Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, this Administration is giving Iran another free pass. It is irresponsible for the Administration to lift sanctions on foreign financial institutions whose actions have knowingly resulted in support for terrorists or have contributed to Iran's proliferation of nuclear weapons. It floors me that we are even having a debate about this. We should all remember the attacks on September 11th very clearly as well as President Bush's words afterwards. He said, ``We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.'' And that is true today. Financial institutions that have assisted in transactions to support terrorism are not innocent bystanders, and I take our Constitution's directive to ``provide for the common defense'' very seriously. The Iran Nuclear Agreement was a bad deal, and it's clear that Iran has no intention to hold up its side of the bargain. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this important piece of legislation.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous materials on H.R. 1927.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Trott), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today in support of a bill that combines two important reforms, the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act and the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act, or the FACT Act. Let me first explain why my colleagues should vote in favor of the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act. Last year an independent research firm surveyed companies in 26 countries and found that 80 percent of those that were subject to a class action lawsuit were U.S. companies, putting those U.S. companies at a distinct economic disadvantage when competing with companies worldwide. The problem of overbroad class actions doesn't just affect U.S. companies. It affects consumers in the United States who are forced into lawsuits they don't want to be in. How do we know that? We know that because the median rate at which consumer class action members take the compensation offered in a settlement is an incredibly low 0.023 percent. That is right. Only the tiniest fraction of 1 percent of consumer class action members--less than 1 quarter of 1 percent--even bothers to claim the compensation awarded them. That is clear proof that vastly large numbers of class members are satisfied with the products they purchase, don't want compensation, and don't want to be lumped into a gigantic class action lawsuit. Just recently a California judicial decision reported that, in a class action consisting of over 230,000 people, only two of those 230,000 wanted the coupons offered in the class action settlement. The judge in that case said that the case produced ``absolutely no benefit, really, to anybody.'' So where is all of the money going in these cases? To the lawyers who brought the lawsuits that hardly anyone wanted to be in. In another case, the district court had refused to certify the class because most of the class members had not experienced any problems with the product. But then the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that ``proof of the manifestation of a defect is not a prerequisite to class certification.'' In yet another case, when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the certification of an overbroad class action, it had to subsequently throw out the resulting settlement, stating, ``The district court approved a class action settlement that is inequitable, even scandalous,'' because the relatively few class members who were actually injured ended up claiming less than 2 percent of what the trial lawyers got the district judge to say was warranted based on the overbroad size of the class. Trial lawyers work the system today in the following way: They file lawsuits, for example, against a company that sells a washing machine. Some of those washing machines don't work the way they are supposed to, but most of them do. But the lawyers file a class action lawsuit that includes everyone who ever purchased a washing machine from the company, even the large number of people who are completely satisfied with their purchases. When trial lawyers lump injured, non-comparably injured, and non- injured people into the same class action lawsuit, the limited resources of the parties are wastefully spent weeding through hundreds of thousands of class members in order to find those with actual or significant injuries. That is money that could have been spent compensating deserving victims. Sometimes, because judges don't separate the injured from the non- injured in class actions early enough in the proceedings, they end up throwing out settlements because it turns out hardly any of the class members were harmed and didn't want compensation. Other times, when judges realize they have created an overbroad class, they justify their actions by coming up with novel theories to provide some compensation to people who are entirely satisfied with the product and who don't want compensation. Either way, the solution is to direct judges to determine as best they can early in the proceedings which proposed class members are significantly and comparably injured and which aren't and to treat them accordingly. That is fair to everyone. The purpose of a class action is to provide a fair means of evaluating like claims, not to provide a way for lawyers to artificially inflate the size of a class to extort a larger settlement value for themselves and, in the process, increase the prices of goods and services for everyone. Claims seeking monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss should be grouped in classes in which those who are the most injured receive the most compensation. No one should be forced into a class action with other uninjured or minimally injured members only to see their own compensation reduced. The Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act would simply make clear what currently should be clear to the Federal courts, namely, that uninjured class members are incompatible with rule 23(b)(3)'s current requirement that common claims predominate a class action. Here is the full text of the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act, along with quotes from the Supreme Court that show how the bill's text codifies existing Supreme Court precedent: The bill simply provides that ``no Federal court shall certify any proposed class seeking monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss unless the party seeking to maintain such a class action affirmatively demonstrates that each proposed class member suffered the same type and scope of injury as the named class representative or