[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 96 (Thursday, June 19, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H5508-H5513]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4413, CUSTOMER PROTECTION AND END 
                            USER RELIEF ACT

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 629 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 629

       Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule 
     XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 4413) to reauthorize the Commodity Futures 
     Trading Commission, to better protect futures customers, to 
     provide end users with market certainty, to make basic 
     reforms to ensure transparency and accountability at the 
     Commission, to help farmers, ranchers, and end users manage 
     risks to help keep consumer costs low, and for other 
     purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed 
     with. All points of order against consideration of the bill 
     are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and 
     amendments specified in this resolution and shall not exceed 
     one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on Agriculture. 
     After general debate the bill shall be considered for 
     amendment under the five-minute rule. It shall be in order to 
     consider as an original bill for the purpose of amendment 
     under the five-minute rule an amendment in the nature of a 
     substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 
     113-47. That amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against that 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute are waived. No 
     amendment to that amendment in the nature of a substitute 
     shall be in order except those printed in the report of the 
     Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution. Each such 
     amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the 
     report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the 
     report, shall be considered as 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 in the House or in the Committee 
     of the Whole. All points of order against such amendments are 
     waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for 
     amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the 
     House with such amendments as may have been adopted. Any 
     Member may demand a separate vote in the House on any 
     amendment adopted in the Committee of the Whole to the bill 
     or to the amendment in the nature of a substitute made in 
     order as original text. The previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to 
     final passage without intervening motion except one motion to 
     recommit with or without instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to my dear friend, the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may 
consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is 
for the purpose of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 629 provides for a 
structured rule for consideration of H.R. 4413. This rule makes in 
order eight amendments which provide the opportunity for Members of the 
minority and the majority to participate in this debate.
  The legislation before us today reauthorizes the Commodity Futures 
Trading Commission, known as the CFTC,

[[Page H5509]]

through fiscal year 2018, and makes important reforms to promote market 
stability and to protect end users from unnecessary regulations. Most 
of all, Mr. Speaker, we are here because we want to learn from the 
past, be prepared for the future, and to allow this organization to 
adapt as it needs to to produce better decisions and better outcomes in 
the future, and that is why Republicans are here today. This bipartisan 
bill out of the Agriculture Committee does exactly that.
  Over the past 20 years, financial services companies have started to 
employ financial derivatives--historically used by farmers, ranchers, 
and utility co-ops to manage risk--as new types of investment vehicles. 
They are a part of the day-to-day life of millions of people across 
this country that help us to not only get better prices, but to be able 
to hedge against the uncertainty.
  Today, the derivatives marketplace represents trillions of dollars' 
worth of futures contracts, swaps, and other similar financial 
instruments. In response to the incredible growth of the derivatives 
market, the CFTC has promulgated rules and regulations designed to 
promote fairness and stability throughout the economy directly in 
relationship to this activity.
  Unfortunately, regulations have been written so broadly and with such 
inconsistency that many end users--such as farmers, ranchers, 
manufacturers, and municipal utility companies that rely on these 
contracts for the delivery of critical grain and natural gas--are 
forced to comply with rules intended for sophisticated investment firms 
rather than the instruments on which they rely and use for their own 
trading and commodity work. Such blind enforcement of the law is not 
fair nor efficient and unnecessarily punishes small businesses that are 
trying to effectively manage their risk.
  Simply put, as a direct result of the CFTC's regulations, American 
families are paying more for everything from a box of cereal to a new 
dishwasher to their monthly energy bills. In recognition of this fact, 
H.R. 4413 exempts end users from these regulations to restore fairness, 
to promote American companies, and to give them flexibility that they 
need to run their day-to-day operations and to protect consumers from 
unnecessary price increases.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill has been well understood by the Agriculture 
Committee on a bipartisan basis. All the way to the top on both sides 
of the committee, there is an agreement about how to move forward with 
effectiveness, with efficiency, and to allow those end users to be able 
to have the market strategies available to them to hedge their own 
risk, and to understand the things that are in their own natural best 
interest, and that is stability of prices, a marketplace that they 
understand, and, perhaps more importantly, one which keeps American 
jobs in America and, secondly, that allows Americans to be able to 
invest in America, from American-made products to American-made users.
  What we are here to do today is to bring this commonsense piece of 
legislation to the floor on behalf of a bipartisan large group of 
members. It is common sense, it is pro-business, it promotes 
appropriate regulation of our Nation's derivatives market, it is well 
thought through. What this will allow is this House to be able to get 
on record, put themselves to where they can then go to a conference to 
meet with the Senate, if they believe it is the right thing to do, and 
move forward to make the CFTC even better than what it is today based 
upon the history and based upon where it wants to go.

