[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3840-3842]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

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      By Mr. MERKLEY (for himself, Mr. Udall, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Franken, 
        Mrs. Murray, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Blumenthal, Ms. Warren, 
        Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Markey, Mr. Booker, and Mr. Heinrich):
  S. 2760. A bill to amend the Truth in Lending Act to address certain 
issues related to the extension of consumer credit, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, an American historian, James Truslow 
Adams, wrote a book in 1931 entitled ``The Epic of America,'' and in 
this book he coined the term the ``American dream.'' He went on to say 
this: ``Ever since we have become an independent nation, each 
generation has seen an uprising of the ordinary Americans to save that 
dream from the forces which appeared to be overwhelming and dispelling 
it.''
  One of those forces that has been overwhelming the effort of middle-
class, hard-working Americans to be successful is predatory lending. 
Today I am specifically rising to discuss the introduction of the SAFE 
Lending Act. SAFE stands for stopping abuse and fraud in electronic 
lending.
  The focus of this is short-term, high-interest loans, often referred 
to as ``payday'' loans. These loans often have interest rates of 300 
percent, 400 percent, 500 percent. The debt a family has with one of 
those loans just grows and grows and grows. Consider this: If you take 
out $1,000 today, a year from now, at 500 percent interest, you owe 
$5,000. In 2 years you owe $25,000--an impossible sum for a family of 
modest means. So these payday loans pull families into a vortex of debt 
from which they cannot escape, and this vortex destroys them 
financially. These are huge consequences for the parents, certainly, 
but huge consequences for the children. It does a tremendous amount of 
damage to American families. This is why many major religions in the 
world have come out over time--over thousands a year--and said high-
interest lending destroys and shouldn't be done, but here we have it, 
right here in America.
  Many States, including my State of Oregon, have worked to end this 
vortex of debt. They have put a cap on the interest rate. They have 
stopped the every-2-week rollovers, and so they have returned, if you 
will, small-dollar lending to being an affordable instrument that 
doesn't destroy families. These tough State laws are under assault by 
new tactics of the payday loan industry, and we need to address those 
new tactics.
  Specifically, the industry is starting to use an instrument called 
remotely created checks. How does this work? Let's say you have your 
bank account and you take out a payday loan. The dollars are put into 
your bank account, and you think they are going to stay there, but now 
this online payday loan company--and who knows where in the world these 
people really are; they may be overseas in any remote location, 
extremely difficult to find, extremely difficult to enforce our laws--
has your bank account number, and that is all they need to write a 
check to themselves to withdraw the money from your account and put it 
in their account, an account that is likely to be

[[Page 3841]]

