 
So under no circumstance would we want to go backward, not at this 
crucial point. That is why I am afraid, if

[[Page S1779]]

we don't fix this bill, that is exactly what will happen.
  I wish I could have this in a larger format because I don't know if 
the camera can see this, but this reflects the loss of jobs under the 
former administration and the loss of jobs when President Obama took 
office. Now we can see this almost reversing itself, with jobs being 
created in almost every month and every quarter. More than 3.9 million 
private sector jobs have been created in the past 24 months. And, yes, 
we need to do more, but the House bill goes too far.
  But don't just take my word for it; listen to the Bloomberg 
editorial, the Boston Globe op-ed against the House bill, the 
Investment News editorials--``JOBS Act Merits Greater Scrutiny'' from 
the Business Journal. Now, this is blog 3, but these are pretty 
reputable blogs. We just don't bring any blogs to the floor of the 
Senate. These are reputable bloggers that have received some kind of 
following--``Why the JOBS Act Should Be In Trouble.'' New York Times 
column: ``Paving Path to Fraud on Wall Street. JOBS Act to Rewrite the 
Rules of Silicon Valley Investing.''
  This is very interesting because my staff tells me the ``bio 
community'' and the ``high-tech community'' are for this bill. I get 
that. But this is what I don't understand, and I am quoting from one of 
the blogs by Rafi Needleman, and he is writing as if he is in Silicon 
Valley, and he is:

       There is a lot of smart money looking for new places to 
     land, and these funding sources cannot only write sizable 
     checks, they can offer start-ups or other material benefits--
     connections, tactical and strategic advice, and partnerships 
     with other start-ups in their portfolio.

  So the question he is asking is, Why, basically, is it necessary to 
move outside of these traditional sources when there is plenty of 
money? They are just looking for some good ideas. Throwing more money 
through an unregulated financial scheme is not going to create any new 
ideas. It is just going to create a lot of money that could be taken 
advantage of by very sophisticated people who understand how to take 
good ideas and twist them into greed and fraud, if we don't have the 
right protections.
  So there is a lot of capital out there. It is just not necessarily in 
the right place. There is some opportunity for us to do some things. 
But the last thing the Senate would want to do is debate this bill on 
the floor of the Senate. This needs committee work. This bill needs to 
go to a markup where it can be, in a few days, debated, negotiated, and 
there can be amendments back and forth and we can fix some of the 
problems. The last thing we need to be doing is flying a bill of this 
nature right through the Senate.
  As I said, there has not been a jobs bill where I haven't kind of 
rushed to the floor. It may not have been perfect, but I have said: 
Look, we have to create jobs. Let's try it. Let's do it. And we have 
tried some new things. But when I saw this bill from the House was 
coming directly to the floor without going through the Banking 
Committee, that made me nervous. It made my political instincts stand 
up and say: Wait, wait, why are we rushing? The more I learned and the 
more I read, it became apparent to me this bill from the House is not 
ready for prime time. It is not ready to go to the President's desk for 
signature.
  So here we have Senator Reed, the ranking member on the Banking 
Committee, and Senator Levin of Michigan, who has been a voice of 
reason and wisdom on financial deregulation and fraud and the scams 
that have occurred not just on Wall Street but offshore in secret 
island accounts where people have ripped off our citizens and then run 
for the hills and we can't find them or run to the islands. Who knows 
about these things? And he said: Wait a minute. What is going on here? 
So that is why we are here.
  I know the Senator from Michigan is here to speak, so let me wrap up 
by saying we have offered, in the spirit of trying to improve the House 
bill, a substitute. I am going to vote for the substitute. It is the 
Reed-Landrieu-Levin substitute. I hope our Members and some 
Republicans--I hope many Republicans; but if we could get a few, that 
would be good--will vote for our substitute. If we get cloture on that 
then we will go to a 30-hour debate on our substitute.