                              {time}  1245

  The discussion we had at the Rules Committee was, on a bipartisan 
basis, very uplifting. I believe the effort that we are going to bring 
together with that legislation means that we can vote not only ``yes,'' 
but have confidence that we have made better the things which we touch 
today.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the 
underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  I thank the gentleman, my good friend, the chairman of the Rules 
Committee, Mr. Sessions, for yielding the customary 30 minutes.
  I rise today in opposition to the rule for H.R. 4413, the Customer 
Protection and End User Relief Act, which reauthorizes through 2018 the 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
  Mr. Speaker, the CFTC plays a critical role in protecting market 
participants and our Nation's economy from fraud, manipulation, abusive 
practices, and systemic risk related to derivatives, both futures and 
swaps, as well as in fostering transparent, open, competitive, and 
financially sound markets.
  However, H.R. 4413 contains several harmful provisions that impede 
the CFTC's ability to enforce existing derivatives rules and roll back 
meaningful reforms in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer 
Protection Act.
  Specifically, title II of this bill carves out the CFTC from the 
Administrative Procedure Act process for establishing regulations, 
which represents the most longstanding and broadly applicable 
requirements for Federal rulemaking and was written to bring regularity 
and predictability to agency decisionmaking.
  Furthermore, section 203 of the legislation imposes burdensome cost-
benefit requirements that likely serve only to prevent, delay, or 
weaken any rules that implement Dodd-Frank.
  Current law already requires the CFTC and other agencies to conduct 
economic analyses pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act, the 
Congressional Review Act, and the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
  In addition, the CFTC is also bound by the Commodity Exchange Act to 
consider the protection of market participants and the public; the 
efficiency, competitiveness, and financial integrity of futures 
markets; price discovery; sound risk management practices; and other 
public interest considerations, under the supervision of the courts.
  The redundant cost-benefit requirements contained in H.R. 4413 will 
not only hamper the appropriate consideration and promulgation of new 
rules, but expose the CFTC to greater industry litigation.
  Finally, H.R. 4413 threatens American taxpayers by deregulating 
foreign derivatives transactions. Under section 722(d) of Dodd-Frank, 
the CFTC is authorized to oversee derivatives transactions that ``have 
a direct and significant connection with activities in, or effect on, 
commerce of the United States.''
  Section 359 of this bill exempts overseas derivatives transactions 
from regulation, creating a loophole in our system of regulatory 
oversight that could be gamed by large multinational swaps dealers.
  Just 6 years ago, derivatives trading related to the activities of 
the corporate structure AIG and Lehman Brothers nearly brought down our 
economy and cost every American household more than $50,000.
  I related last night in the Rules Committee that we were there--Ms. 
Slaughter and I and the chairman, Mr. Sessions--all of us--when Mr. 
Paulsen and Mr. Bernanke brought to us the notion on three or four 
paragraphs and two pages that this Nation was about to go bust.
  It is clear that derivatives transactions outside of the United 
States pose real risks to United States financial institutions, yet 
instead of strengthening the CFTC's ability to effectively regulate 
derivatives transactions involving the foreign operation of U.S. banks, 
H.R. 4413 presumes that they will be governed by foreign rules, 
disregarding whether those foreign rules are adequate or if the trades 
will import risk back to the United States.
  Moreover, this presumption can only be overturned after the CFTC and 
the Securities and Exchange Commission go to considerable procedural 
lengths to make a joint determination that a foreign host country's 
regulations are not broadly equivalent to United States regulations.
  The futures and swaps markets are essential to our economy and the 
way that businesses and investors manage risk, particularly for 
farmers, hospitals, manufacturers, and certain utilities industries.
  While I share my colleagues' concern regarding issues affecting many 
of

