Randy Neugebauer

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I just want to remind him that the GSA only took over the management of the project, not the budget, so GSA doesn't have control over this entity's budget. I think the thing that is troubling to me is my colleagues are talking about a drastic cut. You have got an entity that can draw $6.7 billion over a 10-year period, and $7 million is a drastic cut. Basically, the CBO says that this bill now is revenue neutral, and these numbers that are coming of $45 million, those are CFPB's numbers, but these are the nonpartisan CBO numbers. I think one of the things we have to do is we have to deal in the facts and reality here, and this is a very small amount of money. At this time, Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Dold).

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I am delighted to hear that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are concerned about $9 million. I wish they had been as concerned when we had hearings and we found out that the CFPB is going to spend $216 million on the luxury renovations of a building that they do not own and when we found out that the taxpayers are also going to get to fund a two-story waterfall that falls into sunken gardens and that has a four-story glass staircase. How about the spending of $14 million on marketing and advertising? How about the $61.3 million they spent on management consulting fees? It should be an affront to small businesses around the country that an organization that can't control its spending is being asked not to spend an additional $9 million so that small businesses can have a voice at the table. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Pittenger).

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

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, the underlying language in this bill was a bipartisan agreement that was worked out in the last Congress. When we were marking up this bill previously, it was brought up that minority representation would be important to this bill, and so the chairman of the committee, Mr. Hensarling, actually stopped the deliberation there and worked in a bipartisan way across the aisle with Ms. Waters to make sure that we put language in the bill that would encourage the Director to make sure that women and minorities' business concerns on the small business advisory board were taken into consideration. We have addressed that, and we kept that language that was agreed to and, by the way, was passed by a voice vote. Mr. Pittenger accepted that amendment, and the bill reported out of the committee 53-5. So, basically, we have kept our word and kept in the spirit of the agreement that was negotiated in the previous Congress, and that language is in this underlying bill. I would encourage folks not to vote for this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining on both sides.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, we have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I have read H.R. 1195. Let me tell you what it doesn't do first. It doesn't shut down the CFPB. It doesn't keep the Bureau from carrying out its mission of consumer protection--so all of those things that the other side has been saying that the CFPB has been doing in a positive way, they can continue to do that--nor will the employees of CFPB have to take a pay cut, nor will the construction project and the other consulting fees that they keep passing out be impacted in any way. So the charge on the other side that somehow Republicans are trying to kill CFPB, I think you need to go back and read the bill. The bill doesn't say anything about killing the CFPB. What does H.R. 1195 do? It provides a voice for small businesses in this country, the number one job creators in America, the people that are day in and day out on the front line in our communities. It allows them to have a voice with an agency that has a huge impact on the future of this country. It also codifies and makes sure that community banks and credit unions have a voice at the table in the future. One of the bill's sponsors said he was sad. I am sad. I am sad that people today are on this floor arguing that paying for a program that will provide a voice for our small businesses is a point of contention, that somehow we are not acting in a bipartisan way. This is a bipartisan bill. It passed by voice vote in the last Congress. It passed overwhelmingly, I think 55-5, in the Committee on Financial Services just a week ago. I think we have to focus on what this bill does. This bill does make sure that small businesses have a voice moving forward. If we have a government that doesn't listen to the people, then we do not have good government. So this bill is about good government. It is about saying to the American people: Hey, the bureaucrats may not have all the answers, so it is good to bring the people that have been out there that are running businesses that have some expertise in those areas that this agency is trying to regulate and set precedence for, it is good for government to listen to the people. So, Mr. Chairman, I encourage my colleagues to pass and vote for H.R. 1195. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment, although I am not opposed to it.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Guinta).

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that we support this. It is a thoughtful amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. This bill isn't about profits; it is about providing an opportunity for American families to have housing choices. H.R. 650 is an important bill for communities in my district, the Texas 19th District, and communities across America. For most of my career, I was in a home building business. For many small communities in my district, the town would make efforts to go out and work to recruit a new employer. Oftentimes, this could be a manufacturer, cotton, or dairy production facility. This goal was to help develop the economy and provide job opportunities for the folks. However, in many of these communities, there is already a limited amount of housing stock available. In order for these communities to grow, you have to have sufficient housing availability to attract those businesses. You can't grow your community if folks don't have a place to live, and so the manufactured housing industry has been an integral part of providing housing for rural America. Unfortunately, under the new mortgage rules coming out of CFPB, the manufactured housing industry is facing some pretty significant headwinds and regulatory obstacles. Last summer, I had the opportunity to go and visit a manufactured housing dealer in my district. The dealer began by telling me stories of family after family that were unable to serve because of the new mortgage restrictions. For some of these young families, this is the first home that they may own. It may be a manufactured home worth only $15,000 or $20,000, and they are very proud of it. Unfortunately, today, many of the families in rural America have run out of places to turn to achieve the American Dream and own an affordable home. Today, I want to address the issue of consumer protection. When consumer protection starts limiting consumer choices, then we have gone too far. Unfortunately, I think many of the CFPB rules have gone too far. They are not only negatively impacting the consumers, but we also have a duty to make sure that the people we represent have the opportunities to make their own financial decisions about their housing and not the Federal Government and not one agency to make that decision for them. This bill, H.R. 650, makes important corrections to the definition of a mortgage originator under the Truth in Lending Act. It is a bipartisan bill that ensures low- and moderate-income families have access to credit for the purchase of affordable homes. It ensures that the CFPB rules are properly calibrated and don't consider small-balance manufactured home loans as high-cost loans under the Housing Ownership and Equity Protection Act. For those reasons, I thank Mr. Fincher and the bipartisan sponsors for their work on this bill, and I support its final passage. I just want to mention that, when you look at a lot of these small communities--and it has been mentioned, Well, sometimes, people can rent, or they can own; and, in some cases, people say, you know--and rightfully so--that, sometimes, manufactured housing is a lower cost of housing for some of those people. Let me say this: in some of these communities, it is not about whether you have a choice to rent or to own; in some cases, there is just not adequate housing stock in those communities. If you want to choke a little small community across America, you take away the ability to provide housing. That is one of the main infrastructures for any community to grow. In many of these communities, there hasn't been a new house built in those communities in 30 or 40 years. What you are saying to those small communities, because we are so intent in protecting Americans and we don't trust them to make their own decisions, we are just going to take away any opportunity that those small communities have to prosper and grow in the future. Now, I don't think that is what the Founding Fathers of this country intended. They intended for this to be the land of opportunity. If we continue to do these kinds of things, we take away the opportunities of Americans that want to live in those communities. Mr. Speaker, I encourage passage of this.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 299) to amend the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to authorize privately insured credit unions to become members of a Federal home loan bank, and for other purposes.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to add extraneous material on this bill.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stivers), the sponsor of this bill.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to add extraneous material on this bill.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Luetkemeyer), the original author of this bill and one who has done a lot of work in this area.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to close by saying I appreciate Mr. Barr's and Mr. Hinojosa's work on this very important issue. One of the reasons we are here and bringing these bills today is because we have had a tremendous reduction in the number of community- based financial institutions that serve rural America. In the last 4 or 5 years, we have lost over a thousand community banks and we have lost over a thousand credit unions. That is a real problem for our smaller communities. One of the things that this bill helps to do is that in many communities there is one bank, there is one financial institution, and without the ability to have flexibility to make these kinds of mortgages, in many cases there would not be mortgages available in those communities. This is a commonsense bill. It passed 56-2 out of our committee. I would urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1265) to apply the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and add extraneous materials on this bill.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), the primary author of this bill, who has worked tirelessly to make sure that these advisory committees have transparency.