  I want that bill to be open to amendment. I am not trying to ram 
anything through. We should be open to amendments--maybe 10 on the 
Republican side, 10 on our side or whatever the leadership can agree to 
so that we can address some of the problems even in our own bill. We 
had to rush so quickly to get in a substitute, there are one or two 
things we would like to correct in our bill that have been brought to 
our attention.
  In conclusion, if you can't vote for our substitute, please vote no 
on cloture on the House bill--on the ill-advised political opportunity 
bill, or whatever they call it, the IPO bill, the JOBS Act bill, the 
onramp bill. They have a dozen names for it, but what it does is just 
what the New York Times said: It is a pathway to fraud.
  We don't want to go back there. It is just what Bloomberg said. It is 
bipartisanship that we cannot raise a glass to. They said: We wish we 
could toast it, but we cannot raise a glass. It goes too far.
  So we have an opportunity to do something good for our markets, and 
our Presiding Officer, Senator Blumenthal, who is from the State of 
Connecticut, which has a tremendous amount of financial 
sophistication--he is well aware, as a former prosecutor, how important 
some of these issues are. So it is important to get this right.
  The bill, again, has come over from the House, rushed over here, and 
has not gone through our Banking Committee. I will be happy to 
negotiate with anyone on this floor. I am not wedded to any specific or 
particular position on the small business pieces. They can be in 
there--I think they are good--or we can take them out, and it can just 
be a banking bill, although we have a lot of support for the increase 
in the SBICs and the 504 lending, which is very important to the small 
business community.
  But I feel so strongly about getting the deregulation part of this 
correct, I would take that out if it would help my Republican 
colleagues to negotiate on the other part of the bill.
  So I see Senator Levin on the Senate floor. I will turn it over to 
him now. But, please, I am pleading with my colleagues to take a look 
at this House bill. Just read some of the details. Read some of the 
comments of some great financial columnists, both on the left and 
right, who have written us against the House bill and urged further 
consideration.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, before the Senator from Louisiana leaves 
the floor, I just want to commend her for the passion she has brought 
to this debate, as well as the reason and the wisdom she has brought to 
this debate. This is a bill that is extremely complex. The House bill 
comes over and it has had almost zero the attention it deserves because 
of the complexity in this bill. But Senator Landrieu has been a voice 
appealing to us to do what the Senate should do, which is deliberate.
  If there has ever been a bill which cried out for deliberation, it is 
this bill. The way it stands now, amendments are not going to be in 
order, and that is not the way we should proceed in this body. We are 
all grateful--I hope everyone is grateful--to Senator Landrieu for kind 
of blowing the whistle on the 100-mile-an-hour train that is moving 
through this Senate unless we stop it tomorrow and say: Slow this down. 
Let's look at the details of the provisions of this bill.
  In the years since the financial crisis sent our economy into a 
tailspin, many of us in the Senate have sought to do what we could to 
create the conditions for a rebound in the job market so that American 
workers could find the jobs they needed. We have fought, we have 
debated, scratched, and clawed our way to do everything we could to 
boost job creation. Now before us is a bill called the Jumpstart Our 
Business Startups Act--the acronym being the JOBS Act. Just because you 
can come up with an acronym which spells ``jobs'' should not lead 
anybody to believe this necessarily makes it a jobs bill. It is 
obviously a clever acronym that has been picked up by many people in 
the media, so all of a sudden it is a jobs bill.
  But when you look at this bill and when you look at the people who 
are in

[[Page S1780]]

this field who have analyzed it, including people who are in the 
investment world, including the people who protect investors from fraud 
and abuse, from their perspective and the SEC's perspective and the 
Council of Institutional Investors' perspective, this is not a jobs 
bill. This is a bill which threatens jobs in this country.
  Its supporters say it will create jobs. But, again, making it 
possible for an acronym to spell jobs doesn't make it a jobs bill. In 
``Alice in Wonderland,'' Humpty Dumpty could confidently declare to 
Alice: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean. Well, 
we don't have that luxury here in the Senate. Calling it a jobs bill 
doesn't make it a jobs bill. And there is a rising wave of overwhelming 
concern among those who know this area the best that the ground we are 
about to tread on, far from helping to create jobs, is going to put 
jobs in jeopardy.
  The House bill before us would, its supporters tell us, allow 
companies--especially small growing companies that account for a large 
share of the jobs created in our economy--greater access to the capital 
they need to grow, market their products, and hire new workers. Its 
supporters say it will create new links between investors seeking new 
opportunities and the companies that can put those investments to work.
  For that to take place, investors need confidence that the new 
opportunities we seek to create are sound investments. But what are the 
investors telling us? They are telling us just the opposite. If this 
bill will help businesses attract new investors, why is the Council of 
Institutional Investors and some of the largest pension and investment 
funds in the Nation telling us it will frighten investors away rather 
than attract them? If this bill will create new growth opportunities 
for small businesses, why are business groups from the Main Street 
Alliance to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce appealing to us for changes? 
If this bill will allow companies to access capital more easily, why 
are the current Chairman of the SEC and former SEC Chairmen of both 
political parties telling us this legislation will dampen capital 
formation rather than speeding it?
  The problem is that in the guise of job creation, this legislation 
rolls back important investor protections and transparency requirements 
that are fundamental to our capital markets. Under the legislation the 
House has sent us, investors will know less about the companies they 
are solicited to invest in, they will have less confidence those 
companies follow standard accounting practices, they will have no 
assurance that the solicitation they have just received over the 
Internet or by telephone is for a legitimate company and not for a 
boiler room fraud operation.
  It does not have to be this way. We can remove obstacles to small 
business growth without creating new opportunities for fraud. We don't 
need to endanger jobs in the guise of helping to create jobs. Senator 
Jack Reed, Senator Landrieu, Senator Brown, and I believe we can create 
new opportunities for growing companies without creating a Wild West 
mentality in our capital markets.
  I am now going to outline a few of the ways in which we seek to 
repair the flaws of the House bill and enable real growth in job 
creation.
  Right now companies that need capital to grow and add jobs are 
allowed to sell stock in some cases without oversight by the SEC and 
under looser legal liability rules. But in return for that reduced 
oversight, the companies must sell almost exclusively to investors who 
meet high income or asset thresholds that help to ensure they are able 
to understand and absorb the high risk of these investments. Right now, 
companies making these largely unregulated offerings are not generally 
allowed to offer them to the public. The House bill will allow 
companies to market these unregulated stock sales, known as private 
offerings, to the general public. They could advertise on billboards or 
on TV or in cold calls to senior living centers, and offer them to 
investors regardless of the investor's ability to absorb the risk, and 
with almost no oversight.
  Our substitute would ensure that firms could sell these unregulated 
offerings only to investors better able to withstand the risks, and we 
direct the SEC to develop advertising standards. These provisions in 
our substitute heed the lesson from an earlier mistake. In 1992, the 
SEC loosened rules on these unregulated stock sales but reestablished 
restrictions 7 years later in part due to widespread fraud.
  That is why groups such as the AARP say:

       [The House] legislation represents a very considerable 
     redrawing of the lines between the public and private 
     markets, and should not be enacted without greater attention 
     to the potential risks of such an approach. We urge the 
     Senate to . . . adopt a much more narrowly targeted approach.

  The State Securities Administrators say:

       State securities regulators are deeply concerned that . . . 
     the Internet will be flooded with new securities offerings, 
     and . . . there will be no way for regulators--or prospective 
     investors--to reasonably determine if the particular issuer 
     is a legitimate business, or a criminal with good computer 
     skills.

  There is another problem. Right now companies with more than 500 
shareholders and $10 million or more in assets are deemed large enough 
and public enough that they must register with the SEC. Registration 
means they must provide the SEC and the public with regular financial 
reports and other information to help ensure that investors and 
regulators have an accurate picture of the company's finances. That is 
the current situation. It also means that companies must comply with 
accounting and other transparency standards that help to ensure the 
integrity of the market.
  What does the House bill do? The House bill allows firms with up to 
2,000 shareholders--and perhaps significantly more--and with billions 
of dollars in assets to avoid registration and disclosure requirements, 
meaning investors in even very large companies would have almost no 
meaningful information on these firms. It would allow banks of any size 
to avoid oversight if they have fewer than 1,200 shareholders. This is 
not a small business bill; this is a big business bill in many key 
respects.
  What do we do in our substitute? We ensure that large companies with 
wide public stock ownership register with the SEC, file regular 
financial reports, and follow standard accounting rules. We eliminate a 
loophole that allows one shareholder to hold shares for many beneficial 
owners by clarifying, as our substitute does, that when 
determining whether a stock is widely enough held to trigger the 
disclosure requirements, what counts is beneficial owners, not just 
owners of record. And we do ease regulatory requirements, as does the 
House bill, for growing companies that use stock to recruit and 
compensate employees by exempting them from shareholder account 
requirements.

  What do some of the outside independent viewers say about this?
  Main Street Alliance:

       Rolling back basic transparency rules, like SEC 
     registration, won't help small businesses. Instead, it will 
     tilt the playing field toward unscrupulous actors who are 
     looking to game the system.

  Americans for Financial Reform:

       The House bill would make it possible for companies, 
     including very large companies with a large number of 
     shareholders, to avoid making the periodic disclosures on 
     which market transparency depends.

  The House bill's combination of unregulated stock offerings marketed 
to the general public, along with allowing even large, widely held 
companies to dodge meaningful transparency requirements, means that 
very large companies could market their shares to the general public 
with no meaningful oversight. They could do so without ever giving 
investors an accurate picture of their financial condition and without 
following standard accounting practices.
  The House bill is a recipe for widespread fraud that could undermine 
the integrity of stock markets, frighten investors away from the 
market, and kill jobs instead of creating them.
  What else exists currently that would be changed by the House bill 
and what would be corrected by our substitute? Right now, rules are in 
place to prevent conflicts of interest in investment banks by building 
a wall between research analysts who advise investors and salespeople 
who try to convince investors to buy new stocks that they are 
underwriting.
  For example, at investment banks competing for the lucrative business 
of helping companies go public, the current rules help to prevent the 
investment banks from competing for that

[[Page S1781]]

business by promising companies that their research analysts will give 
favorable recommendations on the company's new stock. These rules were 
put in place based on the lessons of the dot-com bubble of the 1990s.
  What would the House bill do? It would largely dissolve the wall, 
tear down the wall between research analysts and sales staffs for 
companies in advance of and up to 5 years following an initial public 
offering of stock. This has raised concern among regulators, investment 
groups, and businesses that investment banks might issue misleading 
research in order to attract underwriting business.
  What does the Chairman of the SEC say?

       The House bill could return us to conflicts of interest 
     which ultimately severely harm investor confidence.

  We in our substitute would keep these conflict-of-interest rules in 
place as they currently exist.
  What does the Chamber of Commerce say? This is called a jobs bill, 
pro-business bill. This is what the Chamber says about this provision:

       There may be a blurring of boundaries that could create 
     potential conflicts of interest between the research and 
     investment components of broker dealers.

  The SEC Chairman, what does she say?

       I am concerned that the House bill could foster a return to 
     those [conflicted] practices and cause real and significant 
     damage to investors.

