[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H3353-H3356]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5192, PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM 
                           IDENTITY THEFT ACT

  Mr. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 830 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 830

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 5192) to 
     authorize the Commissioner of Social Security to provide 
     confirmation of fraud protection data to certain permitted 
     entities, and for other purposes. All points of order against 
     consideration of the bill are waived. In lieu of the 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the 
     Committee on Ways and Means now printed in the bill, an 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the 
     text of Rules Committee Print 115-68 shall be considered as 
     adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. 
     All points of order against provisions in the bill, as 
     amended, are waived. The previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any 
     further amendment thereto, to final passage without 
     intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally 
     divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority 
     member of the Committee on Ways and Means; and (2) one motion 
     to recommit with or without instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Davidson). The gentleman from Alabama is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to 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. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 
5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Alabama?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 830 provides for 
consideration of H.R. 5192, the Protecting Children From Identity Theft 
Act. The resolution calls for a closed rule, as no amendments to the 
bill were submitted.
  Mr. Speaker, this bipartisan legislation is designed to reduce 
identity fraud by allowing financial institutions to verify the 
accuracy of a name, Social Security number, and date of birth before 
passing that information to credit bureaus.
  This legislation is designed to target something known as synthetic 
identity fraud. This begins when a criminal combines a real Social 
Security number with fictitious information, such as a name and date of 
birth, to apply for credit with a financial institution that passes 
information to credit bureaus for a credit check.
  Credit bureaus create a record based on the fraudulent credentials. 
Over time, this creates a synthetic identity based on the valid Social 
Security number but a false name.
  Currently, children and other vulnerable individuals are more likely 
to be victims of synthetic identity theft because they do not drive, 
work, or establish credit. This makes it easier for an identity thief 
to misuse the Social Security number of a child without being detected.
  Reports indicate that over 1 million children have their identity 
stolen each year. Studies show that children are 50 times more likely 
than adults to be a victim of identity theft.
  This is a real and serious issue that is only becoming more and more 
common. According to TransUnion, a record $355 million in outstanding 
credit card balances was owed by people who it suspects didn't exist in 
2017. That is up more than eightfold from 2012.
  This type of fraud can saddle children with unintended debt and a 
flawed

[[Page H3354]]

credit history sometimes before they can even walk or drive a car.
  That is why this bipartisan legislation is so important. The bill 
would require the Social Security Administration to create a 
verification system to match the name, Social Security number, and date 
of birth submitted by permitted entities against their official 
records.
  This would allow financial institutions to verify the accuracy of the 
customer's personal information in order to guard against synthetic 
identity fraud.
  Importantly, the bill requires that users of the verification system 
pay the full cost to limit any costs to taxpayers. Also, the bill 
ensures that the provisions do not distract the Social Security 
Administration from their core duties and responsibilities.
  It is also important to note that the bill includes protections to 
ensure the verification system is secure and not subject to abuse or 
misuse. The consumer must also consent before their information could 
be subject to an inquiry.
  This is bipartisan, commonsense legislation that solves a real-world 
problem, but I bet it will never get the attention that it deserves. 
This bill went through regular order. It passed out of the Ways and 
Means Committee on a 38-0 vote, and I hope it receives a similar vote 
here on the House floor.
  Despite what some in the national news media would have you to 
believe, this type of bipartisan legislation actually happens all the 
time here in the House. The vast majority of bills we pass receive 
bipartisan support, and while that may not make for the best 
television, it is the reality of the work we do on a daily basis.
  So I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the Protecting 
Children From Identity Theft Act, and let's work to solve a problem 
impacting Americans each and every day.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 830 and 
the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Speaker, it is kind of good to see a Floridian in 
the pro tempore chair.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Alabama for yielding me the 
customary 30 minutes for debate, and I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate this rule. Last night at the 
Rules Committee, we had the opportunity to hear from Chairman Kevin 
Brady of the Committee on Ways and Means, the chairman of the Oversight 
Subcommittee, Lynn Jenkins, and the ranking member of the Oversight 
Subcommittee,  John Lewis, about this legislation.
  They discussed--hey, America, listen to this--the bipartisan nature 
in which they worked on this issue to craft legislation that they hope 
can achieve strong bipartisan support in this body.
  It came out of committee 38-0.
  H.R. 5192 protects young children and recent immigrants from 
synthetic identity theft, a type of fraud that involves combining a 
legitimate Social Security number with a fake name in order to create a 
new synthetic identity. One in every 10 children have fallen victim to 
this type of threat. Research has shown that children's identities are 
stolen at a rate of 50 times more frequently than adults, resulting in 
children and families shouldering unforeseeable debt and a flawed 
credit history that is extremely difficult to clear.
  Mr. Speaker, in a refreshing change of pace, this measure, as I 
indicated, had a 38-0 vote coming out of the markup in committee and 
included input from Democrats, the IRS, and consumer protection 
advocates.

