[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 70 (Friday, May 17, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H2731-H2751]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SEC REGULATORY ACCOUNTABILITY ACT
General Leave
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and submit extraneous material for the record on H.R. 1062, the SEC
Regulatory Accountability Act of 2013.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 216 and rule
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House
on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 1062.
The Chair appoints the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) to
preside over the Committee of the Whole.
{time} 1057
In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill
(H.R. 1062) to improve the consideration by the Securities and Exchange
Commission of the costs and benefits of its regulations and orders,
with Mr. Woodall in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIR. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the
first time.
[[Page H2732]]
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) and the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Waters) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge the adoption of H.R. 1062. This is
a bill that technically is about something called cost-benefit
analysis. I know to some that sounds a little bit like Ph.D. economics,
but, Mr. Chairman, what it's really about is kitchen-table economics.
{time} 1100
When I go home to the Fifth District of Texas, what I hear from my
constituents is that they're insecure in their jobs--those who are
lucky enough to have them.
We know that millions of our fellow citizens are unemployed, are
underemployed; and those who are fortunate enough to have jobs wonder
will they have them tomorrow.
We know again that we are in the Great Recession, the ``non-
recovery'' recovery. So the impact of the regulations that are
promulgated in Washington, D.C. has a huge impact on kitchen-table
economics, on whether or not our constituents are going to be able to
put gas in the car to take their children to school, whether or not
they're going to be able to help an elderly parent with their medical
bills, how they're going to put groceries on the table.
It is incumbent upon us, Mr. Chairman, to make sure that the
rulemaking authority--that this body helps grant the executive branch--
at least has to take into account how their rulemaking impacts
hardworking American citizens and those who wish to work hard.
So this is a very, very simple bill, Mr. Chairman. It simply says
that the Securities and Exchange Commission has to adopt cost-benefit
analysis to ensure that the advertised benefits of one of their rules
is actually measured against the actual cost of what they're doing.
This is vitally important.
Mr. Chairman, as you well know, this body had a vote yesterday to
repeal the Affordable Care Act--or dare I say the Not So Affordable
Care Act. And I'm curious, what would have happened had Congress had
the benefit of the cost of this bill prior to that vote? What would
have happened had we known that the Congressional Budget Office said
that we will have 800,000--almost 1 million--fewer jobs because of
ObamaCare?
You know, when we took that vote, Mr. Chairman, all we had were the
advertised benefits. But how come we didn't have the Congressional
Budget Office report of the cost? That's just one example. Almost 1
million fewer jobs because nobody bothered to conduct cost-benefit
analysis. It wasn't required at the time.
Now the President claims that we ought to have this. He issued an
executive order--No. 13563--saying government agencies ought to do it,
but then his administration issues a veto threat on this bill. I find
that kind of interesting. So the President says he wants to do it; he's
just not actually going to do it.
The SEC mission, among other things, is to ensure that we help form
capital. You cannot have the benefits of capitalism and the free
enterprise system without capital, capital formation. So it's necessary
to ensure that we look at the cost of what we're doing.
Apparently, the SEC historically--again, notwithstanding that they
claim they're going to do it. Most recently, we've had a unanimous
decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals--unanimous decision--in
the proxy access case that the SEC failed--and failed miserably--at
ensuring cost-benefit analysis, also known as kitchen-table economics.
How are the costs of their rulemaking going to impact hardworking
Americans?
It's time to remedy this, Mr. Chairman. Our constituents demand it.
Again, I urge the adoption of H.R. 1062, and I reserve the balance of
my time.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise to strongly oppose H.R. 1062. This bill places significant
additional requirements for economic analysis by the Securities and
Exchange Commission, effectively bringing any efforts at rulemaking to
a standstill.
Let's be clear: the purpose of this legislative effort is to stop
implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act dead in its tracks. After losing in Congress, the fight
against the Dodd-Frank act moved to the courts, beginning with
overturning the proxy access rules they adopted under authority
provided by that act.
Although I agreed fully with the SEC's position, they went with their
friends to court and the court found that the SEC did not meet its
already significant requirements to conduct an economic analysis.
After the proxy access case was overturned, the SEC adopted improved
standards for conducting cost-benefit analyses. These procedures were
cited by the GAO just last December as having all of the elements of
good regulatory analysis. Basically, what the GAO is saying is we took
a look, we studied it, and they do a good job.
Nonetheless, the bill before us today adds even more requirements,
tying up the SEC resources, and putting it at even greater risk for
litigation for every rule, despite the assurances of my Republican
colleagues that they're only applying the terms of an executive order
to the SEC. That executive order explicitly protects agencies from
lawsuits based on their economic analysis. H.R. 1062 has no such
protection for the SEC.
The Commission is undertaking a valiant effort to finish the Dodd-
Frank and Jobs Acts rule, even in the face of attempts by the majority
to restrict their funding. As the SEC attempts to balance capital
formation with the need to protect investors, this bill weights the
scales heavily in favor of industry over investors. In fact, the words
``investor protection'' do not appear anywhere in this bill.
Even without this bill, we can count on industry lobbyists to sue the
SEC anytime it sees a weakness in the justification supporting a rule,
as they have in several other cases currently before the courts.
And this bill does not apply only to new rules. This is
extraordinary--and I want to say this so everybody understands--this
bill would require the Commission to review every rulemaking ever
issued--even those that have protected our securities markets since the
Great Depression--1 year after the adoption of this bill, and then
again every 5 years thereafter. As a result, the Commission will be
forced to divert resources away from other key areas, such as
enforcement.
This comes at a time when House Republicans want to hold SEC funding
flat, despite the SEC's new responsibilities--the increase in the
number of participants it oversees and the growth of complexity and the
size of U.S. securities markets.
It is ironic that as House Republicans push this bill forward, they
are also calling for the SEC to speed up its efforts on Jobs Act rules.
This bill makes it impossible for the SEC to meet the very deadline we
adopted just 2 days ago when we passed H.R. 701.
I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 1062, and I reserve the balance
of my time.
Mr. HENSARLING. I yield myself 30 seconds, Mr. Chairman, just to say
that, number one, in listening to my colleague, the ranking member, I'm
just curious about this concern about litigation burdens. We certainly
didn't see it, as she and many of her colleagues back the proxy access
rule, and how many have refused to support medical liability reform. So
I don't understand why the litigation burden concern is not there.
In addition, I notice that the SEC has sought comment in the past on
rulemaking to ensure that there is a retrospective look-back because
markets change.
At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the
chairman of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and GSEs of the
Financial Services Committee, the author of the legislation, the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
Mr. GARRETT. I thank the gentleman.
I rise today obviously in support of H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act.
At a time when new regulation after new regulation is being proposed
by
[[Page H2733]]
this administration, it is critical that we restore some semblance of
order to the regulatory process and ensure that our Nation's small
businesses do not continue to drown in a sea of red tape. So this
legislation specifically subjects the SEC to a more robust version of
the President's own order, which requires and outlines an enhanced
cost-benefit analysis requirement, as well as requires a review of
existing regulations.
{time} 1110
The SEC Regulatory Accountability Act will do what? It will enhance
the SEC's existing economic analysis requirements for requiring the
Commission to first identify the nature of the problem that would be
addressed before issuing any new regulations.
While the SEC has already certain cost-benefit related requirements
in current law relative to rulemaking, as indicated before, recent
court decisions have vacated or remanded several of these and pointed
out the deficiencies in the Commission's use of cost-benefit analysis.
For example, recently the SEC inspector general issued a report that
expressed several concerns about the quality of their analysis. They
found that none of the rulemaking examined attempted to quantify either
benefits or costs, other than informational collection cost.
This bill will ensure that the benefits of any rulemaking outweigh
the cost, and that both new and existing regulations are accessible,
consistent, written in plain language, and easy to understand.
The legislation will also require the SEC to assess the cost and
benefits of available regulatory alternatives, including the
alternative of not regulating at all, and to choose the approach that
basically gives us the best benefits.
Under the bill, the SEC shall evaluate whether a proposed regulation
is inconsistent, incompatible, or duplicative of other Federal
regulations, as well.
So because some rulemaking has been politicized in the past, the bill
then requires this cost-benefit analysis which I talk about will be
performed by who? By the Commission's chief economist.
These are commonsense reforms. They are appropriate, especially given
the fact that the Commission continues to struggle with this issue. For
instance, as already pointed out in the recent unanimous decision of
the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated the Commission's proxy
access rule, the Court stated:
The Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously for
having failed once again adequately to assess the economic
benefits of a new rule and inconsistently and
opportunistically framed the costs and benefits of the rule.
The bill also includes, besides all this, a section that will provide
a clearer post-implementation assessment of new regulations so that
post-implementation cost-benefit analysis can also be done, in addition
to the pre-implementation. This will be able to better inform the true
impact of the major rules once they're in place.
Now, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say these
new requirements will be too costly and will open the SEC to a flood of
additional lawsuits. No, no, no, no. This could be further from the
truth. By having these robust standards, the rules will be drafted so
well that they will be thoroughly done, they will not be struck down by
the courts, and we will not have to wade through additional time and
money defending them in court and then redrafting the rules, like the
proxy access rule.
So in the end, this is a commonsense, pragmatic approach to our
rulemaking process that should have been in place all along. And with
our economy struggling now with unemployment above 7\1/2\ percent, we
need to ensure that we're making it easier, not harder, for businesses
to begin hiring again.
Clearly, Mr. Chairman, a stronger commitment to economic analysis by
the SEC is absolutely essential to ensure reasonable rules do not
unduly burden registered companies or negatively impact job creation.
Ms. WATERS. At this time, I would yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady
from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I thank the lady
for yielding and for her leadership.
I strongly oppose this bill because I believe it would in effect
cripple the SEC just as it undertakes the immense task of implementing
the essential Dodd-Frank reforms. May I remind my colleagues that this
country lost $12 trillion, according to some estimates, and it happened
in part because regulators, like the SEC, were ill-equipped,
underfunded, and did too little, too slowly.
The Republican bill comes in the guise of requiring the SEC to
undertake a cost-benefit analysis of regulations. But it is really a
prescription for paralysis of the SEC's ability to protect our
investors and our markets.
There is already a multilayered and highly effective cost-benefit
analysis built into the SEC rulemaking process. Just look at the recent
D.C. Circuit case where the court overturned an SEC proxy access rule
and sent a message back to the SEC reminding them of all the cost-
benefit analysis that they are required to do now by law. They stated
they will vacate any rule if this is not done.
Already there is analysis required under the Paperwork Reduction Act,
the Congressional Review Act, and the Regulatory Flexibility Act. And
just for the SEC alone, in 1996, we passed the National Securities
Market Improvement Act requiring a cost-benefit analysis.
It is already there, it is on the books, and it is enforced by our
courts. So what is before us today? A hurdle. Let's do more. Let's
require them to go back to 1933, review every rule, so they cannot do
their important work of protecting the American taxpayer and our
economy of derivatives fraud, other fraud, and other abuses to
investors.
The CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. I'm just warming up. I think my
colleagues have a lot to say. It is a prescription for paralysis. I
urge a ``no'' vote for investor protection.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds just to say
to my friend from New York that if this regime is so effective, why was
there a unanimous decision in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to say
it was ineffective, and if it is already on the books then the worst
thing that we have done is that we are being repetitive. I don't think
that's such a great sin.
I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia, the vice
chairman of the Capital Markets Subcommittee, Mr. Hurt.
Mr. HURT. I thank the chairman for yielding and thank him for his
leadership on this issue.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of the bill that's being
offered by Mr. Garrett. This is a bill that will ensure the SEC will
abide by simple cost-benefit analysis requirements.
All Federal agencies, but especially the SEC, affect the efficiency
and the success of our Main Street businesses--our Main Street
businesses across Virginia's Fifth District and all across this
country. The SEC primarily exists to protect investors, maintain fair
and efficient markets, and to facilitate capital formation. This
positions the Commission as a critical component of our small
businesses' ability to access the capital they need to grow jobs. If
access to capital continues to be constrained by overly burdensome
regulations, we will not see the economic growth in the jobs that we
need in my district and across the United States.
While it is critical that the SEC be able to promulgate certain rules
to implement congressional legislation, it is also critical that
Congress clearly set forth its legislative prerogatives. As Members of
Congress, we must ensure that the rules that the SEC adopts are with
good purpose and that they are not unduly adding more burdens on
hardworking Americans at a time when our economy is struggling.
Indeed, I believe that all Federal agencies should be held
accountable by the Congress to ensure that the cost of the rules that
they promulgate will not be greater than the benefit of those rules to
the American people.
Congressional oversight is our constitutional responsibility, and I'm
proud to support this legislation to ensure that excessive Federal
regulations are not unnecessarily hindering job creation at a time when
the people across Virginia's Fifth District need jobs the most.
[[Page H2734]]
I urge passage of this good bill.
Ms. WATERS. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Wisconsin,
Representative Gwen Moore.
Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlelady. Just let me say that
a 2013 GAO study estimated that the financial crisis cost the U.S.
economy a total of more than $22 trillion--a crisis brought on by Wall
Street deregulation that allowed firms and markets to operate unchecked
and without accountability.
Supporters of this bill seek to ignore those lessons and bind the SEC
to the myopic vision of deregulation that was completely discredited
when it nearly caused a second Great Depression.
This bill raises intractable hurdles to regulation, making it
impossible to protect investors, even in the presence of fraud.
Instead, this bill requires the SEC to eliminate accountability for
market participants, despite the systematic risk that it imposes.
Now, my dear colleagues on the other side, I've heard them wax on and
on and on about a cost-benefit analysis. This bill focuses totally on
the cost to market participants and talks nothing, nothing, nothing
about the benefits of the SEC regulation in protecting investors and
avoiding systemic risk, nothing about the value of preventing another
financial meltdown.
{time} 1120
The Republicans' cost-benefit rhetoric on this bill cloaks its
reality, which is that this bill benefits Wall Street and costs
taxpayers. Wall Street bemoans all regulations as too costly; yet they
keep posting record profits and keep paying record bonuses.
I urge all of my colleagues to support those hurt by the financial
crisis and to vote against this legislation.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to
the gentleman from Frog Jump, Tennessee (Mr. Fincher).
Mr. FINCHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the SEC
Regulatory Accountability Act.
Title I of the JOBS Act was so important for smaller companies in
trying to go public, because a lot of regulations come with the IPO
process. If more and more of a company's resources have to be dedicated
to government regulations, the company can't expand and create jobs.
That's why we need a balanced approach to regulations.
Before I make any major decision, like every hardworking taxpayer, I
use common sense. I evaluate the effect that decision will have on me,
on my bank account, on my family, and so on. Why shouldn't the Federal
Government ask itself those same questions? Shouldn't the SEC question
if a regulation is good for business? Does it help capital formation?
Will it do more harm than good or vice versa?
All we are asking the SEC to do is a simple economic analysis before
issuing a potentially expensive regulatory action. I encourage my
colleagues to join with me in supporting the SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act.
Ms. WATERS. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota,
Representative Ellison.
Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, we hear folks mentioning the need for
families to have gas and to pay medical bills and to pay groceries--but
wait a minute.
Didn't the Wall Street reform crisis of 2008 nearly destroy the
American economy? Didn't it lead to 4 million foreclosures? Didn't it
nearly wipe out billions of dollars in home value? Didn't it do all of
these things? In 2008, didn't we see Wall Street fraudster Bernie
Madoff rip off billions from investors and charities and retirees,
which is something that the SEC has jurisdiction over?
So then, why now are we undermining Wall Street reform and the
ability of the SEC to protect investors? Why are we gumming up the
works and making it so much more difficult? I mean, the ink is barely
dry on the bill, and they are already deconstructing it.