  What do the State Securities Administrators say? These are the folks 
in each of our States who try to protect us from fraudulent or 
erroneous representations relative to securities.

       [W]eakening the standards applicable to research analysts . 
     . . could create a conflict of interest resulting in 
     devastating losses for Main Street investors.

  That is our State Securities Administrators.
  The Financial Analyst Institute:

       In particular, we are concerned that the proposal to permit 
     brokerage firm analysts to write and distribute research on 
     companies whose IPO shares their firms are underwriting will 
     lead to the kind of conflicted research that decimated 
     investor confidence in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

  In another provision in current law, companies that want to raise 
money by selling stock to the public must comply with accounting and 
disclosure rules to help give investors accurate information on company 
finances. These companies must obey standard accounting rules and have 
adequate internal controls. Many of these rules were a response to 
high-profile accounting frauds such as Enron and WorldCom, and some 
were in the Dodd-Frank act in the wake of the financial crisis.
  My Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations investigated Enron. We 
saw what happened in the absence of these kinds of standard accounting 
rules being followed by companies. So what does the House bill do? It 
creates a new class of company called emerging growth companies with up 
to $1 billion in annual revenues. How is that for small business, $1 
billion in annual revenues? It would be exempt from many of these 
accounting standards and financial disclosures. This $1 billion figure 
is so high that it would have exempted well over 80 percent of all 
companies that made initial public stock offerings from meaningful 
disclosure and integrity rules in recent years. One billion dollars in 
revenue is not anybody's reasonable definition of a small company.
  What would we do in our substitute? We would reduce the House bill's 
revenue exemption from $1 billion to $350 million, making it easier for 
truly small firms to raise the money to grow, but we maintain important 
transparency requirements for large companies. And what do the outside 
independent folks have to say about this particular provision?
  The Council of Institutional Investors, again representing the 
largest investors in this country, pension funds and so forth, says:

       The Council is concerned that the threshold may be too high 
     in establishing an appropriate balance between facilitating 
     capital formation and protecting investors.

  The Chairman of the SEC says:

       The definition of ``emerging growth company'' is so broad 
     that it would eliminate important protections for investors 
     even in very large companies.

  The former SEC chief accountant, Lynn Turner, says:

       The House bill's changes for companies of up to $1 billion 
     in revenues is a ``fundamental reduction in the level of 
     transparency and regulation for companies going public.''

  And, finally, the issue of crowdfunding, so-called, where there are 
small investments by large numbers of people. Right now, the rules 
generally prohibit a company from raising very small amounts from 
ordinary investors without significant costs. Some businesses would 
like to attract small investments from ordinary investors by selling 
shares through the Internet through using intermediaries or funding 
portals--a practice known as ``crowdfunding.'' If done right, this 
could be a useful tool of the Internet age that helps innovative 
companies find the funding they need to grow and add jobs.

  But the House bill allows crowdfunding with almost no oversight or 
investor protections. Under their bill, companies could solicit 
investors through the Internet with virtually no regulatory oversight, 
liability for misstatements, transparency, or other investor 
protections. Senior citizens, state securities regulators, and others 
worry that this will give rise to money laundering and fraud risks. One 
expert calls it the ``Boiler Room Legalization Act.'' By allowing 
companies and funding intermediaries to solicit small investments with 
no oversight or accountability, the House bill essentially legalizes 
the business model of unscrupulous boiler rooms.
  Our bill creates new opportunities for crowdfunding but establishes 
basic regulatory oversight, liability, and disclosure rules that will 
give investors the confidence to participate in this promising emerging 
source of money for growing companies.
  What do outside groups say about crowdfunding?
  AARP:

       Crowd-funding web sites could become the new turbo-charged 
     pump-and-dump boiler room operations of the internet age. 
     Meanwhile, money that could have been invested in small 
     companies with real potential for growth would be siphoned 
     off into these financially shakier, more speculative 
     ventures. The net effect would likely be to undermine rather 
     than support sustainable job growth.

  Consumer Federation of America:

       Allowing direct issuer to investor solicitation over the 
     Internet, and preventing appropriate regulation of crowd-
     funding portals, as the House bill would do, is a recipe for 
     disaster.

  Professor John Coffee, who has written a textbook on this, says:

       Without some changes . . ., one of these bills [which forms 
     the base text of the JOBS Act] could well be titled the 
     ``Boiler Room Legalization Act of 2011.''

  Mr. President, the provisions of the House bill send the message that 
the only way we can grow our economy and create new jobs is to lower 
the protections that give investors confidence in financial markets. 
The House bill we must subject investors to greater risk of fraud, that 
we must put pension funds and church endowments at greater peril, that 
we must endanger the financial stability of families, and indeed the 
stability of our entire economy, in order to grow.
  We have walked this path before. Lowering our defenses to fraud and 
abuse has repeatedly brought our economy low. We lowered defenses to 
fraud in the savings and loan industry, and suffered the collapse of 
hundreds of financial institutions. We dropped defenses against fraud 
and abuse in financial statements and swaps markets, and created the 
Enron crisis. We lowered our defenses against heedless risk and 
conflicts of interest in the financial system, and created the Great 
Recession.
  Did any of those steps help our economy grow? Did lowering those 
defenses create a single job? There are 8.6 million reasons to believe 
that eliminating barriers to fraud and abuse destroys jobs instead of 
creating them--the 8.6 million Americans who lost their jobs in the 
financial crisis.
  We need not make that same mistake. We need not embrace without 
amendment a House bill that threatens fraud, abuse, investor doubt and 
renewed crisis. We can embrace reforms that give small companies, the 
engine of our economy, the chance to grow without endangering the 
economy.
  We need not just to debate but to offer amendments to the House bill.

