Keith Ellison

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois, Jan Schakowsky.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, last Congress, H.R. 4167 passed. I voted against it, but it is not the same as the language in title VIII which is in this bill today, which extends by 2 years the delay we requested, totaling 5 years. It is not the same legislation. This bill, title VIII, has not passed before. It is new. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green).

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. What is before us today is a mini omnibus bill that contains, actually, 11 separate pieces of legislation, some of which may not be controversial but some of which are incredibly controversial and do not belong in this legislation. This is not an emergency. We have a new Congress. This bill should go through the regular order. Unlike the TRIA bill we just talked about, this bill is a bill which should and must go through the regular order, and it is absolutely inappropriate for the suspension calendar. Our Republican friends would have us believe that this is just some benign piece of legislation, yet this bill contains not only procedural problems but substantive problems which have never seen the light of day in any committee. Some of the legislation has only been public for about 24 hours, and what is particularly frightening is that the text of the bill has changed at least three times since Tuesday. We just got started yesterday in talking about the importance of regular order, and we are already violating those claims and promises. Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives should return to regular order with this piece of legislation, and I urge my colleagues to reject it. Regular order, whereby legislation is debated at a hearing, marked up by a committee, and then finally considered by the whole House, is the process by which we vet legislation. That is not going on right here and right now, and there is no good reason for it. We do this to ensure that we fully understand the changing law. Nevertheless, Republicans have come here to suspend the rules and to consider a package of 11 bills which will ease the oversight of Wall Street firms, large banks, multinational corporations, and certain brokers. It should be pointed out right now that the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters, who is unable to be in Washington due to personal matters she has to address, has issued a call to reject this piece of legislation for many of the reasons I am articulating now. I think it is also important to point out that there are 52 Members of Congress who were sworn in yesterday and who represent more than 30 million Americans who will have to vote on bills affecting a collateral firm's pledge, when they borrow money, affecting what information must be disclosed about certain brokers and financial statements of firms, without the opportunity to offer changes. This is the absolute antithesis of regular order, and this bill is not appropriate. We urge a ``no.'' I would like to talk a little bit about the specific reasons this bill is bad. Members should know that this is not the identical bill that came through in the fall. It has very important changes. If you voted for it last fall, that is no reason to vote for this bill now. First, the Volcker rule. This bill undercuts an important part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The Volcker rule was intended to prevent deposit-taking banks--banks that use money insured by the Federal Government, the people's money--from making bets and using taxpayer-insured funds. The Federal Reserve went out of its way to try to ease the transition to a safer system, but this bill would give megabanks an additional 2 years, totaling 5 years, to sell off certain securities in which they retain ownership rights--5 more years of risk, 5 more years of massive profit-taking. This provision, which almost certainly juices the profits of big, megabanks like Citigroup and JPMorgan, has never been vetted. The public has not even had a day to review the text. It is wrong that bills that help Wall Street and multinational corporations get fast-tracked on day 2 of this Congress while bills that help working families get slowed up for years, literally. Just last month, Republicans successfully handed Citigroup and other megabanks a multibillion-dollar gift by repealing another reform measure, known as the ``swaps push-out,'' which was intended to prevent another Great Recession. The repeal of that provision allowed the megabanks to continue to borrow money from the Federal Reserve lending window, which is currently at about zero percent interest, to finance their risky derivatives. Experts have weighed in. Let me read for the Record the statement by the CEO of Better Markets: ``It's all about the bonus pool,'' said Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, a financial reform nonprofit. ``The attack on the Volcker rule has been nonstop because proprietary trading is about big-time bets that result in big-time bonuses. Wall Street has been fighting it from day one, and they're not going to stop.'' If you believe that there are things in this mini omnibus, or this megabill, that might be worth your support, understand that this particular provision has not been vetted anywhere. For that reason alone they are literally trying to sneak it in, and you should vote against it. Also, this particular bill includes three other provisions that weaken the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. These provisions take away the authority of regulators who are charged with ensuring that everybody plays by the same rules so that, if at some point in the future, we find out that our financial system is threatened, our regulators will be unable to take decisive action to fix the problems that they can fix today. After witnessing the effect that one type of derivative--the credit default swap--had in spreading losses from the subprime mortgage market around the world, I would like to know why our first order of business in this Congress is to roll back the financial reforms that this Congress deliberated on and passed over an 18-month period following the 2008 financial crisis. This bill undermines investor protections. It includes three provisions that have the potential to leave investors worse off than they are today. As we proclaim small investors and workers and all of these things, why are we undermining investor protections? In one instance, the bill exempts individuals who would broker a merger of a privately owned company to be exempt from SEC regulations. Since this legislation passed in a previous Congress, the SEC has taken action to make this unnecessary. However, if we pass this bill today, we will undermine a few basic investor protections that the SEC has retained. For example, the SEC determined that bad actors, such as convicted securities fraudsters, should not be able to take advantage of a carve- out. However, by voting ``yes,'' you are saying that it is okay for people convicted of fraud to sell other things, like franchises or the restaurant down the street. Another provision would allow 75 percent of all public companies to no longer report their financial statements in computer readable formats. When everything is online today and when investors rely on computers to crunch the financials of various companies, this bill comes across as a huge step backwards. My colleagues want to address this bill, and I think it is important that they do. So, at this point, I am going to urge a ``no'' vote. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), who is a member of the Financial Services Committee and an active participant on that committee.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire, how much time does the Democratic side have remaining?