There is an interesting article I would ask all of us to take a look
at. It's called, ``He Who Makes the Rules,'' by Haley Edwards:
Barack Obama's biggest second-term challenge isn't guns or
immigration. It's saving his biggest first-term achievements,
like the Dodd-Frank law, from being dismembered by lobbyists
and conservative jurists in the shadowy, Byzantine
``rulemaking'' process.
The fact is that we know what's going on here. We know what the game
is. It has nothing to do with groceries or medical bills. It's about
Wall Street's interests and its trying to expand even more in the area
of bonuses and profitability, which it has so much of already. Banks
are enjoying their largest profits in history, and yet we are
considering a bill that would undermine landmark Wall Street reform.
This bill undermines the financial security for the American people and
the economy.
Now, I am a firm believer in the American process of civil redress,
but I also know that you can kick the door open and use strategic
lawsuits simply to slow down and gum up the works. It's clear that that
would be the effect of this particular piece of legislation, which is
duplicative and which is unnecessary.
Vote ``no'' on H.R. 1062.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from North Carolina (Mr. Pittenger).
Mr. PITTENGER. I rise today in support of H.R. 1062, the SEC
Regulatory Accountability Act.
Mr. Chairman, we are coming out of and are still in the worst
recession recovery since the 1930s. Our economic growth is at an anemic
2\1/2\ percent. We can't continue like this. It's all because we have
got a very burdensome regulatory environment. What we need is a regular
recovery, one in which they lift the burdensome and unnecessary
regulations and allow businesses to grow and to create jobs. Why, in 1
month alone, over a million jobs were created.
That's why I support the Regulatory Accountability Act. It's very
simple. It just requires a cost analysis of new legislation and new
requirements for businesses before they're implemented and then post-
adoptive analysis after they've been put into effect.
Mr. Chairman, we have 59 economists at the SEC today and 175
attorneys, all trying to justify their careers with new regulations
that they are writing all the time. This has got to change. We need a
positive business climate that will bring us out of the bondage of
Washington micromanagement and that will allow hardworking Americans to
create better jobs and find better jobs to support their families and
provide for them.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Connecticut, Representative Himes.
Mr. HIMES. Thank you, Madam Ranking Member, and thank you for your
leadership of our side on this committee.
Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1062.
I find it curious that Chairman Hensarling, a man for whom I have a
great deal of respect, frames this legislation in the context of the
huge impact that financial regulation is supposedly having on jobs in
his district and on jobs in this country.
I've read all of the economic reports from the Federal Reserve to
economists on the left and the right, and not one of them says that our
economy is recovering slowly because of financial regulation. They talk
about the austerity. They talk about the sequester as meaningfully
reducing the number of jobs in this country. By the way, they're
policies that Chairman Hensarling's party has supported from moment
one. They talk about Europe. They talk about housing. They talk about
inadequate demand. Nobody says that financial regulation is materially
impeding our recovery.
Curious that that's on the table.
Curious also that 2 days ago this House passes legislation to demand
the SEC to speed up its rule writing on the JOBS Act, and today we are
here to pass a measure that would actually slow down the SEC.
Curious. Why is that?
Curious that the other side, my friends in the Republican Party, have
consistently sought to underfund the SEC at the very moment in history
when we have added dramatically to their purview--the derivatives
market, the mortgage market--that they now must regulate. Yet, in 2011,
when they were first to assume these responsibilities, the Republicans
sought to cut the SEC budget by $300 million against what was
ultimately paid for.
So what is really happening? If I may quote the chairman, what is
this really about? None of that makes sense.
[[Page H2735]]
What this is really about is an ongoing ideological effort to tie the
regulatory agencies up by cutting their budgets, by refusing to confirm
their leadership, by imposing litigation hurdles and cost-benefit
analyses ad nauseam such that they cannot do their job; and if they
can't do their job, this country loses jobs.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the
chairman of the Financial Services and General Government
Appropriations Subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw).
Mr. CRENSHAW. I thank the gentleman for the time, and I thank Mr.
Garrett for bringing this important piece of legislation before the
House today.
As chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services,
my subcommittee has oversight of the budget of the SEC.
I think that Members would be interested in knowing that that budget
has increased over 200 percent in the last decade and that the SEC this
year is asking for a substantial increase, more than most agencies. So
I think, if that is the case, then it's important that the SEC spends
the money that they receive in the right way and that they set the
right priorities.
It seems to me that, if rules and regulations are important and if
they're necessary, then the cornerstone of that rulemaking process
should be: What kind of impact is that going to have on the people in
this country? What kind of far-reaching impact is it going to have? How
much does that cost? What are the benefits?
{time} 1130
So far, the SEC hasn't quite gotten that right. The inspector general
has said that, courts have said that, and all this bill does is simply
say to the SEC what we would all agree is common sense. It's not a
partisan idea. It's not a Democratic idea. It's not a Republican idea.
The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. HENSARLING. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
Mr. CRENSHAW. All this bill does is say--not as an afterthought, but
as the cornerstone to the rulemaking process--the SEC simply
understands the economic impact it's going to have and there's a cost-
benefit analysis done.
It's a good bill, and I urge its passage.
Ms. WATERS. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr.
Carney).
Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Ranking Member, for your leadership on efforts
to strengthen the SEC and to beat back this legislation.
As a member of the Financial Services Committee, I had the privilege
yesterday of meeting the new SEC chairman, Mary Jo White. I was very
impressed.
I heard her describe her plans to take a tough, fair, and apolitical
approach to regulating the financial sector. She wants to strengthen
enforcement, she wants to oversee the markets through wise regulations
that keep pace with technology, and she wants to complete the
rulemaking progress for Dodd-Frank. We know how important each of those
things is. She certainly has her work cut out for her, but it sounds
like she knows just what the doctor ordered.
Unfortunately, today's bill threatens to distract Chairman White from
her efforts to protect investors and to protect our financial system
from another crisis. Today's bill piles needless requirements and
bureaucratic burdens on an agency that's already got too much to do and
that is underfunded.
A critical part of the SEC's mission is protecting investors. This
bill protects banks from regulation. It does nothing for investors. In
fact, it could hurt investors in the long term.
Chairman White has already committed to issuing rules in a thoughtful
way that incorporates rigorous economic analysis, and she told us that
yesterday.
The bill is also unnecessary. Regulating our financial sector and
protecting American investors is a tall task as it is. We should be
passing laws that make the SEC's job easier, not harder. We should be
providing the SEC with the resources that it needs to do that job, and
that's why I urge my colleagues to oppose today's legislation.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to myself.
I would like to do a little factual cleanup here, Mr. Chairman, on
some things that my Democratic colleagues have said.
I believe I understood my friend, the gentlelady from Wisconsin, to
say nowhere in this bill is the word ``benefits.'' First, I would say,
number one, it is a 10-page bill, not a 2,000-page bill. And on the
very first page, line 11, you read the word ``benefits.'' If you turn
to page 2--not page 2,000--page 2, line 3: ``Utilize the Chief
Economist to assess the cost and benefits.'' So let me correct that for
the record.
Second of all, we had discussion about the failure of regulation and
how this bill might lead to another Great Recession or financial
crisis. I would point out to my friends that it was the failure to
understand the cost of Fannie and Freddie, the failure to understand
the cost of the affordable housing goals that put millions of our
fellow citizens into homes that they could not afford to keep.
So maybe, just maybe, had this body and the other body realized the
full cost of their folly and how it could not only bring this economy
to its knees, that it could cause our fellow citizens to risk their
meager lifesavings on homes they couldn't afford to keep, maybe had a
cost-benefit analysis been in place at that time, we wouldn't have the
suffering that we have today.
I would say to my friend from Connecticut, he is clearly talking to
different economists and different job creators than I have because
what I understand from them is that, frankly, we have trillions of
dollars of capital sitting on the sidelines because of Dodd-Frank,
because we have rulemaking that falls into two categories: those that
create uncertainty and those that create certain harm.
Last, but not least, I actually have the numbers from CBO on the
budget of the SEC. And I think if you examine them carefully, Mr.
Chairman, you will discover that in a little over 10 years, this is an
agency whose budget has increased 300 percent.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Illinois, Representative Foster.
Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill.
When my colleagues speak about the burdensome cost of regulations, I
would like to remind them of the high cost of deregulation and
inadequately funded regulators that we witnessed in 2008.
This bill would increase the operating costs of the SEC without any
increase in the agency's budget. Just yesterday, the chairman of the
SEC warned the Financial Services Committee that this bill would divert
resources from enforcing investor protections. And last year, former-
SEC Chairman Schapiro said that a nearly identical bill would
``significantly impede the SEC's ability to administer the securities
laws.''
I would remind my colleagues that the failure to administer the
security laws and regulate our financial system has cost us $16
trillion. That's the amount that families in America lost during the
financial crisis. That is more than $50,000 for every man, woman, and
child in the United States.
During the financial crisis, in the last 18 months of the Bush
administration, the average American family lost a quarter of its net
worth. Compare that to the onset of the Great Depression where families
lost only about 12 percent of their net worth during a 5-year period.
So by that measure, our last financial crisis was twice as big and
twice as fast as the onset of the Great Depression.
But the cost of inadequate regulation does not stop there: $1.6
billion, that's the amount that disappeared from customer accounts at
MF Global in 2011; $17 billion, that's the amount that in 2009 Bernie
Madoff was convicted of scamming investors out of; $1 trillion, that's
the amount of wealth that disappeared and reappeared in less than 20
minutes during the flash crash of 2010.
To put these figures in perspective, let's consider and compare them
to bank robberies. Every year, banks lose $38 million to robberies; yet
we spend $24 billion every year on armed guards, vault doors, and FBI
investigations. So for bank robberies, we spend 600 times more on
prevention than on actual losses. Just imagine if we applied that
[[Page H2736]]
same factor of 600 to investor losses from securities fraud and market
manipulation. The budgets of our regulators would be hundreds of times
larger than they are today. The cynic in me can only conclude that
what's really going on here is that the bank robbers just have really
crummy lobbyists.
But seriously, if we can spend 600 times the amount of actual losses
to prevent bank robberies, why will my colleagues not support the
President's request to spend one-ten-thousandth of the amount that
families lost in the financial crisis on the SEC's annual budget?
I challenge my colleagues who support this bill to commit to
supporting the President's request to increase the SEC's budget. I
remind them again of the high cost of inaction which led to far too
many of our constituents losing their homes, their retirement funds,
and their small businesses a few years ago.
By shortchanging the security of our financial markets, my colleagues
are endorsing the same irresponsible path.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I now proudly yield 1 minute to the
distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Cantor).
Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today to support the SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act of 2013.
The American economy is hurting, and what we need is less government
standing in the way of the private sector, not more. This act will
bring about some commonsense reforms by requiring the SEC to review
existing regulations, as well as preventing new and unnecessary ones
that would only continue to slow economic growth and hurt businesses
and families.
With job growth struggling and our already having experienced several
years of high unemployment, we've got to make certain that we're doing
what we can to ensure that it's easier, and not harder, for businesses
to hire again.
{time} 1140
This act will do just that by first clearly defining the root of a
problem before trying to implement perhaps unjust and redundant burdens
on America's businesses.
This is an appropriate reform bill that should garner bipartisan
support. The President's own Jobs Council has advocated regulatory
reform by focusing on streamlining the current system for permitting
projects that can create jobs. That Jobs Council understood that
regulations involving the Federal, State, and local level can lead to a
tangled web of red tape and cause a bureaucratic nightmare. The current
system will only continue to stunt economic growth, and this act is a
much-needed step in the right direction.
I would like to thank the gentleman from New Jersey, Chairman
Garrett, as well as the chairman of the Financial Services Committee,
the gentleman from Texas, for their leadership on this issue.
Mr. Chairman, I strongly support the passage of the bill, and I urge
my colleagues in the House to do so as well.
Ms. WATERS. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
David Scott).
Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia. I thank Ranking Member Waters for
yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today to join my colleagues in strong opposition
to H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act.
Unfortunately, what we have before us today is nothing more than a
thinly veiled attempt at paralyzing an agency under the guise of an
otherwise worthy activity, which is cost-benefit analysis. Cost-benefit
analysis is a good thing to do, but not under the terms of this bill.
Mr. Chairman, I don't think that there is anybody in this body who is
opposed to an honest, open, balanced, thorough, and truly objective
cost-benefit analysis in the rulemaking process. On the contrary, we
all agree that it is essential for creating good policy, as I said.
However, the regime established in this bill is nothing but. Rather,
the assumptions which would be codified into statute by this bill are
worded in such a way as to prejudice the outcome of the analysis toward
the side of not regulating at all in nearly every circumstance.
And while some in this body may think that this is a good thing, ask
the Americans who were victims of the latest financial meltdown, many
of whom are still suffering because of it. Ask them what they think,
because the SEC, Mr. Chairman, is currently required to balance
protection of investors with the maintenance of effective and efficient
markets. This bill would do away with that balance by focusing solely
on the cost to the industry and investor choice. Nowhere in the bill is
investor protection, which is a part of the SEC's core mission, even
mentioned at all.
Moreover, I think it is crucial to point out that this bill does
nothing to ease the strain on the SEC's resources. Instead, it
exacerbates the problem by slapping the SEC with a huge new
administrative responsibility, all while they are still working,
curiously, to implement Dodd-Frank and the Jobs Act, without giving
them the resources to accomplish the task.
How on Earth do my colleagues who support this bill think that the
SEC can produce the type of analysis they're asking for--any analysis
at all, for that matter--without the additional staff that even the CBO
says they will be required to have? The problem is especially acute
considering this bill would require going back and studying every rule
in effect since the agency was first created way back in 1934. No other
agency in the Federal Government is saddled with that kind of burden.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to my
friend from Georgia when he talks about the incredible burden of a
retrospective look back, I would quote:
Because considerations of efficiency and competition in
capital formation evolve over time, a retrospective analysis
of the Commission's rules and regulations is fully within the
Commission's statutory mandate.
That comes from the ABA.
I would also quote this as well:
The safety of workers' retirement savings that are invested
in the capital markets depend in large part on the
Commission's rules and regulations for the protection of the
investors. To be effective, securities regulations must be
continuously updated to address the emergence of new
loopholes, abuses, and market failures.
AFL-CIO.
Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on both sides?
The CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas has 11\1/2\ minutes remaining.
The gentlewoman from California has 10\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. HENSARLING. I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Washington, Representative Denny Heck.
Mr. HECK of Washington. I thank the ranking member.
Mr. Chair, I have a different take on this. I rise to oppose this
bill not because it seeks to and would effectively undermine the
ability of the SEC to function, although it certainly does that.
Instead, I want to speak to those who are laboring under the impression
that this is good legislation and are conservatives, because it is not
good legislation, and it is not rooted in conservative principles.
Indeed, if red States tend to send more conservatives to this
Chamber, then they would respect their conservatism by lighting up red,
every one of them, when we get to final passage. Conservatives don't
pass unnecessary legislation. And yesterday, when we had the privilege
of having Mary Jo White, the new chair of the SEC before our committee,
she was directly asked: Is this legislation necessary? She was
unanimously confirmed, applauded by both sides of the aisle, all
philosophies. She said:
Not only is it unnecessary, it's undesirable.
Conservatives don't enact unfunded mandates on State governments or
local governments or on Federal agencies. This is a massive unfunded
mandate.
And finally, true conservatives and a lot of the rest of us seek
commonsense regulatory relief, especially for community banks and
credit unions, not additional unnecessary, unfunded regulatory
activity.
You know, Mr. Chair, we have several regulatory relief bills before
our committee, not yet scheduled, not yet
[[Page H2737]]
heard. Congresswoman Capito has H.R. 1553 to grant some regulatory
relief to community banks and credit unions. Let's vote H.R. 1062 down
and get on to the work of those bills and grant real regulatory relief
if we seek to support the SEC in its mission to protect investors and
promote fair, orderly, and efficient markets.
