Jeb Hensarling

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance and the author of the Family Self-Sufficiency provision in S. 2155.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry), the vice chairman of the committee and the Chief Deputy Whip of the majority and author of two provisions of S. 2155 to promote capital formation and hold credit bureaus fully accountable.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas), the former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and a senior member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), who is the chair of our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), the committee's majority whip and the author of the amendment dealing with the Volcker rule.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr), the chairman of our Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade and the author of two provisions on access to manufactured housing and portfolio lending in S. 2155.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer), the author of the key regulatory relief provision for small banks and credit unions in S. 2155.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Poliquin), who is the author of two provisions in S. 2155, the Senior Safe Act and supporting capital formation for small companies.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney), who is the author of two key regulatory relief provisions for our community banks and credit unions in S. 2155.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams), a fellow Texan who is an incredibly strong advocate on our committee for small business to obtain credit for their customers.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Utah (Mrs. Love), who is the author of a key regulatory relief provision to provide small banks the opportunity to grow.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I have no more speakers on this side. I believe I have the right to close.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, since Dodd-Frank was passed, the big banks have become bigger and the small banks have become fewer. Free checking at banks has been cut in half. Credit cards: 200 basis points more, 15 percent fewer. Many creditworthy borrowers are having to pay almost $600 more for their auto loans. Mr. Speaker, the American Dream is shrinking. We have 1.6 percent economic growth, stagnant paychecks, decimated savings, and a diminished American Dream. That is the legacy of Dodd-Frank. Mr. Speaker, I wish I could believe 10 percent of what I heard from the other side of the aisle. I wish it did gut Dodd-Frank. It didn't. You can't find something in here. It is hard, challenging, to find anything in this bill that helps what the ranking member calls the so- called Wall Street megabanks. Mr. Speaker, listening very carefully to this debate, it is clear that there are some voices that appear to be driven by their loathing of banks and credit unions, and there are other voices that are driven for our love and respect of our fellow citizens, hardworking taxpayers like Dirk in Colton and Sherry, who I mentioned in my opening statement, who are trying to capitalize a small business, who are trying to buy a car that is 10 years old, who are trying to buy that home. It is their American Dream, and they are being challenged due to this law. I have heard so many of my friends on the other side of the aisle say: Oh, I believe in taking away bureaucracy and red tape from community financial institutions, and I believe in bipartisanship. Well, they may believe in it, but they are not voting for it. The opportunity is right here in front of us with S. 2155, a strong, bipartisan bill that has come over from the United States Senate. So, again, they claim they believe it in theory; they just don't believe it in practice. Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, 3 percent economic growth counts. If you look at the history of our Republic, 3 percent growth is where all the job creation takes place. It is where the paycheck increases take place. It is where the poverty reductions take place. It is the birthright of the American people. Thankfully, due to the leadership of our President and this Congress, we now have a 3 percent tax policy. We need a 3 percent regulatory policy, especially for our community banks and our credit unions, who help finance the American Dream for all of our citizens. We should join in unison on this historic day to pass S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, for the help of all our citizens. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time

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

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr. Chairman. I come here to the House floor as the son, grandson, and great- grandson of farmers. I grew up working on a farm in rural Texas, and I strongly oppose Federal subsidies to agriculture in general and the sugar program in particular. Under the Federal sugar program, which dates back to the New Deal, domestic sugar prices are propped up via a Byzantine system of marketing, allotments, import quotas, price supports, and a loan guarantee program so bad it would make a Soviet commissar blush. This may be a sweet deal for sugar producers, but it is not a sweet deal for the auto mechanic in Mesquite, Texas; the store clerk in Mineola, Texas; or the teacher in Garland, Texas, that I represent in the Fifth District. Where is their government subsidy program? This is antijob. It is a food tax. It is income redistribution at its worst. And it is not commensurate with any free market principle I know. Mr. Chairman, I urge all Members to support the amendment.

