Michael Capuano

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, on most social issues, I consider myself a liberal. On most fiscal matters, I consider myself a conservative in the true sense of the word, not the new sense of the word, meaning that you should pay for those things that you want. When it comes to privacy matters, I consider myself a proud Libertarian. There is absolutely no reason for anyone who doesn't need information that I don't want them to have to get, period. It is my information, my information to share only with those with whom I wish to share it. This bill takes one step further towards keeping my information private and confidential between me and those people I seek to share it with. It is a great bill. I look forward to voting for it. This information is necessary to be shared to simply keep our financial services system going, but there is no reason whatsoever to allow it to be nonconfidential and to be spread around and be available to anybody who might want to look at it. I support the passage of this bill. I congratulate Mr. Dold for putting this forward for us to vote on, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Citizen Schools for providing twenty years of outstanding community service and educational enrichment programs. Citizen Schools offers extended learning programming for middle school-aged students in urban, at-risk areas by partnering with public middle schools. Citizens Schools offers free educational classes and programs to urban academic institutions, giving students a wealth of choices during the important after school hours. Citizens Schools was founded in 1995 by Eric Schwarz and Ned Rimer. Since then, the organization has offered educational opportunities for children who cannot otherwise afford them. The results are impressive. According to Citizen Schools, 71% of students involved in these programs graduate high school and many of those go on to post-secondary institutions. These impressive results are a combination of careful program planning, and the tireless efforts of volunteers who help teach these aspiring students. The volunteers work closely with students to help maximize their experience. Their work is so well received that the organization has expanded beyond Boston to different states around the country like California, Texas, North Carolina, New York, and others. Citizen Schools aims to provide at-risk students with valuable educational experiences that they may not otherwise have access to due to conditions out of their control. I salute the efforts of Citizen Schools over the past twenty years and thank them for the positive impact they have had on so many students.

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, even though I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I would like to congratulate the gentleman from Florida. Again, he stands up tall to defend the idea of passenger rail. We totally agree on that concept. We totally agree on trying to make-- especially the Northeast corridor--a more efficient rail. I think this study, this commission might help us. I hope it does. I am pleased to stand up today and support this amendment and congratulate the gentleman for offering it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time remains.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown).

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, even though I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the author, Mr. Fitzpatrick. It is a great amendment. I wish I had thought of it, to be perfectly honest. I look forward to supporting it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. CAPUANO. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. CAPUANO. I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. CAPUANO. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. CAPUANO. I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman, I echo everything that has been said. This bill is pretty good, and it deserves our support. I am looking forward to voting ``yes'' on this bill, and I am looking forward to getting it passed through the Senate. I actually say, considering what is going on in Congress here now, this bill is my idea of a perfect situation. We didn't get everything we wanted; they didn't get everything some of their Members wanted, yet we are moving forward. I congratulate the chairman and my ranking member, Mr. DeFazio, for being, in my opinion, the perfect type of Member of Congress: someone who knows what they want but also knows how to compromise to move a bill forward. I am honored to be here today. I am honored to be working with such fine people. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, last week I missed several roll call votes due to weather. I wish to state how I would have voted had I been present: Roll Call No. 46--No Roll Call No. 47--Yes Roll Call No. 48--Yes Roll Call No. 49--Yes Roll Call No. 50--No

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to add my words congratulating everybody for finally getting this done, but I also want to be real clear. I wish we could have done this a year ago, so we could have been working on things that we have some differences on that need to be done. Where we are today on this bill could have easily been reached in a bipartisan manner with 400-plus Members voting for it over a year ago. I am only aware of two outside groups--both think tanks, not in business, not in labor--that opposed this bill; yet we let them run the agenda here because people couldn't get off the dime. For me, that is a huge mistake. We are here to make agreements, to make compromise, to get things done. For instance, we are sitting here today with Fannie and Freddie not resolved after all these years because we can't get off the dime of a few ideological disagreements that clearly are not going to be settled, the way they are going. There is plenty of room for compromise, plenty of room to get together and talk about it and get something done for the American people and the American economy. That is just one example. We have to get beyond the outside ideological groups telling us what we can and cannot do. Even if we agree with them, we have to understand we are elected to lead, to argue, and then to compromise. We are here today, finally. Thank you. Let's not get bogged down any further in this new Congress. We will have our differences, and we will have some differences that cannot be resolved. This was never one of them. I think there is plenty of room on Fannie and Freddie. I think there are issues on insurance. I think there are plenty of issues we can and should work on. We both have our outside groups to deal with. We both have to turn to them with loving attention and tell you: ``We love you, we agree with you, but I was elected to move the ball forward.'' That is what we are doing here today, and I congratulate those people that have finally done it, including the two people leading this bill, both the chairman and the ranking member of the committee, and other members of this committee that have worked on this for so long. I can't honestly say that I am looking forward to doing this again in 6 years, but I hope that when we get there, we can do it a little bit more quickly than we did this time.