Mr. Chair, if you are a true conservative, you're going to vote
``no'' on H.R. 1062.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 1 minute to the
author of the bill, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
Mr. GARRETT. I was not going to speak again until, in fact, I was
being lectured on what a true conservative is by the other side of the
aisle, who gave us the over 2,000-page Dodd-Frank legislation that has
in fact stymied the economy, despite what the gentleman from
Connecticut was saying before, that is setting literally trillions of
dollars on the side, not being invested; that the unemployment rate
hovers at high levels because of this stagnation in the economy because
of the legislation.
To the other side of the aisle, to define what a true conservative
is, a true conservative would actually read the bill, as other Members
of the other side of the aisle have not done. Those who could not find
simple words such as ``benefit'' when it is listed many times, those
who could not find the benefits to investors when it's listed multiple
times. A true conservative would understand what they're talking about
when they come to the floor, Mr. Chairman. A true conservative would do
what's in the best interest of the economy, of the investor, of the job
seekers of this country, as well. A true conservative would support
this legislation.
{time} 1150
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
First, I have a number of communications that I will insert into the
Record.
I have a Statement of Administration Policy from the Executive Office
of the President; I have American Federation of Labor and Congress of
Industrial Organizations; I have Americans for Financial Reform; I have
AFSCME; and I also have California Public Employees Retirement System,
all in opposition to this bill, and asking us to please oppose the
bill.
Executive Office of the President, Office of Management
and Budget,
Washington, DC, May 15, 2013.
Statement of Administration Policy
H.R. 1062--SEC Regulatory Accountability Act
(Rep. Garrett, R-NJ, and 23 cosponsors)
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays a
critical role in protecting Americans' investments for
retirement, higher education, and other personal savings
while ensuring strong, efficient, safe financial activity
that contributes to the Nation's economic health and job
creation. While the Administration is firmly committed to
smart and effective regulations that advance statutory goals
in the most cost-effective and efficient manner, the
Administration opposes passage of H.R. 1062. By adding
burdensome and disruptive new procedures, H.R. 1062 would
impede the ability of the SEC to protect investors, maintain
orderly and efficient markets, and facilitate capital
formation.
The Administration believes in the value of cost-benefit
analysis. However, H.R. 1062 would add onerous procedures
that would threaten the implementation of key reforms related
to financial stability and investor protection. H.R. 1062
would direct the SEC to conduct time- and resource-intensive
assessments after it adopts or amends major regulations
before the impacts of the regulations may have occurred or be
known. The bill would add analytical requirements that could
result in unnecessary delays in the rulemaking process,
thereby undermining the ability of the SEC to effectively
execute its statutory mandates.
The Administration is committed to a regulatory system that
is informed by science, cost-justified, and consistent with
economic growth. Through efforts including Executive Order
13579, ``Regulation and Independent Regulatory Agencies,''
the Administration is taking important steps to encourage
independent agencies to follow cost-saving and burden-
reducing principles in their reviews of new regulations, and
to examine their existing rules to identify those that should
be modified, streamlined, or repealed.
____
American Federation of Labor
and Congress,
Washington, DC, May 6, 2013.
Hon. Jeb Hensarling,
Chairman, House Financial Services Committee, Rayburn House
Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Maxine Waters,
Ranking Minority Member, House Education and the Workforce
Committee, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Hensarling and Ranking Minority Member
Waters: On behalf of the AFL-CIO, we urge you to oppose the
``Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act''
(H.R. 634); the ``Inter-Affiliate Swaps Clarification Act''
(H.R. 677); the ``Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act'' (H.R.
992); the ``SEC Regulatory Accountability Act'' (H.R. 1062);
the ``Swaps Jurisdiction Certainty Act'' (H.R. 1256): and the
``Financial Competitive Act'' (H.R. 1341) all scheduled for
markup tomorrow. Each of these bills, if passed, would
undermine the framework Congress put in place in the Dodd-
Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010
to prevent risky derivatives trading from contributing to
another global financial crisis.
Reckless derivatives trading played a critical role in the
2008 financial crisis, turning the fallout from the crash of
the domestic housing market into a global economic
catastrophe. Whether measured in lost jobs and homes, lower
earnings, eroding retirement security or devastated
communities, working people paid a tremendous price for Wall
Street's greed when the financial crisis hit.
The AFL-CIO strongly supports the common-sense protections
put in place by Title VII of Dodd-Frank. Title VII creates
basic structures that have existed in other, well-functioning
financial markets for decades--clearinghouses to protect the
safety and soundness of the market and its participants;
exchanges and execution facilities to provide transparency;
and business conduct standards to ensure that everyone plays
fairly.
We oppose these bills because they would undermine the
sensible framework for derivatives market regulation put in
place by Dodd-Frank. One of these bills, H.R. 1062, would not
only undermine derivatives regulation but would significantly
undermine the SEC's ability to function by imposing
substantial additional administrative burdens on the agency.
Less than five years have passed since the financial crisis
wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy, yet Wall Street is back to
raking in the profits while working people are struggling to
get by. Now they are asking you to vote for bills that will
allow them to return to the risky trading practices that
caused the 2008 crisis.
We urge you to stand with the middle class and vote against
these bills and preserve the basic derivatives market
protections that Congress so sensibly put in place when it
passed Dodd-Frank in 2010.
Sincerely,
William Samuel, Director,
Government Affairs Department.
____
Americans for Financial Reform,
Washington, DC.
Dear Representative: On behalf of Americans for Financial
Reform, we are writing to express our opposition to HR 1062,
the ``SEC Regulatory Accountability Act'' This legislation
would imperil the implementation of many important financial
regulatory rules by adding numerous unnecessary procedural
requirements to rulemakings by the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC).
The SEC is already required to conduct economic analysis on
every rule it passes, and to examine the effect of its
rulemakings on capital formation, market efficiency, and
competition. This legislation would add a lengthy list of
additional cost-benefit requirements to these existing
requirements. The new requirements in HR 1062 include a
requirement to separately analyze the costs and benefits of
the entire set of ``available regulatory alternatives'' in
addition to the costs and benefits of the actual rule being
considered. Since this set of alternatives may contain
numerous possibilities, this requirement alone could add
dozens of analyses prior to any new rulemaking. Even beyond
this massive new requirement, the legislation also specifies
a long list of additional analyses to be performed in
connection with any new rulemaking, including analyses of the
effect of new rules on market liquidity, investor choice,
state and local governments, and other entities.
The requirements in this bill would force the agency to
measure costs and benefits of a new rule before that rule was
even implemented or market data resulting from the rule was
available. They also include enormously broad and vague
mandates such as determining whether a regulation imposes the
`least burden possible' among all possible regulatory
options. A court could overturn the SEC's decision in any
case where it found any one of the numerous analyses required
here to be inadequate. The vagueness of mandates like the
`least burden possible' means that court challenges or court
decisions could rest on claims that are essentially
speculative and theoretical. These new mandates would not
improve the quality of the regulatory process; they would
stop it in its tracks.
The lengthy list of new requirements in this bill is
transparently intended to create roadblocks in the way of
passing any investor protection rule. The effect would be to
halt the process of implementing rules under the Dodd-Frank
Act--and potentially also rulemakings under more recent laws
such as
[[Page H2738]]
the JOBS Act. Indeed, HR 1062 would put significant pressure
on the SEC to disregard congressional mandates by making the
agency evaluate the need for regulations that Congress has
unequivocally directed the SEC to write. Further, the
numerous additional procedural and analytical requirements
imposed by this bill come with no additional funding for the
SEC. Asking the SEC to do so much more without additional
resources would make the current regulatory delays at the
SEC--evidenced by the numerous congressionally mandated
deadlines it has missed--even worse.
Reforms that create accountability and transparency for
Wall Street are crucial to the well-being of our financial
markets and to the protection of investors and market
participants. But they will also change a very profitable
status quo that earns a small group of Wall Street banks many
billions of dollars each year. Financial industry special
interests have every interest in blocking change. This
legislation is a toolbox that would allow them to use legal
challenges to do so indefinitely.
According to polling data, over 70 percent of Americans
favor stronger rules and enforcement for big Wall Street
banks and the financial services industry. A large majority
also favor the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. In the face
of the public's demand for change, Congress must reject
legislation such as HR 1062, which, regardless of its
intentions, would hamper effective oversight of our financial
markets.
Thank you for your consideration. For more information
please contact AFR's Policy Director, Marcus Stanley.
Sincerely,
Americans for Financial Reform.
Following are the Partners of Americans for Financial Reform
All the organizations support the overall principles of AFR
and are working for an accountable, fair and secure financial
system. Not all of these organizations work on all of the
issues covered by the coalition or have signed on to every
statement.
AARP; A New Way Forward; AFL-CIO; AFSCME; Alliance For
Justice; American Income Life Insurance; American Sustainable
Business Council; Americans for Democratic Action, Inc.;
Americans United for Change; Campaign for America's Future;
Campaign Money; Center for Digital Democracy; Center for
Economic and Policy Research; Center for Economic Progress;
Center for Media and Democracy; Center for Responsible
Lending; Center for Justice and Democracy; Center of Concern;
Center for Effective Government; Change to Win; Clean Yield
Asset Management.
Coastal Enterprises Inc.; Color of Change; Common Cause;
Communications Workers of America; Community Development
Transportation Lending Services; Consumer Action; Consumer
Association Council; Consumers for Auto Safety and
Reliability; Consumer Federation of America; Consumer
Watchdog; Consumers Union; Corporation for Enterprise
Development; CREDO Mobile; CTW Investment Group; Demos;
Economic Policy Institute; Essential Action; Greenlining
Institute; Good Business International; HNMA Funding Company.
Home Actions,; Housing Counseling Services; Home Defender's
League; Information Press; Institute for Global
Communications; Institute for Policy Studies: Global Economy
Project; International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Institute of
Women's Policy Research; Krull & Company; Laborers'
International Union of North America; Lawyers' Committee for
Civil Rights Under Law; Main Street Alliance; Move On; NAACP;
NASCAT; National Association of Consumer Advocates; National
Association of Neighborhoods; National Community Reinvestment
Coalition; National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its
low-income clients); National Consumers League; National
Council of La Raza; National Council of Women's
Organizations; National Fair Housing Alliance.
National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions;
National Housing Resource Center; National Housing Trust;
National Housing Trust Community Development Fund; National
NeighborWorks Association; National Nurses United; National
People's Action; National Urban League; Next Step;
OpenTheGovernment.org; Opportunity Finance Network; Partners
for the Common Good; PICO National Network; Progress Now
Action; Progressive States Network; Poverty and Race Research
Action Council; Public Citizen; Sargent Shriver Center on
Poverty Law; SEIU; State Voices; Taxpayer's for Common Sense;
The Association for Housing and Neighborhood Development; The
Fuel Savers Club; The Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights; The Seminal; TICAS; U.S. Public Interest
Research Group; UNITE HERE; United Food and Commercial
Workers; United States Student Association; USAction; Veris
Wealth Partners; Western States Center; We the People Now;
Woodstock Institute; World Privacy Forum; UNET; Union Plus;
Unitarian Universalist for a Just Economic Community.
list of state and local affiliates
Alaska PIRG; Arizona PIRG; Arizona Advocacy Network;
Arizonans For Responsible Lending; Association for
Neighborhood and Housing Development NY; Audubon Partnership
for Economic Development LDC, New York NY; BAC Funding
Consortium Inc., Miami FL; Beech Capital Venture Corporation,
Philadelphia PA; California PIRG; California Reinvestment
Coalition; Century Housing Corporation, Culver City CA;
CHANGER NY; Chautauqua Home Rehabilitation and Improvement
Corporation (NY); Chicago Community Loan Fund, Chicago IL;
Chicago Community Ventures, Chicago IL; Chicago Consumer
Coalition; Citizen Potawatomi CDC, Shawnee OK; Colorado PIRG;
Coalition on Homeless Housing in Ohio; Community Capital
Fund, Bridgeport CT; Community Capital of Maryland, Baltimore
MD.
Community Development Financial Institution of the Tohono
O'odham Nation, Sells AZ; Community Redevelopment Loan and
Investment Fund, Atlanta GA; Community Reinvestment
Association of North Carolina; Community Resource Group,
Fayetteville A; Connecticut PIRG; Consumer Assistance
Council; Cooper Square Committee (NYC); Cooperative Fund of
New England, Wilmington NC; Corporacion de Desarrollo
Economico de Ceiba, Ceiba PR; Delta Foundation, Inc.,
Greenville MS; Economic Opportunity Fund (EOF), Philadelphia
PA; Empire Justice Center NY; Empowering and Strengthening
Ohio's People (ESOP), Cleveland OH; Enterprises, Inc., Berea
KY; Fair Housing Contact Service OH; Federation of
Appalachian Housing; Fitness and Praise Youth Development,
Inc., Baton Rouge LA; Florida Consumer Action Network;
Florida PIRG; Funding Partners for Housing Solutions, Ft.
Collins CO; Georgia PIRG; Grow Iowa Foundation, Greenfield
IA; Homewise, Inc., Santa Fe NM; Idaho Nevada CDFI, Pocatello
ID.
Idaho Chapter, National Association of Social Workers;
Illinois PIRG; Impact Capital, Seattle WA; Indiana PIRG; Iowa
PIRG; Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement; JobStart
Chautauqua, Inc., Mayville NY; La Casa Federal Credit Union,
Newark NJ; Low Income Investment Fund, San Francisco CA; Long
Island Housing Services NY; MaineStream Finance, Bangor ME;
Maryland PIRG; Massachusetts Consumers' Coalition; MASSPIRG;
Massachusetts Fair Housing Center; Michigan PIRG; Midland
Community Development Corporation, Midland TX; Midwest
Minnesota Community Development Corporation, Detroit Lakes
MN; Mile High Community Loan Fund, Denver CO; Missouri PIRG;
Mortgage Recovery Service Center of L.A.; Montana Community
Development Corporation, Missoula MT.
Montana PIRG; Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy
Project; New Hampshire PIRG; New Jersey Community Capital,
Trenton NJ; New Jersey Citizen Action; New Jersey PIRG; New
Mexico PIRG; New York PIRG; New York City Aids Housing
Network; New Yorkers for Responsible Lending; NOAH Community
Development Fund, Inc., Boston MA; Nonprofit Finance Fund,
New York NY; Nonprofits Assistance Fund, Minneapolis M; North
Carolina PIRG; Northside Community Development Fund,
Pittsburgh PA; Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing,
Columbus OH; Ohio PIRG; OligarchyUSA; Oregon State PIRG;
Our Oregon; PennPIRG; Piedmont Housing Alliance,
Charlottesville VA; Michigan PIRG.
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, CO; Rhode Island
PIRG; Rural Community Assistance Corporation, West Sacramento
CA; Rural Organizing Project OR; San Francisco Municipal
Transportation Authority; Seattle Economic Development Fund;
Community Capital Development; TexPIRG; The Fair Housing
Council of Central New York; The Loan Fund, Albuquerque NM;
Third Reconstruction Institute NC; Vermont PIRG; Village
Capital Corporation, Cleveland OH; Virginia Citizens Consumer
Council; Virginia Poverty Law Center; War on Poverty--
Florida; WashPIRG; Westchester Residential Opportunities
Inc.; Wigamig Owners Loan Fund, Inc., Lac du Flambeau WI;
WISPIRG.
Small Businesses
Blu; Bowden-Gill Environmental; Community MedPAC;
Diversified Environmental Planning; Hayden & Craig, PLLC; Mid
City Animal Hospital, Phoenix AZ; The Holographic
Repatterning Institute at Austin; UNET.
____
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, AFL-CIO,
Washington, DC, May 15, 2013.
Dear Representative: On behalf of the 1.6 million members
of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees (AFSCME), I urge you to oppose the ``SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act'' (H.R. 1062).