[[Page H5510]]

these end users, I believe that this legislation falls short of the 
goals of comprehensive Wall Street reform and ensuring that derivatives 
transactions do not contribute to another global economic crisis.
  I also said last yesterday, in the Rules Committee, that I predict 
that if this measure were to become law, we could reasonably expect 
that we would have the same kind of financial crisis that we did 6 
years ago.
  Instead of creating new, heavy administrative burdens, we should 
further empower the CFTC to be able to carry out its responsibilities, 
including those under Dodd-Frank.
  Just last week, House Republicans proposed to dangerously underfund 
the CFTC at 22 percent below the President's request, with an 
appropriation that will likely lead to either agencywide closures or 
employee layoffs. This would make the already underfunded CFTC less 
effective at protecting consumers, end users, and investors.
  Additionally, because this bill retroactively reverses rules that 
have already gone into effect and many of those that are in the 
pipeline, it increases uncertainty and costs to businesses and end 
users that will unnecessarily have the rules of the game changed on 
them.
  I simply don't understand this logic. Reducing the CFTC's ability to 
effectively oversee these financial activities only increases the 
likelihood that we will find ourselves in another potentially 
disastrous situation.
  Additionally, I would also like to take this opportunity to point out 
that several of my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee share 
these concerns.
  It was also pointed out by my colleague that this came out 
unanimously from the Agriculture Committee. It did in fact do so, but 
in the Rules Committee, we had the prerogative, if we so chose, to 
allow the Financial Services Committee to be able to make presentations 
that I believe--and in a bipartisan way--other Members, particularly 
those of the Financial Services Committee, believe should be a part of 
this discussion today. However, this rule cuts them out of the debate.
  In fact, H.R. 4413 rehashes several earlier bills that Financial 
Services Committee members have previously voiced concern over, 
including H.R. 1256, the Swap Jurisdiction Certainty Act; and H.R. 
1003, to improve consideration by the Commodity Futures Trading 
Commission of the costs and benefits of its regulations and orders.
  The administration has also come out in opposition to the bill. We 
can't continue with more of the same failed partisan practices and 
effect a different outcome.

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Florida 
bringing up a few of the ideas and assertions that I believe that he 
thinks are frailties in the bill, and I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  What I would like to do, if I can, is let him know that we had a full 
hearing yesterday and enabled our members time to read and understand 
and hear these ideas. We were assured yesterday by the chairman of the 
committee and the ranking member that this is a good process. We are 
not trying to do an end run around anybody.
  Mr. Speaker, there is something that is well established, known as 
the Administrative Procedure Act. This is an opportunity for agencies 
to interact with each other through an agreement, whereby they consult 
with each other and provide information and procedurally be able to 
walk through who is doing what and how things might be done.
  I don't think it means they always have to have consent. I don't 
think it means they always have to have agreement, but there is a 
process that goes on.
  I would refer the gentleman to section 211 of the bill on page 18. 
Section 211 says quite clearly--no ambiguity here--that everything in 
this act is meant to comply with and give guidance to the 
Administrative Procedure Act, which means that there is nothing in here 
that says that the CFTC does not share its information, understand its 
rulings, work with the FTC, work with the SEC, work with anyone about 
those rules that they are going to promulgate.
  As a matter of fact, it says that the CFTC does have the ability to 
do that, and instead of them making their own rules and regulations 
without working through the Administrative Procedure Act would be a 
mistake. It is authorized here in law.
  Further, if one goes back to a later section, page 47 of the bill, 
section 359, for the Members of Congress that are sitting in their 
offices and interested in this and want to know, this bipartisan bill 
by two senior Members--by the way, a former chairman and the current 
chairman today--says, ``Section 359. Cross-border regulation of 
derivatives transactions.''
  That means that, in a world market, we want to make sure that 
Japanese, Russian, Indian, German, whatever the marketplace holds for a 
commodity that we are talking about in particular, this would mean 
that, as the bill says:

