Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. If the gentleman would yield, that's right. And I would say some of my colleagues understandably wanted to put very severe restrictions on the recipient institutions, and we put restrictions on them. But we don't want to be so restrictive that we drive out private capital. This will only work if the public capital leverages and unlocks and reassures private capital.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, after the congressional redistricting of 1992 and the subsequent election, I won the great responsibility and challenge of representing America's most prosperous fishing port--the City of New Bedford and the Town of Fairhaven. Over these past sixteen years I have worked very hard in conjunction with the people in the fishing industry to help create the conditions in which they can do their work which is so important not just to the region in which they are located, but to the entire country. As we stress the importance of people eating in a healthier manner, the role of seafood becomes all the more important, and preserving the ability of people in the fishing industry to perform this service they do for the rest of us is a major part of my job. In some cases, our advocacy can be fairly easy, as a matter of principle. But there are also cases in which mastering a very complex body of data is essential if we are to do our job right. We are of course in the Congress assisted in doing that by the extremely talented and dedicated people we are lucky enough to have on our staffs, but we are also in need of help from outside. In the case of the fishing industry, no individual during my career has been as important as Dr. Brian Rothschild of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Brian Rothschild combines in an extraordinary degree technical expertise, practical knowledge, political savvy, and an ability to understand all viewpoints and articulate his own that makes him an enormous asset to those concerned with the fishing industry. He is a model of how public policy discussions should be conducted. Not surprisingly, the New Bedford Standard Times recently named him their South Coast Man of the Year, an honor that is beyond dispute an extremely well deserved one. Madam Speaker, I ask that the article from the New Bedford Standard Times chronicling the extraordinary work of Dr. Rothschild and his importance to the fishing industry be printed here, since this is an industry which is greatly impacted by our activity and about which the Members should know a great deal. [From South Coast Today, Jan. 1, 2009] A Big Fish in Marine Science Teacher, fisherman, furniture maker, marine scientist-- there isn't much that University of Massachusetts Dartmouth professor Brian Rothschild can't do and do well. Luckily for the city of New Bedford, sometime in the 1990s he set his mind on seeking ways to save the local scallop fishery. A little over a decade later, scallops have made the city the biggest fishing port, in terms of dollars worth of seafood caught, in the United States. Around the same time that Dr. Rothschild, now 74, started studying scallops, he also started building up the faculty and facilities at the UMD Center for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), making it into one of the nation's quality schools of ocean science. He was dean of the marine school from 1995 through 2006, the school's formative decade, when it first began attracting a world-class faculty. For his efforts on behalf of the fishermen of New Bedford and the seafood economy to their fisheries, and for his efforts in making UMass Dartmouth a growing center of marine science and research, Brian J. Rothschild is The Standard- Times 2008 SouthCoast Man of the Year. Nominations for the award came from the community and members of the newspaper staff. Recipients were selected by a newsroom committee. ``He's really made a big difference in the fishing industry in New Bedford,'' said Rodney Avila, the owner of two scallop boats and the city's representative to the New England Fisheries Management Council (a coalition of industry, conservation, and government officials that recommends regulations for the region's fisheries). Dr. Rothschild and UMass Dartmouth professor Kevin Stokesbury developed a system of counting scallops by using an underwater camera to photograph their beds at the bottom of the ocean. Previously, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had estimated scallops by the numbers caught in fishing nets, a method that invariably led to undercounting, Dr. Rothschild said. Dr. Rothschild and Dr. Stokesbury proved the government conservationists' methods of measuring scallops were wrong. The underwater camera, in addition to being able to count scallops not caught in nets, was also able to count scallops in ocean areas that federal regulators had closed to scallopers. They found the scallop numbers in the closed areas were also greatly underestimated. ``I've always supported the idea of controlling fishing, but I also support the idea of the best science,'' Dr. Rothschild said. ``What we did was really good science.'' Jean MacCormack, the chancellor of UMass Dartmouth, noted the singular nature of Brian Rothschild convincing a federal regulatory agency to change its practices. ``It's pretty unusual,'' she said, ``to develop a methodology that NMFS accepted.'' ``NMFS was saying there were no scallops and they proved them wrong,'' Mr. Avila said. ``That was one of the main components of the rejuvenation of the scallop