Hank Johnson

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would expand the list of eligible grant uses for the new program under H.R. 5046 to include efforts to develop, implement, or expand a program to prevent and address opiate abuse by veterans. This amendment would add programs for veterans to prevent and address opiate abuse to the list of grants authorized under H.R. 5046. The bill creates a grant program geared toward addressing opiate abuse. As currently drafted, the bill defines eight areas of uses for which grants may be awarded. This amendment makes clear that veterans programs are among the purposes for which the grants may be used. Our veterans have sacrificed for us, and we should take appropriate steps to assist those veterans who suffer from opiate abuse and heroin abuse. I support this amendment and I encourage my colleagues to support it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, this amendment authorizes grants for programs to develop secure prescription drug containers to prevent individuals, particularly children, from gaining access to opioid medications that have been lawfully prescribed to others. This amendment addresses a serious problem--the unauthorized access to or use of lawfully prescribed prescription opioid medications by a person other than the individual for whom the drugs were prescribed. The use of prescription opioid medications is controlled for a good reason. The misuse of such medications can have serious, even fatal, consequences. Perhaps the most tragic situation is one in which a child finds and, out of innocent curiosity, takes a prescription medication that is in the home, with the drugs having been prescribed for a parent or other family member, and that person then suffers an overdose. This amendment will help prevent this problem by providing funding for programs that utilize technology to help develop secure containers for prescription drugs. The advancement of such potentially lifesaving technology deserves our full support. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman. I rise in support of her amendment. I also rise to state my unyielding support for the underlying legislation introduced by my friend, Jim Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin, literally an institution of statutory production in the halls of this Congress. I appreciate it. This DelBene amendment would enable States and local governments to use grant monies for treatment alternatives to incarceration programs, including community-based abuse diversion programs sponsored by a law enforcement agency. H.R. 5046 authorizes the attorney general to make grants to State and local governments for the development, expansion, or implementation of opioid abuse treatment programs as an alternative to incarceration. This amendment would expand eligibility for such grants to community- based substance abuse diversion programs sponsored by a law enforcement agency. The cooperation and involvement of local law enforcement agencies is an important component in any comprehensive effort to combat opioid abuse. Diversion programs can play a key role in improving outcomes and rehabilitating opioid drug offenders. Diversion programs also benefit law enforcement by conserving law enforcement resources, judicial and penal resources, while enabling police agencies and courts to focus on drug traffickers and other serious criminals. Based on those facts, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment, though I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, there is a grave threat that is facing the American electoral process in 2016, and that is the soundness and the dependability of our voting machines and the integrity of our voting process. Nationwide, authorities are tabulating crucial voting results using faulty, out-of-date electronic voting machines from the era that predated the smartphone. These outdated machines are prone to crashes and screen freezes that can cause unacceptably long wait times. Additionally, old voting machines remain vulnerable to being hacked and elections can be stolen. My bill, the Verifying Optimal Tools for Elections Act of 2016, otherwise known as the VOTE Act, would allocate millions of dollars to assist States in replacing these aging voting machine dinosaurs. The VOTE Act would also allocate millions of dollars in grants to assist in developing new technologies to assure accuracy in the voting process, to protect voting machine source codes from being hacked, and to train election officials. The aim of the VOTE Act is simple: the safeguarding of elections by ensuring the very integrity of the voting process, while protecting access to the ballot box.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his wise words. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I congratulate the writers of The New York Times' expose, a three-part series on forced arbitration. The second part of the series examined the secretive nature of forced arbitration, and the third part of that series talked about the forced arbitration in the context of binding persons to arbitrate secular claims in religious tribunals, applying religious law. I would strongly encourage those who are interested in this subject to look to The New York Times article because it gives you a good understanding of where we are as far as forced arbitration is concerned. I applaud the reporters for their groundbreaking work in writing that series and producing it. Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Michael Corkery, and Robert Gebeloff have done yeoman's work. They have exposed a threat to the justice system that shakes the tenets of our very democracy to its core. They deserve the highest commendation that I can give them, and that is just simply a shout-out from the well of the House. I understand that the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism will be announced this coming Monday. If I could nominate this series, I would certainly do so. I certainly support their nomination for that award. Next, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline), my good friend, the former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, a lawyer in his own right, a member of the Judiciary Committee upon which I also serve and, also, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials related to the subject of this Special Order, which is forced arbitration