  Unsurprisingly, as I have indicated, it came out of committee 
overwhelmingly with all 16 Democrats voting in favor. The 
bipartisanship reflected in this bill is certainly a rarity in this 
body and, frankly, could have easily come before us under suspension of 
the rules.
  It is now painfully obvious what the Republican majority's playbook 
is. My friends across the aisle can work in a bipartisan manner if they 
want to, but when it comes to major issues facing our country, like 
taking away healthcare from 23 million Americans or handing a $1.5 
trillion tax giveaway to America's wealthiest citizens, they would 
rather force through partisan legislation written in back rooms with 
little to no expert analysis, similar to the farm bill that is about to 
come out here sometime in the not-to-distant future.
  While it is certainly refreshing that we are working in a bipartisan 
manner for a change, protecting children and families from identity 
theft is not the only bipartisan priority. These reforms are just as 
pressing as protecting our children from gun violence, providing relief 
for hard-working, young Dreamers, and debating the use of military 
force overseas--or how about an infrastructure bill of consequence and 
real immigration reform.

                              {time}  1230

  Sixty-eight percent of Americans say Congress must do more to reduce 
gun violence. More than a million Americans took to the streets across 
the country to march for our lives and to urge Congress to take action 
to reduce gun violence. I had the honor of sitting on the stage on that 
day, and I was never as proud as I was of the children from Broward 
County, where I am privileged to serve, or from around this Nation, and 
their friends and allies, parents, loved ones, and constituents who 
came from all over the country here, as well as to events in a 
significant number of locations around the country.
  207 members of Congress, including 14 Republicans, are sponsoring 
H.R. 4240, the Democratic Representative  Mike Thompson's bill that 
would give States the resources to help them submit information to the 
background check system. One hundred Members of Congress, including 
seven Republicans, are cosponsoring the Gun Violence Restraining Order 
Act, which will allow family members or law enforcement officials to 
petition a judge to temporarily remove firearms from an individual in 
crisis. We had that example in Florida after it passed its law. 
Immediately, a family came to the sheriff's office to have weapons 
taken from a person in crisis.
  Has the Speaker brought these bipartisan measures to the floor for a 
vote? No. The Republican majority has refused to take up even the most 
basic commonsense legislation to help mitigate the epidemic of gun 
violence facing this country. My friends across the aisle have even 
refused to address the use of bump stocks, a reform whose need is 
agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans, including the President. 
Fortunately, in the State of Florida, it did pass in the last session 
of the legislature.
  Mr. Speaker, just last year, 34 House Republicans signed a letter to 
Speaker Paul Ryan urging him to bring forward a permanent legislative 
solution for the Dreamers, these young, hardworking individuals who are 
stuck in legal limbo. But despite this bipartisan support, not to 
mention the support of 90 percent of the American public, the 
Republican majority continues to block the Dream Act, ignoring the 
calls of the vast majority of Americans.
  It is time for the Trump administration and Republican-controlled 
Congress to stop playing politics with the lives of Dreamers and come 
to terms with the fact that their long anti-immigrant wish list is not 
going anywhere fast.
  Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives is a place where the issues 
facing our Nation should be addressed and solved in a bipartisan 
manner, similar to this legislation. It is a sad state of affairs for 
the Nation that Congress has continued to sit idly by while the 
executive branch further engages our military in conflicts overseas 
without congressional authorization.
  Republican leadership's refusal to allow a robust debate on the 
efficacy of an authorization of the use of military force for our 
presence in Syria is not only a dereliction of duty but does a great 
disservice to the country and our Constitution. If the President, any 
President, intends to further involve American troops in the Syrian 
conflict, or any conflict, then Congress has not only the 
responsibility but also the constitutional authority to lead that 
conversation.
  Despite across-the-aisle support for these pressing problems, we are 
not here today debating the rule to address gun violence in America. We 
are not here today debating the rule to protect Dreamers from being 
removed from our

