Keith Ellison

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, my amendment preserves the CFPB's authority to protect people who live in manufactured housing, manufactured housing buyers. I am lucky to have the National Manufactured Home Owners Association based in my district. For the Record, they have written an excellent letter on behalf of this amendment, which I will include in the Record. Manufactured Housing Action. Representative Keith Ellison, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Ellison: We are writing to thank you for introducing the Ellison Amendment #200 to the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Act of 2018 (H.R. 3354). On behalf of the manufactured homeowners we represent, we our offering our organizational support for this amendment. MHAction empowers homeowners and residents in manufactured home communities to build and win local, state and national issue campaigns that strengthen the long-term viability and affordability of their communities. The work of MHAction is based on a set of core values, central to which are compassion for our neighbors and love of our communities. We believe that manufactured home communities play a key role in providing affordable, safe and accessible housing for all families, regardless of race, language, immigration status, class, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. MHAction currently represents over 19,000 manufactured homeowners in 28 states. It is vital that this amendment passes to protect manufactured home buyers, especially people of color that face higher levels of lending discrimination and seniors. We need to ensure that the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau retains the power to ensure that potential home buyers aren't steered into high fee and high interest loans. When people buy a home, it should help increase their stability and wealth, not damage their finances. Again, we would like to express our sincere thanks to your office for fighting to ensure that the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau can continue to protect manufactured home buyers from loans that strip away their economic and retirement security. Should you have any question, please feel free to contact MHAction's Executive Director, Kevin Borden. Our organization can easily put your office in touch with purpose-driven community leaders in numerous states that have been fighting to strengthen the economic and retirement security of manufactured homeowners. Sincerely, The MHAction Core Team.

Mr. ELLISON. I am also very proud of the residents of the Park Plaza, a manufactured home resident-owned community in my district. They tell me that being steered to high-cost loans makes homeownership more costly for families. Before Dodd-Frank and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the manufactured home loan market was notoriously predatory. For example, a story in The Seattle Times, which I recommend Members read, tells the story of Kirk and Patricia Ackley, a construction worker and a Walmart employee in Washington State. More than a decade ago, they bought a new manufactured home big enough for their children and room to care for Patricia's dad, who had dementia. But their dream became a nightmare when the promised 7 percent interest rate was raised to 12.5 percent. This family faced crisis when this raised their monthly payment from $700 to $1,100. They had already invested $11,000 to build the concrete foundation for their new home. They took the loan, but it destroyed their finances and nearly cost them their marriage. The home was repossessed. A 2015 investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and The Seattle Times interviewed more than 280 customers of Clayton Homes. One person they interviewed was a member of the Navajo Nation. She said she learned about Clayton on Navajo radio. The ad recommended that she talk to a specific Navajo-speaking salesperson at a lot outside of the reservation. He told her that Vanderbilt Mortgage was the only source of finance for homes on the reservation. He didn't tell her the truth and overcharged her. Now it is illegal for a salesperson to steer buyers to high-cost loans because of new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But section 915 of the bill weakens those protections. Loans with high interest rates can be especially devastating to buyers of mobile homes since houses often depreciate quickly. A buyer with a high rate will still owe a large sum for many years on a home that can be almost impossible to sell or finance. That is because the value of the home can fall below the loan balance. Opponents of my amendment say that they want to help manufactured home buyers. That is a good thing. Yet none of them have cosponsored H.R. 515, which would provide low-cost loans to owners of outdated mobile homes so they can buy ENERGY STAR homes, which would reduce their bills and save energy. None of them have joined me to cosponsor the Frank Adelmann Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act, which helps residents of mobile home communities form a cooperative and buy the land that they live on. Or what about H.R. 3583 that gives manufactured homeowners located in communities the same tax benefits as those who own their own land? I have introduced these bills to try to help people who live in manufactured homes. We do and must stand with them because this is an affordable, and sometimes quality, housing option for people, and yet manufactured homeowners support my bills. Right here we have the National Manufactured Home Owners Association, which has said very clearly that my amendment is a good one. There is a way to help manufactured homeowners that does not involve overcharging them. There is a way forward to help owners of manufactured housing without helping Clayton Homes and its affiliates make more money off of them. And let's be clear, nearly no other lender benefits to this change to section 915. Ninety-one percent of the high-cost loans come from lenders owned by Clayton. The industry's second largest mobile home lender, Wells Fargo, didn't have a single loan in the high-rate pool in The Seattle Times study. Protect manufactured home buyers. Support my amendment No. 200. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, let's be clear, to get a payday loan, you have to have a bank account and a job. We are not talking about the unbanked. We are talking about people who run into a short-term financial crisis, they go to a payday lender, but the amount of the fees are so high that they have to borrow money to pay the money back, and they end up getting in a cycle of 6 to 10 loans that they have to continue to take out, which drains money from their finances. They lose bank accounts because of payday loans. We are saying: Let the CFPB allow the regulatory process, the rulemaking process, to go forward. Let's not chop it off, let's not stop it, and let's see what we can find out. People in my district have come up with some pretty innovative ways to go around the high-cost, high-APR payday lending scam. But if we just say, No, we are just going to take authority away from the CFPB, what we are really doing is subjecting Americans to the payday loan industry. Now, I don't want to take support from those guys, so I am happy to stand up here and say: Vote for my amendment.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is very simple. If you have a contract doing business with the Federal Government, if in your disclosures you have been found designated to have violations of the Federal Labor Relations Act, and those violations are considered to be willful, intentional, and repeated, then you will not be able to take advantage of this particular appropriation. This kind of amendment is designed to say that the Federal Government believes that a penny earned and a penny worked should be received by the worker. It is as simple as that. People who do not support this amendment are saying that Federal contractors can engage in wage theft and it is okay with us. And we are simply saying that the hardworking people in the United States expect that the Federal penny that workers earn will be given to them, and that is not too much to ask. Hardworking people living in America should never worry that an employer will steal their wages, especially if that employer is paid by a government contract. Right now, Federal contractors who repeatedly and intentionally pay subminimum wage, force their workers to work off the clock, refuse to pay overtime, or make illegal deductions on their employees' pay are still allowed to apply for Federal contracts. They should not be. We should reward workers who treat their workers fairly and not allow firms who willfully and repeatedly profiteer off of their employees by letting them keep their government contracts. If passed, my amendment will ensure that a business that willfully and repeatedly violates the Fair Labor Standards Act cannot apply for a Federal Government contract until they clean up their act. To be clear, my amendment would not punish a single accidental violation. If my colleagues across the aisle won't make corporations pay their fair share of their taxes, I hope that they will at least join me in going after employers who refuse to pay taxpayer money to line their pockets by cheating employees repeatedly, and on purpose. This is not a small thing. This is real money out of real people's pockets. The Economic Policy Institute found that low-wage workers in just the ten most popular States--California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and others--lose $8 billion in wages due to wage theft each year. For example, the corporation General Dynamics Information Technology owns a number of call centers that serve Federal contracts. In the last 10 years, they have agreed to pay $412,000 in back wages to 921 employees for Fair Labor Standards Act violations. Immigrants and residents of low-income communities are often at the greatest risk for abuse at the hands of employers who do wage theft. The government should be doing everything it can to protect workers from intimidation and stolen wages. If this amendment passes, companies like General Dynamics Information Technology won't be able to continue to do what they have been doing. They will have to be fair to people, at least after they clean up their act. We have to demand higher standards, Mr. Chairman. Respecting a fair day's pay for a fair day's work is an American value. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, all Americans deserve access to clean air. We have a great deal of progress that we have made in making the air cleaner and reducing pollution, but we should continue to learn from the most recent science to continue to improve air quality. Instead, this bill delays needed public health protections like the ozone standard. My amendment would strike language that delays the implementation of the new ozone standards until the year 2026. We don't have until 2026 to protect our children's lungs. We don't have until that time to protect our seniors who are most subject and vulnerable to respiratory harm. The consequences of this pollution are real and significant, especially for ozone pollutants. Chronic exposure to ozone at the ground level is dangerous. It increases the risk of hospital admissions. In my district in Minnesota, we have a real epidemic of respiratory injuries known as asthma. North Minneapolis is mostly a low-income community of color and has the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, and asthma. Our children deserve better. Allowing the implementation of these ozone standards will protect them. I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, much is said on this House floor about job-killing regulations. As a person who believes in the right of a business to open up and make a profit, I also believe that business must absorb the cost that they impose on society as well. This rule says you can take all the money you can possibly make as you expand and increase ground level ozone, but you don't ever have to pay the costs of the externalities and the health costs you impose on everybody else. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, administrative relief sounds like a euphemism for ``you guys got to keep breathing this bad stuff.'' Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski).