       Not later than 270 days after the date of enactment of this 
     act, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the 
     Commodities Futures Trading Commission shall jointly issue 
     rules setting forth the application of United States swaps 
     requirements for the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the 
     Commodity Exchange Act related to cross-border swaps and 
     security-based swaps transactions involving U.S. persons or 
     non-U.S. persons.

  Mr. Speaker, we are trying to do the right thing. This is not about 
causing some market crash or failure. This comes from the Agriculture 
Committee, on a bipartisan basis, making sure that, in section 211 and 
section 359, they very effectively address exactly what we are being 
told we didn't do.

                              {time}  1300

  We are trying to have this government know what the right hand and 
the left hand are doing, not the reverse, and I believe it is simply 
not a true statement to say that we are not trying to accomplish this.
  Look, we don't all have to agree on this, but on a bipartisan basis--
unanimous out of the Agriculture Committee--they thought they did a 
pretty good product. I think they did a pretty good product, and my job 
is to come defend us on the floor. So, when somebody says you did 
something wrong, I say, ``Read the bill.''
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would remind the chairman, my 
good friend, that good intentions don't always manifest themselves in a 
positive way. I am sure before we had the recession that there were 
good intentions. My prediction is that, without appropriate regulation, 
we can reasonably expect that these same kinds of recessive measures 
might come into play. I recognize my good friend, the chairman, has his 
script together when it comes to something bipartisan coming out of the 
Agriculture Committee, but I also know that this is an end run around 
the Financial Services Committee, which also has germane interests in 
the particular legislation at hand.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased at this time to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), my very good friend and the 
ranking member of the Rules Committee.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, how quickly we forget what got us into the economic mess 
in the first place.
  I was here 6 short years ago when the recklessness on Wall Street 
triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and 
cost millions of hardworking Americans their jobs and their homes. 
Since then, Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have enacted 
reforms, known commonly as Dodd-Frank, to stop the worst of these 
abuses with the aim of preventing another economic meltdown. Obviously, 
since that time, copious American dollars have been spent, and legions 
of lobbyists have come in, to try to undo Dodd-Frank. This is the first 
of other bills that we will get that will do away with regulation. 
Unfortunately, the authorization passed out of the Rules Committee last 
night is a backdoor attempt to undo some of the crucial reforms and is 
a precursor to another financial crisis.
  Why wouldn't the Rules Committee give equal debate time to the 
Financial Services Committee, which has real jurisdiction over what we 
are doing here today? Why would they disallow that?

[[Page H5511]]