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 872, I call up the joint resolution (S.J. Res. 57) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection relating to ``Indirect Auto Lending and Compliance with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which many of us know as perhaps the single, most powerful, unaccountable agency in the history of our Republic, a few years ago, issued guidance that essentially outlawed the practice of auto dealers in America being able to take wholesale finances from third parties and charge retail rates. They did this because the Bureau claimed that the practice potentially violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, known as ECOA. Mr. Speaker, there were several different problems with this approach, not the least of which is at section 1029 of Dodd-Frank, which forbids the Bureau from regulating auto dealers. It is in the law, and so many of my friends on the other side of the aisle come to this very floor to jealously, religiously, and unrelentlessly, defend the Dodd-Frank Act. I am anxious to hear their voices today, because to defend the Dodd- Frank Act, you must vote to overturn the Bureau's guidance because this was absolutely trampling upon the sacred ground of Dodd-Frank. Now, I didn't support Dodd-Frank, but it is the law of the land, Mr. Speaker. And if there is anything, shouldn't lawgivers in this Chamber be committed to the rule of law, the laws that have been passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States? So no less of an authority than Dodd-Frank says: Bureau, thou shalt not regulate auto dealers. But they attempted to do it. So that was sin number one. Sin number two: they didn't engage in rulemaking. This was guidance. Now, guidance is supposed to tell a market participant: Okay, we understand what you are trying to do, and what you are trying to do is permissible. But, instead, the Bureau flipped it on its head and said: No, you are not allowed to do X, Y, and Z, which is essentially rulemaking, Mr. Speaker. And so what the Bureau did was they violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which is there to assure that market participants receive due process; that they are allowed notice; that they are allowed to comment; that they are allowed to participate in the democratic process by which rules are promulgated. So, again, what the Bureau did was, as opposed to engaging in formal rulemaking as demanded by the Administrative Procedure Act--by the way, which was essentially defined by the Clinton administration--but they violated that. They just threw it out. The third problem here, Mr. Speaker, is the Bureau claimed under its former Director, Mr. Cordray, now gubernatorial candidate Mr. Cordray, that they were a data-driven bureau. Well, guess what? They couldn't come up with any data of this purported violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. They claimed that somehow there was unconscious discrimination on racial basis, known as disparate impact. But where was the data? Auto dealers, by law, cannot keep records on the racial characteristics of their customers. So what did the very enterprising Bureau do, Mr. Speaker? They guessed. Now, they came up with a great academic name for it: Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding system. Do you know what that means, Mr. Speaker? They guessed. They looked at somebody's last name. They looked at a ZIP Code. They scratched their heads. Oh, that person must be of Asian heritage. Oh, that person must be of European heritage. Oh, that person must be of African heritage. They made it up. They had no data; so they made it up. Now, because of all this, in the previous Congress, Mr. Speaker, this body voted overwhelmingly--overwhelmingly--to overturn the guidance. The vote was 332-96. Unfortunately, the Senate did not act then. Fortunately, today the Senate has now acted; so this body has the opportunity to overturn these many wrongs. And let me end with this wrong: consumers are being hurt. An analysis by The Wall Street Journal showed that many creditworthy borrowers, because of what the Bureau has done, will have to pay up to $586 more--$586 more--for their auto loans because of what the Bureau has done. Because of that, under the Congressional Review Act, it is time for Congress to say: We said what we mean. We are going to protect consumers. We are going to overturn the Bureau's guidance, and we are going to do it today. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Zeldin), an outstanding advocate for all the working people of New York, a member of the Financial Services Committee, and the author of the House companion bill.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), chairwoman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say that the study that my friends on the other side of the aisle allude to from the NFHA wasn't even in existence when the Bureau promulgated their guidance, number one. Number two, it is based on 2 people, 2 people out of 325 million. This is beyond junk science. It is a mockery, an absolute mockery of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act when we are here today to ensure that working Americans of all colors and races and creeds get credit. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Luetkemeyer), the chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr), the chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), a senior member of the Financial Services Committee and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), the majority whip of the House Financial Services Committee.