[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7128-7150]
[From the U.S. 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

[[Page 7129]]

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.
  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.

[[Page 7130]]

  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 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

[[Page 7131]]

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.
  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

[[Page 7132]]

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.
  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 costs 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

[[Page 7133]]

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 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.

[[Page 7134]]

  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 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.

[[Page 7135]]

       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 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; Taxpayers 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 Universalists 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 AR; 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

[[Page 7136]]

     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 MN; 
     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 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

[[Page 7137]]

     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 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

[[Page 7138]]

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 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

[[Page 7139]]

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 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 
``Investor's 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

[[Page 7140]]

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.
  Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chair, the U.S. House of Representative has passed a 
bill called the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 1062). Congress 
intended with this legislation to ensure that the Securities and 
Exchange Commission consider the costs and benefits of its regulatory 
apparatus, and further intended for this legislation to protect 
investors and improve capital formation.


                              INTRODUCTION

  The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 states that there is a compelling 
national public interest in the regulation and control of securities 
transactions occurring either on exchanges or over-the-counter to 
``protect interstate commerce, the national credit, the Federal taxing 
power, to protect and make more effective the national banking system 
and Federal Reserve System, and to insure the maintenance of fair and 
honest markets in such transactions.'' Nothing in the HR 1062 is meant 
to undermine the implied statutory authority of the SEC to protect the 
national interest.
  In this bill, Congress did not intend to change the well-established 
rule, set forth in Supreme Court precedent, that any court reviewing an 
agency rule under the Administrative Procedure Act must be deferential 
to the agency's judgment and must not substitute the court's judgment 
for that of the agency.
  In this bill, Congress did not intend the SEC to determine whether 
regulation is warranted if Congress has required the SEC to promulgate 
a rule. In other words, Congress did not intend to grant the SEC any 
right or power to ignore Congress's rulemaking mandates. Similarly, in 
this bill, Congress did not intend to condition any SEC rulemaking on 
any type of cost-benefit analysis if Congress has required the SEC to 
promulgate a rule on a matter.
  In this bill, Congress did not intend to overturn the SEC's 
longstanding duty, above all other responsibilities, to protect 
investors and ensure the integrity of our financial markets. Thus, 
Congress's intent here is that the SEC, when engaged in rulemaking, do 
what is necessary to maximize the protection of investors and the 
integrity of our markets, and only attempt to minimize burdens once the 
attainment of those goals has been assured.
  The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 determines that a significant 
cost of a lack of regulation are as follows: ``National emergencies, 
which produce widespread unemployment and the dislocation of trade, 
transportation, and industry, and which burden interstate commerce and 
adversely affect the general welfare, are precipitated, intensified, 
and prolonged by manipulation and sudden and unreasonable fluctuations 
of security prices and by excessive speculation on such exchanges and 
markets, and to meet such emergencies the Federal Government is put to 
such great expense as to burden the national credit.''
  The most recent National Emergency was the financial crisis of 2007-
2009. According to the Government Accountability Office, this crisis 
reduced economic activity and aggregate wealth of the United States by 
$22 trillion. Congress, in passing this law, construed that this $22 
trillion number is the implied ``benefit'' of the SEC's regulatory 
apparatus. Congress intends the SEC to construe $22 trillion as the 
benefit of its aggregate regulatory apparatus in any cost/benefit 
analysis, and to apply at least part of this $22 trillion ``benefit'' 
as the benefit of any specific regulation. In any regulation in which 
the benefit of a specific rule or regulation is unclear, Congress 
intends for the SEC to consider the possibility of an averted National 
Emergency as a clear benefit.
  The specific section of the Act amended by this bill grants to the 
Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve Board of 
Governors, and other agencies the power ``to make such rules and 
regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to implement the 
provisions of this chapter for which they are responsible or for the 
execution of the functions vested in them by this chapter.'' Nothing in 
this bill shall be construed to limit the authority of these agencies 
to regulate the securities markets.


