Paul Kanjorski

Mr. KANJORSKI

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman from Louisiana has a good idea. Over the weekend I saw where the Governors unanimously agreed with the proposition we should bail out Mexico. I think since they think that is so great, my suggestion is let us not have the Congress take up that resolution, let us ask the 50 States to bail out Mexico.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KANJORSKI. I do not want to suggest it is only, but we do have a solid block that is clearly a majority. They are going to prevail. Let me suggest maybe we can save a lot of frustration and time, and that is why do we not take the next 2 weeks on the entire Contract With America, bring it here on the floor. Why should we offer any amendments if they are not going to be considered as substantive and changing the legislation to perhaps meet the needs of the American people, but recognize the power of the majority, and it is all here and we have that majority, why do not we just run through the entire contract for America in 2 weeks, get that behind us, and then get to the substantive action? I would like to suggest to my friends in the majority that they set aside, maybe beginning next week, a 10-day period, bring every piece of legislation that they have to the floor, let us put it up to a vote. And I would recommend to my friends on the Democratic side who may think they can make a substantial contribution that they can offer their substantial contribution as a matter of extension in the Record so the Record is quite clear where Members stand on these issues, but we move by this incredible piece of legislation that we are about to enact anyway, but probably are boring the devil out of people who may persevere and may be seeing this. But I think we are making a record that a deliberative body does not have to be deliberative once an election is held. If, in fact, we can come to the conclusion that the contract for America should be put into legislation, and passed as statute in its entirety, let us do it, let us save time. Maybe we can do it to all of the appropriations bills and maybe we can get out of here and adjourn by March 1 and let the Government operate. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Surely; I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Seventy-eight.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, in order to expedite the work of the House, I ask unanimous consent that it be considered en bloc with an identical amendment to section 301 of the bill which creates an identical section 422 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment No. 78, which has been printed in the Record pursuant to clause 6, rule XXIII.

Mr. KANJORSKI. I ask that this be considered as an identical amendment to the other action. In other words, I am trying to facilitate a single amendment to apply to all sections of the bill where appropriate.

Mr. KANJORSKI

Mr. KANJORSKI. Senator D'Amato has done outstanding work.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, I offer my amendment No. 84, which has been printed in the Record pursuant to clause 6 of rule XXIII, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, we are mostly concerned with the capacity of an army of lawyers from one of the wealthiest special interest communities, the financial community of the United States, to resist the issuance of regulations. The President's existing Executive order does not really raise the question of granting the right of judicial review, because an Executive order can be changed with the strike of the pen of the President. Therefore, if we see a resistance from the industry itself to the regulations that would be propounded, the President merely has to, that day, issue a new order. Our problem in this legislation is that with it we would have to pass a new act to vitiate the right of judicial review that could tie up emergency regulations that would have to be issued to cover the entire safety and soundness of American institutions.

Mr. KANJORSKI. No, there is, and the gentleman does not understand it because we have not denied judicial review in this bill, and in fact there is judicial review in this bill. For any regulation that is issued, we are granting any bank or institution, whether State or federally chartered, the right to raise the question of whether or not there has been sufficient compliance with the standards for economic analysis that we have required in this bill.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KANJORSKI. In one moment I will. One hearing we held in San Francisco in the late 1980's, the State regulators of California's S&L's with great disdain took the witness stand and testified that in his first year in office it was his mandate for economic development purposes to issue new charters to S&L's, and with pride he said he issued more than 200 charters that very year. Most of those S&L's in California that he charted subsequently failed at great cost to Federal taxpayers. He also said, as the State regulator, that he only had eight investigators who could ever regulate those institutions that were under State regulation in California, many hundreds besides the 200 new charters that he had issued. California, Texas, and Florida together accounted for more than two-thirds of the S&L's that failed in this country, and it was because of the failure of the State regulators to properly regulate State chartered institutions and to properly protect the federally insured Federal deposits that tens of billions of Federal insurance was ultimately paid out by the American taxpayer.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Not to get off the subject, Mr. Chairman, but this is a perfect example of an argument that should be brought up later when we take up the term limitation question. Mr. Chairman, we have sitting on the floor today probably 170 Members of this Congress who were not here in the 1980's, and who never saw the abuse of the financial industry of this country when they were able to wield extraordinary power and avoid proper regulation on the State level. and Urban Affairs when the regulators, under the administrations of President Reagan and President Bush, would come before the committee and tell us that the total exposure of regulatory problems in the S&L industry was less than $10 billion, and this was in 1988, the beginning of 1988. Then in the summer of 1988 they modified their estimate and said that the cost may be as high as $12 billion, and we come to the rescue with $12 billion. In November of 1988, the individuals we are talking about in the regulatory agencies came up here and said no, and now this is before November, before the election of the new President, they said it may go as high as $15 billion. Immediately after the election and the inauguration of the new President in January of 1989, with great fortitude, President Bush had the guts to face the reality of the disaster in this country. When his regulators came up here they told us the truth. The cost of the bailout could be $100 billion, $150 billion $200 billion, $250 billion, and it ultimately became more than $300 billion, when interest is included.