[[Page S1782]]

Our substitute is one amendment. We should not deny this Senate, which 
is supposed to be a deliberative body, the opportunity to amend the 
bill which will have such major consequences as the House bill would.
  I hope tomorrow after we vote on our substitute, assuming it does not 
pass, we will then vote on the House bill and I do hope we will not 
make the terrible, tragic mistake of denying ourselves the opportunity 
to amend that House bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
support the INVEST in America Act--the Senate substitute amendment to 
H.R. 3606--that would add critical improvements in investor and market 
protections to the bill that we received from the House.
  In order to keep our Nation on the path to economic recovery, we must 
help small businesses access capital and reduce barriers for start-ups. 
However, we should not do so at the price of consumer safety or market 
integrity. We must be very careful to do all we can to promote robust 
capital investment and at the same time ensure investor protections are 
securely in place.
  Many groups have voiced their staunch opposition to passing an un-
amended H.R. 3606--for fear of its effects on the investors and the 
market. Opponents include the: AARP, AFLCIO, AFSCME, Americans for 
Financial Reform, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, 
Public Citizen, The Economists' Committee for Stable, Accountable, 
Fair, and Efficient Financial Reform, US PIRG, and other consumer and 
investor protection groups.
  They have said that the bill ``will in fact only make it more 
difficult for small businesses to access investment capital''--and it 
``risks exposing investors to a new round of damaging fraud and abuse, 
while undermining market transparency.''
  President Obama recently urged the Senate ``to find common ground by 
supporting the most effective aspects of the House Bill to increase 
capital formation for growing businesses while also improving the House 
bill to ensure there are sufficient safeguards to prevent abuse and 
protect investors.''
  I cosponsored the substitute amendment offered by Senators Reed, 
Landrieu, and Levin because it does precisely what the President 
asked--it adds essential provisions to the House legislation.
  Among other things, the INVEST Act amendment would: retain 
protections put in place after the Internet stock bubble burst; ensure 
that banks and other large companies, with lots of shareholders, are 
subject to basic transparency, integrity, and accountability 
protections; and reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which provides 
crucial funding to American businesses and supports almost 300,000 jobs 
yearly.
  Most importantly, this amendment fulfills the original intent of this 
bill. It provides new opportunities for small businesses and 
entrepreneurs to grow by raising capital in a way that protects 
investors, provides financing so businesses can expand and hire more 
workers, and encourages U.S. companies to export and compete in a 
global marketplace.
  In short, it truly invests in America.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the 
Cantwell-Johnson amendment to the JOBS Act. This amendment, which 
reauthorizes the Export-Import Bank through 2015, is a critical step in 
our job-creation efforts here in Congress. We approved this bipartisan 
legislation out of the Senate Banking Committee by voice vote in 
October. It is fiscally responsible, bipartisan, and will allow U.S. 
businesses to create jobs by leveling the playing field for American 
exporters.
  If we do not act with urgency to pass this reauthorization, the Ex-Im 
Bank will not be able to guarantee new loans starting May 31. As our 
economy is finally showing some hopeful signs of recovery, now is not 
the time to let partisanship tie the hands of our small business owners 
who are ready to expand their companies and export their products.
  For decades, the Export-Import Bank has supported job creation in 
America. In fiscal year 2011, the bank supported nearly 300,000 
American jobs throughout the country and $41 billion in exports. In 
North Carolina in 2007, the Ex-Im Bank supported over $1.8 billion in 
export sales by 169 companies, and 116 of those North Carolina 
companies are small businesses--the backbone of our economy.
  The Ex-Im Bank has made small business growth a top priority, and 
this is not just lipservice on their part. In conjunction with the 
bank, I have convened two global access forums in North Carolina, one 
in Charlotte and one in Greensboro, with bank President and Chairman 
Fred Hochberg. We had over 400 North Carolina small business owners 
attend the workshops to learn more about exporting their products. My 
four favorite words are ``made in North Carolina,'' and I am proud to 
work with the Ex-Im Bank to help get that label shipped around the 
world.
  This bill also includes an amendment I sponsored that would add a 
representative from the textile industry to the bank advisory 
committee. The textile industry has a rich history in North Carolina, 
where we have more than 1,500 textile facilities employing over 130,000 
people. But the U.S. textile and apparel industry has faced a lack of 
reliable supply chain financing that has caused them to fall behind. 
Fortunately, the Export-Import Bank is well positioned to provide 
liquidity and financing to this industry.
  I worked hard with my friend Chairman Johnson to include language 
that would give textile and apparel producers a voice at this important 
agency. But whether it is a small yarn company in Sanford, NC, a 
furniture producer in Morganton, NC, or a turbine manufacturer in 
Charlotte, just to name a few, the Export-Import Bank is truly a 
lifeline for growth for thousands of businesses that are ready to 
expand, to hire, and to export.
  Given the fiscal situation our country finds itself in right now, I 
wish to stress the following point for my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle and on both sides of the Capitol: The Export-Import Bank does 
not add a dime to our deficit. It is a self-financed agency that pays 
for itself. In fact, it more than pays for itself. Since 2005, $3.7 
billion has been sent to the U.S. Treasury by the Ex-Im Bank, and the 
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that a 
reauthorization will reduce the deficit by $900 million over 5 years.
  We simply cannot afford to let partisan bickering hold up progress on 
job creation. The people of North Carolina didn't send me to Washington 
to sit on my hands while jobs take a backseat to partisan gamesmanship.
  Reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank is common sense, it is 
bipartisan, it is fiscally responsible, and it is necessary for 
continued job growth.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Export-Import Bank 
reauthorization of 2012.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
support H.R. 3606, Reopening American Capital Markets to Emerging 
Growth Companies Act of 2011, or JOBS Act, that passed in the House 
with 390 votes. The components of this legislation have received 
bipartisan support in the House and broad bipartisan support from the 
Senate, President Obama, successful entrepreneurs, and a broad 
coalition of startups, small and large businesses. I urge my colleagues 
to also support the amendment I offered with Senator Landrieu to 
increase access to capital for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
  First, I want to say a few words regarding the JOBS Act. This is a 
solid measure that would allow more companies to access capital without 
the burdens of unnecessary compliance. Most of us agree that well-
intentioned regulations aimed at protecting the public and investors 
have unintentionally placed significant burdens on the large number of 
smaller companies. As a result, fewer high-growth entrepreneurial