              CONGRESSIONAL INTENT IN SPECIFIC PROVISIONS

  In (e)(1)(A) of this bill, Congress mandated that the SEC consider 
the ``nature and source of the problem that the proposed regulation is 
designed to address, as well as assess the significance of that 
problem'' before issuing a regulation. Congress believes, consistent 
with systemic risk exceptions for open bank assistance, that the SEC 
may issue regulations to reduce systemic risk, and that such a 
rationale for a regulation is sufficient for a consideration of the 
nature and source of a problem, as well as determining its 
significance. Congress, consistent with the 1934 Act's reasoning around 
the prevention of National Emergencies, intended for the SEC to 
consider the maximum possible loss to investors and maximum possible 
decline in capital formation should a regulation not be promulgated. 
This maximum cost should include considering the possibility of another 
systemically risky event similar to the financial crisis of 2008, with 
its implied cost of $22 trillion (according to the Government 
Accountability Office).
  See also, e.g., Better Markets, The Cost of the Wall Street Collapse 
and Ongoing Economic Crisis Is More Than $12.8 Trillion (Sept. 15, 
2012), available at http://better
markets.com/sites/default/files/Cost%20Of%20 The%20Crisis.pdf. It is 
Congress's intent that when promulgating rules, the SEC must consider 
whether a rule will help prevent such an economic catastrophe from 
happening again.

[[Page 7141]]