H.R. 1062 adds duplicative and unnecessary procedural
requirements to SEC rulemaking and thereby delays and
undermines the implementation of protections over America's
financial markets. It weakens sensible safeguards enacted in
the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, which Congress specifically
designed to address the causes of the worst financial crises
since the Great Depression. America is still recovering from
the loss of 8 million jobs, sharply reduced housing prices
and personal savings, and nationwide economic stagnation.
Tens of millions of affected Americans demand stronger--not
weaker--government protections over their investments,
America's financial system, and our common economic future.
The SEC's current rulemaking process is already rigorous
and thorough. They already are required to review the impact
of rulemaking on capital formation, market efficiency, and
competition; and to analyze the economics of its finalized
rules. H.R. 1062 would move far beyond constructive analysis
by requiring the SEC's final rule to list the
[[Page H2739]]
reasons it did not incorporate specific industry group
concerns related to potential costs or benefits. H.R. 1062
also requires the SEC to ``assess the costs and benefits of
available regulatory alternatives'', which likely involves a
vast array of options of marginal utility and will result in
considerable delay. Furthermore, within one year of
enactment, H.R. 1062 would require the SEC to evaluate each
and every one of its regulations for potential revision and
implement this 100% review every five years thereafter.
Despite these new burdens, H.R. 1062 fails to provide even
one penny of additional funding. Rather than delaying the
SEC's regulatory process under the guise of enhanced cost-
benefit analysis, Congress should strengthen the SEC's
process by investing additional resources to enhance
expertise and effectiveness.
H.R. 1062 is simply another attempt to delay and defund
federal oversight of America's financial system and federal
protection of middle-class consumers and investors. AFSCME
urges you to oppose this legislation and vote no on H.R.
1062.
Sincerely,
Charles M. Loveless,
Director of Federal Government Affairs.
____
California Public Employees' Retirement System,
Investment Office,
Sacramento, CA, May 15, 2013.
Subject CalPERS Concerns with HR 1062
Members of the California Delegation,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Members of Congress: On behalf of the California
Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), I am writing
to express our strong concerns about the ``SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act'' (HR 1062).
As the largest public pension fund in the United States,
with approximately $265 billion in global assets providing
retirement security to more than 1.6 million public workers,
retirees, their families, and beneficiaries, CalPERS is
reliant upon effective and comprehensive market regulation
designed to protect investors.
This legislation would threaten the efficient
implementation of many important financial regulatory rules
by imposing unnecessary requirements upon the Securities and
Exchange Commission (Commission).
Although the Commission is already required to conduct
economic analysis on every rule it adopts and to examine the
effect of its rulemakings on capital formation, market
efficiency, and competition, HR 1062 would create additional
hurdles for the Commission. These include a requirement to
analyze the costs and benefits of all ``available regulatory
alternatives'' in addition to those of the underlying rule.
This could require scores of additional, unnecessary economic
analyses on hypothetical alternatives that are not before the
Commission.
The proposed legislation would require the Commission to
determine whether a regulation imposes the `least burden
possible' among all possible regulatory options--a virtual
impossibility that would open up the Commission to legal
challenges and competing economic analyses. Moreover, HR 1062
would require the Commission to defend every estimate and
assumption before the DC Circuit and a failure to satisfy
even one tangential analysis would threaten the validity of
an otherwise reasonable regulation.
We fear the requirement to create a myriad of new economic
analyses is intended to derail the efforts of the Commission
to implement important legislation like the Dodd-Frank Wall
Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act while its opponents
continue to attempt to repeal or significantly water down
important investor protections.
To be clear, long-term investors like CalPERS benefit from
a strong economy and understand the motivations of those who
say that excessive regulation can impose a drag on the
economy. However, we believe that having a robust financial
regulatory system helps create confidence in our financial
markets and encourages investments that help grow the
economy.
Thank you for your consideration. If you have any
questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or Don
Marlais of Lussier, Gregor, Vienna & Associates--our federal
representatives.
Sincerely,
Anne Simpson,
Senior Portfolio Manager, Investments,
Director of Global Governance.
____
Consumer Federation of America,
May 16, 2013.
Vote ``No'' on H.R. 1062
Bill Would Hamstring the SEC and Impede Financial Reform
Dear Representative: I am writing on behalf of the Consumer
Federation of America (CFA) to express our strong opposition
to H.R. 1062, the ``SEC Regulatory Accountability Act,''
which is scheduled to come to the House floor for a vote
tomorrow. H.R. 1062 is a regulatory ``accountability'' act
only if you believe that the SEC's primary accountability
should be to the securities firms it is supposed to regulate
rather than to the public it is supposed to protect. At a
time when the agency is already years behind schedule in
implementing rules to address root causes of the financial
crisis, and months past key deadlines for JOBS Act
implementation, this bill would further slow the already
glacial regulatory process and further empower Wall Street
interests to derail needed reforms.
H.R. 1062 fails its own cost-benefit test. To begin with,
its sponsors have failed to identify a problem in need of a
legislative solution. The SEC already conducts economic
analyses of its rules and is held to a very high standard by
the courts in conducting that analysis. When the agency fails
to meet that standard, industry groups have had no trouble
over-turning its rules in court. Moreover, since the court
overturned the proxy access rule, the SEC has adopted a new
set of guidelines to ensure that its analysis meets the
rigorous standard set in that court ruling. Those guidelines
have been praised by the Government Accountability Office and
by members of the House who have in the past been most
critical of the SEC's cost-benefit analysis.
H.R. 1062's sponsors also appear to have ignored the
significant costs of its proposed approach. The Congressional
Budget Office recently estimated that the bill would cost $23
million to implement. But this considerable sum covers only
the cost of conducting the required cost-benefit analysis. It
does not appear to include the significant additional legal
costs the agency would face if this bill were to become law.
One of the primary effects of this legislation would be to
provide a whole new set of tools that industry groups could
use to mount a legal challenge against rules that they
oppose. In addition to further slowing the regulatory
process, this would impose significant additional costs on
the agency that are not accounted for in the CBO estimate or
acknowledged by the bill's authors.
These costs would arise without providing additional
benefits. Far from improving regulations, the most likely
effect would be to further intimidate an agency that is
already far too reluctant to stand up to powerful Wall Street
interests. And, unless Congress were to appropriate the
additional funds needed to meet these costs, they would come
at the expense of other important regulatory priorities--
providing enhanced oversight of investment advisers,
addressing market structure concerns, dealing with high
frequency trading, or finalizing the Dodd-Frank and JOBS Act
rules that are already so far behind schedule, to name just a
few.
This is an ill-conceived bill that would make it more
difficult for the SEC to fulfill its mandate to protect
consumers, promote market integrity, and facilitate capital
formation. We urge you to vote no on H.R. 1062.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara Roper,
Director of Investor Protection.
____
North American Securities
Administrators Association, Inc.,
Washington, DC, May 6, 2013.
Re SEC Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 1062)
Hon. Jeb Hensarling,
Chairman, House Financial Services Committee, Rayburn House
Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Maxine Waters,
Ranking Member, House Financial Services Committee, Rayburn
House Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Hensarling and Ranking Member Waters: On
behalf of the North American Securities Administrators
Association (NASAA), I am writing to express my opposition to
H.R. 1062, the ``SEC Regulatory Accountability Act.'' This
legislation would establish a significant number of
additional cost-benefit analyses that the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) would be required to complete when
issuing a new regulation. The burdensome new requirements
enumerated in the bill will not only substantially impede the
ability of the SEC to conduct rulemaking, but will also
create standards that could conflict with the SEC's investor
protection mission.
Rulemaking processes to which the SEC and other federal
regulators must adhere are set forth in the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA) and other statutes. These processes
require regulators engaged in rulemaking to perform economic
and cost-benefit analyses of their proposed rules to
``determine as best [as they] can the economic implications
of the rule,'' and ``examine the relevant data and articulate
a satisfactory explanation for [their] action, including a
rational connection between the facts found and the choices
made.'' In addition to such mandates arising under the APA,
the SEC has a unique obligation to consider the effect of a
proposed rule upon ``efficiency, competition, and capital
formation,'' and it has recently issued guidance to its rule
writing staff on conducting proper economic analyses.
H.R. 1062 would require the SEC to conduct new and
unreasonably extensive analyses prior to issuing a
regulation. The SEC would be permitted to adopt a rule only
upon a ``reasoned determination'' that the rule's benefits
justify its costs. The SEC must determine, and measure, the
effectiveness of a rule even prior to its adoption and
without assessing its ultimate impact on investor protection
(which may not be easily quantifiable). The bill also
requires the SEC to consider an unduly broad range of
considerations before issuing a rule that are much more
expansive, and in certain cases, vague than is currently
required.
Upon issuing a final rule, H.R. 1062 requires the SEC to
provide an explanation of the comments it received, and
notably, requires the SEC to explain why ``industry group
concerns'' were not incorporated in the final
[[Page H2740]]
rule. Although the bill explicitly mandates that the SEC
address industry concerns, however, it does not contain a
similar mandate for consumer or investor protection group
concerns. This omission is arguably in direct conflict with
the investor protection mandate of the SEC. Finally, the bill
subjects the SEC to an ongoing assessment of any rules that
are ``outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively
burdensome''--a list that could require the SEC to reexamine
all of its existing rules.
State securities regulators appreciate the importance of
the rigorous regulatory cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness
analyses to which independent agency rules are subjected. The
SEC is already subject to extensive and exacting cost-benefit
analysis standards, and the new analytical hurdles imposed by
H.R. 1062 could have a detrimental effect on the SEC's
ability to meet its regulatory mandate. Moreover, the costs
of such additional hurdles (i.e., rulemaking delays,
increased staffing demands, and additional taxpayer dollars)
will likely outweigh the intended benefit that the expanded
analyses are intended to provide.
NASAA is also concerned that misuse of these analyses could
severely impair the ability of the SEC to conduct efficient,
effective and timely rulemaking including rules required
under the recently enacted JOBS Act, long overdue rulemaking
mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, and any future rules designed
to protect investors and the public. The unintended
consequence of H.R. 1062, if enacted, would be the derailment
of important investor protections that are essential to a
robust and stable capital marketplace.
In view of the bill's burdensome cost-benefit analysis
requirements, and harm that it may cause on the investing
public, I respectfully urge you not to support H.R. 1062.
Thank you for your consideration of my concerns. If you have
any questions, please feel free to contact Michael Canning,
Director of Policy, or Anya Coverman, Deputy Director of
Policy, at the NASAA Corporate Office at (202) 737-0900.
Sincerely,
A. Heath Abshure,
NASAA President and Arkansas
Securities Commissioner.
Mr. Chairman and Members, a lot has been said in this debate. A lot
has been said about what this bill is and what it is not, and I'd like
to clear up a few of the points.
First of all, before I go into clearing up some of these points,
there's been, I guess, some back and forth here about what is and what
is not a conservative. And I've always thought that the conservatives
fashioned themselves as saving money and reducing bureaucracy, rather
than creating legislation that costs more money and creates
bureaucracy. So I guess today we see that perhaps I was wrong about
what I thought a real conservative was.
Let me go on to talk about the Republicans claiming that they're just
codifying the President's executive order for more cost-benefit
analysis. In fact, H.R. 1062 goes above and beyond the executive order
by requiring the SEC to review all of its regulations, even those
dating back to the Great Depression, within 1 year, and then every 5
years after that. More bureaucracy, more money.
While the executive order protects agencies from litigation over
their economic analysis, H.R. 1062 would give Wall Street lobbyists and
traders dozens of new avenues to sue the SEC over every rulemaking. Not
only did they go into the courts on proxy access; there are two other
bills and I understand more that they're planning. It will cost the SEC
more money to deal with this litigation and this bureaucracy.
Importantly, H.R. 1062 would create confusion for the SEC because the
bill requires the SEC to write rules that maximize the benefits, even
when Congress tells them otherwise.
H.R. 1062 is not codifying the executive order but is, instead, aimed
squarely at undermining Wall Street's cop on the block. In writing the
rules, the SEC is required to balance both investor protection and
capital formation. One cannot take precedence over the other.
I've heard a lot of talk about capital formation here today. But
they, in bringing this bill to the floor, are creating more bureaucracy
and piling up more burdens and responsibility so that they impede the
ability to do real capital formation.
And so, in addition to easing the ability of small companies to enter
the public markets, the SEC has done much to make it easier for
companies to raise the money they need privately.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I'm under the impression I have the
right to close, so the gentlelady has reserved. I will reserve until
she is ready to close.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chair, how many minutes do I have left?
The CHAIR. The gentlewoman from California has 6 minutes remaining.
Ms. WATERS. I yield myself the balance of the time.
In closing, allow me to quote one of the Financial Services Committee
members in a hearing yesterday, because I think it is so important for
us to understand that the SEC is our cop on the block that has the
responsibility for protecting investors.
Let us understand that my colleagues on the opposite side of the
aisle are opposed to the SEC having an adequate budget. They do
everything that they can to cut the budget, to deny the resources; but
they keep adding on additional responsibilities, recognizing that the
SEC has a tremendous load. Not only do they have all of the work, the
cost-benefit analysis that they do on everything, but they have the
responsibility of rulemaking for all of Dodd-Frank, which is the reform
legislation that will cause us to eliminate risk and to protect our
constituents and the citizens of this country.
But let me just say that yesterday, during a Financial Services
Committee hearing, Chairman Emeritus Spencer Bachus said that it would
be penny-wise and pound foolish for there not to be a bipartisan
agreement for raising the funding or increasing the funding for the
SEC.
And I think that's important to get out there. They need more
resources; and while we have this bill that's costing them more money
to simply implement what they would like to do in H.R. 1062, they
oppose giving additional resources.
In addition to that, let's talk about this court action. We mentioned
early on that the SEC had been taken to court on proxy access. What are
we talking about?
We're talking about the fact that the institutional investors, the
ones who are responsible for investing the money so that the workers,
the public workers, the firemen, the police, the teachers, all can have
adequate retirement. And so our institutional investors wanted very
much to ensure that the companies that they're investing in are
managing these funds well, and they simply wanted the ability to place
proxy access into the proxy materials so that they could nominate
directors to the board to make sure that they're overseeing the money
for all of our first responders and our employees.
Well, my friends on the opposite side of the aisle teamed with Wall
Street and they went to court and they made this big case, and it was
right here in Washington, D.C., in the district court. And they got an
opinion. They got a ruling.
And so the SEC went back and it said, basically, to everybody, all of
its employees, what have you, let's do even more. And on top of them
not only saying let's do more and instruct the employees to do more,
then they come with this bill and want to put more on top of that.
This is not about those people that Mr. Hensarling referred to around
the kitchen table talking about jobs. This is about protecting Wall
Street. This is about tying up the SEC. This is about making sure the
SEC is not able to carry out its responsibilities.
This, again, is about putting us all at risk. This is about not being
about the investors, but being about the markets. This, again, is about
protecting those who really need no protection, those who placed us at
risk to begin with, those who not only placed us at risk, but would do
it again if we allow them to do it.
I don't know why my friends on the opposite side of the aisle would
be opposed to something like proxy access and then lined up in the
courts again with other litigation, litigation that's going to take
away precious dollars from the SEC that they need to protect us, to
protect the investors.
But, no, they come to this floor and they simply describe this bill
in ways that it really is not. This is dangerous, it is irresponsible,
it is not something that the people of this country would expect of
people that they sent to Congress to represent them.
This, again--and we'll say it over and over again as it has been said
by so many who have come here and testified today on this side of the
aisle--this is about protecting Wall Street. This is about protecting
those who simply
[[Page H2741]]
want to find ways to keep the SEC from stopping them in their
rulemaking from doing things that will be harmful to the American
public.
And so, Mr. Chairman and Members, I say to you we should all stop and
think about this. And for all those who are listening, all of the
Members on both sides of the aisle, we should think about our
responsibility here today and understand what this bill is all about
and vote ``no,'' a resounding ``no'' on this bill.