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to share with everybody that over the past several weeks, Americans have seen this body try to strip healthcare away from them. If there was a full repeal with no replace, 32 million people would have been without any healthcare that they had before, and many more would have been unprotected from preexisting conditions. That, fortunately, was held off. But now here we are again today with more attacks and assaults on people's health. When will the Congress take people's health seriously? When will we hold businesses accountable who emit toxins that cause the ozone layer at the ground to increase and cause respiratory illnesses? It is time for Congress to act responsibly in the public interest to make sure that the health of all Americans is protected. The people have the right to breathe. Let's go forward and eliminate and strip out this language that delays the implementation of the new zone standards until many years from now. Let's do it now. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, cutting off funds to UNRWA would force it to shut down. If UNRWA shuts down, they will not be able to operate, and all of the services that it provides will fall to the predominant power, which is Hamas. I don't think this is what the gentleman wants. The fact of the matter is UNRWA, right now, provides education, food, shelter, and a whole host of services in very dire conditions. Over the last number of years, we have seen 90 percent of the tap waters not fit for human consumption, rolling blackouts 20 to 22 hours a day, and UNRWA, in this context, is making sure that necessities like education and economic opportunity exist. It would be counterproductive to cut off UNRWA because somebody is going to have to help the refugees.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the University of Minnesota Libraries, which has been awarded the 2017 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. Their devotion to innovative and accessible library service has made them one of the nation's standout public research libraries. Every year, the Institute of Museum and Library Services selects ten institutions that best represent the stewardship of public knowledge. Throughout its 23-year history, the IMLS has only selected three academic libraries for the recognition. This is a fitting recognition of the amount of community-driven work the UMN Libraries undertakes. As a public research library, their work expands far beyond the University walls to our state's 5.5 million residents and beyond. As I wrote in my letter of nomination for the University of Minnesota Libraries: I have been moved by the deep commitment the Libraries have shown to our community. Its mission is realized every day through the dedication, creativity, and human kindness represented in the programs and services it provides. It is a shining example of how a public institution can make a great difference in the lives of people within its walls and beyond its borders. I am proud to be associated with the University Libraries and believe it to be an exemplary candidate for this honor. I am thrilled to congratulate the UMN Libraries for receiving the U.S. government's top honor for library service to the community. I look forward to seeing the way they expand the pursuit of knowledge in coming decades.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, for far too long, people's legal rights have been limited by the use of forced arbitration clauses in contracts for consumer financial products and services. Forced arbitration clauses, also called mandatory pre-dispute clauses, prevent cheated or defrauded American consumers from going to court to challenge wrongdoing by big banks, cell phone providers, auto leasing and auto financing firms, credit repair, payday lenders, debt collectors and credit card companies. Most arbitration clauses for financial products also prohibit consumers from participating in class actions. Forced arbitration clauses have been opposed by conservatives and progressives. Forced arbitration is a secret process where consumers seek redress at private firms chosen by the financial institution. This rigged system is why banks and lenders receive more than a million dollars per year paid out to them by their customers in forced arbitration, compared to just $86,216 returned to consumers. While advocates for the financial sector are correct that (sixteen) consumers recover an average of $5,400 in arbitration every year, they leave out the fact that banks and lenders receive an average award of $13,195 when they win--and they win 93 percent of the time. Indeed, a recent report found that consumers paid more restitution to Wells Fargo in arbitration than the other way around between 2009 and 2016, the prime years of its fake account scandal. After years of effort, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule restoring American consumers' right to join together in court when harmed by systemic and widespread misconduct in the financial marketplace. The rule does not eliminate forced arbitration, but it would make individual secret arbitration more transparent by publishing arbitration complaints and outcomes. It also permits class action lawsuits. Instead of celebrating a rule that prevents financial interests from evading responsibility, Republicans seek to stop this rule under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Today, they presented H.J. Res. 111. It is a vote to prevent consumers from receiving adequate compensation for fraud, deceptive and predatory practices. A vote for H.J. Res. 111 is a vote to deny Americans their constitutional right to access the legal process. H.J. Res. 111 would protect companies like Wells Fargo that used arbitration clauses and class action bans to create fraudulent accounts, overcharge customers with debit fees and mortgages and avoid responsibility for misconduct. H.J. Res 111 would remove federal protections for members of the military from evictions and- repossessions while they are on active duty. And, H.J. Res. 111 would deny consumers the ability to get fair compensation for harm. For those reasons, and more, we urge you reject a resolution that