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for her tremendous, informative presentation, which is all based constitutionally as the great lawyer that she is. Next, Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Joe Kennedy, who is an esteemed member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Cartwright. It is amazing that when you are standing across the yard with the fence in between you and your neighbor and you are telling your neighbor about that great day of fishing that you had and you are telling him about this fish that was that long, you can do as much lying about the length of that fish--sometimes you didn't even catch a fish--and it is okay to lie to your neighbor. But it is different when you go downtown and go to the courthouse because at the courthouse you are going to testify, you are testifying under oath, subject to being held accountable for perjury if you lie. But it is amazing that in a forced arbitration proceeding, there is absolutely no requirement that you be administered, or that a witness be administered an oath before they are allowed to testify. So, therefore, in an arbitration proceeding, the lever of perjury to force someone to tell the truth is not there and it hurts the pursuit of justice. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Cartwright for his testimony and his statements today. I would point out that last year, the New York Times published an exhaustive and in-depth investigative series that pulled back the curtain and catalogued the immense harms of forced arbitration. In part 1 of the series, which was entitled ``Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice,'' the Times explored the rise and dramatic spread of forced arbitration clauses, their impact on American workers, consumers, and on patients. This investigation found that corporations crippled the consumer challenges across a wide swath of harmful practices simply by banning class action litigation. Furthermore, once corporations have blocked individuals from going to court as a class, the investigation found that most people simply dropped their claims entirely. Why? Because the amount in controversy was so small that it was not cost effective to hire a lawyer to go to court to recover such a small amount. The net result is that the corporate wrongdoers have escaped being held accountable because of these forced arbitration clauses, which equates to a ban on participating in class action litigation and, in some of those clauses, they had the words in there about class actions being bought. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Linda T. Sanchez), my friend, who serves on the Ways and Means Committee. She is a former labor lawyer. She has had an interest in this issue of arbitration, forced arbitration, for a couple of sessions of Congress. She has introduced legislation that would outlaw forced arbitration agreements in nursing home contracts--you know, where we go to take our loved ones who have to be committed to a nursing home and we have no choice but to sign the contract which has the arbitration clause in it because all of the other nursing homes have the arbitration clause in them as well. Representative Sanchez has filed legislation that would get at that very unfair process.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, as this Special Order has powerfully documented, forced arbitration isn't open, isn't just, and isn't fair. Simply put, forced arbitration clauses have become an exculpatory mechanism to rig the justice system. Arbitrators don't have to be lawyers. Their decisions are practically irreversible. There is no record kept of the proceedings upon which you could appeal. There isn't even a requirement that witness testimony be given under oath. As The New York Times investigative series illustrated, arbitration can even take place in the offices of the party representing the defendant. There is also overwhelming evidence that forced arbitration creates an unaccountable system of winners and losers through what is called a repeat player advantage process that favors corporations over one-time participants, such as individual workers and consumers. An analysis of employment arbitrations found that workers' odds of winning were significantly diminished in forced arbitration. In 2012, the Center for Responsible Lending likewise reported that companies with more cases before arbitrators get consistently better results from these same arbitrators. Why? Because they are the ones who refer cases to the arbitrators. The arbitrators want to eat. They know that, if they rule against whoever is referring the cases to them, then that is going to cut short their ability to feed themselves. And so they rule in favor of the hand that is feeding them, and that is arbitrators, who are not even required to be lawyers and who have a perverse incentive to favor the repeat business over the consumers or the worker that they will never see again. I am particularly alarmed by the growing number of companies that hide forced arbitration clauses outside of the four corners of the document. For example, General Mills included a forced arbitration clause in its privacy policy that bound any consumer who downloaded the company's coupons or participated in its promotions. Under its new terms, consumers also waived the right to a trial simply by liking the company's page on Facebook or mentioning the company on Twitter. Can you imagine giving up your Seventh Amendment jury trial right on Facebook? It has become an increasingly common practice to use gotcha tactics to deceive consumers and employees by providing so-called notice of binding arbitration