[[Page H3355]]

workforce or being deported to countries of which they have no 
knowledge. We are not here today debating the rule for the use of 
military force in Syria. We are not here today discussing immigration 
reform. We are not here today discussing an infrastructure measure that 
is desperately needed.
  When I came to Congress in 1992, there were 14,000 bridges in this 
country in need of repair. Today there are 54,000 bridges in this 
country in need of repair. But we are not discussing that here today. 
Instead, we are using floor time to discuss a bill that could have 
easily been considered on the suspension calendar, and I predict that, 
had it been on the suspension calendar, 435 Members, or as many as 
assembled, would have voted unanimously in favor of the measure today 
as they would if it were on the floor at this particular moment.
  Are my friends across the aisle intent on running out the clock 
before the midterm elections? Is that what the American people have to 
look forward to over the next 7 months? The people who sent us here 
deserve bipartisan solutions to the pressing problems confronting this 
great Nation. Not next month. Not next week. Not tomorrow. But today.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my good friend from Florida. 
I do want to note the presence on the floor of our newest member of the 
Rules Committee, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres). We 
welcome her to the committee.
  I do think there are bipartisan things that we can do. The gentleman 
said one that I think is very important; that is, infrastructure. He 
and I have had this discussion before. The President wants us to do an 
infrastructure bill, and I think all of us want to do an infrastructure 
bill. I think there is some time here we need to take to make sure that 
we do get a bipartisan bill in that regard. I don't think it will pass 
without a bipartisan agreement, so I hope we do that.
  On the gun issue, as I think the gentleman knows, the bump stock rule 
was actually something put in place by ATF under the Obama 
administration, and President Trump has asked the ATF essentially to 
rescind it, and they are in the process of doing that. So I hope 
they'll do that.
  We did pass, and this body is part of our appropriations bill for 
this fiscal year that has gone to the President and been signed, the 
Fix NICS bill. So there are gun legislation things, addressing these 
issues, that are moving forward.
  He also brought up the very important issue of immigration. The 
President, I think, has made some very bold moves in that regard to try 
to get a discussion going so that we can have some bipartisanship here. 
It is clear that that is not going to pass both the House and the 
Senate without that. I hope that those negotiations and those 
discussions can somehow resume because they clearly hit a very bad 
spot. The President has shown his good faith. I hope the rest of us can 
reach back and find a way to address this issue.