  It is because they didn't want anybody to hear it. If the Agriculture 
Committee were unanimous, I don't know what its reason was, but many 
Democrats and, certainly, those of us on the Rules Committee and others 
who are going to be here today want to be solidly in the ``no'' column 
because, if what we fear will happen happens, we want the country to 
know that somebody tried to stop it as there are crucial reforms that 
we talk about in this bill which are going to handcuff and obstruct the 
law enforcement officials who are charged with overseeing the markets 
and enforcing the regulations on Wall Street.
  When we found out 6 years ago, I was a member of the leadership then 
and was chair of the Rules Committee. We got a message on Saturday 
afternoon. It was three paragraphs, which Mr. Hastings did a wonderful 
job of explaining, from Secretary Paulson and the head of the Fed, Mr. 
Bernanke. It was very short and quite succinct. Basically, if we did 
not provide them--the Treasury and the Fed--with $800 billion by 
Tuesday--and this was Saturday--the financial services in the United 
States would be defunct. We would be finished.
  This was pretty frightening because all we knew is that fancy things 
were going on on Wall Street and that mortgages were being chopped up 
and sold in pieces. I think they unloaded a lot of it onto Germany's 
Deutsche Bank. We not only affected our economy, but we affected other 
parts of the world. It was a disaster--people lost houses that they had 
spent their lives trying to get; children were displaced from their 
homes and from their schools; people were without their jobs--simply 
because they were playing tricks, passing paper back and forth to each 
other, and there was not strong enough regulation in this country for 
the people who did the oversight to even know what was going on.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I yield the gentlelady an additional 2 
minutes.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. This was one of the most awful things that we had ever 
gone through. We watched what happened to our neighbors and to those in 
other parts of this country where people were literally forced out onto 
the streets because of what Wall Street had done, not because of 
anything they had done. People who had paid their mortgages faithfully 
every single month suddenly found out that those mortgages were 
worthless, that their mortgages were more expensive to them at that 
time than their houses were worth on the market.
  Why in the world would we have any attempt here to undo any of that? 
Those lobbyists and all of that money made their statements pretty 
clear.
  On our side, we are trying to hold up the other side. We want to 
speak for those people who lost their jobs. We want to speak for those 
people who lost their homes. We want to say to the small businesses 
that had no access to capital and went under that we are trying to 
protect your interests here.
  Whatever happens, we know we don't have the votes--you have got them. 
We do know that this is a majority that hates regulation whether it is 
clean air or clean water. Whatever it is, get rid of it. Then you come 
back down here to Wall Street and know the effect that it has had. We 
haven't completely recovered from that recession. God knows we have not 
passed any legislation in the House of Representatives to create jobs 
or to make it any better. We do everything that we can just to benefit 
those people who have the money. We all know how this movie ends. If it 
moves forward as written, we are sowing the seeds for future disaster 
in this country.
  Last night, at the Rules Committee, we called for a ``no'' vote, and 
we said specifically what we were doing. We wanted to be on record on 
our side as trying to protect the American public and their futures so 
that they have some confidence again in what they are doing. We would 
love it if banks would again stop passing paper back and forth to each 
other and would make loans and get people back to work. We, of course, 
were not able to do that as 2-9, I believe, was the vote. We will see 
what happens when this comes to the floor, as it certainly will. We 