in brochures, email and memoranda, job application forms, signs outside of restaurants binding you--if you set foot in there and consume, binding you to forced arbitration, in-store application kiosks, employee training programs, contests and games associated with company promotions. People have to watch out. Even on the side of a cereal box you can waive your right to a jury trial. Just imagine a child finding glass in their cereal, but because the company prohibited class action litigation through forced arbitration, the child's parents would have to individually not go to court, but go to an arbitrator to have their claim adjudicated. What if it affected several thousand children? That same forced arbitration clause would prevent class litigation to ensure that our children's food is safe to eat. These are actual cases where someone potentially lost their right to hold a company accountable for unlawful conduct in a public courtroom. In all of these cases, we are not even talking about an agreement with a dotted line. I am reminded of Justice Kagan's dissent in American Express v. Italian Colors where she observed that the Federal Arbitration Act was never meant to be a mechanism easily made to block the vindication of meritorious Federal claims and insulate wrongdoers from liability. The tides are turning. Americans are beginning to fight to restore their right to a jury trial. Policymakers are using every tool available to fix our laws so that corporations can no longer escape public accountability. I thank my colleagues for their participation in this Special Order. Before I close, I want to also thank the Congressional Progressive Caucus for their tireless work to advance a progressive agenda of equality and opportunity for all. I will close with this observation. The American people would fight back if someone came into their home and said: We are going to take away your Second Amendment right to bear firearms. They would fight. But when corporations take away their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial, they remain mum, but not for much longer. People are standing up. People are tired. They are desiring change. They are angry and realize that they have been taken advantage of. They want to level the playing field, and that is exactly what the legislation that we have introduced in this Congress will accomplish. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, it has been very thought- provoking to listen to the comments and observations of my good friend, Steve King from Iowa, and my other good friend, Representative Ted Yoho from Florida. It is always good to hear the impressions of laypersons about the law. I say that not in a condescending way because I know that my good friend, Steve King, is a successful businessman, construction, and he knows all about the business, and my friend, Ted Yoho, is an esteemed doctor of veterinary medicine. So being a lawyer myself by training, it is good for me to hear the impressions and observations of laypersons. I say that in a noncondescending way. So I thank the gentleman from Iowa, Representative King, for holding it down for us for that last hour. The preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which is the introductory statement setting forth the general principles of our American government, reads: ``We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.'' I want to just put a bookmark right where it says ``establish Justice.'' It says that right after it says ``in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice.'' So justice was something that was foremost in the minds of the Framers of our Constitution who, I believe, just as Steve King said, were divinely inspired in their deliberations and their decisionmaking in terms of our Constitution. They were focused on the delivery of justice. They realized that justice was key. With that ideal, they established in Article III a court system, the judicial power and the framework for the court system. The judiciary, of course, is a coequal branch of government. The courts, since the inception of this country, have served as a check and a balance on the excesses of the other branches of government while at the same time dispensing justice to individuals who are found to have violated the law or who have been aggrieved by the misconduct of someone else and, so, they come to court seeking justice. So justice is the business of the court system, and the court system's business is to render justice. Now what is that word, justice? What does it mean? It is the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings, in a court. Justice is the judgment of persons or causes by a judicial process to administer justice in a community. That is what justice is all about, and that is what courts do. People bring to the court of justice their causes of action so that they can receive justice in the courts. The courts are set up with a set of procedures, rules, as to how you proceed in court. And then there are substantive laws upon which the court looks to the precedent that has been set and decides cases brought to it in accordance with those precedents. Sometimes it must make new precedent, it must make new law, and it is done in accordance with the constitutional principles that have been laid out by our Framers. So this legal system has worked well. This legal system of trial by jury has worked very well. In addition to maintaining order through the criminal laws, the civil laws have enabled people to achieve justice when they have been wronged, including wronged by corporations. Companies don't like being brought to the bar of justice to be held accountable for wrongdoing. We know that corporations are powerful entities. They have more money than the average person. They are more powerful. So the way to equalize the power of just an individual against a corporation that he or she has accused of wrongdoing--the equalizing factor has always been the jury system, a jury of one's peers. That is what people have relied upon to address