Jeb Hensarling

Mr. HENSARLING

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

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds just to say-- with the exception of the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney)--I don't see any of the committee Democrats on the floor, even those who are supporting the ranking member's position. I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Budd), a hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hollingsworth), another hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the ranking member has lamented that she has heard from few Democrats on this matter, so let me take the liberty of quoting from Congressman Greg Meeks, a Democrat from New York, the lead Democratic cosponsor of the bill, who said, during markup: This bill would facilitate such affordable lending to those who need it the most. He goes on to say: H.R. 3299 is a community bank bill. Fintech firms have partnered with small community banks and provided these institutions with technological expertise needed to contend with larger competitors. In fact, I'm aware that there are fintech firms engaging with Black-owned banks who have benefited tremendously from new technologies. Congressman Meeks goes on to say: H.R. 3299 is also a small-business bill. According to the Urban Institute, 34 percent of my constituents in Jamaica, Queens, who have bank accounts rely on alternative financial service providers, including rent-to-own agreements and refund anticipation loans because they have unmet lending needs. Madden does little to help these underbanked individuals. Instead, it shuts the door to more affordable bank loans facilitated through partnership models. Madam Speaker, I could go on, but what we are trying to do here is assure that what just happened in the Second Circuit, where credit opportunities are cut in half, doesn't happen nationwide. The hardworking men and women of America deserve better, and so we must support H.R. 3299. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 736, I call up the bill (H.R. 3978) to amend the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 to modify requirements related to mortgage disclosures, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say the widespread opposition to the bill alluded to by the ranking member doesn't include roughly half the Democrats on the committee, including the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster), who was quoted in our markup as saying: ``As someone who can code in at least seven languages, I understand that source code is qualitatively different from other documents that a firm might have and that our regulators should have legitimate access to. They are truly the crown jewels of an electronic trading firm, and there are obvious dangers that have been exposed in transferring things really not just to the government, to any entity. The first line of defense in cybersecurity is to keep the data as closely held as reasonable and still be able to do your job.'' Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hultgren), the vice chairman on the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investment.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams), the vice chairman of our Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Poliquin), a hardworking member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Loudermilk), another proud member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Zeldin), another member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I would tell the ranking member that I have potentially two speakers, if they make it. They are on their way from a hearing, but they are not here now.

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

Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, there may be other Members coming, so, at the moment, I yield myself 4 minutes. Madam Speaker, again, all over America today, fortunately, because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, people are waking up to new opportunities. They are finally seeing their wages begin to grow. We have seen the greatest wage growth in almost a decade, Madam Speaker, again, thanks to President Trump and thanks to a Republican Congress, a bill that was opposed by every single Democrat. But as they wake up to these new opportunities, Madam Speaker, they also need new credit. As their incomes rise--this is good--they still need credit in order to buy a home, in order to purchase that car, and sometimes just to put groceries on the table. Unfortunately, over the last 8 years of the Obama administration where we saw probably one of the greatest increases in the cost, expense, and burden of costly Washington red tape, we have seen fewer credit opportunities. So now, fortunately, today there are good men and women on both sides of the aisle who are trying to work together to bring some rationale and reason to the regulatory burden. Many Members on the other side of the aisle do realize that Dodd-Frank did not come down as tablets from Mt. Sinai, that it isn't chiseled into stone, and that maybe there are some improvements that could be made. So today, we are taking a number of very bipartisan bills to the House floor. The Protecting Consumers' Access to Credit Act, which we debated earlier, Madam Speaker, passed by 42-17. The TRID Improvement Act by Mr. Hill from Arkansas passed through our committee 53-5--90 percent. Almost all of the Democrats but the ranking member supported the bill. The Protection of Source Code Act, 46-14; the Fostering Innovation Act passed by a vote of 48-12, a Democratic bill; the National Securities Exchange Regulatory Parity Act, 46-14. We have a lot of bipartisan bills, but with one exception, title V of the TRID Improvement Act, none of them were supported, unfortunately, by the ranking member. So there is, again, a lot of bipartisan work we are trying to get done here. Unfortunately, very little of it is supported by the ranking member. And why is this important? It is important, Madam Speaker, because every day we are still hearing from our constituents who need access to competitive affordable credit. And because of this Washington red tape and regulatory burden, they are not getting it. It wasn't that long ago we heard from Ann of Wisconsin, who said: My husband and I had very high credit scores. We have plenty of equity in our home. But because my husband has a seasonal job and finds other employment in the winter, many banks we contacted rejected our loan request. They based our annual income only on the job he has currently and said that was part of the new regulations. Part of the new regulations--there is somebody who won't buy a home; they can't get a home. I heard from a mortgage banker in North Carolina who said: Last year, we declined a young man and his family fixed rate financing to purchase a primary home. The applicant recently relocated to work for a family business. Prior to Dodd-Frank, it would have been easy to qualify, but no more. Another potential American home buyer denied credit because of this regulatory burden. Madam Speaker, that is what many of us, on both sides of the aisle, are trying to remedy today. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), a sponsor of title III of the Fostering Innovation Act.

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, once again, I want to hear the voices of hardworking Americans, not just Washington, D.C., letterhead groups. We heard from a community banker, who said: A local union member wanted to refinance his primary residence. He was currently laid off due to the winter season. His tax return showed he was generally laid off for about 6 weeks each year during the extreme cold but was always called back when weather improved. Since he was laid off, we could not meet the requirement to validate his current income that would continue for 3 years. We had to deny the loan. Yet again, Mr. Speaker, more Washington red tape taking away home opportunities from hardworking Americans. It is wrong. We must do something about it. It is why, on a bipartisan basis, so many of us have gotten together to pass H.R. 3978. Yes, we want to make sure that people can buy homes, they can buy cars, they can put groceries on the table, and right now, when the economy is finally starting to improve, thanks to President Trump and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we want them to have opportunities. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to support H.R. 3978, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING. I object.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of a point of order.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I claim time in opposition.