shields companies from responsibility for risky and illegal conduct. Today is another example to show the American people just how much Republicans want to rig the system for the powerful. A vote FOR this resolution is a vote to rig the rules to take money from the pockets of the American people and put it into the pockets of the financial sector. H.J. Res. 111 puts the profits of banks, student loan, car loan and mobile wireless providers, credit card companies, payday lenders, debt collectors over the fair treatment of the American people. How? For far too long, people's legal rights have been limited by the use of forced arbitration clauses in contracts for consumer financial products and services. Forced arbitration clauses, also called mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses, prevent cheated or defrauded American consumers from going to court to challenge wrongdoing. If your bank opens a fake account in your name, if your student loan lender refuses to adjust your loan due to your loss of income, if your bank re-orders your debit transactions to maximize overdraft fees, it was frequently impossible for you to join with others to sue the bank as part of a class action. But two weeks ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau responded to demands from consumers and changed the rules to protect consumers. The Consumer Bureau told banks and lenders they cannot keep their customers out of court. Class action lawsuits must be allowed. And, the Consumer Bureau ended the secrecy that surrounds the arbitration courts. Companies must report court filings, arbitration filings and rulings. The vast majority of the American people, consumer groups like the Consumer Federation of America, the Military Coalition, and even conservative groups oppose forced arbitration. A vote AGAINST H.J. Res. 111 is a vote to allow people to receive adequate compensation for fraud, deceptive and predatory practices. A vote AGAINST H.J. Res. 111 is a vote to give Americans their constitutional right to access the legal process. Please join me in voting against H.J. Res. 111. I include in the Record various statement of opposition to the joint resolution. [From National Consumer Law Center, July 2017] Summary of CFPB Rule on Forced Arbitration The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued a rule addressing the use of forced arbitration clauses in the fine print of financial contracts. The rule has two components: 1) Restores consumers' day in court and accountability when companies engage in widespread violations of the law. Contracts that have forced arbitration clauses will not be permitted to ban consumers from banding together by joining or bringing class actions involving consumer financial services. 2) Brings transparency to the secretive arbitration process. Companies that use forced arbitration in individual cases must report court filings, arbitration claims and rulings and other information to the CFPB (with identifying information redacted) so that the CFPB can study the impact of forced arbitration in individual cases. The rule applies to the core consumer financial markets involving lending money, storing money, and moving or exchanging money. With some exceptions, the rule would cover most: Loans and credit, including credit cards, payday loans, student loans, and auto loans (auto finance companies, not auto dealers, except some buy-here/pay-here dealers). Mortgages are already prohibited from having forced arbitration clauses. Providing leads, referrals, purchasing, selling and servicing credit are covered. Bank accounts, prepaid cards, money transfer services and apps and remittances. Credit reporting, credit scores, credit monitoring. Credit repair, debt management, debt settlement, and debt relief services, including those that purport to avoid foreclosure. This includes debt relief involving. medical debt, taxes, and other kinds of debt even if not credit related. Check cashing, check collection, check guaranty services. Auto leases, but not auto dealers who assign their leases. Debt collection and payment processing related to these products or services. Mobile wireless providers that allow third party charges through the wireless bill. Key areas that are not covered include: Auto dealers (other than somebuy-here/pay-here dealers), such as claims related to discrimination, add-ons, lemon laws, odometer fraud, or deception about a car's history. For:profit colleges and trade schools, unless the school directly makes loans. Credit cards, bank accounts and other products begun before the rule goes into effect. Services offered directly by governments or tribes to members within their jurisdiction. The rule does apply to tribal payday lenders who offer products off-reservation. Investment products and services by entities regulated by the SEC. Individuals and others who offer a product or service to 25 or fewer consumers a year. Nonfinancial products and services, like nursing homes, cable/mobile providers (except for third party charges on bills), employers, or store payment plans that don't charge. The rule applies to new contracts entered into 211 days after a final rule is published (likely Spring of 2018) and older contracts that are purchased or acquired after that date. July 25, 2017. Re OPPOSE H.J. Res. 111, Congressional Review Act resolution to repeal CFPB arbitration rule and block future reform of forced arbitration. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Representative: Americans for Financial Reform and Public Citizen write to urge your opposition to H.J. Res. 111, the resolution to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)'s arbitration rule under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) and block a similar future rule to protect consumers. This extreme legislative measure would harm the public by insulating bad actors from accountability when they systematically defraud consumers, and give lawbreakers a competitive edge in the marketplace as a result. Based on five years of careful study and consideration mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, this rule is the result of a Congressional directive instructing the agency to restrict or ban forced arbitration if it found the practice harmful to consumers. The rule centers on two commonsense measures: 1) it restores the right of consumers to join together in court by prohibiting class action bans, ensuring consumers can hold banks accountable for widespread harm, and 2) it brings transparency to individual arbitration by publishing claims and outcomes with sensitive information redacted, ensuring banks can no longer cover up illegal behavior. According to a 2016 poll conducted by Pew Charitable Trusts, nearly 90% of consumers want their right to join together in class action lawsuits restored. Indeed, more than 100,000 individual consumers across the country wrote in to support the rule during its public comment period, as did the Military Coalition, representing 5.5 million servicemembers. Two weeks ago, 310 consumer, civil rights, faith, and labor organizations wrote to support the final rule. All available data supports the conclusion that class action lawsuits hold bad actors accountable and enable harmed consumers to be made whole. Without the option to join together, just 25 consumers with claims of less than $1,000 pursue arbitration each year. In contrast, class actions returned $2.2 billion to 34 million Americans between 2008 and 2012, after deducting attorneys' fees and court costs. An independent study conducted by a former clerk for Justice Scalia reached similar conclusions, finding ``even the harshest critics of consumer class actions would have to concede that the picture it paints is a fairly successful one.'' While bank lobbyists suggest that consumers recover more money in arbitration than class actions, these claims are misleading at best and brazenly dishonest at worst. Even with class action bans currently a widespread presence in customer contracts, available data shows consumers still recover $440 million more in class actions than arbitration every year, with nearly 7 million consumers receiving cash relief annually. Class actions also often result in injunctive relief and systemic reforms that benefit consumers who are not members of the class. Big banks and lenders prefer forced arbitration precisely because the vast majority of consumers cannot and do not pursue claims in that forum. Though bank lobbyists loudly proclaim that consumers recover an average of $5,400 in arbitration, they neglect to mention that this number is based on just sixteen consumers per year who receive any relief in arbitration, across all fifty states. Because arbitration is so time and resource-intensive for consumers compared to class action lawsuits, the consumers that choose to pursue arbitration tend to have high-dollar claims backed by strong evidence--and even these sixteen consumers recover an average of just nine cents for every dollar claimed. It is no wonder that the financial industry prefers arbitration when consumers receive a total of just $86,216 per year. If Wells Fargo had to pay $5,400 each to even a small percentage of the thousands of customers defrauded in its fraudulent account scandal, surely it would switch sides in this debate. But forced arbitration not only allows banks and lenders to keep millions in illegal profits, it affirmatively lines their pockets with large awards paid out by consumers. The same study that found sixteen consumers recover a total of $86,216 in arbitration per year also found that banks and lenders receive more than a million dollars per year paid out to them by their customers in forced arbitration. While sixteen consumers recover an average of $5,400 in arbitration every year, banks and lenders receive an average award of $13,195 when they win--and they win 93% of the time. Indeed, a recent report found that consumers paid more restitution to Wells Fargo in arbitration than the other way around between 2009 and 2016, the prime years of its fake account scandal. In addition to the high payouts banks and lenders receive in arbitration, the Wells Fargo scandal demonstrates how financial companies use secret arbitration proceedings to keep misconduct out of the public eye. After the CFPB led a $185 million enforcement action against the bank for opening as many as 3.5 million fraudulent accounts and credit cards, reports revealed that customers had been trying to sue Wells Fargo over fake accounts since at least 2013. Yet the bank's lawyers used arbitration clauses buried in the fine print of the customers' other legitimate account contracts to force allegations of fraud out of public court--and the bank continued to profit from its illegal scheme for years. Finally, real-life experience shows that restoring consumer class action rights will not increase costs or decrease availability of credit. Consumers saw no increase in price after Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, and HSBC dropped their forced arbitration clauses as a result of court-approved settlements. Similarly, mortgage rates did not increase after Congress banned forced arbitration in the mortgage market. The CFPB arbitration rule will ensure that bad actors cannot turn fraud into a viable profit model to the detriment of law abiding institutions, including the many community banks and credit unions that largely do not include arbitration clauses in their customer contracts. This new rule simply allows consumers to enforce rights deemed crucial by state and federal protections and increases accountability and transparency, making the financial system stronger and safer for all of us. We urge you to reject H.J. Res. 111 and allow this data-driven, commonsense rule to take effect. Sincerely, Americans for Financial Reform & Public Citizen.