industry.'' New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang is unqualified in his praise of Brian Rothschild. ``I think he's the difference between the scallop industry prospering, as they have in the last decade, versus being in the same situation as groundfish,'' he said. The mayor was referring to the fact that the New Bedford groundfishing industry has suffered from stringent federal fishing regulations. New Bedford was the nation's busiest port last year, for the ninth year in a row, with 60 million pounds of fresh seafood landed, with a value of $281 million, principally due to the scallop catch. Dr. Rothschild stresses that he's a big supporter of conserving fisheries but, because fish live below the surface, they aren't easily measured. He thought that if he could improve the science, he could benefit both the fishery and the fishermen. ``There was some resistance from the fisheries service. And some of the conservation groups thought our estimates were in error, but it's a solid scientific process we went through,'' he explains. Dr. Rothschild subscribes to a view of ocean ecology that the fishermen, and their fishing efforts, are themselves an integral part of the ocean ecology of a given area. ``You have to look at a balance between the substantial effects that humans have on the (fish) populations and the productivity of the populations. That's what conservation is in this day and age.'' Because fishing species, under certain conditions and to a certain extent, proliferate in the wake of a fishing effort, Dr. Rothschild set out to balance the maximum amount of fishing effort needed to benefit human beings with the maximum amount of fishing effort needed to benefit the population of fish species. Currently, SMAST is studying counting methods for groundfish (which unlike scallops, move around in the ocean). The objective is to obtain more accurate counts of the groundfish (haddock, cod, yellowtail flounder) in the New England fishery. Because the federal government's currently accepted methods of counting groundfish counting show the stocks are depressed, NMFS intends to further restrict the fishing effort--which is already a barely profitable industry--next year. The failure to find a better method for integrating the effects of fishing and groundfish proliferation has had devastating effects on the local industry, Dr. Rothschild said. ``You can see all this happening in New Bedford. The (fish) populations are being managed biologically yet there's a tremendous amount of economic grief,'' he said. ``The societal grief won't be realized until these contemplated cuts (in the fishing effort) take place.'' People will be displaced from their jobs and end up on government ``welfare,'' dependent on the taxpayers, he said. In addition to his professional fields of expertise, Dr. Rothschild is an active advocate for area fisheries and his research on important government and quasi-government boards and commissions. He worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the 1970s as a senior policy adviser so he well understands how the regulatory bureaucracy works. Presently, he chairs New Bedford's Ocean and Fisheries Council (an advocacy group for the city's fishing interests), co-directs the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute (a research partnership between UMass Dartmouth and the state Division of Marine Fisheries) and chairs the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council. The goal is to bring fishing regulations more into line with statistics that better reflect ocean science, including in the economics of the fisheries, he said. ``One measure of performance is overfishing, another is optimal yield (of fish), another is minimal angst among the people that are regulated,'' he said. ``I think we could do a much better job so we need to increase the dialogue with the agency. (That's) a step that Barney Frank and the mayor and I have been involved in.'' Congressman Frank, who along with Sens. John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, has long advocated for the city's interests in Washington, said Dr. Rothschild has been very helpful in making the scallop industry more successful. ``The beauty of Brian is that he knows the scene better than anybody else,'' he said. Dr. Rothschild's reputation as a scientist has given his studies credibility with the federal government, said Mayor Lang. A former professor at the state universities of Maryland and Washington, Brian Rothschild is the author of nearly 100 papers and books and is an acknowledged expert in fish population dynamics, biological oceanography, and natural resources policy. Next year, in collaboration with several West Coast fishery scientists, he will publish a book on the future of fisheries science in North America. Mayor Lang calls him the perfect expert on the Magnusson- Stevenson Act that governs American fisheries. ``He understands how it relates to species and he understands how it relates to human beings,'' he said. Dr. MacCormack noted that even though Dr. Rothschild has an international reputation as a scientist, he is completely at home with the fishermen and fishing boat owners on the New Bedford docks. ``When you see him present a paper to academics, he speaks their language, but he can go to the fish auction and speak their language, too,'' she said. Boat owner Rodney Avila gave a similar assessment. ``He doesn't talk down to fishermen, he talks with them. That's important,'' he said. ``He's a good, all-around man,'' said Mr. Avila. Brian Rothschild has dug deep into