so remotely located no one can enforce the State laws.
  In other words--let me say this again--the payday lender, once they 
have your checking account number, can reach into your account without 
your permission and take your money out; thereby, having the ability to 
bypass the State laws. An Oregon law may say if you have interest rates 
over those established by Oregon law your loan is uncollectible; that 
it is illegal in our State. Well, these online predatory payday lenders 
do not care that it is illegal in Oregon. They have your account 
number, and they are going to reach in and take your money illegally.
  That is not the only predatory practice that is evolving. These 
payday loan companies have also established a practice whereby instead 
of putting money into your bank account, they give you a prepaid card. 
This prepaid card looks very convenient. You use it like a credit card, 
a debit card, and we are familiar with that in America, but here is the 
ringer. They put fees on these cards that add to the 300-percent, 400-
percent, or 500-percent interest rate that is already destroying 
families, particularly over balance fees.
  You may not know whether your card has $20 or $30 or $50 left on it. 
Some of these prepaid cards, in other parts of the financial industry, 
charge for all kinds of things. They charge you to call and ask what 
your balance is. They charge if you call and ask a question about how 
the card works or even what the fees are. They charge a fee just for 
asking what the fees are. Some of them charge a fee every time you use 
the card. Some might charge an additional monthly fee, but particularly 
these prepaid payday loan cards are notorious for their overbalance 
fees.
  Let us assume you have perhaps $50 left in your account, you buy 
something for $52, and maybe immediately you get charged a $35 fee, 
which they can reach into your account and take, but then that is an 
overdraft fee on the bank, so the bank is now charging you a fee. Then, 
because you don't know it is an overdraft because they didn't turn down 
the transaction, you buy a pack of gum for 50 cents, and there is 
another $35 fee. You buy a hamburger at Burger King for lunch, and 
there is another fee. So you can see how these predatory fees line up 
very quickly on top of the 300-percent, 400-percent, or 500-percent 
interest rates.
  So here is the thing. State after State has said these are destroying 
families and we are going to act. In fact, in the U.S. Senate years ago 
we acted to protect military families from these predatory loans. The 
admirals and generals came to Capitol Hill to testify. They said: At 
our military bases these predatory payday loans are destroying our 
military families, and it is not just their finances. When their 
finances are destroyed, relationships are frayed, children's 
opportunities are damaged. We cannot have this type of terrible impact 
on our military families. So we established a national cap of interest 
on these short-term loans.
  It is good we did. It is good we protected our military families from 
these abusive, destructive practices, but if these practices are so 
damaging to families in the military, aren't they equally damaging to 
families who are not in the military? Shouldn't we apply the same 
protection to every American family we apply to a military family? 
Don't we value the success of every American family more than we value 
protection for legalized loan sharking? Certainly we should, in this 
Chamber, extend to all families in America the same protection we gave 
to military families. Until we do that, we should at least make sure 
the Federal framework requires honoring the tough laws passed by State 
after State after State to stop these practices. I think the total is 
about 19 States at this point.
  That is why I introduced the SAFE Lending Act today. The SAFE Lending 
Act--stop the abuse and fraud in electronic lending. This act does a 
couple of key things. First of all, it says these remotely created 
checks in which a company reaches in and takes your money without your 
permission--those are banned. You regain control of your checking 
account. Second, the legislation bans the overdraft fees on these 
prepaid payday loan cards and other predatory fees established through 
the Commission. Third, it says that all small-dollar lenders have to 
register in order to be monitored by their States so they are not in an 
unregulated world out there without people even knowing they exist. 
Furthermore, it says that every lender of every type has to abide by 
the State laws. It doesn't matter whom they are regulated by. Finally, 
it bans lead generators.
  Now, what is a lead generator? A lead generator is a fake Web site 
that pretends it is a payday loan company, offers you a product, and 
their whole goal is to get your bank account number. Again, once they 
have that bank account number, they can reach in and take funds out of 
your account. It is incredible that this is true; that you don't have 
to sign the check. They basically just use your number and ask to take 
away the money from John Consumer or Jane Consumer and give it to us, 
and the bank complies and does it. As amazing as that sounds, that is 
the way the banking system works. That is what these remotely created 
checks do.
  So we to make sure that regardless of what your financial regulator 
is, you have to abide by the State rules, and we ban these lead 
generators that are fishing for these bank account numbers. Once they 
have them, they sell them to the lending industry, to the payday loan 
industry, and who knows what other hands these numbers end up in.
  I was surprised a couple of years ago when I noticed a charge on my 
bank account that wasn't something that either my wife Mary or I had 
purchased from a store we don't go to. I looked at it carefully and 
discovered the number of the check was out of the order of my 
checkbook. So I pulled up the copy of the check on the computer, 
looking through my account on the computer, and I could see the number 
matched my account, but the name on the check didn't match my account, 
the address didn't match my account, and the signature didn't match my 
signature. None of it matched. The only thing on this check was the 
number of the bank account that matched my bank account, and that is 
all that is required for someone to reach in and take money out of your 
account.
  That type of fraud is surprising as well, but it reinforces the point 
that once an online electronic payday loan company has your number, 
they can reach in. That is all they need to take the money out of your 
account. So we are going to ban these lead generators as another piece 
of this predatory profile of the electronic payday loan industry. It is 
why I am introducing the act.
  I greatly appreciate my cosponsors on this act, and I would like to 
thank them all. They are Senator Tom Udall, Senator Bernie Sanders, 
Senator Patty Murray, Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Dick Blumenthal, 
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Tammy Baldwin, Senator Ed Markey, 
Senator Ron Wyden, and Senator Cory Booker. Thank you to all of my 
colleagues who care a lot about ending predatory financial transactions 
that strip billions of dollars out of hard-working Americans' accounts.
  We have a lot of work to do on this. We have accomplished some. There 
is much more to be done. Certainly, when James Truslow Adams said that 
individuals of each generation will have to stand and fight against 
practices designed to destroy the American dream, he was talking about 
things such as this--practices that proceed to undermine the success of 
America's working families. Let us stop those predatory practices in 
their tracks and pass the SAFE Lending Act.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. CORNYN (for himself, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Schumer, and Mr. 
        Blumenthal):
  S. 2763. A bill to provide the victims of Holocaust-era persecution 
and their heirs a fair opportunity to recover works of art confiscated 
or misappropriated by the Nazis; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