grievances, particularly with powers that are more powerful than they. They know that a jury of their peers is a mechanism whereby the truth can be found and that justice can be rendered. So going to court and having a jury trial when a person is aggrieved is a part of the fundamental fabric of this Nation. That is how we have done business for so long. It used to be before we had TV and radio that people would go down to the town square where the courthouse was always located and they would take the afternoon and they would go into the courtroom. They would have a calendar. They would know what cases were being heard. It was a published calendar, and everybody knew that a certain lawyer would be in town to try a case. They would make their schedule such that they could go down and see that proceeding. It would be an open court. Nobody would be excluded. Everybody would know in advance what was going to happen. You could sit there and watch the adversary process take place. You would see a judge seated, such as the Speaker is seated in this Chamber. That would be the person who would decide what laws were applicable. The jury would be to his or her left or right, and the judge would instruct them on the law. After they have heard all of the evidence from the attorneys in that adversary process, the judge would instruct the jury on the law and charge the jury to find the facts in its own wisdom and apply justice. The plaintiff would either win or lose, and the people would be in the courtroom watching the proceedings. And then, whatever happened everyone would have to live with. Sometimes the plaintiff won. Sometimes the defense won. That is the way that it has always been in this country up until pretty recently. Over the last 30 years or so, we have had an erosion of that process. The rich and powerful corporations have conspired to find ways that they can avoid being held accountable for the misdoings that they would be charged with committing by a regular person. Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen. Corporations are just like people. People do wrong and, when they do wrong, you have to have some way of making them do right, of making it right. That is what the courts have always been for. These corporations have gotten so powerful that they have come up with a way of privatizing the justice system. They have come up with a dispute resolution mechanism, which is not inherently bad, but it is being forced on people. That is the dispute resolution process known as arbitration. Arbitration is a great alternative dispute resolution process when it is decided upon by the parties after a dispute has arisen. But to bind a party to have to resolve a dispute in the arbitration setting as opposed to being able to exercise your Seventh Constitutional Amendment right to a jury trial and binding yourself, to have to go through an arbitration process, this is the scheme that has been hatched by the corporate interests who don't want to be held accountable in court. So what they have done is inserted these forced arbitration clauses into agreements that they have with consumers. So any kind of consumer agreement, for the most part nowadays, has a forced arbitration clause in it which requires that, in the event a dispute arises, the parties will settle that dispute not in a court of law, but in an arbitration proceeding. Now, arbitration proceedings, unlike the courthouse, are done in private. There is no calendar that is published, and the people are not invited to come in. It is a secret proceeding. It is a proceeding where, instead of having a judge trained in the law, you have got the possibility of having a layperson deciding the case. And that layperson may not be impartial. That person may be making their living from getting referrals from the corporations to decide the arbitration cases that come before them. So it is an unfair process. It is a secret process. The rules of procedure that are followed and required in a court are not required in an arbitration process nor are the substantive laws upon which cases are decided on precedent. There is no requirement that the substantive law be used by the arbitrator in making the decision. Of course, there is no jury trial. There is no trial by a jury of one's peers. So it is a very unfair setting, and it produces results that favor the corporations. This is what we are here to talk about today, this unfair, privatized secret system of justice that deprives people of having their day in court. It is unaccountable. It is unaccountable to anyone other than to the corporate bosses that refer the cases to them. It is very unfair to the consumer, to the little guy. So having said all of that, I yield to the gentleman from the State of Pennsylvania, Matt Cartwright, my friend, a distinguished trial attorney himself and, also, a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in this Congress, the ranking member of the Health Care, Benefits, and Administrative Rules Subcommittee and, also, a member of the Committee on Natural Resources.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I thank the gentlewoman from California. Next, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas, my good friend Sheila Jackson Lee, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and the ranking member on the Crime Subcommittee. She is also a member of the Homeland Security Committee. She is a lawyer and a former judge.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, it warms my heart today to be a part of this body and to be a part of the movement of such important legislation as this, which is to protect people who are very vulnerable to abuse. Without our action, it will just simply continue. I want to once again applaud the efforts of Representative Tom Rooney and Representative Ted Deutch for bringing this legislation to us. I look forward to its passage. I would recommend to all of my colleagues that they join us and support this legislation. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am pleased to support H.R. 4676, the Preventing Crimes Against Veterans Act of 2016, as amended. This legislation provides an important tool for Federal prosecutors to combat veterans' benefits fraud, a very despicable practice. Because we honor their service and the sacrifices that they have made, it is particularly important that we go above and beyond the call of duty to protect America's veterans from fraud and to ensure the integrity of the system of benefits we provide to them. Currently, there are about 21 million veterans of the United States military, men and women who selflessly served our Nation in various theaters of war, from the Second World War, Korea, and Vietnam to more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, many of our veterans, as a result of their service, have physical and mental scars. There are well over 1 million American veterans with service- connected disabilities. The suicide rate among veterans is 300 percent above the national average, and it is estimated that about 30 percent of all Vietnam veterans and 20 percent of veterans of the recent Middle East conflicts suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in a given year. In addition, veterans are more likely than nonveterans to become homeless. They comprise 17 percent of our homeless population. On any given night, an estimated 50,000 veterans are sleeping on America's streets. In recognition of the extreme sacrifice by our veterans and the hardships many of them continue to face after completion of their military service, it is our solemn duty and our obligation to provide to the best of our ability an appropriate measure of compensation for them. For instance, we provide disability payments to those with service- connected disabilities. We provide pensions for veterans with limited incomes. We provide them with opportunities for education and training under the GI Bill. And we also provide various life insurance benefits. This is the least that we can do, and it is still not enough. Unfortunately, there continues to be issues with the medical care we provide our veterans and problems with some benefits never being processed and paid because of the loss of claims by the Veterans Benefits Administration. H.R. 4676 would make it a crime to knowingly engage in any scheme to defraud a veteran of his or her veteran's benefits or to knowingly engage in fraud in connection with obtaining veteran's benefits. Anyone convicted of such crime could and should be fined, imprisoned, or subjected to both penalties. I note that the amended version of the bill we are considering today reflects an amendment offered in the Judiciary Committee markup by Ranking Member John Conyers. The amendment, which was approved by voice vote, extends the bill's protections to fraud involving the benefits owed to the survivors and dependents due to the service of a veteran. Those who defraud veterans or their surviving spouses or dependents endanger our system of veterans' benefits not only by harming the victims, but also by diminishing the resources required to pay these claims and fund the programs that are needed to help those who have served their country. Accordingly, I support H.R. 4676. I commend the bill's sponsors, Representative Tom Rooney and Representative Ted Deutch, both of Florida, for their work on this important issue. I thank the chairman for hastening the consideration of this very important piece of legislation by the full committee. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 2947, the Financial Institution Bankruptcy Act of 2016, amends the Bankruptcy Code to establish a process for the expedited judicial resolution of large financial institutions in order to soften the disruptive effects of their collapse. As we all know, the Great Recession was triggered by the widespread issuance and limited regulation of high-risk and, possibly, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities. Fueled by adjustable rate and predatory subprime mortgages, these securities were issued without regard to careful underwriting standards, caused a housing bubble that trapped countless homeowners in unaffordable mortgages, and led to a massive wave of foreclosures that resulted in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. In the wake of this crisis, the President signed the Dodd-Frank Act into law so as to provide comprehensive measures to reduce systemic risk through heightened financial stability requirements for large financial institutions. Among many other requirements, title I of Dodd-Frank requires that certain large financial institutions have living wills to ensure a rapid and orderly resolution in the event of material distress or failure. Title II of the law provides for an administrative process to wind down these institutions so as to avoid adverse effects on the entire financial system; but there is no such process under the current bankruptcy law. I applaud Congressman Trott and the chairman of the full committee, Chairman Goodlatte, for addressing this concern by offering this legislation to revise the Bankruptcy Code in order to establish a specialized form of bankruptcy relief that would facilitate the expeditious resolution of large financial institutions and would minimize the disruptive impact of a company's collapse on the financial system. The legislation largely accomplishes this goal by establishing a resolution process that authorizes a court to provide relief by transferring a debtor's assets to a bridge company, under an expedited timeline, while minimizing the adverse effects of the bankruptcy on the financial system. While these aspects of the bill are commendable, I remain concerned, however, that this legislation lacks a funding mechanism that would allow the Federal Government to provide liquidity to the company, which is a key difference between an orderly resolution under Dodd-Frank and the resolution contemplated by H.R. 2947. In a typical bankruptcy case, the debtor's reorganization may be funded by private parties or by the Federal Government, as