  In (e)(1)(B) of this bill, Congress intended the Chief Economist to 
make a determination of the implied cost to society of not issuing a 
regulation, and the burden to society implied by current business 
practices. In requiring the Chief Economist to assess ``both 
qualitative and quantitative'' costs and benefits, Congress intended 
the Chief Economist to take into account costs and benefits that are 
not easily quantified, and to give such unquantifiable benefits of 
financial regulation the same consideration as the quantifiable 
benefits. These unquantifiable benefits include, but are not limited 
to, the avoidance of investor losses, heightened transparency, greater 
systemic stability, the benefits of increased investor confidence in 
the integrity of the financial system and the overall economic system, 
and, above all, any risk of a collapse of the global financial system 
and prevention of another crippling financial crisis. As some 
commentators have observed, it is imperative that rulemaking be 
conducted in a holistic way, one that accounts for the huge benefits 
that accrue when a collection of rules helps prevent financial crises 
or other widespread abuses. See Better Markets, Setting the Record 
Straight on Cost-Benefit Analysis and Financial Reform at the SEC (July 
30, 2012), available at http://
bettermarkets.com/sites/default/files/CBA%20Report.pdf.
  In Sections (e)(1)(B) and (e)(2)(A) of this bill, Congress recognized 
that when members of the regulated industry do not provide data on the 
costs of regulation to the SEC, and when cost data is not otherwise 
available, the SEC has no obligation to develop its own studies or 
generate its own data. Congress agrees with the assessment of the 
courts, which have long held that no agency has to go to such lengths 
when assessing costs, and this bill does not alter this important limit 
on an agency's duty.
  In (e)(1)(C) of this bill, Congress intended that a determination 
that a regulation is intended to reduce systemic risk is a sufficient 
``explanation of why the regulation meets the regulatory objectives 
more effectively than the alternatives.'' In this subsection, Congress 
intended the SEC to report on alternatives that it considered so as to 
provide a complete picture of the justification for the regulation; 
Congress did not intend to create a requirement that the SEC consider 
any minimum number of alternatives, or any alternatives at all.
  In subsection (e)(1)(D) of the text added by this bill, Congress 
intended that any regulation should be easy to understand to the extent 
allowed by the subject matter of the regulation; Congress did not 
intend that regulations should be substantively simplified solely for 
ease of communication, or that a regulation might be invalid because of 
its complexity.
  In (e)(2)(A) of this bill, Congress noted that, ``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.'' 
Congress believes that the avoidance of systemic risk and the attendant 
$22 trillion cost of National Emergencies needs to be considered for 
any proposed regulation that the SEC determines is intended to reduce 
systemic risk.
  In subsection (e)(2)(A)(ii) of the text added by this bill, Congress 
intended that the SEC, in identifying the regulation that imposes the 
``least burden on society,'' should consider both the costs and 
benefits of the regulation itself, and should evaluate those burdens on 
society created by the regulation and those burdens on society that 
exist in the absence of regulation and would be mitigated by the 
proposed regulation. Congress intended the SEC to take into account not 
only the ``cumulative costs of regulation,'' but also the cumulative 
benefits of regulation.
  Further, in subsection (e)(2)(A)(iii) of this bill, Congress intended 
that to ``evaluate whether the regulation is consistent, incompatible, 
or duplicative of other Federal regulations'' means to publish the 
regulation for comment in the Federal Register.
  In (e)(3) of this bill, Congress intended that that phrase ``industry 
group concerns'' referenced in the second part of the paragraph also 
apply to the ``consumer groups'' referenced earlier in the same 
paragraph. Congress intended that Commission explain any changes 
resulting from comments by industry or consumer groups, and similarly 
requires them to give specific reasons if changes suggested by industry 
or consumer groups were not implemented. Congress intended ``consumer 
groups'' to mean groups that act in the public interest and provide a 
perspective that is generally a counterweight to industry financial 
interests and facilitating an appropriately diverse marketplace of 
ideas within the process of making and evaluating regulations. In 
addition, the SEC may explain a decision not to incorporate an industry 
group concern by citing an opposing concern raised by another commenter 
or by the SEC itself.
  In (e)(4) of this bill, Congress intended for the Commission not only 
to take into account the ``large burden of such regulation when 
compared to the benefit of such regulation,'' but to also consider 
whether a regulation imposes only a relatively small burden when 
compared with its benefit, which could possibly warrant expansion, as 
is further indicated by references in same subsection that the 
Commission should determine whether regulations are ``ineffective [or] 
insufficient'' and should be ``expand[ed].'' In other words, Congress's 
intent for Section (e)(4) of this bill was that when the SEC is 
reviewing its regulations, it will devote the same attention to 
strengthening and expanding rules that have become weak over time as it 
does to streamlining or repealing ineffective rules.
  In the same paragraph, in determining whether any regulations are 
``outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome,'' 
Congress intended that the Commission should be particularly attentive 
to the rapid pace of change in the financial industry and the 
securities markets and the new risks that are created in those markets, 
including risks to the financial system as a whole, to corporations 
that rely on those markets, and to investors in those markets. Congress 
intends that the Commission, in using this periodic review process to 
``modify, streamline, expand, or repeal'' regulations, should 
proactively protect against new threats to the financial system and 
close loopholes that are opened up by financial innovation aimed 
primarily at evading regulation.
  In (e)(5)(A)(ii) of this bill, Congress intends that the 
``quantitative and qualitative metrics'' should include, where 
relevant, the prevention of financial crises and severe recessions 
caused by those crises, as well as the maintenance of individual 
investor confidence in the securities markets.
  In (e)(5)(B) of this bill, Congress intends that the mandated 
assessment plan may be in whatever form the Commission deems 
appropriate for the regulation at issue, subject to the requirements of 
subsection (e)(5)(B)(i). In particular, some or all of the costs or 
benefits of the regulation may be qualitative and not reducible to 
quantitative figures, and the Commission may determine that no action 
will be taken on the regulation on the basis of qualitative factors 
included in the assessment.
  The CHAIR. All time for general debate has expired.
  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--

[[Page 7142]]

       ``(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 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.

[[Page 7143]]



                              {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.
  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

[[Page 7144]]

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 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

[[Page 7145]]

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 red tape 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 red tape; 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 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.

[[Page 7146]]

  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
     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)

[[Page 7147]]


     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 7148]]

  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 XX, 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)

[[Page 7149]]


     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)
     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 Mrs. Maloney of New York, Amendment 
No. 3 to

[[Page 7150]]

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 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.''


                          Personal Explanation

  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.

                          ____________________