[[Page S1783]]

companies are going public, and more are opting to provide liquidity by 
selling out to larger companies, thus hurting job creation. At a time 
when millions of Americans have been unemployed for the longest period 
in post-WWII history, we simply cannot afford to be in the way of job 
creation.
  The amendment I and Senator Landrieu introduced would also help small 
companies access capital by modifying the Small Business Investment 
Company, SBIC, Program to raise the amount of SBIC debt the Small 
Business Administration, SBA, can guarantee from $3 billion to $4 
billion. It would also increase the amount of SBA guaranteed debt a 
team of SBIC fund managers who operate multiple funds can borrow. The 
SBIC provisions in this amendment have bipartisan support, are 
noncontroversial, come at no cost to taxpayers and will create jobs. We 
do not get many bills of this kind in the Senate anymore.
  One of the most difficult challenges facing new small businesses 
today is access to capital. The SBIC Program has helped companies like 
Apple, FedEx, Callaway Golf, and Outback Steakhouse become household 
names. As entrepreneurs and other aspiring small business owners well 
know, it takes money to make money. This legislation ensures that our 
entrepreneurs and high-growth companies have access to the resources 
they need so they can continue to drive America's economic growth and 
job creation in these challenging times. There is no reason why 
Congress should not approve this amendment to ensure capital is getting 
into the hands of America's job creators.
  This amendment will spur investment in capital-starved startup small 
businesses, which will play a critical role in leading the Nation of 
the devastating economic downturn from which we have yet to emerge. For 
those who may be unfamiliar, despite significant entrepreneurial demand 
for small amounts of capital, because of their substantial size, most 
private investment funds cannot dedicate resources to transactions 
below $5 million. The Nation's SBICs are working to fill that gap, 
especially even during these challenging times.
  According to the SBA, over 300 SBICs have more than $17 billion of 
capital under management. During fiscal year 2011, the SBA licensed an 
additional 22 SBICs, which amounts to additional $840 million in 
private capital. Further, during fiscal year 2011 SBA issued 
approximately $1.8 billion in new debenture commitments to SBICs, a 50-
percent increase over the 4-year average from fiscal year 2006 to 
fiscal year 2009 of $750 million. In fiscal year 2011, the SBA provided 
$2.6 billion in debenture capital to SBICs, which in turn was 
distributed to over 1,300 small businesses, which SBA estimates 
supported 61,000 jobs. In the most recent budget request for fiscal 
year 2013, SBA requested $4 billion in authority for the SBIC debenture 
program, which operates at zero subsidy and requires no congressional 
appropriations.
  The amendment I and Senator Landrieu introduced would also extend for 
1 year the refinancing option provided in the Small Business Jobs Act 
of 2010 to allow small business owners to use 504 loans to refinance up 
to 90 percent of existing commercial mortgages. The 504 Loan Program 
provides approved small businesses with long-term, fixed-rate financing 
used to acquire fixed assets for expansion or modernization. According 
to the SBA, as of February 15, 2012, the $50 billion in 504 loans has 
created over 2 million jobs. The refinancing option in the Small 
Business Jobs Act authorized $7.5 billion in refinancing until 
September 27, 2012. Unfortunately, because of a delay in promulgating 
regulations to enable refinancing, the program did not become 
operational until a few months ago, significantly shortening the period 
of time that business could refinance existing 504 loans. Like the SBIC 
Program, the 504 Loan Program also comes at no cost to taxpayers, has 
created jobs, and will provide much needed relief to businesses for 1 
additional year.
  Mr. President, as I mentioned at the outset of my remarks, the SBIC 
Program is a true job creator that does not receive any appropriated 
funds. The 1-year extension of the refinancing for the 504 Loan Program 
will allow businesses to retain employees, and it also comes at zero 
cost to taxpayers. There are solid measures that will help small 
businesses at a time when many small enterprises are struggling to keep 
their employees and run basic operations. I ask my colleagues to 
support this critical legislation as swiftly as possible, as our 
Nation's capital-starved small businesses deserve no less.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