illustrated by the General Motors bankruptcy. In many instances, liquidity provided by the U.S. Government to prevent the collapse of a financial institution has either returned a profit to the taxpayers or is likely to be repaid. Leading bankruptcy experts have found that providing liquidity to distressed financial institutions ``is essential to successfully resolving the firm without creating undue systemic risk.'' This critical mechanism has prevented the collapses of several major financial institutions without cost to the taxpayer. Lastly, I would caution against efforts to combine H.R. 2947 with legislation that would strike title II of the Dodd-Frank Act. As the National Bankruptcy Conference has observed, laws that are currently in place, such as title II of the Dodd-Frank Act, should remain in effect because the ability of U.S. regulators to assume full control of the resolution process to elicit the cooperation from non-U.S. regulators is an essential insurance policy against systemic risk and potential conflict and dysfunction among the multinational components of these institutions. I would also note that title II of the Dodd-Frank Act will serve as a valuable backstop to the bankruptcy process should this bill become law. Notwithstanding these concerns, I thank, once again, the gentleman from Virginia, the gentleman from Michigan, and also my friend and chair of the relevant subcommittee, Tom Marino from Pennsylvania, for their leadership on this issue and for the bipartisan process in developing this legislation. I also thank the Democratic and Republican counsel of the Judiciary Committee, Susan Jensen and Anthony Grossi, for their tireless work and substantive expertise in developing this legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues pass this measure. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the so-called SMARTER Act, the Standard Merger and Acquisition Reviews Through Equal Rules Act, which really should--I mean, it is a misnomer. We should rename this bill. Instead of that, we should rename it the Sadly More Acronyms for Really Terrible and Esoteric Requirements Act. I know a lot of people around the country are wondering: Well, what is this all about? It must be important that they are doing this. I will tell you what is important about it. It is a piece of legislation that would impact the largest and most consequential of corporate mergers, of multinational corporate mergers. Those things have to go through a review process with our Federal Trade Commission. Also, the Department of Justice has an antitrust division. What this piece of legislation would do would be to gut one of the agency's--the FTC's--ability to oversee and deal with merger review issues that affect the largest and most consequential of their mergers, of these big corporate mergers. Does this piece of legislation benefit the people? Or does it benefit the 1 percent of large multinational corporations that, I guess, need help avoiding regulatory authority by our government? Well, it looks like that is what it is. It is something that is going to help out big business at a time when people in this country are very angry about the fact that the playing field is not level. The corporations and the wealthy have been doing pretty well over the last couple of generations, but people are seeing their wages stand right there where they were. They are working harder, they are more productive, but yet they can't even take a vacation. They can't even afford to take a day off to see about a sick child. This is why people are so angry. It is because they look at Congress and they see us doing this kind of work benefiting 1 percent of the largest multinational corporations when there are other things like passing a budget, dealing with the Zika crisis which is unfolding, dealing with the Flint water crisis, dealing with the opioid addiction crisis in this country. We can't even pass a budget. Here we are going to pass the so-called SMARTER Act today, and then we are going to go home for almost 3 weeks. They call it a district work period, but it is actually a period where folks are out campaigning, trying to retain their seats. People are angry about that. Congress first established the Federal Trade Commission in 1914 to safeguard consumers against anticompetitive behavior by empowering the Commission with the authority to enforce, clarify, and develop antitrust law. President Woodrow Wilson later described the creation of the Commission as specifically providing for tribunals that would ``determine what was fair and what was unfair competition; and to supply the business community not merely with lawyers in the Department of Justice who could cry, `Stop!', but with men in such tribunals as the Federal Trade Commission who could say, `Go on,' who could warn where things were going wrong and assist instead of check.'' Today, under the process of administrative litigation, also known as part 3 litigation, the Commission does just that. Under this authority, it may seek permanent injunctions in its own administrative court in addition to its ability to seek preliminary injunctions in Federal District Court. This authority is a unique mechanism that takes advantage of the Commission's longstanding expertise to develop some of the most complex issues in antitrust law. But the SMARTER Act would upend this century of precedent and expertise by creating a uniform standard for preliminary injunctions in cases involving significant mergers and other transactions and, alarmingly, eliminating the Commission's ability to administratively litigate antitrust cases. Proponents of the SMARTER Act argue that divergent standards for enjoining mergers may undermine the public's trust in the efficient and fair outcome of merger cases. They also state that the outcome of a transaction comes down to a coin flip between the agencies to determine which will review a transaction. That claim is ridiculous and it is not borne out by the evidence. The American Antitrust Institute, a consumer-oriented