Mr. ELLISON. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano), who was the ranking member on the Financial Services Committee for the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance.

Mr. ELLISON. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch), who is the former subcommittee ranking member on the Oversight Committee and is an active member on the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. ELLISON. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, this big bill may have some things that are not bad, but it also contains a bill that delays protection of our economy and families from Wall Street gambling, and it should be voted down. We urge a very strong ``no'' on this bill. Go back, do it right, follow the process, regular order, and maybe we could make some progress here. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Sarah Deer to congratulate her on receiving the 2014 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. This grant is given to individuals who show extraordinary dedication and originality in their field, as well as exceptional promise for continuing their work in the future. Ms. Deer demonstrated these qualities through her advocacy and knowledge of tribal and federal law to develop policies and legislation that empower tribal nations to protect Native American women from sexual and domestic violence. Ms. Deer is a nationally recognized activist and expert in the movement to end violence against Native American women, a professor of law, and co-director of the Indian Law Clinic at William Mitchell College of Law. As a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, she works with grassroots and national organizations to protect Native American victims of violence. Receiving the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship is a testament to Ms. Deer's outstanding work. This includes membership on the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Domestic Violence and the board of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. In 2007, Ms. Deer led Amnesty International's report, Maze of Injustice, which cast domestic violence as an international human rights problem. Her efforts were instrumental in passing the 2013 Violence Against Women Act, giving tribal courts the power to prosecute non-Native Americans who assault Native American spouses or dating partners, or violate a protection order on tribal lands. Ms. Deer has exhibited exceptional devotion to a worthy cause and continues to improve countless lives. I appreciate all that she has done to serve our nation, and I thank her for her exemplary work. She deserves this honor.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote No. 558 on H.R. 4681, I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``yes'' when I should have voted ``no.''

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 4926, to designate a segment of Interstate Route 35 in the State of Minnesota as the ``James L. Oberstar Memorial Highway.'' This legislation would designate the segment of Interstate Route 35 between milepost 133 at Forest Lake, Minnesota, and milepost 259 at Duluth, Minnesota, as the ``James L. Oberstar Memorial Highway.'' Renaming these highways is a good way to memorialize Congressman Oberstar's contributions to Minnesota and our country. Born to an underground miner from Chisholm, Minnesota, Jim Oberstar served as a representative for the state of Minnesota for 36 years, totaling 18 terms from 1975 to 2011. He is the longest-serving congressman in Minnesota history. During his over thirty years of service to our state, Jim always put Minnesotans first. He was a public servant above all else. He had a gifted mind and an uncanny memory that helped him master a number of languages, including Haitian Creole. Jim's passion for helping people get from one place to another safely was contagious and his vision for Minnesota's future lives on as the projects he fought for as chairman of the Transportation Committee remain in Minnesota today. After the Interstate 35 Bridge collapsed in Minnesota, Jim authored legislation which authorized $255 million without delay to begin the recovery and rebuilding process. His effective leadership was essential in that time of crisis. In addition to helping rebuild the I-35 Bridge, Jim was responsible for the Gitchi-Gami trail along Lake Superior's North Shore, the lakewalk in Duluth, and the 120-mile long Paul Bunyan bike trail. Jim Oberstar embodied the Minnesotan values of public service, selflessness and compassion. His spirit, ideas and energy are deeply missed. For these reasons, I support this legislation.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentleman from New York for the time. Mr. Speaker, I have said time and time again that the Iranian Government must improve the status of human rights in their country. Let's not pretend though that this resolution is taking place at this time outside of any context. There is a context, and the context is that we are closer than we have ever been to reaching a peaceful agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons. I don't know what is going to happen on November 24, and I suspect the people who do know aren't telling the public just yet, but I do know that we have made substantial progress and that we are close. The context is important that we should stand with the people of Iran and stand for their human rights. I absolutely believe that that is the right thing to do; therefore, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on this. I have to ask the question: Is this the most well-timed time for this resolution? I do worry that we could undermine the negotiations, but the