                          Remembering Lyn Lusi

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are given an opportunity in the Senate 
to witness many things that have an impact on our values and on our 
votes. I have found that, of course, representing my own State and 
knowing the challenges families face from one end of the State to the 
other has really driven me in terms of my legislative agenda--the 
things that are important to me. That is my first priority.
  As I have traveled across the United States, I have found other 
issues that are of great magnitude and have real import when it comes 
to the lives of people across this Nation. I have also taken some time 
to visit countries overseas, knowing that the United States is part of 
a world community and that even though the amount of money we may 
invest may be small, it can have a profound impact on some of the 
poorest places on Earth.
  It was about 6 years ago that I made my first visit to the Democratic 
Republic of Congo. This was a part of Africa that I had never seen 
before, and I went to the city of Goma. Goma, in the eastern reaches of 
the Democratic Republic of Congo, is remote from the capital of that 
country and has unfortunately become a site where thousands of innocent 
people have been killed.
  When I visited Goma, it was clear that it suffered from some of the 
worst problems of the region: poverty, obviously; disease and war; and 
troops who left Rwanda after the genocide were living in the jungles of 
Goma. People were being preyed upon and killed, raped, mutilated. Then, 
on top of all of that, in Goma sits a volcano that erupts with some 
frequency, so as one walks through the streets and into the refugee 
camps, one finds this dried crystalline lava that is almost like broken 
glass, people walking on it, living on it, trying to make a life in 
little holes dug out in the lava. It is something one never forgets and 
I have never forgotten. I went there, of course, taking a look at some 
of our important programs we deal with. The most important, of course, 
is trying to bring peace to the region.
  One of the most serious issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo is 
the fact that in these eastern regions are precious minerals which are 
critical for the development of new technology. We carry in our cell 
phones minerals which are found more frequently in that part of Africa 
than in most other places around the world. Because there is little or 
no government reach in these areas, there are people who have taken 
over the mining of these minerals and make millions of dollars off of 
them using slave labor and terrorizing the local people, pushing them 
into refugee camps.
  I am working with Congressman Jim McDermott of the State of 
Washington to try to establish some standards, as well as former 
Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. The object behind that, of course, is 
to trace the minerals so that those respectable, law-abiding companies 
in the West will not be buying these conflict minerals. We are working. 
It is hard. The Securities and Exchange Commission is trying to 
promulgate a rule to implement something we passed in Dodd-Frank with 
Senator Brownback's leadership on a bipartisan basis.
  My memory of Goma goes back to a specific scene and a specific visit. 
It was more than 6 years ago. We were invited to tour a hospital. We 
went to this hospital. And to say it was a hospital by American 
standards--no American would agree. Searching inside the hospital, we 
found one modern surgical suite. It was paid for by the United Nations. 
Then we went to the wards where the patients were--virtually all 
women--and found them two to a bed recovering from surgeries.
  Outside the hospital, sitting on this lava bed that really covers the 
city, along the road were dozens of women waiting for their turn. They 
are the victims of something known as obstetric fistula, which means 
they have either been brutally attacked, sexually

[[Page S1784]]