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, if you listen to my friends on the other side of the aisle, they are going to tell you that having access to a lawyer in a court is a bad thing, but it is the foundation of American justice. The foundation of American justice is that, if somebody rips you off, you can sue them in court. These arbitration clauses are the fine print, Mr. Speaker, that you find in these contracts that say, if you have a dispute with this particular company, you can only go to arbitration. And these arbitrators are almost always picked by the company themselves. The fact is this is not justice. It is a railroad court. It is not a real court, and consumers are less well off. That is why over 100,000 individual consumers across the country wrote in to support the rule during the public comment period. If my friends on the other side of the aisle are right, how come they don't have 100,000 people saying that their position is correct? The people have spoken. They have engaged in the comment period and said: We want to be able to go to court to hold these people accountable. Wells Fargo ripped off literally hundreds of thousands of Americans. In 2 million transactions, they opened up accounts people never asked for. If you sue them, you might just be limited to an arbitration clause, which limits your award, and they pick the judge. Why not be able to join with other Americans and sue in court the good, old-fashioned way: get some discovery, get some money back, get some justice? This is what it is all about. We believe that the American people deserve to take them to court if they take your money and rip you off. That is what we are standing up for today. This is nothing but a U.S. Chamber, Big Business giveaway that they are talking about. We stand on the side of American consumers. American consumers want to take them to court.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House today to talk about a tragic situation involving Justine Damond. Justine Damond was a young woman who saw what she believed to be a sexual assault outside of her home. She then made a call to the police and asked them to come to give assistance. Ms. Damond then went outside to try to meet with the police to report what she saw, and for some reason, which no one really knows quite yet, she was shot in the abdomen and died. Ms. Damond, 40 years old, she was due to be married in only a few weeks. She leaves behind a fiance, her fiance's son, her family, her parents, and here we are again dealing with a tragic situation in which an unarmed civilian has been shot by a member of law enforcement. Now, as I speak today, Mr. Speaker, I want to be very clear. I know many police officers personally. I know how hard they work. I know the dangers that they incur. I know that they, by and large, join the force because they want to help people, because they are courageous and brave and are willing to put themselves in harm's way in order to protect other citizens. And I myself, and many people I know, have called on the police to stop crimes from happening, to report them, and we are grateful when they report. But it is also true, Mr. Speaker, that officer-involved shootings happen with tremendous frequency, and it is not even a matter of blaming the officer. We have to ask ourselves what is going on with the system of policing which allows us to return to this tragic scenario again and again and again. Justine Damond, again, was reportedly in her pajamas, and she was trying to help another person, yet somehow the officer, who was on the passenger side of the squad car, shot through the door or the window, and that is not clear, and she sustained lethal injuries. One of the most disturbing things about this particular case, Mr. Speaker, is that the officer's body cameras were not turned on. The dash cam did not capture the interaction between Justine and the officers, and the body cams were, again, as I mentioned, not on. This is despite the fact that all Minneapolis police officers have worn body cameras since the end of 2016. Why the body cameras were not on, we can only speculate. But I urge, with everything I have, that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Minneapolis Police Department, and everyone and anyone who has jurisdictional authority investigate the reason for these tools to not be in use. Justine is dead. Justine is not coming back. And it is true that innocent people get killed by criminals all day, and that is a sad reality of our world. It doesn't just happen in my city of Minneapolis. It happens all over the country. It happens all over the globe. But I think that citizens expect that members of law enforcement, who are sworn to protect us, would take due care to protect life, not end it, unless there was a legal basis to do so. Now, again, I don't know what happened here. Nobody really knows what caused the officer to somehow reach over his partner and shoot Ms. Damond in the abdomen and kill her when she is unarmed and wearing pajamas and is the reporter of a crime. The weeks and days ahead will reveal what happened. But I assure you that this will not be the last time that it happens unless, as a society, we begin to ask ourselves why these things are happening. In our community in Minnesota, we are still trying to figure out how to deal with it, how to cope with the death of Philando Castile. Philando Castile was shot and killed on videotape, captured on live-stream Facebook. To the credit of John Choi, who was the prosecutor, district attorney in Ramsey County, Minnesota, that officer was charged with the criminal offense of manslaughter, and after a jury trial, that officer was acquitted. When I looked at the dash cam and saw the officer discharge his firearm into the body of Philando Castile, it was absolutely horrifying, and I couldn't possibly understand why this happened. I don't know what the jurors saw, and I am a lawyer myself, and I support the jury system, but I can tell you that Philando Castile, who did have a firearm, said: Officer, I have a firearm; I have a license to carry a firearm. And the next thing you know, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, young man dead. Philando Castile was a beloved member of his community. He was the lunch attendant. He was the lunch manager at Hill Elementary School in St. Paul, and the children needed counseling, and the families needed somebody to explain why was Philando Castile shot this way. The children are raised to respect the police, but they knew Philando Castile and they loved him, and they couldn't reconcile why the police, who they respect, would hurt Philando Castile, who they also respected and admired and loved. Jamar Clark, another one from Minnesota, unarmed, shot, killed, tremendous outpouring of community frustration