New Bedford in the 13 years he's been at UMass Dartmouth. He and his wife, Susan, have refurbished one of the long- neglected Victorian houses in the city's West End and he has a studio in the North End where, in his spare time, he builds replicas of 18th century furniture. He has traded in the sailboat he first came to New Bedford in for a 40-foot ``Novi,'' a recreational fishing boat where he and Susan fish for local fish that make good eating: stripers, fluke and whatever else in local waters that might taste good. His wife, like himself, loves fishing and ocean studies so it makes for an interesting crew, he said, the dry sense of humor he's well known for coming through. Dr. Rothschild said he hopes his New Bedford legacy will be the use of ocean science to continue the revival of the fishing industry, and he hopes that SMAST can continue to build the quality of its faculty so it becomes one of the nation's elite marine science schools. It may be, however, that Dr. Rothschild's biggest legacy will be tied to the people of New Bedford themselves. He admits that his survey is unscientific but he says the city has changed since 1995 when he first arrived, sailing his own boat from Maryland to the city, passing Cuttyhunk and then finally coming up a foggy Acushnet River. ``When I moved here, the houses were, in general, in a state of disrepair. The economy looked bleak,'' he said. ``As the economy and the fish auction developed, the community seemed brighter and better furbished and more prosperous.'' That's not a bad legacy, for an ocean scientist who sees local fishermen as part of the sea's ecology.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. The gentleman from Wisconsin said, why will the majority not in some instances agree with the minority? That's the problem. We are talking about cases where we in the majority have tried to agree with the minority, and they would not be agreed with. They would not take yes for an answer. This is the issue: if they offer a motion to recommit and it says forthwith, and they win the vote, the bill is amended. If they offer an amendment to a bill, not having offered it in committee, not having gone to the Rules Committee to ask it to be on the floor, if they take a noncontroversial popular issue and offer it as the motion to recommit, but say it should be sent to the committee and reported back promptly, we have tried to agree with them, and they have refused. This literally is a way to not take yes for an answer; it's a way to take something to which the majority would like to agree. I have been here when I, and when the majority leader has said, in such a situation, could we get unanimous consent to simply agree to that now, and the minority has said no. Well, people have a right not to be agreed with. People have a right not to be agreeable. Some indulge that right more than others. But you don't have a right to refuse to be agreed with, and then complain that you weren't agreed with. And that's all that's at stake here. So, yes, there are times when the majority should say yes to the minority, and that should be determined by the floor. What we're saying is the minority should not manufacture a situation in which there is no way to say yes to them because their goal is patently not to amend that particular bill, because if it was, they would accept the request that that amendment be accepted. Instead, it is to put a bill back to committee because they're afraid to vote against it. That's the issue. This is used as a way to send bills back to committee to avoid votes. And this leaves, this package, the minority, fully able to offer any motion to recommit or send it back to committee. It just says they can't play games.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. The former minority whip has just proved the opposite of his case. In the one instance that he refers to where a bill came out of the committee which I chair, we were prepared to accept that amendment on the floor. It was offered promptly. We asked if it could be done, as we often did, as forthwith, and it could have been adopted on the floor. In that case it wasn't 6 days, it took several weeks, because we cannot drop everything and get to a bill. Now, understand that when a bill is sent back to a committee, all the rules apply. And, by the way, nothing stops you from making this a revolving door, Mr. Speaker. People can keep doing this. The motion to recommit, Members have said on the other side they want to be able to offer an alternative. Nothing in this proposal in any way diminishes their ability to offer an alternative. They are fully able to offer an alternative as an amendment. What they will be losing here is a legislative Ponzi scheme in which you pretend to be something you are not. Here is the way it works: If the minority wants under any bill to offer a motion to recommit, as the rule will now read if this passes, they can offer a motion to recommit with a germane amendment that is binding, and if it is adopted, the bill is amended on the spot. But they often don't want to do that. Often their amendments are really disguises for opposition to the bill in general. So they take an amendment that would pass virtually unanimously because it is so popular and say it should be done in a way that sends the bill back to committee rather than to amend the bill. So let's be very clear. Their ability to offer a motion that is an amendment to the bill is in no way diminished by this. It is in no way changed. It is exactly the same. What they lose is the ability to take something