Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Again, we are being told by the CFTC that this is not the case. So, again, I don't know who is right or wrong, and I appreciate your offer to work with us to get to the bottom of this. Again, this is the problem that you have when you don't go through regular order.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, as was indicated, this places a $5 million limit on expenditures. Again, I don't know if it is a drafting error or a difference of opinion, but, according to the CFTC, they claim that this amendment does things that were not explained and were not, in their opinion, made clear in the amendment. I don't know if they are calling it an error, or whatever it is, but there is a provision in there that says that this fund, once it gets above $100 million, can't go above $50 million. So what this does is it basically limits the amount, once they get an amount to go back into the fund to replenish it. Again, I am not exactly sure who is right or who is wrong here, but it is another example of, I think, something that could have been avoided if this would have come through the Agriculture Committee in regular order. The CFTC's education initiatives to help consumers protect themselves have been successful since this initiative began. The main expense is the Web site BrokerCheck. The whistleblower awards have increased recently and have been shown to be an effective method of enforcing the Commodity Exchange Act. So, again, I would ask opposition to the amendment and again make the point that, had we gone through the committee process, we could have resolved this and probably been on the same page. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, I support the amendment.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield my time to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), who was one of the original folks who brought this forward and one of the original authors, I think, of this provision. So I am going to let him carry the day on the opposition to this amendment.

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

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment addresses a problem that the CFTC is already well on its way to resolving in its proposed rule on automated trading. It requires that the Commission must vote to issue a subpoena to collect source code from high-frequency trading firms before the Commission can examine it. I support the protections for the source code as intellectual property. I know Commissioner--soon to be Chairman, I think--Giancarlo has made this a priority, but this amendment I think is poorly drafted. Again, I don't want to harp on this too much, but it is something that could have been resolved had we had a committee process to do this bill. One of the questions I have: I don't quite understand why this language is in the bill regarding similar intellectual property. The people at the CFTC, they don't know what this means, they don't know why you put that language in there, and they think it is going to cause a lot of problems. So we are trying to get at the source code. I have a problem with that. But why is this language in there? Would the gentleman be willing to explain to me why that is in there and what it means?

Mr. PETERSON. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. PETERSON. Right.

Mr. PETERSON. What is that intellectual property that the CFTC might go after? They don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. Is there some reason? The source code is what the issue is, right?

Mr. PETERSON. This isn't the government. It is the CFTC. It is a very specific part of the government.

Mr. PETERSON. Well, right. I don't know what it means. They think it is problematic, and I think it is another example of where we would have been better off with regular order. I oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, I am not exactly sure why this is needed, but I don't have any problem with the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, this amendment contains several troubling drafting--some people call them--errors or, I guess, questions. It prevents the CFTC from enforcing noncompliance with the final rule that includes more forms than were targeted. When we did our part of the Dodd-Frank bill, one of the things that I thought was really not controversial was that we were going to try to find out, once and for all, who owned all of these swaps; who was on what side of positions. This is what caused the problem in the first place with the financial meltdown. When Lehman Brothers went down and we allowed them to go broke, it created this big panic, AIG didn't know if they could cover their swaps or not, and it was going to unravel the whole situation because these firms that were trading didn't know who held what and what was going on. That was the underlying problem. So what we were trying to do is get some understanding of where everybody was in this market. When we were doing the bill, we made it very clear, and I put in the legislation, that end users were not covered. That shouldn't have been an issue. The problem with this amendment is it looks like it is going to include more than just that. So, I guess, again, this is a final example in this bill of a process moving too quickly and a lack of regular order. Finally, it contains a section on foreign privacy laws that could result in the agencies seeing a reduced scope of market in their surveillance activities that may not be the intention. But, again, without the chance to consider this provision in regular order, we are not sure, and concerns that some people have remain unaddressed. So this could have been resolved during the process. It hasn't been. In its present form, I oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON

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

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I strongly support H.R. 5 and urge my colleagues to do so as well. This bill will reform our regulatory system and reduce burdens on our farmers, ranchers, and businesses. H.R. 5 will create a more streamlined, transparent, and accountable regulatory process and give the American people a stronger voice in agency decisionmaking. Requiring agencies to choose the lowest cost rulemaking option and providing additional opportunities for judicial review will ensure that regulations are narrowly tailored, addressing the issues at hand; and this will reduce the burden on farmers, ranchers, businesses, and everyday citizens. This is a good bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. This amendment will prohibit Federal agencies from using taxpayer dollars to advocate on behalf of a rule or generate comments to overwhelm the record with one point of view. A GAO report documents how the EPA created a campaign to generate comments in support of the waters of the U.S., or the WOTUS rule. This is not how government, or the rulemaking process, should work. The comment period should be a time for agencies to hear from the public about what is good, what is bad, and what needs to be fixed with a proposed rule. In my opinion, agencies too often take laws passed by Congress and then turn them into something that is unrecognizable. That is why this amendment is needed and has the support of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Association of Wheat Growers, and the National Association of Home Builders, among others. This is a commonsense amendment that will improve the bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote in support. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. PETERSON. I have no further speakers, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say that some of us who have been chairmen of committees and passed legislation around here, sometimes what comes back you don't even recognize from what you passed legislatively. This bill and this amendment will help solve that problem, to some extent. So I encourage my colleagues to support the amendment and support the bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to recall the significance of the authority extended by Congress to the Food and Drug Administration in the 2012 Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. This legislation enhanced the FDA's ability to develop and implement accelerated approval programs to provide therapies to patients with rare, debilitating, and one-hundred percent fatal diseases. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a genetic disorder resulting in progressive muscle degeneration. This rare condition, which typically affects boys, is characterized by lung and heart complications that cause certain premature death. Despite compelling evidence of its efficacy, the FDA recently refused to consider a New Drug Application for a therapy developed to treat a commonly diagnosed form of Duchenne. As there are no alternative treatments for this particular form of Duchenne eligible for purchase or approval, Duchenne patients are left unable to mitigate the effects of the deadly disease. I urge the FDA to grant a full and fair review to New Drug Applications for Duchenne therapies in accordance with the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. The timely delivery of treatments is of the utmost importance to the Duchenne community.