around this, brought an 18-day protest outside of the Fourth Precinct in Minneapolis, and you know, drew the attention of the entire community. And I can assure you that many people, particularly young people, were angry, upset, frustrated, feeling very vulnerable because they just felt that there was no accountability in that their lives just didn't matter very much in the eyes of the people who were sworn to protect and defend them. We have a community problem, Mr. Speaker. We have to come together and deal with it, and it is simply not enough to say it is all the cops' fault or it is all the citizens' fault. This is a social problem that calls for a social solution. Part of it will be changes in law. Part of it will be departmental changes. Part of it will be changes in the way we do business. But we have got to have these changes. And if people just say, ``It is not my fault, you know, it was an accident, this person had it coming,'' we will never get to the bottom of these kind of things. Mr. Speaker, in 1967, there were a state of civil disturbances, some people call riots, throughout our urban areas, and the government responded by issuing something called a Kerner Commission Report, K-E- R-N-E-R. And one of the findings of that is that police community relations were incredibly bad, that communication was poor, and that the police were essentially sent into areas that were economically and socially isolated and deprived in order to keep order, and what really should have been happening is that we should have been investing in jobs and opportunity and social inclusion, and we just asked the police to sort of just solve this problem without making the investments that our society should have made. I am sad to say that we really don't seem to have advanced very far. The fact is that often civil disturbances, which are often referred to as riots, occur after these tragic shootings. Civil judgments are paid out. Citizens tend to distrust the police and are less willing to call them when they need them. There are tremendous social costs to not addressing these officer- involved shootings involving unarmed civilians, and we have to be there to do something about it. We have seen a number of tragic circumstances all across the country, whether it is Sandra Bland or whether it is Walter Scott in South Carolina, whether it is Eric Garner who died begging for a breath or whether it is all of the victims of Officer Holtzclaw who routinely and systematically sexually abused women in Oklahoma City. The fact is there is great discretionary latitude conferred on our law enforcement officers. We need more oversight and accountability. We need people to be held accountable when they break the law, and I mean people who are police and people who are not. We need to say that there is one standard of justice and that everyone has to adhere to it. We know about Michael Brown, 17 years old, shot in 2014, or we could say Tamir Rice. There are so many cases. They just go on and on and on. We are at a point where we have to address this crisis. Now, Ms. Damond is one of more than 500 fatal shootings by police this year alone. I will say it again, Mr. Speaker. Ms. Damond is one of more than 500 people who have been fatally killed by the police this year. Some of them, the officer may have had legal justification, some not; but when you have got 500 people across this country being shot and killed, it is a crisis that we have to do something about. This year, I could simply tell you, Mr. Speaker, that offering prayers simply isn't going to get it done. We have a systemic problem, and whether we have to talk about addressing body cameras more and insisting upon their use or whether we need implicit bias training for police to raise awareness of unconscious or implicit biases, whether we need to train officers on the deescalation of force and have training in that regard and, yes, prosecutions of people who just commit crimes with a uniform on, we have got to take decisive action. We need more diversity in police departments, and we need more diversity in jury selection. We need grand jury reform, and we need the Department of Justice to keep account of all the cases that involve officer-involved shootings. One thing we absolutely do not need is for the Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, to abandon consent decrees, which have brought some level of understanding and communication between communities and the police departments. We need a partner in the Federal Government, Mr. Speaker. What is at stake is too important. We also need quality schools. We need investment in neighborhoods. We need quality jobs and affordable housing. We need healthcare for all, and we need to have clean air and water for everyone. We need those things as part of the ecosystem that human beings live in. But none of these things are a replacement for decent, respectful treatment people deserve from law enforcement. I am not here to give up. I am here to engage police in a dialogue about how we reduce these shootings, how we increase the trust, how we make sure that no one feels that they can't go to the police because the trust has been so severely damaged. I believe we have got to come together as a society and recognize that this problem is serious. It is not getting better; in fact, it is getting worse. When you think about cases involving people like Mya Hall, or Alexa Christian, Meagan Hockaday, Sandra Bland, Natasha McKenna, all African- American women killed by or after encounters with the police, it is not just men; it is women, too. It is not just African Americans; it is whites, too. Justine Damond was a white female. It is Latinos. It is people of different economic stations. It is not just one community. If Ms. Damond's case proves anything, it is that officer-involved shootings of unarmed civilians don't only occur in certain neighborhoods of certain people. The time is now for us to act. And I do put out a call for police and communities to engage in an intensive discussion about how we restore trust, how we increase accountability, and how we really make it true when we write on the side doors of our police vehicles all across this country, ``to protect and serve.''