Let us make sure that people are not saying a few years from now, oh,
I'm sorry. I made a mistake. I should not have tied the hands of the
SEC. I should have been more careful. I should not have listened to
what was being said by the very people who caused us the problem in the
first place.
I think if our Members stop and they listen and they pay attention
that they're going to oppose this bill, even some on the opposite side
of the aisle. And I think some of them know this. They know that
they're being asked to support something that may not be in the best
interest of their constituents, but they might want to go along with
the leadership.
But it's not time to go along with the leadership. It's time to be
independent. It's time to look at the facts and vote ``no'' on this
bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
{time} 1200
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
The CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas has 10\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time,
although I will alert my colleagues I do not intend to take it all.
Mr. Chairman, I find it somewhat interesting the great amount of
wailing and gnashing of teeth that we have heard on this House floor
for a very simple bill that weighs in at, frankly, less than 10 pages
that simply requires a government agency to decide is there going to be
a cost to our economy, is there going to be a loss of jobs as they pass
a rule. It doesn't overturn their rules. It just says, before you make
a rule, you've really got to think about kitchen-table economics.
You've got to take a look at and understand how will this ultimately
impact hardworking Americans who are struggling to pay their health
care bills, struggling to put gas in the tank and who have economic
insecurity due to this economy.
So I've heard a lot of furor here. I must admit I'm particularly
entertained by those who care to lecture me on what it means to be a
conservative. Maybe I'm not the world's expert, but there was a time in
my career my fellow colleagues elected me the chairman of the
Conservative Caucus of the House, known as the Republican Study
Committee. And, Mr. Chairman, I have a certificate in my office that I
proudly display from the Americans for Democratic Action where they say
Congressman Hensarling receives a zero percent liberal rating.
So I will certainly agree with my friends that, apparently, I don't
know much about liberalism, but I do think I do know a few things about
conservatism. So I'll come up with an informal agreement. We'll let you
be the experts on what it means to be a liberal--and you're very good
at it, to the best of my knowledge--and I will retain the expertise on
how one votes conservative.
The next thing I would say, Mr. Chairman, is how fascinating it is to
have so many of my colleagues say that this bill, on the one hand, is
unnecessary, but, on the other hand, it's burdensome; on the one hand,
it's redundant, but, on the other hand, it will stop the SEC in its
tracks. Mr. Chairman, I just don't think you can quite have it both
ways.
I notice when some can't argue the merits of a question, they tend to
come up to question one's motivation, and we've got the usual Wall
Street bogeymen to come in here. But what I want to know about is why,
why would we not want to know, as some have estimated, that the Volcker
rule promulgated by the SEC potentially could cost 1.1 million jobs in
our Nation? And yet my colleagues from the other side of the aisle say,
Shh, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want this information. We don't want
it out. Just like we didn't want out the information that ObamaCare
could cost us 1 million jobs.
And we see it every day. We get the headlines: people can't afford
their health care, their premiums have gone up; people are getting laid
off; people who had full-time jobs are going to part-time; and people
who would have hired more people don't want to cross that 50-person
threshold. And that's just ObamaCare. But, no, shh, we don't want--we
don't want to know how this is going to impact hardworking Americans
who have economic insecurity, millions who do not have jobs.
I am somewhat perplexed, Mr. Chairman, how such a simple bill that
says all you've got to do is look at the cost--we're not imposing our
numbers on them. We're just saying you've got to look at the cost of
what you do. It's what families do; it is what job creators do; and,
frankly, it's what the administration claimed they wanted to do, and
it's what the SEC claimed they wanted to do.
How many of my Democratic colleagues with their words say ``yes'' but
very soon with their voting card are going to say ``no''? No, we
shouldn't know the cost of rulemaking. No, we just want to know what
bureaucrats say the benefits are. But, you know, if people lose their
jobs, well, que sera, sera. We just aren't going to--we don't want to
know that ahead of time. Maybe we'll learn about it afterwards. Maybe
we'll try to clean up the pieces, the shattered lives of people who
lost their jobs.
Mr. Chairman, this is a false dichotomy set up by many of my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle. The question is not between
regulation and deregulation. The question is between smart regulation
and dumb regulation. And smart regulation requires the rule makers to
understand the cost of their rules to the average, hardworking American
family. That's smart regulation. Dumb regulation is burying your head
in the sand and saying, no, we don't want to know.
If we're so concerned about the burden on the SEC, if we're so
concerned about the litigation burden, and if we're so concerned about
the work burden and the rule burden, where's this same concern for the
job creators of America? Where is that concern? You cannot help the job
seeker by punishing the job creator, which is what so many of the
different titles of Dodd-Frank do.
So at the end of the day, Mr. Chairman, this is as simple and as
common sense as it could be. If you're going to pass a rule and you're
going to tell us about the benefits, you've got to let us know what the
costs are to the economy and to hardworking American families. It's
common sense. We should adopt it. We should adopt it today.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1062, the
SEC Regulatory Accountability Act.
Today we are considering another in a long line of Republican bills
that wish to supplant public interest considerations at regulatory
agencies with cost-benefit analysis. H.R. 1062 would require the
Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, to perform a cost-benefit
analysis when conducting new rulemakings. The bill would also mandate a
cost-benefit review of existing SEC rules every five years without
appropriating additional funds to that agency to do so. The net effect
will be a regulatory agency tied in knots and incapable of carrying out
the mission it was chartered to do: protect investors from fraud.
Mr. Chair, my father helped charter the SEC because Wall Street
nearly destroyed this country's economy in 1929. After years of
Republican-led efforts at deregulation, Wall Street came close to doing
that again in 2007 and 2008, and we are only now starting to recover
from that calamity. It grieves me that the House continues to consider
legislation that hamstrings the very agency meant to protect hard-
working Americans from the types of rascality to which Wall Street
seems inclined by nature.
I urge my colleagues not to repeat the past. Vote down this terrible
bill and show you stand with the people, not Wall Street.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chair, I rise today in opposition to this bill, H.R.
1062, the so-called SEC Regulatory Accountability Act.
This bill provides an extremely detailed list of factors that the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will have to consider from now
on in its rulemakings: every available alternative to a proposed
regulation, market liquidity in the securities markets, and even
whether the regulation ``is tailored to impose the least burden on
society, including market
[[Page H2742]]
participants, individuals, businesses of differing sizes, and other
entities (including State and local governmental entities).''
Yet, I notice that one phrase is missing from this list: investor
protection.
Back in 1937, then SEC Chairman, and later Supreme Court Justice,
William O. Douglas noted that:
We have got brokers' advocates; we have got Exchange
advocates; we have got investment banker advocates; and WE
are the investor's advocate.
That historically always has been the role of the SEC--to serve as
the investor's advocate in our nation's securities markets. That is why
Congress established the SEC, and why Congress has expanded its duties
and responsibilities over the years. The goal of investor protection
was similarly an animating force behind Democrats' efforts in the 111th
Congress to enact the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. Any bill that
asks the SEC to look at myriad factors when developing regulations but
not investor protection is off-course from the starting block. It's a
bill whose compass is broken.
Yet, this is not just a bad bill. It's an unnecessary bill. Back in
1996, during the first Congress under Republican control in forty
years, Democrats and Republicans came together to enact the National
Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996. This bill was authored by a
conservative Republican from Texas (Rep. Fields), and supported by the
then Chairman of the Committee (Mr. Bliley of Virginia). It was also
supported by the Ranking Democrat of the Committee (Mr. Dingell) and
myself. As I said at the time, ``when the history of this Congress is
written, there is no question that this securities overhaul and the
telecommunications overhaul will be at the top of the list in terms of
constructive, productive use of this Congress.'' Among the reforms in
this bipartisan bill was a requirement that: ``Whenever pursuant to
this title the Commission is engaged in rulemaking, or in the review of
a rule of a self-regulatory organization, and is required to consider
or determine whether an action is necessary or appropriate in the
public interest, the Commission shall also consider, in addition to the
protection of investors, whether the action will promote efficiency,
competition, and capital formation.''
The 1996 Act, which is current law, therefore makes sure that the SEC
already is required to consider impacts on efficiency, competition and
capital formation whenever it utilizes its inherent rulemaking powers
to determine if an action is in the public interest.
But part of the deal that we reached back then on a bipartisan basis
was that such an analysis could not be utilized to override the primary
goal of the federal securities laws: investor protection. I see no
reason why this House should throw out a good, bipartisan law for a
clearly inferior update.
Yet, it is worth asking: given the requirements of existing law,
exactly what purpose does this bill before us today actually serve?
I believe that this question has only one answer: to tie the SEC's
hands and make it effectively impossible to release rules that help
protect investors from depredations of rogue traders or dishonest Wall
Street brokers. When Democrats in Congress enacted Dodd-Frank in 2010,
we frequently included in that Act mandates that the SEC and other
agencies issue various specific rules to regulate Wall Street. In many
cases, Congress effectively gave the SEC a full, detailed directive for
regulatory action and simply ordered the SEC to implement it. An
example of this process can be found in Dodd-Frank Section 1504, which
mandated in great detail how the SEC should promulgate a rule to
require that companies disclose in their annual securities filings any
payments they made to governments in connection with natural resource
extraction projects. Notably, in many of those Dodd-Frank rules,
Congress did not ask the SEC to consider the costs and benefits of a
rule, because we in Congress already did so during the legislative
process.
This bill makes that kind of legislating impossible. If this bill
becomes law, any rulemaking mandated by Congress must receive cost
benefit analysis, and if the costs are deemed by the SEC to outweigh
the benefits, the rulemaking cannot be released.
And such outcomes--which should really be called agency vetoes,
because they allow an agency to override a congressional mandate--are
likely to happen because of the unfair playing field this bill sets up.
Under this bill, the SEC will always have to consider the monetary
costs to firms and liquidity, but the more amorphous dangers of not
regulating--the risk of market crashes, the risk of bubbles, the risk
of financial crises--are much harder to estimate. And even if the SEC
does manage to get a good rule, by ordering the SEC to create an
established record of why the options not taken might also be
worthwhile, this bill forces the SEC to create a blueprint for Wall
Street firms to fight the regulation in court. This bill will make what
is already a difficult fight to protect Main Street from Wall Street
even harder.
One thing is certain--this bill strongly biases the SEC against any
regulation to protect investors regardless of the issue, and at a time
where the American People are crying out for more regulations on Wall
Street, not less. We need to ensure that the SEC continues to be the
``Investors'' Advocate.'' I therefore strongly urge my colleagues to
vote no on this bill.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chair, as someone who believes the federal
government has a responsibility to set and enforce clear and
transparent rules of the road for our markets to operate fairly,
efficiently and effectively, I believe conducting cost-benefit analysis
of proposed regulations is both appropriate and necessary. Moreover, I
think rules and regulations should be periodically reviewed--and
eliminated or modified where needed--to ensure our markets are
functioning optimally.
If that's what this legislation was about, it would have my support.
It's not--which is why I will be opposing H.R. 1062 today.
Although you wouldn't know it from listening to my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle, the Securities and Exchange Commission already
performs--and is already required to perform--extensive economic
analysis regarding the regulations it promulgates, including rigorous
cost-benefit analysis. Furthermore, in addition to protecting
investors, SEC rulemakings are also already required to ``promote
efficiency, competition and capital formation.'' Indeed, entities
ranging from the Chamber of Commerce to the Government Accountability
Office have all recently validated the SEC's current staff guidance in
this regard.
Unfortunately, rather than promoting clear and transparent rules of
the road, arrived at through rigorous cost-benefit analysis, today's
legislation is very plainly an effort to do the opposite--to block even
the most carefully considered regulation by creating a ``paralysis of
analysis'' at the Securities and Exchange Commission in order to
undermine the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform law.
Mr. Chair, it was the absence of clear and transparent rules of the
road that precipitated the Great Recession, and now that the economy
has finally begun to heal, we are simply not going back to the
conditions that created the crisis in the first place.
I urge a no vote.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, as an administrator and policymaker at the
local, state, and federal levels, I have often seen the value of
common-sense regulations. I have also seen the challenges associated
with cumbersome regulations that can appear to be bureaucracy at its
worst. While I am very open to discussing how we can make regulations
more effective and efficient, I am extremely disappointed with the
anti-regulatory agenda of the House leadership prevalent last Congress
and again reflected this year in H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act.
H.R. 1062 would require the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC,
to add burdensome new procedures to regulatory processes that would
unnecessarily delay the rulemaking process and consumer resources
better directed to protecting consumers and ensuring a robust and
effectively-regulated financial market.
I supported the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act to
rein in Wall Street, end taxpayer bailouts of big banks, and protect
consumers. Under this Act, the SEC was charged with regulating a number
of previously unregulated or under-regulated Wall Street and financial
service sector activities that led in large part to the 2008 crisis.
This is a hugely important job. Putting an additional layer of
bureaucracy on the rulemaking process will not benefit the American
people or our economy.
It's time for Congress to move beyond a debate about repealing or
preventing regulations and focus instead on how to make them more
effective and efficient. I oppose this bill because--despite its
title--it will slow the process of putting in place effective financial
regulations.
Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 1062,
which should be called the ``Wall Street Protection Act.'' The intent
of this legislation is to cripple the ability of the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission, SEC, to do its job--to create rules which
protect investors. The SEC is already federally mandated to conduct
analyses of their proposed regulations. The hurdles set by this
legislation are unrealistic and duplicative. Even worse, this
legislation would create an environment with less effective
regulations, leaving average American investors on their own. The cost
to individual families and to our economy from unregulated misbehavior
and malfeasance in our financial industries is high.
This Congress should not continue to waste time padding the pockets
of Wall Street executives. Instead, this Congress needs to take action
on today's real issues: creating jobs, encouraging Americans to make
investments in their retirements, and protecting middle class families
and consumers.
The CHAIR. All time for general debate has expired.
[[Page H2743]]
Pursuant to the rule, the bill shall be considered for amendment
under the 5-minute rule.
It shall be in order to consider as an original bill for the purpose
of amendment under the 5-minute rule an amendment in the nature of a
substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 113-10. That
amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be considered as read.
The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute is as
follows:
H.R. 1062
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act''.
SEC. 2. CONSIDERATION BY THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE
COMMISSION OF THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF ITS
REGULATIONS AND CERTAIN OTHER AGENCY ACTIONS.
Section 23 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15
U.S.C. 78w) is amended by adding at the end the following:
``(e) Consideration of Costs and Benefits.--
``(1) In general.--Before issuing a regulation under the
securities laws, as defined in section 3(a), the Commission
shall--
``(A) clearly identify the nature and source of the problem
that the proposed regulation is designed to address, as well
as assess the significance of that problem, to enable
assessment of whether any new regulation is warranted;
``(B) utilize the Chief Economist to assess the costs and
benefits, both qualitative and quantitative, of the intended
regulation and propose or adopt a regulation only on a
reasoned determination that the benefits of the intended
regulation justify the costs of the regulation;
``(C) identify and assess available alternatives to the
regulation that were considered, including modification of an
existing regulation, together with an explanation of why the
regulation meets the regulatory objectives more effectively
than the alternatives; and
``(D) ensure that any regulation is accessible, consistent,
written in plain language, and easy to understand and shall
measure, and seek to improve, the actual results of
regulatory requirements.
``(2) Considerations and actions.--
``(A) Required actions.--In deciding whether and how to
regulate, the Commission shall assess the costs and benefits
of available regulatory alternatives, including the
alternative of not regulating, and choose the approach that
maximizes net benefits. Specifically, the Commission shall--
``(i) consistent with the requirements of section 3(f) (15
U.S.C. 78c(f)), section 2(b) of the Securities Act of 1933
(15 U.S.C. 77b(b)), section 202(c) of the Investment Advisers
Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80b-2(c)), and section 2(c) of the
Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-2(c)), consider
whether the rulemaking will promote efficiency, competition,
and capital formation;
``(ii) evaluate whether, consistent with obtaining
regulatory objectives, the regulation is tailored to impose
the least burden on society, including market participants,
individuals, businesses of differing sizes, and other
entities (including State and local governmental entities),
taking into account, to the extent practicable, the
cumulative costs of regulations; and
``(iii) evaluate whether the regulation is inconsistent,
incompatible, or duplicative of other Federal regulations.