that would pass overwhelmingly if they would allow a serious vote on it and use it as a way to get a bill sent back to committee for purposes of delay. Now, the gentleman is right. It doesn't always work. Sometimes the bill survives. Sometimes it doesn't. There is often a traffic jam on the floor. There are also cases where timeliness is important, where the administration may be about to do something we want to stop them from doing and we want to be able to move reasonably quickly. I will say this with regard to where he said bills came from nowhere. The bills where this tactic, this Ponzi scheme has been used, on bills that have come out of the Financial Services Committee, were not those bills. They were bills where there had been open amendment processes, where I have often gone to the Rules Committee and asked for amendments to be in order. In fact, in my experience, the committee of jurisdiction leadership has no input into these motions. I have asked. There are amendments offered on the floor that were never offered in committee when they had a chance to be offered, and I will guarantee you that is a fact, because the purpose is not to amend the bill. If you were trying to amend the bill, you offer the motion to recommit in a way that amends it on the floor. That is not good enough for them, because they are not interested in substance. They are interested in this game playing and this charade--well, it is not a charade, because that is talking. They are interested in this pretense whereby you try to slow a bill down because you aren't willing to vote against it. So if this rules package passes, there will be two options for the minority: They can move to send the bill back to committee, that can still be done, the motion to send it back to committee will still be there; or they can move to amend it on the floor. Their ability to offer an alternative is in no ways changed. What they can't do is to pretend to be amending the bill by putting forward very popular language that would pass overwhelmingly, but doing it in a way that in effect sends the bill back to committee which doesn't allow the House to adopt that amendment, and then they want to be able to say Members weren't in favor of this noncontroversial piece. So it is a legislative Ponzi scheme. It is a pretense. It is something that ought to be abolished. It does not add at all to the legitimacy of debate. Let's adopt this rules change. The minority will have the two options, and that is all that democracy requires.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to note that I am surprised to hear my friend argue that the bankruptcy courts have more automotive expertise and engineering and finance and industrial policy expertise than is present in the whole Bush administration. I think he is too pessimistic about that and too much supportive of the bankruptcy process. Second, I would also just recall the very thoughtful remark of our colleague from Texas, Ms. Jackson-Lee, who noted that those who thought bankruptcy was a disaster for mortgages appear to see it as a panacea for automobiles. Many of us fail to see how that transformation took place. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Detroit (Ms. Kilpatrick). (Ms. KILPATRICK asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1534, I call up the bill (H.R. 7321) to authorize financial assistance to eligible automobile manufacturers, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we consider this bill in a context, a context framed by the report last Friday of a massive loss of jobs in the American economy. This economy is in the worst shape that it has been in since the Great Depression. We are facing a double hit, a credit crisis brought on by a variety of factors, but resulting now in a serious lack of confidence on the part of investors and a deterioration in the physical parts of the economy, which have combined to cause a serious, deep recession. That is relevant because there have been suggestions that we could afford to allow the three domestically owned auto companies to founder, that there are other sources of automobiles, that they could be required to declare bankruptcy, to, therefore, not pay suppliers, to cut back substantially on money owed dealers, to reduce by large amounts the workforce and the compensation of the workforce, to take one of the major factors of the American economy and substantially reduce its economic impact. I think that would have been a mistake in any economic period, but to contemplate the severity of that blow to our economic activity at this time is to invite further deterioration of an economy that has already deteriorated beyond what people expected and beyond what the American people ought to have to tolerate. The bill is a limited bill. It is the product of a compromise, the terms of which were largely dictated by the President of the United States. I am struck, Mr. Speaker, by the lack of confidence that has been expressed on the Republican side of this House, not in the auto industry, but in George Bush and the people he has and will appoint. The amount of money here, $15 billion, is a loan. It is a loan far more likely to be repaid than many of the much larger amounts that the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve, working with them, have advanced to Citigroup and AIG and the number of other entities. It is $15 billion because the President said no new money, not even money from the $700 billion troubled assets fund, the TARP. This Congress voted a month or two ago, 2 months ago, to advance $25 