four corners of this resolution are right, so I am a ``yes'' vote. I think today's resolution, which highlights the human rights abuses in Iran, also could be improved if it included words and language about the best way to bring those abuses to an end. I believe improving human rights in Iran is much more likely if we secure a nuclear agreement. The best way to empower human rights leaders within Iran is to engage, not isolate. Increased sanctions and the threat of war hurts human rights activists because it allows the hard-liners in Iran to claim that they are under imminent threat and, therefore, there is no time or space or room for human rights. I believe that a nuclear agreement will actually increase the likelihood for human rights advocacy. I don't want to see us go back to the days when we talked in terms of the ``axis of evil.'' It didn't improve the set freedom and security of Americans or anyone. I liked the fact that we have embarked on the path of diplomacy.

Mr. ELLISON. President Rouhani has prioritized diplomacy, and I think this is an important opportunity that we should pursue. In the final analysis, human rights are what the United States should always stand for, and we in this Congress should never not stand for human rights. I am proud that we are clear on human rights in this resolution. I simply want to admonish and warn us that taking action that could undermine very delicate negotiations may not be the best timing that we have ever pursued and that for the last 30 years--and I hope for the next 30 years--we will always raise the banner of human rights whenever and wherever, but I think we should be sensitive of the reality of the moment that we are in. Let me just say thank you to the brave souls who stand up for human rights under very difficult conditions in Iran.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I certainly appreciate it. And I want to thank her for taking up this important issue of trade agreements, trade generally and trade promotion authority. I just want to say that Minnesota has had its experience with trade agreements. According to policy experts, if you look at the North American Free Trade Agreement, which lifted tariffs and other trade barriers between North American countries, it has led to the outsourcing of over 30,000 Minnesota jobs. It also did bring in some jobs; but the net outcome, after you take the lost jobs and the gained jobs together, is a loss of 13,700 jobs. So the thing is that some people say, well, trade will help. It will help some people. But when you look at everybody, it has not been a job gainer for us, as it was promised to be. And I think that is very important. I am glad that Congressman Ryan and you and others have been speaking in a local framework. I am glad to hear about New York and Ohio. I can just tell you from my own State of Minnesota, we are not afraid of trade. We believe we have got the best workers in the world and we can compete with anybody, but only on the basis of a fair trade. We believe we can compete, we can make great products, but when other countries are dumping, when they are manipulating their currency, when all types of crazy things are happening like that, then we are not talking about fair trade. We are talking about free trade, and free trade is free-for-all trade, and free-for-all is not going to be good. I can assure you that when the trade deal comes that really does support labor standards and environmental standards in the right way, I won't be standing against it. But until then, I have to stand against it. I just also want to say that there has been a lot of talk recently because of this Trans-Pacific Partnership, this deal that has been negotiated over the last several months, and there is a lot of concern about it. But before people get really worried about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is the new trade deal, the new NAFTA, I think they ought to worry about something called Fast Track or Trade Promotion Authority, because here is the thing. Whether you like these trade deals or you don't like them, I doubt that you believe that they are perfect as they come out of the hands of the U.S. Trade Representative and all these other countries. I doubt you believe that they couldn't benefit from any negotiation or any amendment, because around here, we have never seen a perfect piece of legislation. Even the best can be improved. Yet, if we grant Trade Promotion Authority, we will only have an up-or-down vote. We will literally abandon our national sovereignty to other countries who will be able to sue American companies for lost profits. I don't mind dealing in an American court, but I do have a problem being in an international court just because we want to ban smoking, just because we want better environmental regulation, just because we want to take care of our people. We may then be sued for lost profits by some foreign company. Of course, one of the problems is that we don't know what the Trans- Pacific Partnership really is. People have seen pieces of it here and there, but we don't know because it has been negotiated in secret. And my constituents say, Well, Keith, you send me--Congressman, you send me a copy of that Trans-Pacific Partnership. I want to know what it says. And I say, Mr. Constituent, I can't send it to you because I don't have it. They haven't let me see it, not in its entirety. They send you pieces of it. You can look at this chapter or that chapter, but you can't look at the whole thing. So they are going to basically, after they get their Trade Promotion Authority, they are going to give us a few weeks to basically look it over, and then we can only vote it up or down.

Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank the gentlewoman. Again, I just want to point out that President Obama correctly said that income inequality is the defining issue of our time. I think he was right when he said that. When you look at why do we have the flat and declining wages that the Congressman from New York, Paul Tonko, just mentioned and that you have mentioned--why? What are the components of this?--I can tell you that it is clear that we have not invested in public infrastructure, which would put people to work and improve productivity. It is clear that we have cut the taxes of the wealthiest and the most privileged people in our society, and, literally, we have added them onto people in the middle, and we have failed to educate people properly. Yet one of the components that we can never forget is this trade policy. You cannot intelligently claim that you want to do something about income inequality and pass these trade deals which ship jobs overseas and put downward pressure on wages here. This is a key part of how we get the American middle and working classes back to getting raises again.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Congressman Paulsen, I appreciate your holding down this Special Order tonight. Mr. Speaker, I think it is absolutely true that all of us owe a debt of gratitude to people who walked before us even if we never had the pleasure of knowing them and meeting them. I am one who believes I owe Bill Frenzel even though I never had the opportunity to get to know him. But it doesn't matter, because Bill Frenzel served the people of the State of Minnesota. He got up every day, and he did his best by them. He has a reputation for reading the bills, understanding the issues, and arguing with passion for values that he held in the best interests of the people whom he represented. For that, I always have to take my hat off to a man such as Bill Frenzel. Bill Frenzel made a good reputation for Members of Congress who would come to Minnesota before I ever got here. Before I ever got here, people like Bill Frenzel made it so that our colleagues would greet us and expect us to be thoughtful and hardworking like he was, because he laid down that path before we ever got here. So I have had the pleasure of reading about Bill Frenzel since he left us for his reward, and I knew well of him before that. But I will simply say that there are many people in this world whom we owe a great debt of gratitude to, who paved the way and carved a path for us, whom we never had a chance to thank personally. As a man who believes in reality beyond this one, I just hope that Bill Frenzel knows that I am grateful to him, and I thank him for his great service while here.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I oppose The Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act, (H.R. 5405). This bill contains 11 separate bills some of which I support and some I oppose. This legislation contains a number of potentially significant deregulatory measures, many of which are being addressed by regulatory action by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodities Futures Trading Commission. These bills stop those productive efforts replacing them with sweeping deregulation which I think is worse for investors and the economy. I specifically wish to draw attention to my concerns with The Small Company Disclosure Simplification Act (H.R. 4164)--Title VII of this bill. This bill would exempt nearly 60 percent of public companies from complying with the EXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) requirement. XBRL is an improvement the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) started in 2009 to enable more efficient investing, especially investing in smaller firms. Instead of investors, the public and regulators reading and analyzing reams of paper filings, the market would be brought into the 21st Century with a searchable electronic database. Clearly, a searchable electronic database on companies' financial statements is much more efficient than requiring investors read reams and reams of documents. When this bill came before the Financial Services Committee on March 14, 2014, I voted yes on this bill. I was concerned that the SEC was not paying adequate attention to ensure the accuracy of the XBRL database. Since that vote, the SEC has started enforcing the accuracy of the XBRL data format. The SEC sent out letters in July, 2014, to many firms urging they correct inaccurate reporting. The SEC action and my own research into the need for accessible corporate financial information to grow companies has made me oppose this broad exemption. Congress should encourage, not discourage the move toward data-based financial reporting. An expansion of structured data enable investors to make better and faster decisions, especially related to smaller firms; strengthens the SEC's oversight ability and makes it easier to discover fraud and simplifies compliance responsibilities for firms. More progress is still needed at the SEC. The agency still collects the same financial statement from each public company twice--once as a document and again as XBRL data. And last July's letters were only a start. To make disclosures more useful to investors and less burdensome to companies, the agency must continue to improve data quality and must combine the two submissions into one. The Small Company Disclosure Simplification Act would prevent the SEC from ever taking these steps. If the agency is legally required to collect only documents, not XBRL data, from a majority of public companies, it will be unable to continue, and complete, the transformation that it began in 2009. I submit a blog post from the Data Transparency Coalition detailing the ramifications of H.R. 5405 on data transparency. [From http://datacoalition.