``(B) Additional considerations.--In addition, in making a
reasoned determination of the costs and benefits of a
potential regulation, the Commission shall, to the extent
that each is relevant to the particular proposed regulation,
take into consideration the impact of the regulation on--
``(i) investor choice;
``(ii) market liquidity in the securities markets; and
``(iii) small businesses.
``(3) Explanation and comments.--The Commission shall
explain in its final rule the nature of comments that it
received, including those from the industry or consumer
groups concerning the potential costs or benefits of the
proposed rule or proposed rule change, and shall provide a
response to those comments in its final rule, including an
explanation of any changes that were made in response to
those comments and the reasons that the Commission did not
incorporate those industry group concerns related to the
potential costs or benefits in the final rule.
``(4) Review of existing regulations.--Not later than 1
year after the date of enactment of the SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act, and every 5 years thereafter, the
Commission shall review its regulations to determine whether
any such regulations are outmoded, ineffective, insufficient,
or excessively burdensome, and shall modify, streamline,
expand, or repeal them in accordance with such review. In
reviewing any regulation (including, notwithstanding
paragraph (6), a regulation issued in accordance with formal
rulemaking provisions) that subjects issuers with a public
float of $250,000,000 or less to the attestation and
reporting requirements of section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-
Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)), the Commission shall
specifically take into account the large burden of such
regulation when compared to the benefit of such regulation.
``(5) Post-adoption impact assessment.--
``(A) In general.--Whenever the Commission adopts or amends
a regulation designated as a `major rule' within the meaning
of section 804(2) of title 5, United States Code, it shall
state, in its adopting release, the following:
``(i) The purposes and intended consequences of the
regulation.
``(ii) Appropriate post-implementation quantitative and
qualitative metrics to measure the economic impact of the
regulation and to measure the extent to which the regulation
has accomplished the stated purposes.
``(iii) The assessment plan that will be used, consistent
with the requirements of subparagraph (B) and under the
supervision of the Chief Economist of the Commission, to
assess whether the regulation has achieved the stated
purposes.
``(iv) Any unintended or negative consequences that the
Commission foresees may result from the regulation.
``(B) Requirements of assessment plan and report.--
``(i) Requirements of plan.--The assessment plan required
under this paragraph shall consider the costs, benefits, and
intended and unintended consequences of the regulation. The
plan shall specify the data to be collected, the methods for
collection and analysis of the data and a date for completion
of the assessment.
``(ii) Submission and publication of report.--The Chief
Economist shall submit the completed assessment report to the
Commission no later than 2 years after the publication of the
adopting release, unless the Commission, at the request of
the Chief Economist, has published at least 90 days before
such date a notice in the Federal Register extending the date
and providing specific reasons why an extension is necessary.
Within 7 days after submission to the Commission of the final
assessment report, it shall be published in the Federal
Register for notice and comment. Any material modification of
the plan, as necessary to assess unforeseen aspects or
consequences of the regulation, shall be promptly published
in the Federal Register for notice and comment.
``(iii) Data collection not subject to notice and comment
requirements.--If the Commission has published its assessment
plan for notice and comment, specifying the data to be
collected and method of collection, at least 30 days prior to
adoption of a final regulation or amendment, such collection
of data shall not be subject to the notice and comment
requirements in section 3506(c) of title 44, United States
Code (commonly referred to as the Paperwork Reduction Act).
Any material modifications of the plan that require
collection of data not previously published for notice and
comment shall also be exempt from such requirements if the
Commission has published notice for comment in the Federal
Register of the additional data to be collected, at least 30
days prior to initiation of data collection.
``(iv) Final action.--Not later than 180 days after
publication of the assessment report in the Federal Register,
the Commission shall issue for notice and comment a proposal
to amend or rescind the regulation, or publish a notice that
the Commission has determined that no action will be taken on
the regulation. Such a notice will be deemed a final agency
action.
``(6) Covered regulations and other agency actions.--Solely
as used in this subsection, the term `regulation'--
``(A) means an agency statement of general applicability
and future effect that is designed to implement, interpret,
or prescribe law or policy or to describe the procedure or
practice requirements of an agency, including rules, orders
of general applicability, interpretive releases, and other
statements of general applicability that the agency intends
to have the force and effect of law; and
``(B) does not include--
``(i) a regulation issued in accordance with the formal
rulemaking provisions of section 556 or 557 of title 5,
United States Code;
``(ii) a regulation that is limited to agency organization,
management, or personnel matters;
``(iii) a regulation promulgated pursuant to statutory
authority that expressly prohibits compliance with this
provision; and
``(iv) a regulation that is certified by the agency to be
an emergency action, if such certification is published in
the Federal Register.''.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS RELATING TO OTHER REGULATORY
ENTITIES.
It is the sense of the Congress that other regulatory
entities, including the Public Company Accounting Oversight
Board, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, and any
national securities association registered under section 15A
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78o-3)
should also follow the requirements of section 23(e) of such
Act, as added by this title.
The CHAIR. No amendment to that amendment in the nature of a
substitute shall be in order except those printed in House Report 113-
60. Each such amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the
report, by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered read,
shall be debatable for the time specified in the report, equally
divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be
subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division
of the question.
Amendment No. 1 Offered by Mr. Sessions
The CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 1 printed in
House Report 113-60.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Page 6, line 25, add at the end the following: ``The
assessment plan shall include
[[Page H2744]]
an analysis of any jobs added or lost as a result of the
regulation, differentiating between public and private sector
jobs.''.
The CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 216, the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Sessions) and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I believe that excessive government regulations are a significant
barrier to private sector job growth and the creation of those jobs.
House Republicans have made job creation a priority, and, as a result,
we must work to ensure that the Federal Government reviews new
regulations to ensure that their proposed benefit outweighs any
potential economic harm.
My amendment today is simple. It requires the SEC to include an
assessment of anticipated jobs gained or lost as a result of
implementation of any major rule and to specify whether those jobs will
come from the public or private sector.
Mr. Chairman, according to a study released by the Small Business
Administration in 2010, Federal regulations cost small businesses $1.75
trillion every year to comply. That is money which could be used by
American companies to hire new employees or to reinvest in their own
business. H.R. 1062 ensures that the Federal Government does not
unnecessarily burden American companies with cumbersome regulations by
guaranteeing that those regulations are appropriate and necessary. My
amendment adds to this review process by making sure that we have a
more comprehensive understanding of the economic impacts a regulation
creates.
{time} 1210
I believe that the amendment I offer today serves to strengthen the
underlying legislation by insisting that the SEC begin to focus on job
creation, specifically by enabling the private sector, not furthering a
liberal agenda that is intentionally harming families, job creation,
and small business across America.
I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. I support the
underlying bill and legislation that the gentleman from New Jersey
brings to the floor today.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the
amendment, although I do not oppose the amendment.
The CHAIR. Without objection, the gentlewoman from California is
recognized for 5 minutes.
There was no objection.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This amendment adds a requirement that the SEC analyze the number of
jobs created or lost as a result of a new rule or order, while
differentiating between public and private sector jobs.
Although this amendment is not by itself problematic, it layers one
more requirement onto a bill already bursting with onerous cost-benefit
requirements. And while counting the jobs created or lost because of a
particular regulation is a noble goal, we have to view this goal in the
context of the overall bill, which tips the scales heavily in favor of
industry over investors, including the pension plans for millions of
Americans.
The criteria by which the SEC would need to engage in cost-benefit
analysis under H.R. 1062 would have the Commission make all decisions
on the basis of whether the rules impose the least burden on ``market
participants.'' In fact, nowhere in the bill are the words ``investor
protection'' used, despite the fact that a central mission of the
Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors.
Let's be clear: H.R. 1062 is essentially a solution in search of a
problem. This bill is not about refining the SEC's cost-benefit
analysis. The Commission, in fact, has already done that by adopting a
new set of guidelines to ensure that its analysis meets the very high
bar set in the decision overturning their proxy access rule. Instead,
this bill is about making it easier for industry groups to overturn SEC
regulations in the courts.
After the 2008 financial crisis, the public spoke; and they demanded
that Congress stand up and legislate rules of the road to prevent
another crisis. So we took action to regulate the over-the-counter
derivatives market, improve corporate governance, implement the Volcker
rule to stop commercial banks from gambling with depositor money, and
to reform the credit ratings agencies that slapped AAA ratings onto
toxic securities.
Having lost that battle here in Congress, the industry--with the help
of some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--is now waging
a new, quiet battle to have these regulations thrown out in court. H.R.
1062 abets that goal by making it significantly easier for the industry
to win in court. This is a key differentiation from the President's
executive order on cost-benefit analysis, whose requirements cannot be
used as a basis for litigation.
So, again, this amendment is harmless, but it amends what is a deeply
problematic bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Sessions).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment No. 2 Offered by Mr. Hurt
The CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 2 printed in
House Report 113-60.
Mr. HURT. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Page 10, beginning on line 7, strike ``other regulatory
entities, including''.
Page 10, beginning on line 8, strike ``, the Municipal
Securities Rulemaking Board, and any national securities
association registered under section 15A of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78o-3)''.
Page 10, after line 13, insert the following:
SEC. 4. ACCOUNTABILITY PROVISION RELATING TO OTHER REGULATORY
ENTITIES.
A rule adopted by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board
or any national securities association registered under
section 15A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C.
78o-3) shall not take effect unless the Securities and
Exchange Commission determines that, in adopting such rule,
the Board or association has complied with the requirements
of section 23(e) of such Act, as added by section 2, in the
same manner as is required by the Commission under such
section 23(e).
The CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 216, the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Hurt) and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. HURT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 1062, the SEC
Regulatory Accountability Act, introduced by my friend, Chairman Scott
Garrett. His bill is an important step forward to ensure the SEC abides
by the President's executive order and also enhances the SEC's existing
cost-benefit analysis requirements.
My amendment ensures that rules adopted by the PCAOB, the MSRB, and
other national securities associations under the purview of the SEC
have the same requirements as the SEC itself and requires the SEC to
attest that these associations are in compliance with its own economic
assessment standards.
These subordinate organizations can develop standards and rules that
have the same effect as Federal regulations. As rules put forth by
these organizations generally go through a final SEC rulemaking
process, they should be subject also to that same cost-benefit
analysis.
As we saw with the SEC's proxy access rule that was thrown out by the
D.C. Federal court for lack of a proper assessment of the rule's
economic costs, not only is this practice good governance, but it's
common sense.
In light of reports that the SEC is considering discretionary
rulemakings that would impose additional unnecessary costs resulting in
little or no benefit and being of questionable constitutionality, we
must ensure that the SEC and the associations under its purview abide
by sound economic analyses.
With our economy still struggling and many areas of Virginia's Fifth
District nearing double-digit unemployment, we must ensure that our
regulations are making it easier for our businesses to access the
capital they need to create the jobs in our communities.
I thank Chairman Garrett for his work on this important issue, and I
urge support for my amendment.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the
amendment.
[[Page H2745]]
The CHAIR. The gentlewoman from California is recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. WATERS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment doubles down on all of the problems
raised by H.R. 1062 by imposing the same burdensome cost-benefit
analysis requirements on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, or
MSRB, and certain self-regulatory organizations as the underlying bill
imposes on the SEC.
Beyond the problems caused by H.R. 1062, this amendment would further
put individual citizens and taxpayers at risk by tying the hands of the
MSRB, which is entrusted with regulating dealers of municipal
securities, including city bond issuances.
The Wall Street Reform Act expanded the mission of the board to
protect State and local governments and to regulate, for the first time
in history, the individuals who provide municipalities with financial
advice.
We had good reason to expand the mission and responsibilities of the
MSRB under Dodd-Frank. Like many borrowers who were sold exotic
mortgages based on the representations made by mortgage brokers in the
lead-up to the financial crisis, we saw that many municipalities
entered into complex financial instruments that they didn't fully
understand. At the same time, we saw that many financial advisers to
municipalities were involved in pay-to-play scandals and recommended
unsuitable investments, particularly to small communities. The result
was the imposition of substantial costs on taxpayers in communities
across the country. The most high-profile example is the case of
Jefferson County, Alabama, which entered into the largest municipal
bankruptcy in history after a simple sewer bond financing deal ended
with the county going broke over faulty interest rate derivatives.
This amendment will make it much more difficult for the MSRB to
regulate the financial entities selling these derivative products to
our small counties, cities, and towns.
But that's just one example. The amendment would impose similar
onerous requirements on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority--
that is FINRA--the self-regulatory organization for broker-dealers, and
the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board, which regulates the
auditing industry.
Again, this amendment doubles down on what is already a harmful bill
by extending the same onerous requirements of self-regulatory
organizations. I see no reason why the Congress would want to further
tip the scales in favor of Wall Street over Main Street.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HURT. Mr. Chairman, I'm prepared to close and would like to
insist on my right to do so.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. WATERS. I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. David Scott).
The CHAIR. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 2\1/2\
minutes.
Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, let me just clear the air
on one important thing.
We know that there is a value for cost-benefit analysis. What we're
saying is this is the wrong approach because they're not after cost-
benefit analysis. They're after tying the hands of the Securities and
Exchange Commission to lessen the regulations.
{time} 1220
We have a bill, Mr. Chairman, which is a bipartisan bill by myself,
along with Representative Conaway from Texas, a Republican, that is a
more thoughtful, a more direct and beneficial way of cost-benefit
analysis, because we do not have in that bill this very convoluting,
confounding requirement of what we call look-back.
You've got to remember, the telling point about Mr. Garrett's bill is
that he requires that the SEC look back at every single rule for the
last 80 years since 1934. There is no Federal agency that has even
nearly that kind of burden and, on top of that, does not allocate one
dime for any needed staff. It is, indeed, a burden.
So the point I want to make is that we understand when he says, okay,
let's make sure that we have a cost and a benefit of what they're
doing, yeah, we go along with that. But my bill, along with
Representative Conaway, we digested this bill, we have passed this
bill, our bill, which has a more reasonable approach to cost-benefit
analysis out of the Agriculture Committee and will be before this House
that has a better approach.
We're not opposed to this cost-benefit analysis, but we are opposed
to this measure, which is designed to tie the hands of the SEC by
allowing them and mandating that they look at every record, every rule
all the way back to 1934.
Mr. HURT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
The CHAIR. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized for 3 minutes.
Mr. HURT. I would just say a couple of things in closing. First, what
this bill is not is a bill that does anything to amend or change the
mandates of the SEC.
We know what those mandates are. They are to ensure fair markets,
efficient markets. They are to facilitate capital formation and,
finally, investor protection. They are all designed to work together.
This bill does nothing to change that mandate. In fact, the bill, if
you look at it, talks about cost-benefit analysis repeatedly throughout
the entire bill.
I would suggest to you that investor protection includes liquid
markets, formation of capital. If we want to protect investors,
obviously we need to have healthy markets. That's what this bill
ensures by requiring the SEC conduct the most simple, routine cost-
benefit analysis, something that the President, by the way, has offered
up and required of most Federal agencies that are affected by his
executive order. This simply makes them a part of that.
In addition, the SEC chairman stated earlier that that was what her
belief should be for the SEC in conducting the cost-benefit analysis.
So this simply codifies, as is our responsibility as Members of
Congress, to do just that.
With that in mind, I would ask that this body adopt our amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman
from Virginia (Mr. Hurt).
The question was taken; and the Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on
the amendment offered by the gentleman from Virginia will be postponed.
Amendment No. 3 Offered by Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York
The CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 3 printed in
House Report 113-60.
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I have an
amendment at the desk.
The CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
following:
SECTION 1. SENSE OF CONGRESS RELATING TO EXISTING
REQUIREMENTS FOR ECONOMIC ANALYSES.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) As with other agencies, current law requires the
Securities and Exchange Commission to conduct economic
analyses pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act, the
Congressional Review Act and the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
(2) In addition to the analyses required of all regulatory
agencies, the Securities and Exchange Commission is also
required to perform additional economic analyses pursuant to
section 3(f) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15
U.S.C. 78c(f)), section 2(b) of the Securities Act of 1933
(15 U.S.C. 77b(b)), section 202(c) of the Investment Advisers
Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C.80b-2(c)), and section 2(c) of the
Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C.80a-2(c)), which
provide that, where the Commission is engaged in rulemaking
and is required to consider whether the rule is necessary or
appropriate in the public interest, the Commission must also
consider whether the rule will promote efficiency,
competition, and capital formation.
(3) In the July 22, 2011 decision in Business Roundtable v.
SEC (647 F.3d 1144), the United States Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit vacated the Commission's recently adopted
proxy access rule, which would have provided a company
shareholder or group of shareholders meeting certain minimum
ownership thresholds and other requirements the ability to
include in the company's proxy materials the shareholder(s)'
nominee(s) for the company's board of directors. The court
found that, because the Commission had not adequately
addressed the likely economic consequences of the rule, its
adoption of the rule was arbitrary and capricious.
(4) In March of 2012, the Securities and Exchange
Commission revised and clarified its
[[Page H2746]]
guidance on cost benefit analysis. In December of 2012 the
Government Accountability Office issued a review of agencies'
analysis and coordination of rules. The GAO found, ``SEC's
guidance defines the basic elements of good regulatory
economic analysis in a manner that closely parallels the
elements listed in Circular A-4: (1) a statement of the need
for the proposed action; (2) the definition of a baseline
against which to measure the likely economic consequences of
the proposed regulation; (3) the identification of
alternative regulatory approaches; and (4) an evaluation of
the benefits and costs - both quantitative and qualitative -
of the proposed action and the main alternatives.''.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that
the Securities and Exchange Commission is required pursuant
to law to conduct economic analyses as part of its
rulemakings. Further, the D.C. Circuit Court's recent
decision in the Business Roundtable case makes clear that the
economic analyses the Commission undertakes in connection
with its rules are subject to meaningful judicial scrutiny.
The CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 216, the gentlewoman from New
York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney) and a Member opposed each will control 5
minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New York.
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. I thank the Chair, and I yield
myself as much time as I may consume.
First, I would like to say that I am happy to work with Mr. Garrett
on a variety of issues. I respect his leadership. But I must
respectfully and strongly disagree with him on this issue before us
today.
It seems clear that the intended effect of the Republican bill is to
cripple the SEC just as they undertake the very tough and important job
of implementing the badly needed reforms we passed in Dodd-Frank.
May I remind my colleagues that we passed Dodd-Frank in response to
the worst financial crisis in our lifetime, one in which we were at one
point losing 700,000 jobs a month, and by some estimates the loss was
well over $12 trillion.
My amendment strikes the underlying bill and puts a sense of Congress
in its place.
My amendment contains findings that very clearly lay out the cost-
benefit analysis process that the SEC already has to go through in
proposing or adopting a rule.
What this bill would do now, the Republican bill, is handcuff the SEC
commissioners with unnecessary redtape so that the Commission will be
unable to protect investors effectively.
Despite what the other side of the aisle is saying, there is already
a multi-layered and effective cost-benefit analysis built into the SEC
rulemaking process.
The SEC is already required by law to do cost-benefit analysis under
the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Congressional Review Act and the
Regulatory Flexibility Act, and for the SEC specifically under the
National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996.
In fact, just last year, the GAO issued a report praising the SEC's
guidance on cost-benefit analysis saying:
The basic elements of good regulatory economic analysis.
And in evaluating a recent proposal on swaps regulation, the
cochairman of the Financial Services Department at Cadawalder wrote:
The SEC release contains the most detailed attempt at an
economic analysis of the effect of the rules that I have seen
from any agency.
But under this Republican bill, the SEC would have to divert its
limited budget resources away from enforcement or examining the impact
of worldwide derivatives markets only to duplicate things it is already
doing.
This bill also says that every 5 years the SEC is required to do a
cost-benefit analysis of every regulation it has ever issued on any
subject going back some 80 years, back to day one in 1933. And it would
have to magically do all of this without one additional red cent of
additional funding to cover the cost of it.
If we want to highlight anything, we should be highlighting the
extensive process that exists and the judicial scrutiny that it
includes, which is what my amendment does.
The stated mission of the SEC is to protect investors; not give them
more redtape; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and
facilitate capital formation. Let's help them do that--not just make
them jump through unnecessary, costly, and duplicative hoops.
The underlying bill, the Republican bill, is a prescription for
paralysis of the SEC's ability to protect investors. I urge my
colleagues to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my
time.
Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The CHAIR. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I appreciate the
gentlelady's offer of an amendment here. I also appreciate the fact
that the lady and I have often worked together on legislation in the
past in our respective committee, but on this one I humbly disagree.
As she says, the amendment before us basically guts the bill and
simply sets forth a sense of Congress.
{time} 1230
Two points, one on policy and one on practicality.
On policy, if this were the gentlelady's idea that this is the way we
should go on this piece of underlying legislation, as the ranking
member of the subcommittee and as a member of the full committee, she
had every opportunity in the world to come before the committee at the
time and put this before us, at which time we could have had a full and
complete debate on it.
Had we done so, we probably would have pointed out to her two things.
One, she makes reference to the D.C. Circuit Court's opinion on lines
14 through 18 of her case. Would that the D.C. Circuit Court had said
that the SEC is doing a good job, that they had the authority to do so
and that nothing else is necessary in going forward. If she had read
the opinion, she would have known that that's not quite what they said.
The D.C. Circuit Court stated that the SEC, the Commission, acted
arbitrarily and capriciously for having failed--note this--``once
again''--so this is not the only time--but once again to adequately
assess the economic effects of the new rule and, again, inconsistently
and opportunistically framed cost benefits of the rule.
So the citation that she gives of the D.C. Circuit Court does not
support her position but undermines her position. The D.C. Circuit
basically supports our position that the SEC has failed, and that it
has failed repeatedly to do what it should do, and that is why we have
the legislation before you today.
And when she talks about red tape and unnecessary--well, that's not
what the AFL-CIO says, and that's not what the American Bar Association
says. The SEC did look at the issue of doing a retrospective look at
this. They did so back over a year and a half ago, back in September of
2011, and they asked for input.
What did the AFL-CIO say about that?
To be effective, security regulations must be continuously
updated to address the emergence of new loopholes, abuses and
market failures.
Likewise, the American Bar Association also chimed in about the
retrospective analysis, which is what the SEC could have been doing,
should have been doing, didn't do, and that is what our bill will
require them to do.
So I appreciate the gentlelady's efforts in this area, but I would
recommend a ``no'' vote on her amendment.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. I would like to point out to my
colleague that the circuit court decision underlines the point that I'm
making in my amendment. It says clearly that there are cost-benefit
analyses that are required by the SEC, and it made clear that there is
a judicial review, that not only is analysis required, but you can
always appeal to the court.
I yield my remaining time to the distinguished ranking member from
the great State of California, Maxine Waters.
Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman and Members, I would like to thank the gentlelady from
New York for bringing this amendment today. As a matter of fact, the
opposite side should thank her, too, because she is giving them an
opportunity to back out of this awful bill that will be harmful and
that is ill-informed and to get
[[Page H2747]]
on with just saying that her resolution would make good sense. So I am
eager to support this amendment from the gentlelady from New York.
The amendment strikes all bill text and replaces it with a sense of
Congress, reiterating all the economic analysis requirements already
imposed on the SEC.
Specifically, current law requires the SEC to conduct economic
analyses pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Congressional
Review Act and the Regulatory Flexibility Act, as well as additional
cost-benefit analysis per the National Securities Markets Improvement
Act.
The CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. GARRETT. I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).
The question was taken; and the Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on
the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from New York will be
postponed.
Announcement by the Chair
The CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, proceedings will now
resume on those amendments printed in House Report 113-60 on which
further proceedings were postponed, in the following order:
Amendment No. 2 by Mr. Hurt of Virginia.
Amendment No. 3 by Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York.
The Chair will reduce to 2 minutes the minimum time for any
electronic vote after the first vote in this series.
Amendment No. 2 Offered by Mr. Hurt
The CHAIR. The unfinished business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt) on
which further proceedings were postponed and on which the ayes
prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIR. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 233,
noes 163, not voting 37, as follows:
[Roll No. 157]
AYES--233
Aderholt
Alexander
Amash
Amodei
Bachmann
Bachus
Barber
Barletta
Barr
Barrow (GA)
Barton
Benishek
Bentivolio
Bera (CA)
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Black
Blackburn
Bonner
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bridenstine
Brooks (AL)
Brooks (IN)
Broun (GA)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Camp
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Cassidy
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coffman
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Cook
Cotton
Cramer
Crawford
Crenshaw
Cuellar
Culberson
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
DeSantis
Diaz-Balart
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Ellmers
Farenthold
Fincher
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fleming
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gabbard
Gallego
Gardner
Garrett
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gibson
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Gosar
Gowdy
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Griffin (AR)
Griffith (VA)
Grimm
Guthrie
Hall
Hanna
Harper
Harris
Hartzler
Hastings (WA)
Heck (NV)
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Holding
Hudson
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hultgren
Hunter
Hurt
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (OH)
Jones
Jordan
Joyce
Kelly (PA)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
Kuster
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Lance
Lankford
Latham
Latta
LoBiondo
Long
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Maffei
Marchant
Marino
Massie
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McHenry
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinley
McMorris Rodgers
Meadows
Meehan
Messer
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mullin
Mulvaney
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Owens
Paulsen
Pearce
Perry
Petri
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Posey
Price (GA)
Radel
Rahall
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rice (SC)
Rigell
Roby
Roe (TN)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rokita
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothfus
Royce
Runyan
Ryan (WI)
Salmon
Sanford
Schneider
Schock
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Sinema
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Southerland
Stewart
Stivers
Stockman
Stutzman
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Walberg
Walden
Walorski
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Yoho
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Young (IN)
NOES--163
Andrews
Bass
Beatty
Becerra
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Bonamici
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardenas
Carney
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu
Cicilline
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Cohen
Connolly
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Courtney
Crowley
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny
DeFazio
DeGette
Delaney
DelBene
Deutch
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Duckworth
Ellison
Engel
Enyart
Eshoo
Esty
Farr
Fattah
Foster
Frankel (FL)
Fudge
Garamendi
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Hahn
Hastings (FL)
Heck (WA)
Himes
Honda
Horsford
Huffman
Israel
Jackson Lee
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kaptur
Keating
Kelly (IL)
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilmer
Kind
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan Grisham (NM)
Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
Lynch
Maloney, Carolyn
Maloney, Sean
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McNerney
Meeks
Meng
Michaud
Miller, George
Moore
Moran
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Negrete McLeod
Nolan
Pallone
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Perlmutter
Peters (CA)
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Pocan
Polis
Price (NC)
Rangel
Richmond
Roybal-Allard
Ruiz
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schrader
Schwartz
Scott (VA)
Scott, David
Serrano
Sewell (AL)
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Speier
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Van Hollen
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Welch
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NOT VOTING--37
Brown (FL)
Campbell
Clyburn
Coble
Cummings
Daines
DeLauro
DesJarlais
Duffy
Edwards
Garcia
Gingrey (GA)
Gutierrez
Hanabusa
Higgins
Hinojosa
Holt
Hoyer
Johnson, Sam
Kirkpatrick
Labrador
Lewis
Lofgren
Markey
Neal
O'Rourke
Palazzo
Pascrell
Pelosi
Peters (MI)
Pompeo
Quigley
Rogers (AL)
Sarbanes
Scalise
Tsongas
Wagner
{time} 1258
Messrs. CARDENAS, PETERS of California, and WELCH changed their vote
from ``aye'' to ``no.''
Mrs. HARTZLER and Mr. CUELLAR changed their vote from ``no'' to
``aye.''
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Amendment No. 3 Offered by Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York
The CHAIR. The unfinished business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn
B. Maloney) on which further proceedings were postponed and on which
the ayes prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIR. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIR. This will be a 2-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 165,
noes 233, not voting 35, as follows:
[Roll No. 158]
AYES--165
Andrews
Bass
Beatty
Becerra
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Bonamici
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardenas
Carney
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu
Cicilline
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Cohen
Connolly
Conyers
Cooper
[[Page H2748]]
Costa
Courtney
Crowley
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny
DeFazio
DeGette
Delaney
DeLauro
DelBene
DesJarlais
Deutch
Doggett
Doyle
Duckworth
Ellison
Engel
Enyart
Eshoo
Esty
Farr
Fattah
Foster
Frankel (FL)
Fudge
Gabbard
Garamendi
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Hahn
Hastings (FL)
Heck (WA)
Himes
Honda
Horsford
Huffman
Israel
Jackson Lee
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kaptur
Keating
Kelly (IL)
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilmer
Kind
Kuster
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan Grisham (NM)
Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
Lynch
Maloney, Carolyn
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McNerney
Meeks
Meng
Michaud
Miller, George
Moore
Moran
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Negrete McLeod
Nolan
O'Rourke
Pallone
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Perlmutter
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Pocan
Polis
Price (NC)
Rangel
Richmond
Roybal-Allard
Ruiz
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schneider
Schwartz
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sewell (AL)
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Speier
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Welch
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NOES--233
Aderholt
Alexander
Amash
Amodei
Bachmann
Bachus
Barber
Barletta
Barr
Barrow (GA)
Barton
Benishek
Bentivolio
Bera (CA)
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Black
Blackburn
Bonner
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bridenstine
Brooks (AL)
Brooks (IN)
Broun (GA)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Camp
Cantor
Capito
Cassidy
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coffman
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Cook
Cotton
Cramer
Crawford
Crenshaw
Cuellar
Culberson
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
DeSantis
Diaz-Balart
Dingell
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Ellmers
Farenthold
Fincher
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fleming
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallego
Gardner
Garrett
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gibson
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Gosar
Gowdy
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Griffin (AR)
Griffith (VA)
Grimm
Guthrie
Hall
Hanna
Harper
Harris
Hartzler
Hastings (WA)
Heck (NV)
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Holding
Hudson
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hultgren
Hunter
Hurt
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (OH)
Jones
Jordan
Joyce
Kelly (PA)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Lance
Lankford
Latham
Latta
LoBiondo
Long
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Maffei
Maloney, Sean
Marchant
Marino
Massie
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McHenry
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinley
McMorris Rodgers
Meadows
Meehan
Messer
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mullin
Mulvaney
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Owens
Paulsen
Pearce
Perry
Peters (CA)
Petri
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Posey
Price (GA)
Radel
Rahall
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rice (SC)
Rigell
Roby
Roe (TN)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rokita
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothfus
Royce
Runyan
Ryan (WI)
Salmon
Sanford
Schock
Schrader
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Sinema
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Southerland
Stewart
Stivers
Stockman
Stutzman
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Walberg
Walden
Walorski
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Yoho
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Young (IN)
NOT VOTING--35
Brown (FL)
Campbell
Carter
Clyburn
Coble
Cummings
Daines
Duffy
Edwards
Garcia
Gingrey (GA)
Gutierrez
Hanabusa
Higgins
Hinojosa
Holt
Hoyer
Johnson, Sam
Kirkpatrick
Labrador
Lewis
Lofgren
Markey
Neal
Palazzo
Pascrell
Pelosi
Peters (MI)
Pompeo
Quigley
Rogers (AL)
Sarbanes
Scalise
Scott, David
Wagner
{time} 1305
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The Acting CHAIR (Mr. Hultgren). The question is on the amendment in
the nature of a substitute, as amended.