[[Page 3842]]



                                S. 2763

       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 ``Holocaust Expropriated Art 
     Recovery Act of 2016''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

       Congress finds the following:
       (1) It is estimated that the Nazis confiscated or otherwise 
     misappropriated as many as 650,000 works of art throughout 
     Europe as part of their genocidal campaign against the Jewish 
     people and other persecuted groups. This has been described 
     as the ``greatest displacement of art in human history''.
       (2) Following World War II, the United States and its 
     allies attempted to return the stolen artworks to their 
     countries of origin. Despite these efforts, many works of art 
     were never reunited with their owners. Some of the art has 
     since been discovered in the United States.
       (3) In 1998, the United States convened a conference with 
     44 nations in Washington, D.C., known as the Washington 
     Conference, which produced Principles on Nazi-Confiscated 
     Art. One of these principles is that ``steps should be taken 
     expeditiously to achieve a just and fair solution'' to claims 
     involving such art that has not been restituted if the owners 
     or their heirs can be identified.
       (4) The same year, Congress enacted the Holocaust Victims 
     Redress Act (Public Law 105-158, 112 Stat. 15), which 
     expressed the sense of Congress that ``all governments should 
     undertake good faith efforts to facilitate the return of 
     private and public property, such as works of art, to the 
     rightful owners in cases where assets were confiscated from 
     the claimant during the period of Nazi rule and there is 
     reasonable proof that the claimant is the rightful owner.''.
       (5) In 2009, the United States participated in a Holocaust 
     Era Assets Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, with 45 
     other nations. At the conclusion of this conference, the 
     participating nations issued the Terezin Declaration, which 
     reaffirmed the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-
     Confiscated Art and urged all participants ``to ensure that 
     their legal systems or alternative processes, while taking 
     into account the different legal traditions, facilitate just 
     and fair solutions with regard to Nazi-confiscated and looted 
     art, and to make certain that claims to recover such art are 
     resolved expeditiously and based on the facts and merits of 
     the claims and all the relevant documents submitted by all 
     parties.''. The Declaration also urged participants to 
     ``consider all relevant issues when applying various legal 
     provisions that may impede the restitution of art and 
     cultural property, in order to achieve just and fair 
     solutions, as well as alternative dispute resolution, where 
     appropriate under law.''.
       (6) Numerous victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs 
     have taken legal action to recover Nazi-confiscated art. 
     These lawsuits face significant procedural obstacles partly 
     due to State statutes of limitations, which typically bar 
     claims within some limited number of years from either the 
     date of the loss or the date that the claim should have been 
     discovered. In some cases, this means that the claims expired 
     before World War II even ended. (See, e.g., The Detroit 
     Institute of Arts v. Ullin, No. 06-10333, 2007 WL 1016996 
     (E.D. Mich. Mar. 31, 2007)). The unique and horrific 
     circumstances of World War II and the Holocaust make statutes 
     of limitations and other time-based procedural defenses 
     especially burdensome to the victims and their heirs. Those 
     seeking recovery of Nazi-confiscated art must painstakingly 
     piece together their cases from a fragmentary historical 
     record ravaged by persecution, war, and genocide. This costly 
     process often cannot be done within the time constraints 
     imposed by existing law.
       (7) Federal legislation is needed because the only court 
     that has considered the question held that the Constitution 
     prohibits States from making exceptions to their statutes of 
     limitations to accommodate claims involving the recovery of 
     Nazi-confiscated art. In Von Saher v. Norton Simon Museum of 
     Art, 592 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2009), the United States Court of 
     Appeals for the Ninth Circuit invalidated a California law 
     that extended the State statute of limitations for claims 
     seeking recovery of Holocaust-era artwork. The Court held 
     that the law was an unconstitutional infringement of the 
     Federal Government's exclusive authority over foreign 
     affairs, which includes the resolution of war-related 
     disputes. In light of this precedent, the enactment of a 
     Federal law is the best way to ensure that claims to Nazi-
     confiscated art are adjudicated on their merits.