antitrust organization, conducted a lengthy study of workload statistics compiled by both antitrust agencies and found that the concerns of the bill's sponsors are without foundation. Jonathan Jacobson, a leading antitrust attorney who served on the Antitrust Modernization Commission, testified that in his 39 years of practice, the outcome of a merger has never turned on the differences that the SMARTER Act seeks to address in antitrust law. Indeed, of the 3 percent of transactions requiring second requests for information from the antitrust agencies, only about 1.5 percent of those cases are stopped or modified. An even smaller percentage of these cases go to trial for an administrative hearing. We should hesitate before making wholesale changes to the law based on theoretical concerns involving about 1 percent of mergers, which also happen to be some of the largest and most consequential. In the absence of any meaningful evidence suggesting a material difference in the enforcement of the antitrust laws, it is difficult to upending longstanding antitrust practices at the FTC for consistency's sake alone based on speculative harms. But even assuming that there are material differences in cases brought under these standards, we should strike a balance in favor of competition by lowering the burden of proof in cases brought by the Justice Department, not by raising the Commission's burden for obtaining preliminary injunctions. Courts already require a lower burden of proof in cases brought by the Commission and Justice Department precisely because both are expert agencies equipped with large staffs of economists who analyze numerous mergers on a regular basis and who may only bring cases that are in the public interest. To the extent that we should address perceived differences in the standard for preliminary injunctions in merger cases, legislation should favor increased competition, not the interests of merging parties. The SMARTER Act would eliminate the FTC's authority to administratively litigate mergers and other transactions under section 5(b) of the FTC Act. Leading authorities in antitrust across party lines have expressed serious reservations with eliminating the Commission's administrative litigation authority. For instance, Bill Kovacic, a former Republican chair of the Commission, has referred to this aspect of the bill as ``rubbish,'' noting that the Commission has used administrative litigation to win a string of novel antitrust cases that courts have ultimately upheld where the ``Commission has had to fight for every single foot along the way.'' Edith Ramirez, the chairwoman of the FTC, likewise wrote last Congress that eliminating the FTC's administrative litigation authority would ``fundamentally alter the nature and function of the FTC.'' Mr. Speaker, 2015 was the year of the merger, megamergers, mergermania. There was over $3.8 trillion in merger spending, a record that far exceeded expectations. While fewer than 20 percent of mergers raise competition concerns, it is clear that a vote for H.R. 2745 is a vote for concentrated, private economic power. At a time of increased consolidation in key industries, we can't afford more Republican attacks on government, which is what H.R. 2745 is, plain and simple. I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am anguished in listening to the pleas of my friend from Texas to help these megamergers, to help these big, multinational corporations. They need us so badly because the big, bad FTC is treating them too tough. It is too rough on them. Therefore, we have to make the law fairer for them. They have all of these silk stocking lawyers off of Wall Street, but we need to help them. We are not doing anything else here in Congress other than helping multinational corporations, hearing the plea that these folks need help when it is the folks in Flint, Michigan, who need help, who are crying out for help, but their voices can't be heard in this Congress because we are too busy trying to protect these big, multinational corporations. The only thing we want to do, according to my friends, is to harmonize the standard of proof between the DOJ and the FTC so that the big, bad corporations which need our help only have to deal with one standard of proof. They are not telling you what they are really wanting to do, which is to gut administrative review by the FTC, under section 5(b) of the FTC Act. That is where the real harm comes in, but they don't want to tell you about that. They don't want to let you know what kind of impact that has when a prescription drug company seeks to merge again with another large company and make a humongous company that is too big to fail and, also, too big to regulate your drug prices out there. Why are your drug prices going up? What kind of policies are we implementing here in Congress to protect them? Absolutely none. We are making it easier for prices to go up with insurance, in the travel industry, in trying to get a hotel. In trying to book a hotel room on the Internet, they have got it all rigged up because there are only a couple of companies you can go through to get the room. These are the policies that are affecting the lives of the people whom we represent. I don't represent many big, multinational corporations. I don't think I have any, as a matter of fact, in my district, but I guess there are some folks around here who have a bunch of them. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I yield the gentleman an additional 1\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from the great State of Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, before I recognize the Honorable Bill Pascrell from New Jersey, who serves on, by the way, the Budget and the Ways and Means Committees here in Congress, I would like to point out that we have got a severe problem that we are confronting this morning. It is the big, bad FTC, which is treating the big multinational corporations unfairly. It is abusing them, and something needs to be done. The American people are demanding it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) so that he can explain further how important this bill is to the American people.