just simply, as I said, want to make sure because, the last time this 
came up, we didn't have the opportunity to speak. We are a solid 
``no.''
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I really do appreciate the gentlewoman from New York, the ranking 
member of the Rules Committee, for coming down and taking her very 
important time.
  I would, with great respect, remind her and my colleagues who are 
listening that the Agriculture Committee has jurisdiction over the 
CFTC, not the Financial Services Committee, which is why we are here 
doing this bill today.
  I want to just say to the gentleman and the gentlewoman that, if they 
are unable to give time during the debate or now to their Democrat 
colleagues they would choose, I am sure they could come talk to us and 
ask for time, but I don't see anybody lined up here to come down and 
argue the point, because this is a bipartisan bill, because this is a 
commonsense bill, because this makes sense that we are trying to avoid 
problems by getting this administration and the commissions that are 
spoken about here to work together, to use the benefit of the knowledge 
of the past. This is not about deregulating or doing away with 
something or defunding somebody. That is just not the case.
  The case is section 211 and section 359. The entire bill has been 
well vetted and well understood on a bipartisan basis. Mr. Collin 
Peterson, the ranking member, came with the chairman, Mr. Lucas from 
Oklahoma. They sat there very succinctly and said they were going to 
work together. They were asking us to consider working together. We 
have had lots of bills, lots of appropriators. Just the other day, 
Armed Services, on a bipartisan basis, brought us their bill. I am sure 
there will be people who will fight that also. They will say that those 
darned Republicans just want to ruin this country, that they want to go 
back to the other ages.
  Mr. Speaker, not true.
  In fact, work that is done on our Appropriations Committee and work 
that is done, as an example, on the Agriculture Committee is done 
together to try and address the problems of their constituencies. 
They're the people who live in rural America--people who get up early, 
who go to bed late, who care about this country--who do the things 
that, I think, are all American, in my mind, including having their 
sons and daughters join our military and they are helping each other--
good neighbors--and looking out for each other. That is what we are 
doing. That is what this is. This isn't to have a debating group about 
things that are wrong. It is about things that can be done right.
  I would just say that, if the Democratic manager is unwilling to 
yield his time to Ms. Waters, who is the gentlewoman who came up from 
Financial Services, she ought to ask a Republican if he will yield 
time, and it wouldn't surprise me if he would.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, through you, I would advise my 
good friend that we have no further speakers and that I am prepared to 
close at this time if he is.
  In closing, what has transpired here is interesting. The Agriculture 
Committee had finished its product, and then it came yesterday to add 
provisions that in the final analysis are dealing with the Securities 
and Exchange Commission. Then my friend, the chairman, would argue that 
it is an agriculture bill. Clearly, it is smack-dab in the lane of 
Financial Services, and they were excluded. Yes, Ms. Waters did come to 
the Rules Committee last night, and there is no requirement that she be 
here now, but what we could have done--we keep saying ``last night,'' 
but it was late yesterday evening--is to let the Financial Services 
people participate in this debate--but no. What we have are the two 
people, the chairman and ranking member, who are given time with 
reference to this matter, and the Financial Services Committee is shut 
out of this debate. That is just plain wrong, and I believe most people 
know that.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4413 creates significant loopholes for derivatives 
by hamstringing the CFTC, and it undermines comprehensive financial 
reform.
  Six years after the Great Recession, families are still struggling in 
this