     SEC. 3. PURPOSES.

       The purposes of this Act are the following:
       (1) To ensure that laws governing claims to Nazi-
     confiscated art further United States policy as set forth in 
     the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, 
     the Holocaust Victims Redress Act, and the Terezin 
     Declaration.
       (2) To ensure that claims to artwork stolen or 
     misappropriated by the Nazis are not barred by statutes of 
     limitations and other similar legal doctrines but are 
     resolved in a just and fair manner on the merits.

     SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

       In this Act--
       (1) the term ``actual discovery'' does not include any 
     constructive knowledge imputed by law;
       (2) the term ``artwork or other cultural property'' 
     includes any painting, sculpture, drawing, work of graphic 
     art, print, multiples, book, manuscript, archive, or sacred 
     or ceremonial object;
       (3) the term ``persecution during the Nazi era'' means any 
     persecution by the Nazis or their allies during the period 
     from January 1, 1933, to December 31, 1945, that was based on 
     race, ethnicity, or religion; and
       (4) the term ``unlawfully lost'' includes any theft, 
     seizure, forced sale, sale under duress, or any other loss of 
     an artwork or cultural property that would not have occurred 
     absent persecution during the Nazi era.

     SEC. 5. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.

       (a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     Federal law, any provision of State law, or any defense at 
     law or equity relating to the passage of time (including the 
     doctrine of laches), a civil claim or cause of action against 
     a defendant to recover any artwork or other cultural property 
     unlawfully lost because of persecution during the Nazi era or 
     for damages for the taking or detaining of any artwork or 
     other cultural property unlawfully lost because of 
     persecution during the Nazi era may be commenced not later 
     than 6 years after the actual discovery by the claimant or 
     the agent of the claimant of--
       (1) the identity and location of the artwork or cultural 
     property; and
       (2) information or facts sufficient to indicate that the 
     claimant has a claim for a possessory interest in the artwork 
     or cultural property that was unlawfully lost.
       (b) Possible Misidentification.--For purposes of subsection 
     (a)(1), in a case in which there is a possibility of 
     misidentification of the artwork or cultural property, the 
     identification of the artwork or cultural property shall 
     occur on the date on which there are facts sufficient to 
     determine that the artwork or cultural property is likely to 
     be the artwork or cultural property that was unlawfully lost.
       (c) Applicability.--
       (1) In general.--Subsection (a) shall apply to any civil 
     claim or cause of action (including a civil claim or cause of 
     action described in paragraph (2)) that is--
       (A) pending on the date of enactment of this Act; or
       (B) filed during the period beginning on the date of 
     enactment of this Act and ending on December 31, 2026.
       (2) Inclusion of previously dismissed claims.--A civil 
     claim or cause of action described in this paragraph is a 
     civil claim or cause of action--
       (A) that was dismissed before the date of enactment of this 
     Act based on the expiration of a Federal or State statute of 
     limitations or any other defense at law or equity relating to 
     the passage of time (including the doctrine of laches); and
       (B) in which final judgment has not been entered.

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