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, for the folks who might be watching this today, I think it is important to understand that bad ozone causes a whole lot of health problems--things like making it difficult to breathe deeply. It can aggravate your emphysema. It can cause a sore and scratchy throat. It can aggravate lung diseases like asthma, emphysema, and bronchitis. And it is actually associated with asthma attacks, as I mentioned, and it can cause very serious obstructive pulmonary disease. It is a bad thing, it is dangerous, and it hurts people. In the Obama administration, we tried to pass some standards to say that companies that emit the polluting substances have to comply with certain air standards to make sure that people don't suffer these nasty health effects. What is going on today with H.R. 806 is that the Republicans are going to say: No, they don't have to implement right away. They have got a lot more time, years, before they actually have to comply with these air standards. So what they are saying is that industries that pollute don't have to take the measures that they would need to take that will cost them money--yes, they will--in order to protect the public's health. They are saying that their money and the profits of their shareholders are more important than the lungs of our kids. You are going to hear them say all this stuff about jobs, jobs. Please. This is not about jobs. This is about money. This is about profitability from polluting industries that don't want to spend the money to protect the public's health. That is what this is about. That is what we are talking about. They always say: You can have a job, or you can breathe, but you can't do both. That is what our friends say. You can breathe, but then you won't have a job; or you can have a job, but then you can't breathe. The fact is, they want to send us to work with gas masks on, and it is wrong. We as a people deserve to breathe. Our kids deserve to breathe. Our seniors deserve to breathe. If it costs a company a little bit more to make sure the air that we have is breathable, then they should spend that money. I believe that they should, because when you look at the health costs on the other side, they are astronomical. What does it cost to lose a loved one dying from an asthma attack or bronchitis or obstructive pulmonary disease? What does it cost a family in terms of not just treasure but heartache when they have their loved ones hooked up to a bunch of machines and wires because they are undergoing a respiratory attack? That is the cost. That is the true cost that we have to consider, Mr. Chair. The real cost here is not this mythical jobs thing that they say. The real cost they are talking about is profitability, but the true cost to society is our health. Do you really want to see missed days of school, missed days of work? Do you really want to see more people incurring medical bills because of the failure of industry to protect our health when they are taking that stuff that they are spitting out of their smokestacks and putting it into the sky that we all have to breathe? Mr. Chair, it is time to say ``no'' to H.R. 806. No.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, if the Congress of the United States were to direct the Department of Defense to study and examine and scrutinize your religion to list leaders in that religion and teachers, to decide what was orthodox and unorthodox, you would be among--I don't know--the Christian community, the Jewish community, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims. But only Islam is selected out in the Franks amendment, only one religion is done so. Mr. Chair, if you select out one religion for particular scrutiny, to scrutinize their doctrine, to declare to the government what is orthodox and unorthodox, and to identify teachers of it, you have simply abridged the free exercise of that religion. That is unconstitutional. Nobody is saying you can't study terrorism. You can study what motivates people to commit acts of terrorism; and we should, but we don't, not equally. The fact is that this amendment singled out and stigmatizes one religious group. It is wrong, and it should be voted down.