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. It is not often that I come to the floor to argue a bill and to debate and nobody on the other side shows up to participate in the debate. I have been feeling kind of lonely over here. I guess that people are too embarrassed on the other side to come here and defend this legislation at this particular time, as we get ready to depart for what will be just about 3 weeks, while we are leaving dangling and hanging important issues, like a budget for this country that was promised to us back at the beginning of the year. It was supposed to be regular order. It was supposed to be that we are going to do a budget. After the budget is done and we have our top lines and bottom lines in place, then we will embark upon the appropriations process and we will pass all of the 12 appropriations bills for the first time in years and we will get back to regular order around here. They can't even produce enough votes to pass a budget. So what do we do then? We revert to trying to protect and coddle and make things easy for big multinational corporations that want to get bigger. They want to get bigger so that they can get a lock on the market, they have no competition, and then they can set whatever price they want to set and the American people are left having to pay. What can you do when you need your prescription medication and there is no competition, no other similar drug, and you only have one player in the room; therefore, you have to pay whatever they are holding you over the barrel for. The American people are sick and tired and they are angry about having been held over a barrel year after year after year as this Congress continues to coddle and protect and make things good for big business. Well, what about the working people of this country? When are we going to do something about making sure that they don't have to pay these increased bills that they would have to pay for things like hotel rooms, insurance, medical care, prescription drugs, nursing homes, and food? I don't even want to talk about the price of gas that is going to go up this summer. Despite the fact that we have a glut in the oil market, you are going to be seeing your gas prices rise. Why? Because you are getting out on the road and trying to go on vacation. It is getting more and more difficult to do that because wages haven't gone up. So this Congress continues to make it easy for big corporations to increase their profits while doing nothing to raise wages for the regular working people of this country. Now we are getting ready to go on another 3-week district work period. I have a lot of work to do in the district trying to explain to the people of my district why we are not getting down to business and doing the things that they expect this Congress to do. Mr. Speaker, I would ask that my colleagues in this body oppose the SMARTER Act and do what is right for the American people. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, power companies are closing down old, air-polluting, coal-fired power plants as we move toward cleaner, more sustainable ways to generate electricity. As these small producing plants close, they leave behind a toxic substance known as coal ash. The coal ash is a public health hazard if it is not disposed of properly. Coal ash is toxic and can cause sickness and death. It is a dangerous substance that must be kept out of our drinking water. Coal ash contains known carcinogens such as arsenic, mercury, and lead. That is why coal ash is being regulated by the EPA. As power companies shut down or upgrade their facilities while closing existing coal ash ponds, where much of this toxic material has been temporarily stored, the need to permanently dispose of this hazardous byproduct is growing. We now know that some waste disposal companies have been quietly exploiting a loophole in the new EPA rules, which allow them to dump toxic coal ash into municipal solid waste landfills. So far, these waste disposal companies have dumped millions of tons of coal ash into unlined municipal solid waste landfills across America. These landfills, which are often located near neighborhoods and schools, are simply not built or constructed or equipped to safely handle this toxic material. EPA rules do not require sufficient commonsense protections for people who live nearby these landfills. Unfortunately, many of these landfills are disproportionately located in low-income and minority communities. Today I introduced the Coal Ash Landfill Safety Act to close the loopholes in the EPA rules to ensure that landfills receiving coal ash are properly equipped with the necessary safeguards that will protect the public from the health risks caused by drinking water contaminated with the coal ash components. In addition to ensuring that landfills accepting coal ash are lined properly to protect groundwater, the Coal Ash Landfill Safety Act would also protect communities by working to minimize coal ash dust in the air, which is also toxic. It will require groundwater monitoring, mandate proper cleanup requirements, and require weekly, monthly, and annual inspections, thereby keeping the public informed by posting the monitoring data, corrective action plans, and inspection reports on a publicly accessible Web site. As we saw in Flint, Michigan, we need to act at the Federal level before our failure to do so results in irreversible damage to the health and environment of the communities we represent. I don't want American families, regardless of income level, to be unfairly and unreasonably exposed to toxic chemicals because dangerous materials, such as coal ash, are being deposited into inadequately protected facilities in their neighborhoods. Together, we can find sensible solutions to all of these problems that we face, but we must deal with the regulations, the shortcomings. We must protect the American people.