representatives'' and that ``an order issued under rule 23(c)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that certifies a class seeking monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss shall include a determination, based on a rigorous analysis of the evidence presented, that the requirement in subsection (a) of this section is satisfied.'' That is it. One page. Fair rules. Common sense and wholly consistent with Supreme Court precedent. Please join me in supporting this bill on behalf of consumers everywhere. The FACT Act is also simple, fair reform we should all support. This legislation helps asbestos victims who must look to the bankruptcy process to seek redress for their or their loved ones' injuries. Too often, by the time asbestos victims assert claims for compensation, the bankruptcy trust formed for their benefit has been diluted by fraudulent claims, leaving these victims without their entitled recovery. Fraud is able to exist because of the excessive lack of transparency plaintiffs' firms have forced on the asbestos trust system. Under the current Bankruptcy Code, plaintiffs' firms essentially are granted a statutory veto right over debtors' chapter 11 plans that seek to restructure asbestos liabilities. Plaintiffs' firms have exploited this leverage to obtain trust rules that prevent information contained within the trust from seeing the light of day. The predictable result has been a growing wave of claims and reports of fraud. The increase in fraudulent claims has caused many asbestos bankruptcy trusts to reduce recoveries paid to asbestos victims who emerge following the formation of trusts. The FACT Act, introduced by Congressman Farenthold, combats this fraud by introducing long-needed transparency into the system. First, it requires asbestos trusts to file quarterly reports on their public bankruptcy dockets. These reports will contain basic information about demands to the trusts and the bases for payments made by the trusts to claimants. Second, the FACT Act requires asbestos trusts to respond to information requests about claims asserted against and the bases for payments made by the asbestos trusts. These measures are carefully designed to increase transparency while providing claimants with sufficient privacy protection. To accomplish these goals, the bill leverages privacy protections contained elsewhere in the Bankruptcy Code and includes additional safeguards to preserve claimants' privacy. We cannot allow fraud to continue reducing recoveries for future asbestos victims. I thank Mr. Farenthold for introducing the FACT Act to combat fraud. I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this important legislation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino), the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold), the chief sponsor of a portion of this legislation.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold).

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Title II of the bill, the ALERT Act, contains needed transparency requirements so that hardworking Americans who bear the cost of new regulation at least know in realtime what is coming and what it will cost them to comply. Just like ordinary executive agencies, independent agencies should provide this level of transparency about the new regulations they are preparing. Why should the public not have the right to know as much about what the Securities and Exchange Commission is planning to impose as it knows about what the Environmental Protection Agency plans? Why shouldn't the public know as much about how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to regulate new car loans as it knows about how the Department of Transportation plans to regulate new car designs? The bill strengthens and protects the public's right to know. The amendment would allow independent agencies to hide the ball at the public's expense, and so I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I strongly support her amendment. Over the past several decades, the accumulation of unfunded mandates issued by the Federal Government to State and local governments, tribes, and the private sector has become an alarming concern. This amendment will throw an early and needed spotlight on proposed new unfunded mandates as Federal agencies begin the process of considering them. Hopefully, once they are informed of them in time, by the amendment, those who would otherwise have to bear the burden of unfunded mandates will be better armed to fend off their unjust imposition. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Title II of the bill contains transparency requirements that are long overdue. To make sure that agencies comply and conduct their business in the sunshine, it prohibits an agency from entering a new regulation into effect unless the agency makes the disclosures the bill requires for at least 6 months before the regulation's published effective date. Nevertheless, to provide flexibility where it is needed, the bill allows exceptions to the prohibition. For example, it grants a general exception for rules that do not require notice and public comment pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act's ``good cause'' exception. By statute, this exception includes situations where taking the time for notice and comment would be ``contrary to the public interest.'' In addition, the bill provides for a specific exception when a rule is needed to respond to an imminent threat. The amendment seeks to widen the latter exception, but it goes too far. It would allow any health or safety rule, including environmental rules, that an agency self-styles as responsive to an emergency, to evade the title's reasonable disclosure requirements with ease. A mere 6 months of disclosure to the public is not unreasonable in the absence of an imminent emergency. The courts, moreover, can be relied upon to interpret the imminency requirement so as not to delay unduly the effective dates of needed, true emergency rules. And, in any event, the bill's exception for rules qualifying for the APA's ``good cause'' exception to notice and comment is adequate to provide for any remaining need. So I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Luetkemeyer), who is one of the chief sponsors of this legislation.