[[Page H5512]]

country. As of last week, 3 million Americans have lost their emergency 
unemployment insurance since it expired in December 2013. I want to 
repeat that: 3 million Americans have lost their emergency unemployment 
insurance since it expired in December 2013.
  After my friends finish their reconstitution of their leadership this 
afternoon, I would hope that their new then leadership would come down 
here and put something on the floor that would allow us at least to 
have a vote, up or down, as to whether or not people should receive 
unemployment compensation.
  Other things that have expired, along with unemployment compensation 
that expired in December, are the tax extender provisions, which help 
individual families and small businesses invest. In the coming months--
real soon--Congress is going to be faced with even more pressing 
challenges as our Nation's highway trust fund is expected to go 0.0--
bankrupt--and the authorizations for Federal surface transportation 
projects will also expire. The Export-Import Bank and the Terrorism 
Risk Insurance Act are set to expire. The House still has eight 
appropriations bills left to pass, and with each passing day of 
inaction on these items, we come closer to another economic crisis.
  Republicans and Democrats must come together to prevent this from 
happening as well as to move our Nation forward on comprehensive 
immigration and tax reform, raising the minimum wage, protecting voter 
rights, and securing equal pay.

                              {time}  1315

  Let me go back through that. Securing equal pay, protecting voter 
rights.
  I am personally tired of the suppression and oppression measures with 
reference to voting in this country. Why in the world would we want 
less people to vote than, under the circumstances, people that should 
be participating in this great democracy of ours?
  And yet we have States, including my own, circumventing the process 
of voting, restoring, if you will, age-old problems having to do with 
voting rights.
  How about raising the minimum wage?
  Put something down here on the floor and stand up and vote for it or 
against it. But don't come in here and have everybody believe that you 
are moving this country forward.
  I predict for you what is going to happen: 28 more days, 27 more 
days, are going to go through the rest of this process. There is going 
to be further obstruction from the majority in this particular House of 
Representatives, and then we will go out and we will have an election, 
and the American people will speak again to those of us that are in the 
House of Representatives.
  Most of us are likely to be back here, and we will be right back here 
in what is referred to as a ``lame duck session,'' and we will hold 
that lame duck session, pass some kind of an omnibus bill, and be off 
into the sunset for the 2016 election.
  Enough already. Stop pretending, and have people know that we are 
confronted with real problems in this country, and it is this 
institution that has a responsibility to attend to them.
  The reauthorization of CFTC is both important and necessary. However, 
H.R. 4413 includes provisions that put the safety and the stability of 
the United States financial system at risk. Therefore, I urge a ``no'' 
vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I appreciate the gentleman, my dear friend from Florida, for not only 
attending the meetings, Rules Committee meetings, that were directly 
related to this subject. It took some time yesterday. He was offered an 
opportunity and took us up on asking questions.
  But I will tell you, not all of Denmark is rotten, Mr. Speaker. Not 
all of Denmark is rotten.
  We are here today to put a bill on the floor to reauthorize the CFTC. 
We are not here for housing bills. We are not here for Wall Street 
bills. We are not here for all the problems of voter regulations. We 
are not here for all the problems of the world.
  I am for world peace too, by the way. But that is not what we are 
here to do today.
  What we are here to do is to reauthorize the Commodity Futures 
Trading Commission, CFTC, through a bill that was worked through by the 
Agriculture Committee, on a bipartisan basis, where they bring people 
together and actually listen to ideas. And certain sections in here may 
have been written by a Republican, certain may have been written by a 
Democrat, but there was agreement that they saw the same direction.
  What did we do?
  We made sure we empowered, by recognizing the role of what we are 
reauthorizing for the CFTC, and gave them what we believe are the 
proper statutes and direction, which is what the Congress of the United 
States is supposed to be doing, giving direction, working in 
consultation, and we have done this over and over and over.
  By the way, this is not a 3,000-page bill. This bill was read by 
Members of Congress before we passed it.
  Section 211, right here, we want people to work together. We would 
like to ask this administration to please work together.
  Oh, by the way, we included the Federal courts in here also, and we 
said, a person adversely affected by a rule of the commission 
promulgated under this act may obtain the review of this rule in the 
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
  So we included the court system in here. We went through a process to 
make sure that we were dealing properly with a bipartisan answer to the 
past and to make us better for the future.
  Oh, did we include other countries to where we want others in the 
world marketplace to know what we are doing? Yes, we did. Section 359, 
cross-border regulations of derivatives.
  Mr. Speaker, we have tried to do the right thing. We don't debate 
every day every bill. We do debate lots of bills. We are trying to do 
the right thing. We are trying to work together. We are even trying to 
give enough time.
  By the way, Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on my side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 12\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Twelve and one-half minutes. My guess is that the 
gentleman from Florida had at least 12\1/2\ minutes. That is 24 minutes 
that we had available where, if there are other Members of the body 
that would wish to come down and participate in this debate, they can 
do just that.
  I have not had anybody seek time. So I think the arguments are fair, 
but I think that they hold less water than what some assume.
  What we are trying to do here today, the Republican majority, is to 
bring bills forward through regular order, through committees, where we 
know what we are doing, and we try and get things--try to get things 
done together. In this case, a successful rain dance has a lot to do 
with timing.
  Well, the timing is right here today, Mr. Speaker, and we are right 
here on the floor with a bill. I see very little in terms of content 
where people want to come down and beat up the product. And the reason 
why is because this product is kind of like an American farm product--
it is really pretty good. It really is a product of hard work, getting 
up early, going to bed late, being honest about it, trying to make 
things as efficient as they can.
  So I am going to stand behind this product today. I am going to stand 
behind this product because I think they did a good job.
  I will tell you that I think that our young chairman, Frank Lucas, is 
a great young leader. He is doing great things, and that is why I can 
say I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this rule, ``yes'' on the 
underlying legislation, and I can say with some 10 minutes left in time 
given me, and some time, about the same that was given to my Democrat 
colleague, I am going to yield back the balance of my time because I 
believe that the job we did was worthy and the product will show 
itself.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.

[[Page H5513]]

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and 
nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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