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague on the Financial Services Committee. I lost track of how many times he mentioned Wells Fargo. That has nothing to do with an early growth company. That has nothing to do with this title of the bill. So the Fostering Innovation Act by the gentlewoman from Arizona is all about allowing emerging-growth companies the opportunity to actually grow. What a novel concept. What we know is, Mr. Speaker, in 8 years of Obamanomics, they were only able to produce about 1.8 percent economic growth, for all intents and purposes. Nobody's savings account came back. Wages were stagnant. And now that we have sensible regulation, now that we have passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, now we have 3 percent economic growth, which is economic growth for America's working families. Unemployment is at a 17-year low. It remains at a 17-year low. Again, wages grew at 2.9 percent last year, the fastest in almost a decade. Two million Americans have gone back to work, Mr. Speaker, and this is not by accident. So what the gentleman is doing with his motion to recommit is sending us back. He is rolling the clock back to an era where working Americans didn't get ahead, where entrepreneurship was at a generational low, where small businesses were finding it hard to access lines of credit. So the bill that he so much maligns from the gentlewoman from Arizona, who happens to reside on his side of the aisle--at markup, the ranking member of the relevant subcommittee, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), supported the provision and said: This is a sensible compromise that provides a narrowly targeted relief to only the companies that truly need it. Researching a new drug and getting FDA approval is a very, very long process, which is exactly what we heard in our committee. For example, we have heard from John Blake, senior vice president of finance at Atyr Pharma, who testified before the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investments. He said: It remains the case that the biotech development time line is a decades-long affair. It is extremely likely that Atyr will still be in the lab, in the clinic, when our EGC clock expires, our early growth company. In other words, they may have revenues, but they don't have profits. They don't have profits. This is something that is especially common in the biotech area. They need this capital for innovation. So once again, we have heard this rhetoric on the other side of the aisle before. This is all about Dodd-Frank revisited. They aim at Wall Street, but they are hitting Main Street, Mr. Speaker. The MTR, the motion to recommit, hits Main Street in the gut. It will mean fewer early growth companies. It will mean fewer jobs. It will mean lower wage growth. And it will mean, again, a decimated and declining American Dream. Mr. Speaker, we should reject the motion to recommit, and we should support the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HENSARLING

Mr. HENSARLING. I yield the gentleman from Ohio an additional 30 seconds.

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

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, our community financial institutions play a vital role in our local communities, particularly in rural areas like the Fifth District of Texas, our east Texas counties, and yet they are being crushed, crushed by the sheer weight, volume, complexity, and expense of regulation brought about by Dodd-Frank. I hear so much from the ranking member about how much her side of the aisle cares about community banks, but their words are belied by their actions in supporting Dodd-Frank, supposedly meant for Wall Street, but it is hurting Main Street. We have a bill before us today, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4771, that will give a little bit of ability for community banks to protect themselves from the onslaught of this regulatory burden. The whole idea, again, Mr. Speaker, is to ensure that community banks can at least gather and merge amongst themselves so they are not gobbled up by the big banks that are vilified by the other side of the aisle in the first place. Again, Mr. Speaker, this is actually--you wouldn't know it from the ranking member--a bipartisan proposal, supported by almost half--half-- of the Democrats on the Financial Services Committee. And again, there is great bipartisan work on our committee. Almost three-quarters of our bills are bipartisan; it is just few of them that are supported by our ranking member. Let's do one small thing today. Let's have the House do one small thing today, Mr. Speaker, that will help them survive a day more so that they can lend money to a hardworking family to buy that first home, so that they can lend money to somebody to realize their American Dream of perhaps starting their own small business. After having to get that paycheck at the local factory for so many years, now they can finally go out and start their own small business. Maybe it is a matter of sending the first kid to college. But all of this, all of this disappears. These hopes and dreams disappear with our community banks who are still failing, unfortunately, at the rate of one approximately every other day. This is unacceptable. This is totally unacceptable. So we have one deregulatory measure here--one--to help our community banks survive. And we hear from so many of them, Mr. Speaker. Here is one from Indiana that says: Regulations have significantly reduced our ability to make judgment calls on credit decisions. When I first came to First Savings Bank, I had a number of people tell me that the First Savings Bank gave them their first loan, probably when they didn't deserve it. Today, they are business and civic leaders. And I guess we made the right call then. However, today we cannot make that call. Washington has made that call, and the answer is no. One reason, one voice of one banker telling us why we need the bill from the gentlewoman from Utah. Here is another from a banker in Texas, who said: When I started banking, the community bank business model was built around bankers helping their communities to thrive. Today, customers are confused when they have to sign so many papers to open a deposit account or borrow money. I can only think of one explanation, and that is our government thinks our customers are too stupid to come into the bank and negotiate a private transaction with their banker, the community banker that they go to church with, the community banker whose kids go to school with the customers' kids, and the community banker whose wife is in the local charity with the wives of the banker's customers' wives. Here is another one from Nevada: I have been a banker for over 30 years, and I have never been more discouraged than I am now. Good bankers are fleeing the industry. The days of making a commonsense decision for the benefit of a customer are gone. For me, retirement can't come soon enough. I have got binders and binders full of these testimonies, Mr. Speaker. As the local community banks leave, so leave the credit opportunities of so many low-and moderate-income Americans. It has got to stop. Mr. Speaker, it is time for the House to enact H.R. 4771. Let's stop the carnage, let's encourage community bank living, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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