The amendment was agreed to.
The Acting CHAIR. Under the rule, the Committee rises.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr.
Woodall) having assumed the chair, Mr. Hultgren, Acting Chair of the
Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 1062) to
improve the consideration by the Securities and Exchange Commission of
the costs and benefits of its regulations and orders, and, pursuant to
House Resolution 216, he reported the bill back to the House with an
amendment adopted in the Committee of the Whole.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is
ordered.
Is a separate vote demanded on any amendment to the amendment in the
nature of a substitute reported from the Committee of the Whole?
If not, the question is on the amendment.
The amendment was agreed to.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third
reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was
read the third time.
Motion to Recommit
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentlewoman opposed to the bill?
Ms. WATERS. In its current form, I am.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to
recommit.
The Clerk read as follows:
Ms. Waters moves to recommit the bill H.R. 1062 to the
Committee on Financial Services with instructions to report
the same back to the House forthwith with the following
amendment:
Add at the end of the bill the following:
SEC. 4. PROTECTING THE PENSIONS OF WORKING AMERICANS AND
PROHIBITING THE FRAUDULENT TAKEOVER OF AMERICAN
COMPANIES.
Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act,
shall limit the authority of the Securities and Exchange
Commission, in carrying out the Commission's authority to
enforce securities laws and ensure investor protections--
(1) to protect the pension funds of firefighters, police
officers, and teachers, or a pension fund of any retiree,
against fraudulent and deceptive financial practices; or
(2) to protect against the takeover of American businesses
by non-U.S. persons, including government-owned corporations
from China, that engage in reverse mergers with U.S.
companies to gain quick access to U.S. markets, but defraud
investors of billions of dollars.
Mr. GARRETT (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask that the reading
be dispensed with.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from New Jersey?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
California is recognized for 5 minutes in support of the motion.
{time} 1310
Ms. WATERS. This is the final amendment to the bill, which would not
kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will
immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.
This motion ensures the ability of the SEC to continue to protect
investors and enforce the securities laws. I want to emphasize that
this motion does not stop the bill, but it does flag the very important
ways in which we need to let the SEC act. The motion would ensure that
the SEC can protect investors and enforce the securities laws in two
specific areas:
First, the motion will ensure that this bill does not reduce the
ability of the SEC to protect the pension plans of our firefighters and
police, the people on whom we rely as our first responders, as well as
the pension plans of teachers and other retirees against fraudulent and
deceptive practices. Protecting investors is a core element of the
SEC's mission and one that we ignore at our peril. This week is Police
Officers Week. Do we really want to honor our men and women in service
by stripping them of protections for their hard-earned and hard-won
earnings? Mr. Speaker, these protections become ever more crucial as we
rely increasingly on the securities markets for our retirement savings.
[[Page H2749]]
Second, the motion to recommit focuses on protecting investors by
ensuring that the SEC can protect against the takeover of American
firms by foreign companies, particularly Chinese companies, that are
using such mergers to access the investor funds in our capital markets
without going through the SEC registration process. The SEC has had
numerous enforcement actions against such companies which purchase a
small company and merge it with a larger, often fraudulent, foreign
company. It has worked hard to protect the savings of hardworking
Americans, including union pension holders and other pensioners, from
being disadvantaged by these Chinese firms that don't play by the same
rules.
Both of these areas highlight the importance of SEC action to protect
investors, particularly those preparing for retirement. With Americans
increasingly dependent on the securities markets to protect their
retirement savings, it is more critical than ever to ensure that we
preserve the ability of the SEC to act.
Just yesterday, we heard from the SEC's new chairwoman, Mary Jo
White. When we asked her about this bill, she said that she found it
``very troubling.'' I don't imagine that a former prosecutor who took
on the Mob and terrorists is easily troubled. Indeed, she said that she
had already needed at least 45 new economists to meet the need for an
expanded economic analysis under the SEC standards, but she couldn't
hire them due to the sequester. This is troubling indeed.
Rather than helping the SEC to do its job better, we are cutting its
budget and throwing up new roadblocks, like this bill. It is a mistake.
I urge my colleagues to support this motion, and I yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. GARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, and I will simply address
both the process and the policy briefly.
On the process, I appreciate the gentlelady's bringing this amendment
here to the floor today; but, as she knows, we were in committee for
multiple hours hearing various amendments on the underlying
legislation, and she had every opportunity to bring it before the
entire committee at that time, and we could have had a full and
complete debate and actual vote in the committee at that time. I am
lost for a reason why she did not go through the regular order.
But, more specifically, to the merits of the underlying bill and the
amendment, if there could be anything simpler or easier than what we
are trying to do in the underlying bill, H.R. 1062, Mr. Speaker, let's
be real. Mr. Speaker, all we're asking the SEC to do is this: identify
a problem first before you do a regulation, and then once you consider
a regulation, consider all the alternatives that are out there, not
just the initial one that comes forward. And then once you've passed
that regulation, the next year and years after that, go back and
reconsider them and make sure that they're being done effectively and
they were the most efficient regulations for the economy. That's the
underlying legislation, and that's why I encourage my Members to
support the underlying bill.
To the MTR, what is the SEC charged to do? Three, basically, core
provisions: investor protection, capital formation, and efficient
markets. And perhaps to the point here, one of the most important is
investor protection.
Who are we talking about when we're talking about investors? It's
that single mom out there who is trying to raise a young girl and
trying to put her into college and have money to do so. It's the young
couple who wants to have financing to be able to buy their first home.
It's the moms, dads, and our grandparents, the pensioners and the
retirees who want to know that their investments are secure and the
markets are operating efficiently. To the point here with your
amendment most specifically, yes, it's the cop on the beat, it's the
fireman, and it's the union worker who wants to make sure that he's
investing his time and efforts into our community and his investments
are taken care of in an efficient operation in the markets on Wall
Street and the markets as well.
That's what our bill does. All of them are taken care of in the
underlying legislation. Your amendment basically says that we don't
care as far as making sure the most efficient rules are concerned when
it comes to the firefighters, the pensioners, or the teachers.
I'll close on this. If we want to honor the firefighters, if we want
to honor the police officers, and if we want to honor the teachers and
the pension funds, vote ``no'' on this MTR and vote ``yes'' on the
final passage.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion to recommit.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Recorded Vote
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule 20, this 5-
minute vote on the motion to recommit will be followed by a 5-minute
vote on passage of the bill, if ordered.
This is a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 179,
noes 217, not voting 37, as follows:
[Roll No. 159]
AYES--179
Andrews
Barber
Barrow (GA)
Bass
Beatty
Becerra
Bera (CA)
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Bonamici
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardenas
Carney
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu
Cicilline
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Cohen
Connolly
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny
DeFazio
DeGette
Delaney
DeLauro
DelBene
Deutch
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Duckworth
Ellison
Engel
Enyart
Eshoo
Esty
Farr
Fattah
Foster
Frankel (FL)
Fudge
Gabbard
Gallego
Garamendi
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Hahn
Hastings (FL)
Heck (WA)
Himes
Honda
Horsford
Huffman
Israel
Jackson Lee
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Jones
Kaptur
Keating
Kelly (IL)
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilmer
Kind
Kuster
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan Grisham (NM)
Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
Lynch
Maffei
Maloney, Carolyn
Maloney, Sean
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNerney
Meeks
Meng
Michaud
Miller, George
Moore
Moran
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Negrete McLeod
Nolan
O'Rourke
Owens
Pallone
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Perlmutter
Peters (CA)
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Pocan
Polis
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Richmond
Roybal-Allard
Ruiz
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schneider
Schrader
Schwartz
Scott (VA)
Scott, David
Serrano
Sewell (AL)
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sinema
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Speier
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Welch
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NOES--217
Aderholt
Alexander
Amash
Amodei
Bachmann
Bachus
Barletta
Barr
Benishek
Bentivolio
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Black
Blackburn
Bonner
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bridenstine
Brooks (AL)
Brooks (IN)
Broun (GA)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Camp
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Cassidy
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coffman
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Cook
Cotton
Cramer
Crawford
Crenshaw
Culberson
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
DeSantis
Diaz-Balart
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Ellmers
Farenthold
Fincher
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fleming
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gardner
Garrett
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gibson
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Gosar
Gowdy
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Griffin (AR)
Griffith (VA)
Grimm
Guthrie
Hall
Hanna
Harper
Harris
Hartzler
Hastings (WA)
Heck (NV)
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Holding
Hudson
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hultgren
Hunter
Hurt
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (OH)
[[Page H2750]]
Jordan
Joyce
Kelly (PA)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Lance
Lankford
Latham
Latta
LoBiondo
Long
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Marchant
Marino
Massie
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McHenry
McKeon
McKinley
McMorris Rodgers
Meadows
Meehan
Messer
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mullin
Mulvaney
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Paulsen
Pearce
Perry
Petri
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Posey
Price (GA)
Radel
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rice (SC)
Rigell
Roby
Roe (TN)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rokita
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothfus
Royce
Runyan
Ryan (WI)
Salmon
Sanford
Schock
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Southerland
Stewart
Stivers
Stockman
Stutzman
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Walberg
Walden
Walorski
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Yoho
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Young (IN)
NOT VOTING--37
Barton
Brown (FL)
Campbell
Clyburn
Coble
Cole
Cummings
Daines
DesJarlais
Duffy
Edwards
Garcia
Gingrey (GA)
Gutierrez
Hanabusa
Higgins
Hinojosa
Holt
Hoyer
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Kirkpatrick
Labrador
Lewis
Lofgren
Markey
Neal
Palazzo
Pascrell
Pelosi
Peters (MI)
Pompeo
Quigley
Rogers (AL)
Sarbanes
Scalise
Wagner
{time} 1322
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Recorded Vote
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 235,
noes 161, not voting 37, as follows:
[Roll No. 160]
AYES--235
Aderholt
Alexander
Amash
Amodei
Bachmann
Bachus
Barber
Barletta
Barr
Barrow (GA)
Benishek
Bentivolio
Bera (CA)
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Black
Blackburn
Bonner
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bridenstine
Brooks (AL)
Brooks (IN)
Broun (GA)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Camp
Cantor
Capito
Cardenas
Carter
Cassidy
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coffman
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Cook
Cotton
Cramer
Crawford
Crenshaw
Cuellar
Culberson
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
DeSantis
Diaz-Balart
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Ellmers
Farenthold
Fincher
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fleming
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallego
Gardner
Garrett
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gibson
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Gosar
Gowdy
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Griffin (AR)
Griffith (VA)
Grimm
Guthrie
Hall
Hanna
Harper
Harris
Hartzler
Hastings (WA)
Heck (NV)
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Holding
Hudson
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hultgren
Hunter
Hurt
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (OH)
Jones
Jordan
Joyce
Kelly (PA)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Lance
Lankford
Latham
Latta
LoBiondo
Long
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Maffei
Maloney, Sean
Marchant
Marino
Massie
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McHenry
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinley
McMorris Rodgers
Meadows
Meehan
Messer
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mullin
Mulvaney
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Owens
Paulsen
Pearce
Perry
Peters (CA)
Petri
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Posey
Price (GA)
Radel
Rahall
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rice (SC)
Rigell
Roby
Roe (TN)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rokita
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothfus
Royce
Ruiz
Runyan
Ryan (WI)
Salmon
Sanford
Schneider
Schock
Schrader
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Sinema
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Southerland
Stewart
Stivers
Stockman
Stutzman
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Walberg
Walden
Walorski
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Yoho
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Young (IN)
NOES--161
Andrews
Bass
Beatty
Becerra
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Bonamici
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Carney
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu
Cicilline
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Cohen
Connolly
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Courtney
Crowley
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny
DeFazio
DeGette
Delaney
DeLauro
DelBene
Deutch
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Duckworth
Ellison
Engel
Enyart
Eshoo
Esty
Farr
Fattah
Foster
Frankel (FL)
Fudge
Gabbard
Garamendi
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Hahn
Hastings (FL)
Heck (WA)
Himes
Honda
Horsford
Huffman
Israel
Jackson Lee
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kaptur
Keating
Kelly (IL)
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilmer
Kind
Kuster
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan Grisham (NM)
Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
Lynch
Maloney, Carolyn
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McNerney
Meeks
Michaud
Miller, George
Moore
Moran
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Negrete McLeod
Nolan
O'Rourke
Pallone
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Perlmutter
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Pocan
Polis
Price (NC)
Rangel
Richmond
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz
Scott (VA)
Scott, David
Sewell (AL)
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Speier
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Welch
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NOT VOTING--37
Barton
Brown (FL)
Campbell
Clyburn
Coble
Cummings
Daines
DesJarlais
Duffy
Edwards
Garcia
Gingrey (GA)
Gutierrez
Hanabusa
Higgins
Hinojosa
Holt
Hoyer
Johnson, Sam
Kirkpatrick
Labrador
Lewis
Lofgren
Markey
Meng
Neal
Palazzo
Pascrell
Pelosi
Peters (MI)
Pompeo
Quigley
Rogers (AL)
Sarbanes
Scalise
Serrano
Wagner
{time} 1330
So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Personal Explanation
Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Speaker, on Friday May 17, 2013, I was in St. Louis,
Missouri celebrating the graduation of my son, Stephen Wagner. Stephen
is graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, and today was
his commencement ceremony.
Due to this lifetime event, I was unable to be in Washington, DC to
vote on the legislative business of the day.
On Ordering the Previous Question for H. Res. 216, a resolution
providing for consideration of H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act, rollcall vote No. 155, had I been present I would
have vote ``yes.''
On Adoption of H. Res. 216, a resolution providing for consideration
of H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act, rollcall No. 156,
had I been present I would have voted ``yes.''
On Adoption of the Amendment of Mr. Hurt of Virginia, Amendment No. 2
to H.R. 1062, rollcall vote No. 157, had I been present I would have
voted ``yes.''
On Adoption of the Amendment of Ms. Maloney of New York, Amendment
No. 3 to H.R. 1062, rollcall vote No. 158, had I been present I would
have voted ``no.''
On the Motion to Recommit with Instructions H.R. 1062 rollcall vote
No. 159, had I been present I would have voted ``no.''
On Passage of H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act,
rollcall vote No. 160, had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''
personal explanation
Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House
chamber for votes Friday, May 17. Had I been present, I would have
voted ``nay'' on rollcall vote 155, ``nay'' on rollcall vote 156,
``nay'' on rollcall
[[Page H2751]]
vote 157, ``yea'' on rollcall vote 158, ``yea'' on rollcall vote 159,
and ``nay'' on rollcall vote 160.
personal explanation
Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, due to family obligations today, May
17, 2013, I will miss certain votes related to H.R. 1062. Had I been
present, I would have voted the following way:
Representative Hurt Amendment--I would have voted ``no.''
Representative Carolyn Maloney Amendment--I would have voted ``yes.''
Democratic Motion to Recommit H.R. 1062--I would have voted ``yes.''
On final passage of H.R. 1062--I would have voted ``no.''
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, today, May 17th, I missed several rollcall
votes. Had I been present I would have voted:
``nay''--rollcall vote 155--On Ordering the Previous Question on H.
Res. 216--Providing for consideration of H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act.
``nay''--rollcall vote 156--On Agreeing to the Resolution--H. Res.
216--Providing for consideration of H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory
Accountability Act
``nay''--rollcall vote 157--On Agreeing to the Amendment--Hurt of
Virginia Amendment No. 2
``aye''--rollcall Vote 158--On Agreeing to the Amendment--Carolyn
Maloney of New York Amendment No. 3
``aye''--rollcall vote 159--On Motion to Recommit with Instructions
on H.R. 1062--To improve the consideration by the Securities and
Exchange Commission of the costs and benefits of its regulations and
orders
``nay--rollcall vote 160--On Passage of H.R. 1062--To improve the
consideration by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the costs
and benefits of its regulations and orders
____________________