Mr. KANJORSKI. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. KANJORSKI. Reclaiming my time, we are not talking on emergency basis here. We are talking about----

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, in order to facilitate the work of the House, I also ask unanimous consent that this amendment be considered en bloc with an identical amendment to section 301 of the bill which creates an identical section 422 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. KANJORSKI. The existing judicial review goes only to capriciousness and unreasonableness. It does not go to the standard of whether or not they complied with the requirements of cost analysis. We are adding here in this bill an entirely new arm and an entirely new set of information that can be attacked. Now, the gentleman's problem--let me say what his problem is. You have got institutions worth hundreds of billions of dollars with law firms and inside counsel that have nothing else to do but to test regulatory authority and properness in the issue of regulations, and we have seen--I mean it's not like we're saying, ``Could this happen?'' We're not saying, you know, ``Is it an outside possibility?'' In the 1970's, in the 1980's, we saw it happen to the extent we almost saw a total collapse in the financial institutions of this country.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Chairman, at this time I will include for the Record the letters of the regulators in their entirety. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Washington, DC, January 19, 1995. Hon. Paul E. Kanjorski, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Kanjorski: Thank you for your letter requesting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's comments on an amendment to H.R. 5, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. H.R. 5 imposes additional requirements such as a cost benefit analysis on the rulemaking process for federal agencies. we understand that you plan to offer an amendment to H.R. 5 to provide for an exemption for regulations that pertain to investor protection, the safe and sound operation of financial markets, federally insured depository institutions or their deposit insurance funds. We strongly support this amendment. The federal financial institution regulators recognize that regulations can be burdensome and costly. For this reason, the FDIC is seeking to be sensitive to the impact of regulations and to minimize the burden and costs they impose on the industry and consumers. I have asked the FDIC staff to review outstanding regulations to determine whether there are areas where regulatory burden can be reduced. Nevertheless, the federal financial regulators are responsible for ensuring the safety and soundness of the nation's financial system. The FDIC, as the insurer of banks and thrifts, has a particular responsibility for assuring that the taxpayers do not have to cover the costs for future financial institution failures as they did in the savings and loan crisis. Although regulations may impost costs on financial institutions, recent history teaches us that the costs to the taxpayers of failures in the financial regulatory independence and ability to respond quickly to problems in the financial system are two reasons why the taxpayers have never had to pay a penny for bank failures, even with the record number of bank failures in recent years. Exempting regulations that address the safety and soundness of financial institutions and their insurance funds is an appropriate, limited amendment to balance the needs of the financial regulators, the financial industry and the taxpayers. On a related issue, it is our understanding that H.R. 5 as currently drafted will exempt any effort by the FDIC to reduce insurance assessment rates later this year when the Bank Insurance Fund is recapitalized at the level mandated by Congress. This reduction in insurance assessment rates will significantly reduce costs to the banking industry. I hope these comments will prove helpful. If you or your staff have any further questions, please call me. Sincerely, Ricki Tigert Helfer, Chairman.

Mr. KANJORSKI. If the gentleman would yield, I have had the pleasure of dealing with Senator D'Amato for years, 10 years I have been in Congress, in conference reports on banking, and I have just cosponsored with him the new expanded secondary market and small business in the last Congress, and I think----

Mr. KANJORSKI

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you very much, I say to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Emerson]. I guess the pages should know that there is a long traditional history in this House that pages do come back to serve, and they come back as the guardians of the memory of what this House is about. The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Emerson], the new chairman of the Page Board, and I had the pleasure of meeting on this House floor on the great day of January 20, 1953, as the American people were witnessing the inauguration of Dwight Eisenhower as President of the United States. He and I have had the pleasure through our lifetime to have served and known personally every President of the United States since Dwight Eisenhower, every Speaker of the House of Representatives since Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, every majority and minority leader of the House of Representatives since Charlie Halleck of Indiana, and I believe at that time John McCormack of Massachusetts, or Mr. Rayburn, at that time, was minority leader when we served as pages. The opportunity you have been given by this Congress and your individual sponsoring Members is something special, and as I think of it, it is one of the few assignments or appointments we can make as Congressmen that will, indeed, affect our future. As my friend from Arizona has pointed out, there is not any question in my mind that one of you will rise at least to the service of this House, if not to the Senate or to the Presidency of the United States. What you have learned here and what you have observed here is most important because you will carry it as probably the most important and significant experience of your lifetime. As you go on from this place, you will return to your schools, and it is important that you exercise the greatest capacities you have to gain all the knowledge and information you can gain there, then go on to college and graduate school, as you may, so that you too may have the opportunity to come back and serve the American people. As my friend from Arizona indicated, you have had the opportunity to be the fly on the wall to see democracy in action in its very form. You have also had the opportunity, as the gentleman from Missouri, Bill Emerson, and I did as 15-year-olds, to see the orderly transition of democratic power. That experience may not happen for another generation to come. So, for all time in the future, you will be able to say you were there in the 104th, this Congress, when 40 years of domination by the Democratic Party turned the gavel over to a new Speaker and a new majority and that it operated without the threat or the sound of one gunshot. It is a tradition that has continued for more than 200 years, the longest uninterrupted parliamentary democracy, the House of the people, in the history of the world. I join with my friend from Missouri [Mr. Emerson] and all my fellow pages, some of them came after us--they are the young guys--in wishing you well and congratulating you on your great public service, recommend that you carry on in that tradition and you have the opportunity to see that democracy and representative government continue in this democracy forever in the future.