  But this issue is not just the Dreamers. It is also border security. 
If we are not willing to talk about that and chain migration and the 
others, we are not really talking about immigration reform; we are 
talking about one piece of it.
  With regard to the AUMF, Authorization for Use of Military Force, I 
am a strong advocate, as I think the gentleman knows, for a new AUMF. 
Actually, I am a cosponsor for one of the bills that would provide for 
that. I have said, going back several years, that I think we have been 
operating in certain parts of the world without adequate authorization. 
And whether it is constitutionally required or not, I think it is the 
right thing to do.
  However, I do not think the President had to have prior congressional 
authorization before the strike that was launched Friday night against 
Syria in conjunction with France and Great Britain. He clearly has that 
authority under Article II of the Constitution, to protect our 
servicemen and -women who are in Syria right now. So I applaud what the 
President did. I applaud the way he did it. But I am clear in my 
thinking that he did not need prior authorization from Congress to go 
there.
  Now, I hope that we will get a strategy in general for Syria that 
fits into our overall strategy to the Middle East. We have been 
stumbling around in Syria for several years now. President Obama put 
out the so-called red line, and then the Syrians walked across it and 
used chemical weapons against their people. And we did nothing. All 
that did was encourage further bad behavior like what we saw in this 
horrible chemical attack on innocent civilians in Syria.
  At least President Trump is doing something. And I hope that that 
something that he has done will send a loud message, not just to the 
Assad regime in Syria but also to Russia and to Iran, that the 
civilized world is not going to tolerate that sort of activity. And we 
don't care who does it; we are going to take appropriate action. The 
President had the authorization to do it, and I am glad that he did it.
  We are not done legislating this year. I think the gentleman suggests 
that we are, but we have got some big bills coming before us. This week 
we will take up a major IRS reform bill. I am looking forward to that, 
this being tax day for so many of us. A good tax day for the vast 
majority of the people in America, by the way.
  We will be taking up a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation 
Administration. We will be taking up another farm bill. We will be 
taking up the National Defense Authorization Act that comes out of the 
Committee on Armed Services that I am in.
  We have a host of legislation that we will be doing, and I think 
doing successfully, between now and when we have these midterm 
elections in November. So we are not done legislating by any means.
  I look forward to continuing to debate these issues, but today we are 
talking about a very important bill that did come through committee in 
a bipartisan fashion and, I believe, is going to get broad bipartisan 
support here in this body, once more showing the American people that 
we can get the people's work done in the right way.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Speaker, through you, I would advise my friend that 
I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.
  Mr. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I am as well.
  Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to my friend from Alabama, and 
he indicated that the action that was just undertaken over the weekend 
by this administration was ``something,'' and I maintain that it was 
under an old Authorization for Use of Military Force.
  Listen, one of the reasons Congress won't undertake to debate an 
authorization for the use of military force, which I would urge my 
friend would give us a strategy if we had that debate and at least the 
administration would have Congress' input with reference to the use of 
military force--we can't continue to have pin pricks at the whim of any 
President. I argued the same thing during the Obama administration, and 
I argued it during the Clinton administration.
  What we have done is abdicate our responsibility in Congress when it 
comes to war. And if you think it isn't war, then ask the 500,000 
people who are dead as a result of this measure undertaken in Syria, 
not just by the United States but with a variety of forces fighting 
inside. If you think it isn't war when a bomb destroys a building, or 
76 missiles destroy buildings, then I have news for you about what war 
looks like. And we had no input.
  My understanding is the administration met with the leadership of the 
Republican Party. I don't recall hearing a single Democrat was invited 
to have any discussion at all about this matter.
  Mr. Speaker, I applaud this bipartisan legislation, as I have said, 
that would limit synthetic identity fraud and help protect millions of 
identities, including those of young children and recent immigrants, 
from being stolen. In a refreshing change of pace, this measure 
received input from Democrats, the IRS, and consumer protection 
advocates.
  My friend from Alabama said that there are measures that are coming

[[Page H3356]]

forward, and I applaud him that those measures are coming forward. But 
I didn't hear him say that there were going to be measures having to do 
with Dreamers. I didn't hear him say there was anything that would be 
significantly involved in gun violence other than his words with 
reference to bump stocks and some reference back to some other date in 
time. I am talking about right now, not only bump stocks but the 
necessary indicia for buying a weapon and the age for buying a weapon 
and a variety of measures.
  Twenty-six measures exist right here in the House of Representatives 
on which we could be voting--any one of them--that are commonsense gun 
reform. And we refuse to do so because the Speaker won't put them on 
the floor.
  I hope that we can continue working together across the aisle to 
confront the pressing issues facing this great Nation. When the farm 
bill comes here, I hope Democrats have some input. They haven't had any 
at this point. And we can help people whom we have been elected to 
serve.

                              {time}  1245

  However, it is time that we address gun violence in America; it is 
time that we protect Dreamers; it is time we exert our constitutional 
authority and debate a new Authorization for Use of Military Force; and 
it is time for us to repair these broken-down bridges and raggedy roads 
in the United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my good friend from Florida. 
I certainly hope that there can be some further discussions and we can 
have something that comes forth on this floor that is truly bipartisan 
on the issue of immigration reform, including border security.
  I know that there are some people, not including my friend from 
Florida, who would like to pass legislation that would repeal the 
Second Amendment. I hope that that legislation doesn't come to the 
floor because I do not think it would meet with the approval of the 
vast majority of the people of America.
  I do strongly believe at some point we should be debating on this 
floor a new Authorization for Use of Military Force. But I will say 
again, the President did not need that authorization for what he did on 
Friday night, not because he was presuming to act under an old 
authorization, but because he had the inherent power to do that under 
Article II of the Constitution. If he is acting under that authority, 
he doesn't need extra authorization from us.
  This bill, however, that we are talking about today is something we 
can all agree on, is something that is important for protecting young 
children and, yes, for protecting people who have just become immigrant 
citizens of this country. So I applaud the fact that we have come 
forward with this legislation. It shows that we are working together. I 
look forward to the debate on the floor of this House.
  Mr. Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 
830 and the underlying bill.
  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 resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid upon the table.

                          ____________________