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-proposal-includes- xbrl-exemption.html] New Proposal Includes XBRL Exemption--and Major Setback for Open Data (Data Transparency Coalition; September 10, 2014) The Data Transparency Coalition advocates on behalf of the private sector and the public interest for the publication of government information as standardized, machine-readable data. UPDATE: On September 16, 2014, H.R. 5405 passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 320 to 102. A major setback for open government data may be on the agenda for the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite the opposition of the tech industry, Rep Robert Hurt's proposal to direct the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to stop collecting financial data from most public companies has been included as part of a new legislative package--a new bill introduced on Monday, Sept. 8, by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick and a number of other Republican members. The new bill, H.R. 5405, brings together ten previous bills into a single one. One of those ten is Rep. Hurt's previous proposal, included in the new bill verbatim. Judging from the urgency of the current House schedule, H.R. 5405 could see action by the House of Representatives as early as next week. Nine out of the ten bills included in H.R. 5405 have already been approved, as stand-alone bills, by bipartisan majorities in either the Financial Services Committee or the full House. (The Financial Services Committee passed Rep. Hurt's original bill in March 2014.) So it seems clear that the backers of H.R. 5405 want to craft a bill that will pass the House easily, without serious opposition. H.R. 5405's introduction conveys that the bill is non- controversial by stating three innocuous purposes: To make technical corrections to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, to enhance the ability of small and emerging growth companies to access capital through public and private markets, to reduce regulatory burdens . . . But H.R. 5405, if approved by the House, introduced and passed in the Senate, and signed into law by President Obama, will dramatically restrict the availability of searchable corporate financial data to investors--and to the tech companies building investment tools. Supporters of open data in financial regulatory reporting will remember that the SEC collects an open data version of each financial statement in the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) structured data format, alongside the old- fashioned plain-text version, from every public company registered in the United States. Investors, markets, and the public can use the XBRL version of each financial statement to create a fully searchable data set of all U.S. public company databases. XBRL data supports free tools for investors like RankandFiled.com. It is also used by infomediaries like Morningstar and Thomson Reuters to enrich the information they deliver to paying clients. Rep. Hurt's proposal, now incorporated into H.R. 5405, would direct the SEC to exempt all public companies with revenues below $250 million--a majority of public companies-- from the obligation to file an open data version. Supporters of the exemption claim that XBRL-formatted financial statements cost ``tens of thousands of dollars'' to create, but Financial Executive International found a median annual cost of $2,000 for small companies (page 19) and some providers offer XBRL preparation services at even lower prices. Supporters of the exemption had one valid point last spring: at that time, the SEC had not taken any steps to ensure the quality of the XBRL filings. Without assurance that the open data versions of financial statements were reliable, investors were reluctant to use them, and relied on the plain-text versions instead. But last summer, after a year of advocacy from open data allies in Congress, the SEC took its first public steps toward enforcing better data quality. As quality improves, investors and the tech companies serving them will make more use of the open data financial statements. The companies themselves will benefit, too. Open, structured data delivers information more efficiently to the markets, which makes it easier for smaller companies to find eager investors and brings down their capital costs. H.R. 5405 would cut off such progress by forcing the SEC to use documents, not open data, to collect corporate financial information. Fans of open data should make their opposition to this portion of H.R. 5405 known.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Ai-jen Poo to congratulate her on the 2014 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. MacArthur ``Genius'' Fellows show extraordinary dedication and originality in their field, as well as exceptional promise for continuing their creative pursuits in the future. Ms. Poo demonstrated these qualities through her successful organization of domestic workers on a national and international level. She has created better working conditions for women who are often exploited, by establishing fair labor standards which were originally nonexistent. Ms. Poo started organizing immigrant women workers in 1996. In 2000, she co-founded Domestic Workers United, the organization that has successfully advocated for passage of the state of New York's Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights in 2010. Currently, Ms. Poo is the Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), which arose from the first national domestic workers convention in 2007 that she helped plan. NDWA