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. This bill will allow three, only three of our Wall Street institutions--which control 70 percent of the collateralized loan obligation business; three of them control 70 percent of the business--to gamble with depositors' money again without those depositors having a say in it. When they collapse and depositors lose their money, those of you who vote for this bill will have to explain it to them. This is unnecessary. It is inappropriate. And we should not be voting for this bill, mostly because of that single provision.

Mr. CAPUANO. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, on the last bill, the TRIA bill, when we were still arguing about it, some people on the other side accused people like me, who support the TRIA bill, of being in favor of corporate welfare. Now, as a liberal on most issues, I don't think many people would confuse me with someone who was generally in favor of corporate welfare, but I will take it. On this bill--because I am going to oppose it on one basic provision--I am going to be called ``against jobs.'' Rhetoric is cheap. Titles of bills don't mean anything. And in this bill, particularly the provision that was just spoken about, title V-- there are plenty of things in this bill that I like that I would be happy to vote for. Bring them up separately, and I will. There are a couple of things here that I don't like too much, but we can find common ground on it. But all of that pales when you look at one provision in here that guts the Volcker rule. It is simple: in 2006, collateralized debt obligations pretty much brought the world economy to its knees and hurt not just Wall Street, but hurt me, hurt my neighbors, hurt my family, and hurt a lot of average Americans because we allowed our financial service industry to gamble with somebody else's money. And of course they gambled. They won a lot of money. And then when they lost, they didn't lose their money. They lost our money, and we had to come in with a bailout. This is a corporate bailout--not with taxpayer money, but with depositor money, depositors who are not interested in giving their money to an institution so that they can gamble it on risky items that they will see no benefit from. That is what the Volcker rule says: if you want to gamble, use your money. Good luck. Don't gamble with my money unless I say so. That is all the Volker rule says. It has worked pretty well. The economy is recovering. Everybody knows that. Everybody agrees with it.

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, greater, more meaningful participation for Taiwan in international organizations is based on the need for the international community to marshal all of its expertise in meeting today's global challenges. For example, in a world trying to contain what is a grave Ebola epidemic, it would make no sense for a nation with Taiwan's resources and expertise to be completely shut out of the deliberations of the World Health Organization. It took the SARS crisis for Taiwan to achieve observer status, but its participation should be maximized as much as possible, given that global health crises may grow more frequent with increased globalization. Additionally, while I welcome the invitation that was extended to Taiwan by the leadership of the International Civil Aviation Organization to attend last September's assembly, Taiwan should at the very least have an ongoing seat at the table. The number of air travelers has grown, the threat of terrorism has not dissipated, and yet Taiwan is unable to receive the real-time safety information made available to all ICAO members. These are just two examples of how the world does not benefit from Taiwan's isolation from the technical and expert deliberations of international organizations. There are others. Working to assist Taiwan to gain entry as an observer into the ICAO, just as we did in the case of the World Health Assembly and as we must do on other fronts, is the right thing to do for Taiwan, for the United States, and for the world. I urge my colleagues to redouble our efforts on this front.

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, due to obligations in my district, I was unavoidably detained in Massachusetts on June 19, 2014. I was therefore unable to cast a vote on rollcall votes 318 through 326. Had I been present, I would have voted in the following manner: ``No'' on rollcall 318. ``Yea'' on rollcall 319. ``Yea'' on rollcall 320. ``No'' on rollcall 321. ``Yea'' on rollcall 322. ``No'' on rollcall 323. ``Yea'' on rollcall 324. ``Yea'' on rollcall 325. ``Yea'' on rollcall 326.

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, I too rise in support of H.R. 4268. Very simply put, this is a State highway that already has an exemption to the weight limits pursuant to State law. They are changing the State highway into an interstate highway, therefore, requiring us to provide a waiver for this very simple item. As the gentleman before me said, it is a noncontroversial item, but it is a necessary step that we take. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CAPUANO

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Puerto Rico (Mr. Pierluisi). As everyone knows, Puerto Rico has a Resident Commissioner here. He has the luxury of a 4- year term. We all envy that. At the same time, it is an important position to have and a position that we should listen to.