billion to the auto industry to promote innovation, which everyone agrees is necessary. It wasn't just to the Big Three, it was to any applicant who was going to use this money to try to innovate. The President said, to our dismay, he would veto any legislation trying to keep the auto industry out of bankruptcy that used any funds other than that $25 billion that had already been voted for that purpose. The Speaker, to her credit, resisted what I think was a strong temptation to engage in a dispute with the President that would have killed any effort to get legislation and instead, perhaps to his surprise, she agreed with him and said we would live with that constraint. So the amount of money that is here is both in amount and, in short, exactly what George Bush wanted. This is an amount of money that George Bush told us we could make available. We have made it available in a form that makes it overwhelmingly likely that it will be repaid. It is a loan with the American Government in a super senior position in terms of repayment and where there were some potential problems with that because of clauses in other agreements, heavy collateral. So this $15 billion is very likely to be returned if the program fails. That's the worst case. We will have advanced $15 billion, we will get it back in 3 months because disaster cannot be averted, but we are not willing to say that disaster cannot be averted without trying. What this bill then says is the President of the United States, George Bush, shall designate an administration official to preside over a process of hard negotiation with all of those who have a share in this industry, the companies, of course, the bondholders, the workers, the suppliers and the auto dealers, and make it clear to them that if they are not willing and able to come together and reduce costs and put in place a program that makes it possible to envision a future in which more efficient cars are made and sold with a great likelihood of success, then not only will there be no more money than the $15 billion, but the $15 billion will have to be repaid. Well, apparently my Republican colleagues, again, do not think that the Bush administration has within its ranks anyone capable, with all the help that they have been given, of beginning that process. Some have said, no, make them go bankrupt. There is nothing about bankruptcy that cannot be accomplished within the framework we have said except the ability to unilaterally say ``no'' to this or that class of people who are owed money. All of the powers that you could accomplish in reorganization in a bankruptcy are given here, and the enforcement power is that the money will be withdrawn if this is not done and the entities will collapse. We have provisions in here that make it impossible, if the Bush administration and then the Obama administration coming after them, say so to have money that was, in part, provided by the American taxpayer, used to finance activity in other countries. That doesn't mean American investors should never be in other countries. It does mean that taxpayer dollars made available in these circumstances shouldn't go to other countries. Then the question is, then, well, why the haste? We are hastily reacting to very fast-moving events. A month ago it did not appear that the car companies would be in such dire straits. Car companies all over the world have been hurt by the credit crisis. Automobiles are paid for by credit. As credit has tightened up substantially, and as people have lost their jobs, there has been a greater than anticipated fall off in auto sales. Of course, the auto companies have made mistakes in the past, a lot of people in the industry have, including consumers. But we find that the rapid deterioration in the general economy, it hasn't caused the problem for the automakers, but it has exacerbated them and greatly shortened our time horizon. This bill is intended to keep them from going bankrupt between now and March 31. It does it in a way that will allow us to recapture the money if that effort fails. It does express the belief that, done properly, in conjunction with other things, things that could unstick the credit market, funds that we hope will be made available under the troubled assets program to auto dealers, who have a very real claim here, and we will be pushing for a program that will include them and funding be made available. Several Members of this House have spoken out strongly in favor of doing that. We believe it is possible, and likely, that as the economy gets better, and as they continue the movements they have already made towards cars that are likely to sell and be more energy efficient, that we can survive this. There are some Members who have consistently opposed any intervention, but this administration sent over $100 billion to AIG. Citigroup has been the recipient of very large amounts of money. I do not understand how people can have not made any effort to undo the administration's intervention with AIG, well over $100 billion, and then try and stop about one-seventh of that sum as a loan to the auto companies. Yes, credit and finance are important, but the physical work done by working class and middle-class Americans in auto companies, in car dealerships, in the small businesses that are other suppliers, cumulatively, are just as important. To give up now on the auto industry would be to condemn the American economy at one of its most vulnerable periods in our economic history to a degree of further hurt, and the American people deserve better. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC, December 10, 2008. Hon. Barney Frank, Chairman, Committee on Financial Services, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Frank: This is to memorialize the provisions in H.R. 7321, the ``Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act,'' that fall within the rule X jurisdiction of the Committee on the Judiciary. In particular, there are several provisions in section 12(d) and (e) that alter the normal operation of the bankruptcy laws; section 19(c) provides the annual cost-of-living salary adjustment for the federal judiciary: and section 19(d) precludes private antitrust suits regarding certain consultations between a covered automaker and its employees, dealers, suppliers, and creditors. In agreeing to be discharged from further consideration of the bill, in order that it may proceed without delay to the House floor for consideration, the Judiciary Committee does not waive any jurisdiction over subject matter contained in this or similar legislation. We also reserve the right to seek appointment of an appropriate number of conferees to any House-Senate conference involving this important legislation, and would ask your support if such a request is made. I would appreciate your including this letter in the Congressional Record during consideration of the bill on the House floor. Thank you for your attention to this request, and for the cooperative relationship between our two committees. Sincerely, John Conyers, Jr., Chairman. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, at the outset I ask that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this bill and include extraneous remarks and material thereon.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to the dean of the House and a great expert over time on the auto industry, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield the gentleman 30 seconds.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I think we've gotten an imbalance of time here, so if it is all right with the gentleman from Texas, I would reserve and defer to him for another speaker or two to even out the time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. If the gentleman would yield, the answer is, yes, that clause does apply. We would want an automobile manufacturer to be able to use any of its existing unfunded credit facilities as a source of liquidity. So we clearly intend for the savings clause in the subordination provision of the legislation to cover unfunded committed credit facilities in effect as of December 2.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Let me inquire of the gentleman: Does he have only one speaker remaining?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Then I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland, the majority leader.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield 1 minute to a member of the committee, to the Chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. The provision of the bill that gives the authority or the ability to veto any $100 million grade of investment or any $100 million impact decision includes the right to say ``no'' to a closure or to move the plant somewhere else, and it is primarily designed by us to ensure against the possibility that the taxpayer dollars being lent to them would be used to facilitate movement to other parts of the world where even the gentleman from California would agree that they would not be American.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Yes, a bonus would be in addition to compensation, and it could be in Crown Victorias, or it could be in stock, or it could be anything else. And of course we do empower the administrator to be appointed by the President. I did want to comment briefly. The gentleman from Virginia, apparently, once again, no confidence in the President. The President is given the power, under this bill, to appoint someone with great power, and he says things need to be done in a few days and apparently doesn't trust George Bush to do it. But the answer is that the bill does empower those restrictions to be any kind of compensation.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. No, we vote on bills. They write them.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Yes. I would have to demur from being the author. I do want to give equal billing to my coauthor, George W. Bush. But having said that, I do believe that we agree that the provision has exactly the meaning the gentleman says, to prevent a closure or anything else of that sort.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Well, I will now say, Mr. Speaker, that I am sorry I yielded for that bit of trivia. It was offered to me as the LaTourette amendment. I thought it was a Republican amendment. You know, at a time when we are all trying to get out of here, why we would waste time on that kind of trivia I don't understand. So let me say I believe that given that this is a short-term emergency, we will have time to reconsider. The consequences of defeating this bill would be disaster for an economy that is already in terribly indecent shape.