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume just to say to the gentleman from Georgia that it is entirely reasonable that regulations proposed to protect the people, as he notes, should be known by the people before they are put into effect because they may decide it is not the way they want to be protected. All this legislation does is make sure that they have adequate notice of proposed regulations that could have an impact on their jobs, on their family, on their health, and on their safety. Government bureaucrats don't always get it right. We have learned that the hard way. I think it is very important that this amendment be defeated and that the underlying notice requirement in the bill that will benefit the general public be preserved. I oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, the American people have waited too long for relief for us to delay in the face of this procedural motion. Now is the time for action, not parliamentary gimmicks. We are 7 years into the Obama administration. Real unemployment is still a massive problem. America's labor force participation is still near record lows, yet instead of helping by getting out of the way, the Obama administration and Washington's entrenched regulatory bureaucracy day after day pile new burden after new burden on the backs of workers, American families, and small-business owners. The total cost of Federal regulations is poised to zoom past $2 trillion per year as the Obama administration furiously works to get out the door all the regulations it can in its last year in office. If that $2 trillion were a nation's economy, it would be one of the top 10 economies in the world. Mr. Speaker, the Investor's Business Daily reports that we have just concluded 8 years of zero real wage growth for America's workers and families. That means zero wage growth for the entire Obama administration. What about jobs? We would have created almost 6 million more jobs if the so-called Obama recovery had just been as strong as the average recovery since World War II. America's workers and families cannot afford for Washington to continue to sacrifice the Nation's prosperity and ability to generate jobs so the regulatory bureaucracy can expand into every nook and cranny of our lives. Nothing in this bill prevents emergency regulations or otherwise unduly delays needed regulations. Vote against this motion to recommit. Vote for this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It has been years since Federal officials declared that the Great Recession had ended and recovery had begun. It has been years since the Obama administration took office, promising to deliver prosperity and security once more to our Nation. We are now approaching American voters' next choice of leadership for the United States. The Obama administration seeks to assure us that times are better and times are safer. Workers, small-business owners, and Main Street families across our Nation know better. America is still struggling to create enough new jobs and economic growth to produce the prosperity and security Americans need and deserve. Unless Washington relents from adding unnecessarily to the nearly $2 trillion in annual costs that Federal regulation imposes on our economy, America's job creators and innovators will not be able to create the jobs and growth needed to produce a true new morning in America. Today's bill contains three measures sure to help remedy this situation. First, the bill offers strong reforms to attack a problem that lies behind many of the costliest new regulations Washington issues each year. That is the problem of sue and settle regulation. Time and again, new, high-cost regulations are issued under consent decrees and settlement agreements that force Federal agencies to issue new rules. These decrees and settlements stem from deals between regulatory agencies and pro-regulatory plaintiffs. The plaintiffs seeking regulations sue and the agencies seeking help to regulate settle, gaining the force of a judge's gavel to impose their will on the economy. Those to be regulated--our Nation's job creators--often do not know about these deals until the plaintiffs' complaints and the proposed decrees or settlements are filed in court. By then it is too late. Regulated businesses, state regulators, and other interested entities are unlikely to be able to intervene in the litigation. The court can approve the deals before regulated parties even have an opportunity to determine whether new regulatory costs will be imposed on them. Title I of today's legislation, the Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act, brings this abusive practice to an end. It assures that those to be regulated have a fair opportunity to participate in the resolution of litigation that affects them. It ensures that courts have all of the information they need before they approve proposed decrees and settlements. And it provides needed transparency on the ways agencies conduct their business. Title II of the bill rests on the same principle of transparency. Even when new regulations are not forced upon them by judicial decree, Americans deserve to know what new regulations agencies plan to send their way. They deserve to know earlier and better what those new rules will look like, how much they will cost, and when they may be imposed. Armed with this information, America's small businesses and families will be in a better position to respond to agency plans with better and more timely comments on proposed regulations, and they will be better and more timely able to bring to Congress' attention concerns about planned regulation they believe is unnecessary, too costly, or ineffective. Title II of the bill, the ALERT Act, accomplishes just that. It reforms disclosure requirements for upcoming rules by requiring more details to be disclosed and by requiring the publication of monthly, online updates of information on the rules' schedules, costs, and economic effects, including jobs impacts. Finally, title III of the bill, the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, helps to fix one of the most maddening things Main Street Americans and small-business owners across the Nation confront. Not only do Federal regulators issue too many regulations that cost too much, too often those regulations are impossible for an ordinary citizen to understand. Title III offers a welcome remedy by requiring each agency to publish an online, 100-word summary of any new proposed regulation. What a concept--state in clear, simple, and short terms for the American people just what Federal regulators propose to do. State it in terms that don't require help from a lawyer to understand. And state it online every time a new regulation is proposed. All of the legislation in this bill is sure to help Americans who are besieged and bewildered by the flood of new regulations flowing every day from Washington's regulatory bureaucracy. I thank Representatives Collins, Ratcliffe, and Luetkemeyer for introducing each piece of legislation the bill contains. I urge my colleagues to support the bill. I reserve the balance of my time.