attacked, or were bearing children at such an early age that it caused 
damage to them, which has left them incontinent. Because of their 
incontinence, they were rejected by their families and neighbors and 
forced to walk hundreds of miles to sit in the roadway and pray that 
they could get inside that hospital for a surgery to repair this 
obstetric fistula. Many of them, because of the severity of their 
injuries, went through multiple surgeries, so they would sit on the 
road and wait for weeks, go in for a surgery, recover, and then go to 
the back of the line and start over for the next surgery. That was the 
reality of the hospital we visited. The scene was grim, even horrific. 
I still remember it well.
  The reason I come to the floor today is that I made a return trip 2 
years ago with Senator Sherrod Brown to Goma and to look up this 
hospital--this small little oasis of hope--to try to find a handful of 
doctors who had been there when I visited just a few years before to 
see what had happened. I knew the hospital continued to treat 
desperately poor and brutalized women of the region who had suffered 
because of brutal rape and horrific violence.
  For two decades now, this war has gone on, which has led to these 
victims. Regional militias have been fighting over these minerals I 
mentioned earlier, too often using rape as a weapon of war. According 
to the United Nations, the Democratic Republic of Congo is the worst 
place on Earth to be a woman. Regional war and rape leave an estimated 
1,000 or more women assaulted every single day, so 1,000 or more rapes 
and sexual assaults every day, or 12 percent of Congolese women--one of 
eight--have been victims.
  Yet there is hope. That small hospital I saw years ago gave me hope. 
The two people who started that hospital were Lyn Lusi and her 
Congolese husband Dr. Jo Lusi. They founded this hospital and called it 
Heal Africa. It is in one of the most forgotten and dangerous places on 
the Earth--Goma in eastern Congo. Lyn and her husband Jo provided a 
place of love, hope, rebirth, and healing.
  There was a special on PBS's ``NewsHour'' recently that talked about 
Heal Africa, the hospital, and Lyn and Jo Lusi. They survive on $13 
million a year--a huge sum in that part of the world but by global 
standards or American standards hardly overwhelming. They get private 
grants from overseas. They provide antiretroviral drugs to those 
suffering from HIV, and they try to repair the bodies of these 
traumatized women.
  The PBS ``NewsHour'' special on Heal Africa showed how the hospital 
works with the American Bar Association--and I want to give a shoutout 
to them for the work they are doing in Goma--to help rape victims 
pursue justice against their attackers. The country virtually has no 
judicial system. It is the only facility offering services to an area 
population of 8 million people. Eight million people--I try to imagine 
one hospital in metropolitan Chicago, and that is what Heal Africa is 
in Goma.
  In a moving ``NewsHour'' interview, Lyn Lusi said:

       I have no illusions that we're dealing with major issues 
     that are pulling Congo apart. There is so much evil and so 
     much cruelty, so much selfishness, and it is like darkness. 
     But if we can bring in some light, the darkness will not 
     overcome the light, and that's where faith is, if you believe 
     that. I don't think Heal Africa is going to empty the ocean, 
     but we can take out a bucketful here and a bucketful there.

  That sentiment and that hope--amid such cruelty and devastation--
summed up Lyn Lusi's heroic work and the work of her husband.
  As I reflect on what I saw in my first trip to Goma and what I saw 
when I returned, there was a dramatic change in just a few short years. 
This Heal Africa, which was barely existing, with a handful of 
surgeons, now has become a training hospital, with American 
universities taking part.
  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Goma and Heal Africa--this 
very hospital--to focus the world's attention on the region. The 
violence in eastern Congo is part of an ongoing conflict and about 3 
million to 5 million people have died there so far--and it continues.
  As I said, the roots of the conflict go back to the Rwandan genocide, 
the fight over minerals, elements of the Ugandan Lord's Resistance 
Army--this Kony fella, who now people are starting to take notice of, a 
butcher in his own right--and elements of the Congolese Army who have 
been involved in human rights abuses.
  There is a 20,000 member United Nations peacekeeping force in the 
region. It has been there for more than 10 years. I do not know how 
they can maintain any semblance of order without them. I salute the 
United Nations and those who are on the ground trying to keep a 
peaceful situation.
  We saw sprawling refugee camps on broken lava, human rights workers 
who bravely documented horrific sexual violence, and dire poverty and 
warlords amid any semblance of a functional national or local 
government. Stopping at Lyn and Jo Lusi's hospital was the highlight of 
the trip.
  When I was at Heal Africa on the second visit, I looked and saw a 
classroom filled with doctors. In fact, standing in front of them was a 
doctor from the University of Wisconsin. He was wearing a T-shirt which 
had the Wisconsin Badger on it. That is how I noticed it right off the 
bat. That is where my daughter went to college. He said: Yes, these are 
all students from medical schools around the United States, coming here 
to learn and to help.
  Today, the hospital has trained 30 young Congolese doctors and many 
other health workers. They will have an important job for many years to 
come.
  The reason I come to the floor is because we received sad news. Lyn 
Lusi--whose picture I show here in the Chamber with her husband Jo--was 
truly the heart and soul of Heal Africa in Goma. The two of them gave 
their lives for the poorest people on Earth. They struggled and 
persevered and conquered so many obstacles that many of us never ever 
see in life.
  We just got word this morning that Lyn passed away from cancer. I 
wished to come to the floor and remember her and the great work she has 
done, which I am sure will be carried on by Jo her husband and all 
those who have been inspired by our visit.
  To think that this woman would go to one of the poorest places on 
Earth and dedicate her life to help others should inspire every single 
one of us.
  Lyn Lusi was like a mother to 400 employees of Heal Africa and to 
thousands and thousands of women, children, and even men, for whom Heal 
Africa was their only source of quality, professional medical care.
  Her death this weekend due to cancer is a terrible loss for Goma, it 
is a terrible loss for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and for 
Africa, and it is a terrible loss for every single one of us.
  We need to make certain that what she gave her life to does not end 
but continues. We have to make certain her heroic efforts continue 
through her husband Jo and through all who have participated in making 
sure this lonely, tragic corner of the world is never forgotten.
  I come to the floor to salute Lyn Lusi, her memory, her legacy, and 
her inspiration.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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