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. We are in a crisis. They were having problems. Like a lot of other entities in America, including the job market in general and banks, the deterioration has been more rapid than anyone had anticipated. And, yes, they now face the potential of financial collapse more quickly than anticipated. If we had known in September what we knew today, we could have begun acting back then. What we are doing is an interim measure. Fifteen billion dollars is a short-term fix, $15 billion that will be repaid. It's not the hundreds of billions that we talk about with Citigroup or the over $100 billion that we talk about with AIG, it's a lot of money, but it's money that will be repaid. It gives us a chance, particularly the new administration and this Congress to figure out what can be done. If by March 31 it is clear that pessimism has prevailed and nothing can be done, we will get the $15 billion back. But, finally, as to the rule, my understanding when I went up to testify before the Rules Committee, I was told there was one amendment that had been offered by the minority, and it has been made in order, and I plan to vote for it.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, we are about to see the great majority of Republicans deliver both orally and then, by their votes, a stunning vote of no confidence--but not in the automobile industry--in the Bush administration. This is a bill that was brought forward in consultation with President Bush and his chief aides. The funding mechanism here is one that was insisted upon by the President. The amount of money and the source of the money complied entirely with the wishes of the Bush administration. Now, one set of questions raised about this bill has to do with the administration of the TARP Program, once again, by the Bush administration. I believe that is too harsh. I believe we would have been worse off had we not passed that. Yes, I have some criticisms of it, but let's be very clear. This bill takes the Bush administration's proposal about how to fund this, and in turn gives to the Bush administration now, if it becomes law, significant power to begin the process of restructuring the automobile industry. As I said, much of what we heard is a lack of confidence in this administration. Now, we were told that it's going to put a lot of taxpayer money at risk. My friend from California said don't pick winners and losers. Well, may I ask then, Mr. Speaker, how we would characterize the decision to give well over $100 billion to AIG? Were they not a winner in this? If they were a loser, I should be such a loser at $100 billion. Six plus times as much money as being authorized here to be lent to the auto industries was lent to AIG. Is there a certainty that the auto industry is going to pay it back? No, no more than there is with AIG. In fact, I think a little bit more. But AIG, that's not an industry, that's a company. That one company received over $100 billion. I also disagree with those who would say, as apparently a Republican subgroup says, well, the way to deal with that is to take the wages that were bargained collectively over time by the unions in these three companies and drop them to some other level. I don't remember anybody saying, now, we have all agreed that CEO compensation and money for the top people should be restrained. But the average worker at AIG makes more money than an auto worker. The average worker at Citigroup, the recipient, again, of a large amount of money, makes more than an auto worker. Does anybody remember Citigroup being told that as a condition of this money they have to get no more than a community banker would get? That may be a fair standard, but why is it only applied to blue-collar workers? Why is it that this insistence on leveling down the wages of people whose companies receive loan funds only applies to people who do this physical work? I agree with the gentleman from California. There was a great reason to do the financial services bailout, because financial services are important, and I agree with him as well. That helps the auto industry. People buy cars on credit. An occasional buyer will come into an auto sales room to buy a car with cash. He generally wants bulletproof windows and special getaway mechanisms. Most people are buying it on credit, and that's because, as we have said, not that they are too big to fail, but too interconnected. But so is the auto industry. The gentleman himself talked about the suppliers elsewhere. This is an industry that has an enormous nationwide impact. But, finally, what are we doing here? We are lending them $15 billion. We are lending them $15 billion that is to be repaid, if by March 31 they haven't been able to persuade the new administration's appointee that they are making very fundamental changes. The bill says look for changes from the workers, but also from the bondholders and also from the suppliers and also from the dealers. Let's not single out those who work with their hands as the only ones who might be accused of unjust enrichment, because they ain't rich. So that's the proposal, $15 billion if they can show that they are making these reductions. By the way, we regret the fact that the President insists on taking money that we had set aside to help them become more innovative. We will replenish that. I think the Speaker deserves a great deal of credit for yielding in that way, but in a way that would protect this point. But the $15 billion comes with super seniority or very serious collateral. On March 31, either this Congress will have to vote more money, there is no more automatic money, this Congress will vote more money, and we will have a chance to make changes in the bill if we think it's necessary, or we will have to repay the $15 billion with a great deal of seniority in debt preferable to any other debtor and with high collateral. Yes, we are acting quickly.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from California.