is a leading organization in building fair labor standards for the 2.5 million domestic workers in the U.S. Recently, Poo was instrumental in the Department of Labor's decision to include caregivers for the elderly and disabled in federal minimum wage and overtime protections. Ms. Poo is also Co-Director of Caring Across Generations, a campaign that brings together caregivers and the employers into an alliance that supports immigration reform, health care, and labor policies. This confluence of interest results in better labor conditions, and greater quality care for America's aging population. Aside from being a 2014 MacArthur Foundation fellow, Ms. Poo was previously recognized with numerous other accolades including the World Economic Forum Young Global Leader award in 2013, and the Ms. Foundation Woman of Vision Award. In 2012, she was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. Ms. Poo has exhibited outstanding devotion to a cause that continues to improve countless lives. I appreciate all that she has done to serve our nation, and I congratulate her for her achievement. She is more than deserving of this honor.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I oppose The Insurance Capital Standards Clarification Act of 2014 (H.R. 5461). While I support efforts to provide flexibility under the Dodd-Frank Act's Collins amendment by explicitly stating that regulators are not required to apply minimum leverage capital and risk-based capital requirements to firms with state-regulated insurance operations, this bill does more than that. It contains The Mortgage Choice Act of 2013, (H.R. 3211). Mr. Speaker, as I stated during the hearing and the mark up on The Mortgage Choice Act of 2013 (H.R. 3211), there are serious concerns about steering consumers into buying title insurance with hidden commissions and inflated costs. I bought two homes in my life. Like most homebuyers, I was asked to sign a bunch of papers with lots of fees such as origination charges, appraisal fees, scoring fees, recording charges, tax service fee and title insurance. Like most consumers, I chose my title insurance provider based on referral: I did not comparison shop. For most of us, title insurance is the most expensive of the closing cost fees--sometimes running in the thousands of dollars. These fees are poorly understood by homebuyers. This can lead to paying higher fees than is necessary or appropriate. When Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, we required the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to do a better job at protecting consumers when buying a home. We know that the housing finance system had too much predatory and discriminatory lending. African Americans and Latinos were frequently charged much higher interest rates than they qualified for. Homeowners were refinanced into high fee and interest rates they could not afford. The result was more than five million foreclosures and a colossal loss of wealth. In response to the new law, the CFPB wrote rules to protect people buying homes from products which would strip their wealth. One of those rules defined a Qualified Mortgage (QM) standard which was established in Dodd-Frank. As part of that QM standard, the CFPB established a ``points and fees'' bright line limit for mortgages that qualified under the Ability to Repay provision. The CFPB established a limit on ``points and fees''--which account for a loan's origination costs--that exceed 3 percent of the loan amount--although it can be up to 8 percent for lower cost homes. Because of concerns that the affiliated title insurance system was leading to higher costs for borrowers in a market based on reverse competition, the CFPB wisely chose to require title insurance charges from affiliated title agents be within the points and fees cap. H.R. 3211 reverses the CFPB's decision. By excluding affiliated title insurance firms from within the points and fees cap, H.R. 3211 restores an incentive to overcharge homebuyers. We know how hard it is to get people into homes. Homebuyers need to save thousands of dollars for a downpayment. So why should we make it easier to let them get overcharged as much as a thousand or more dollars on title insurance? Some say that as much as half or more of a title insurance premium goes to the referral agent. Why would we want to preserve this practice of overpricing title insurance to fund referral commissions? At the Financial Services hearing that included this bill, I requested that we hear from independent land title agents as well as from groups like the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Responsible Lending, Americans for Financial Reform and its 100 affiliates and the AFL-CIO. I requested that the National Association of Independent Land Title Agents be invited to testify. I have heard concerns directly from title agents in my state that some referral sources ask to share ownership of their business. Since title insurance is based on referrals, when realtors, homebuilders and mortgage brokers refuse to provide referrals to a title agent firm, the firm may not be able to survive financially. Unfortunately, these independent unaffiliated title agents were not invited to testify nor was there another hearing on the bill. Many organizations opposed the bill including the AFL-CIO, Alliance for a Just Society, Americans for Financial Reform, Center for Economic Justice, Center for Responsible Lending, Connecticut Fair Housing Center, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Empire Justice Center, Home Defenders League, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, NAACP, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Association of Independent Land Title Agents, National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low income clients), National Council of La Raza, National Fair Housing Alliance, New Economic Project, Public Citizen, Woodstock Institute and Center for Responsible Lending. These concerns about hidden referral commissions are not hypothetical. Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined RealtySouth, the largest real estate firm in Alabama for violations of the Real Estate Settlement and Practices Act (RESPA). RealtySouth improperly steered consumers to its affiliated firm, TitleSouth LLC. In addition, The CFPB has taken action against Borders & Borders PLC in Kentucky for funneling kickbacks to shell companies. In June, the CFPB fined Stonebridge Title Services in New Jersey for paying illegal kickbacks to referral sources. Some who support H.R. 3211 say there are some fixed costs in lending that could result in lower valued mortgages to need to pay loans higher than the Qualified Mortgage guideline of points and fees established by smaller loans. However, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau already provided for flexible definitions based upon the amount of a borrower's mortgage: 3 percentage cap on a loan balance at $100,000 or greater, 5 percentage cap on a loan balance from $20,000.00 to $60,000, or 8 percentage cap on loan balances of less than $12,500. Since the average mortgage origination fees are below one percent according to the Center for Responsible Lending, the caps set by the QM are appropriate. I have not seen any compelling evidence that shows that lenders will not make loans if the title premiums charged by their affiliates are included in the points and fees cap. Lenders are free to make loans outside the ability to repay rules as well. I have also heard the proponents of H.R. 3211 arguing that the availability of affiliate service providers helps reduce the overall cost of obtaining a mortgage loan. I question their evidence. The 2010 Harris Interactive study paid by the National Association of Realtors is suspect. In that study, more than 70% of buyers ``did not know'' what an affiliate service provider provided or what benefit it allegedly gave. By contrast, in 2013, The National Association of Independent Land Title Agents (NAILTA) commissioned the first-ever national settlement preference survey of American real estate consumers. More than 900 consumers participated in the nationwide survey. The results include: 93% of American real estate consumers surveyed said it was important that title insurance agents remain a neutral third party in the performance of title insurance-related services. 62% of American real estate consumers surveyed said that a title agency cannot remain objective if it is partially owned by a bank, real estate firm, mortgage company or homebuilder. Only 1% of American real estate consumers surveyed prefer a ``one stop shop''. For all the efficiencies that proponents assert existed prior to this new rule that provided a disincentive to refer homebuyers to controlled/affiliated title firms, settlement costs--exclusive of inflation--continue to rise. I believe the CFPB's rule could actually lower title insurance premiums and increase homeownership for Americans. I have concerns about a market where people assert that half or more the cost of the product is a referral fee unlinked to the product itself Consumers and independent title insurance agents say that title insurance premiums can provide remuneration to the referral source based on the capture rate such as lower desk rental fees, bonuses, gifts or higher commissions. This should not be permitted. I urge members to stand with homebuyers who want to understand all the fees they are charged. I urge members to support a market free of pressures for referral commissions.

Mr. ELLISON

Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

Mr. ELLISON. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, I agree with the last speaker, Mr. Dent, that this is a very difficult vote, and I think everybody should approach it with a tremendous amount of trepidation and concern. I am sure that all of us are doing the best we can to come to the very best decision we can on behalf of our constituents. Today, I plan on voting for the measure. The reason is that the civil war in Syria has claimed thousands of lives. Thousands more are now living under the deadly rule of ISIL, and 200,000 Syrians have been killed so far as the world, for 4 years, has not done much to protect them. Now, the fight in Syria and Iraq can, ultimately, only be solved politically, and I believe that the growing humanitarian crisis caused by conflicts in the region warrants an urgent response from the United States. Any military action against ISIL must be led by Iraqis and Syrians. I believe U.S. troops would be a magnet for a group like ISIL, and therefore this fight must be carried forth by the people most affected--Syrians and Iraqis themselves. I believe that a vetted and better armed, moderate rebel group in Syria can fight ISIL in northeast Syria when an Iraqi Army, perhaps, can push them out of their country and into Syria. There cannot be a safe haven in Syria for ISIL. I also want to note that much has been said about the fractured nature or the weakness of the Free Syrian Army, but I would remind people who are participating in this debate that, for 4 years, the Free Syrian Army has withstood the onslaught of the Assad government, Hezbollah, Iran, Russian weapons, ISIS, and Jabhat al-Nusra. For 4 years, these people who were dismissed as nothing but bankers and bakers and not real soldiers have stood their ground and have stood for their country. For these reasons, I urge a ``yes'' vote.