Ed Perlmutter

Mr. PERLMUTTER

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

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Let me finish. Which was completely ridiculous. We expanded it to a hundred pages, and acted promptly at the request of President Bush and his administration to try to get our financial system stabilized. And it is still rocky, but it's going. But we've seen certain companies take advantage of the assistance of the people of America, and we've got to prevent that. This bill is about compensation where it's excessive or not based upon performance. What I would like to do now, though, is turn it over to my friend from Virginia (Mr. Moran), and I would yield him 3 minutes.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to my good friend from North Carolina just to remind her that when Secretary Paulson came to the Congress asking for $700 billion, he brought us a three-page document. The first page said, I need $700 billion. The second page said, I can do anything with it I want. And the third page said, You can't sue me. Well, we took that in a crunch time based on his--not his demands, his pleas, his pleas to the Congress to act quickly to preserve our banking system because so many things were going wrong all at one time. We took that three pages, which was completely ridiculous----

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I would ask my friend to address the Speaker.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, point of order.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to my friend from North Carolina. I just have to remind her that it was President Bush's Secretary of the Treasury who came to the Congress, hat in hand, because of a potential collapse of the financial system, asking for immediate assistance from this Congress to right the financial system, to put it back on some sort of stable footing. Since then, we have seen a variety of financial institutions take advantage of the assistance that was given. This is designed to restrict the way companies can take advantage of taxpayer dollars until they have repaid the loans and capital that have been advanced to these companies. With that, I would like to yield 2 minutes to my friend from New York (Mr. Arcuri).

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 306 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Dr. Foxx. All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. I yield myself such time as I may consume. General Leave

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I also ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 306.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, House Resolution 306 provides for consideration of H.R. 1664 to amend the executive compensation provisions of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards. This is under a structured rule. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate controlled by the Committee on Financial Services. The rule makes in order seven amendments which are listed in the Rules Committee report accompanying the resolution. Each amendment is debatable for 10 minutes except the manager's amendment, which is debatable for 20 minutes. The rule also provides for one motion to recommit with or without instructions. Madam Speaker, the American people rightfully demand that the taxpayer dollars they put in to help stabilize the banking system be spent wisely by the banks and by the institutions that borrow under what is called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Recently, when information came to light showing AIG gave, roughly, $165 million in retention bonuses to senior executives, hardworking Americans all across the country quickly asked, How as a Nation can we recover this money? Now the House considers a similar question: How do we reasonably prevent this from happening again? The grounds for this action are simple. As the lender to AIG and to a number of other institutions, the United States has the authority to define the terms by which we are lending money. This is a standard in business practice, as lenders from time to time put limits on executive compensation, as do their shareholders. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall) recently related to me that you have to be just before you are generous, that you have to take care of your creditors before you can pass out gifts. In this case, generosity, or generous, is taken to a whole new level with the retention bonuses that we saw recently. We as Members of Congress must assert our rights to protect our constituents and the people of this country from any further losses. I want to make clear several things about this bill: First, it only applies to financial institutions that have received a capital infusion under the TARP program. An amendment by Representative Bilirakis will clarify this point, and an amendment by Representative Cardoza would exempt smaller community banks which receive TARP funds. Second, it only prohibits compensation that is unreasonable or excessive or prohibits any bonus or other supplemental payment that is not performance-based. Guidelines are established by the Treasury Department within which to determine what is unreasonable or excessive. Third, the bill only applies while the TARP capital remains outstanding. Once the institution has paid the taxpayers back, they may meet any contractual obligations allowed by their board of directors and shareholders regarding bonuses. I support the private sector, and I believe in rewarding employees for doing a good job. This bill does allow for performance compensation, but if you have received a capital investment of American tax dollars through TARP to make it through these extraordinary times, there should be commonsense limits on bonuses. My constituents in Colorado do not want their hard-earned dollars going to inflate the senior executives' life rafts as the ship steers close to the rocks. We are going through this economic downturn, but we need to make sure that middle-class America can trust the money that has been placed into the banking system to keep that system functioning properly. If an institution has an outstanding debt to the Federal Government, it has to pay it back before it gets bonuses that are excessive or unrealistic. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the rule and the underlying bill. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Thank you. And I would just respond to my friend from Missouri by saying that we, at least in this House, passed the GSE reform bills twice, once in 2007 and again in 2008, at which time the President signed it in the summer of 2008. Secondly, I would just say that the financial sector has been in a heap of trouble, and without the assistance of the people and this government, they would be in worse trouble today. That is my belief, and I think that would be the record reflected by many experts across the country. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I will use so much time as I might consume, and I'd like to remind my friend from Missouri, first of all, the first time any kind of regulation over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was proposed was in this Congress, was by the House of Representatives, as early as March of 2007 to provide some regulation to those two entities. The second thing I would remind my friend--and I appreciate his comments about, you know, the shot across the bow of the AIG executives and the fact that they are returning some of the money--but I would also remind him that in the business world, a lender in making a loan to a company may, as part of that loan agreement, put limits on compensation to the executives until that loan is repaid. That's a standard operating procedure in the business world, and shareholders do that, too. So a board of directors of a company may be restricted by an outside influence like a lender or by its own shareholders. In this instance, we are placing a lot of money into many institutions across this country, and I believe the people of this country have some say as to what the compensation should be of those institutions until those loans or that capital is repaid. Now, there may be something that might make the gentleman from Missouri a little happier, and that is, there is an amendment that will be proposed, I believe it's an amendment by Mr. Cardoza, that will exempt, in effect, institutions that have received less than, I think it's $250 million, which is still a lot of money. But small community banks, smaller financial institutions will not be part of the program, if that amendment is accepted.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Certainly.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume. I would just advise my friend, Mr. Kingston, that take a look at the bill. It's a very simple bill. My friend from North Carolina was correct, and it just basically says no financial institution, while it has money that's taxpayer money through TARP or otherwise, can pay excessive compensation or anything other than performance bonuses. An executive cannot hold the company hostage, as was done in the AIG instance. And if and when that money's paid back, then fine, the board of directors, and the shareholders will determine what appropriate salaries their management deserves, and that is all this does. Lender has a chance in this instance to put some restrictions on salaries, and if the borrower, being the financial institution, doesn't like those restrictions, feels it's in a solid position and can return the moneys, then so be it. That's the way it is. But the private sector, and particularly the financial system, was on shaky ground until this loan was made to them, and the purpose of this is to make sure that the institutions don't take advantage of the good graces of the American people. It brought kind of a chuckle when my friend Mr. Kingston talked about FEMA and the way the government ran FEMA. Well, FEMA under the Clinton administration, I would say, was run in a very good fashion. FEMA, on the other hand, under the Bush administration was at best a troubled organization. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire of my friend from North Carolina whether she has any other speakers.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERLMUTTER

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I was just listening to my good friend from North Carolina, and she and I are friends. We serve on committees together. We agree on a lot of things, but we couldn't disagree more on how we got into this place and what it is going to take to get out. We had an administration and a Republican Congress that said America, it's okay to give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country and have wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and go into debt. Well, it turned our country from a very prosperous Nation into one that was borrowing money from all across the globe, something that can't go on forever. And it finally came home to roost about 6 or 7 months ago when the banks had trouble, the automakers had trouble, everybody saw our economy just crunch like we hadn't seen it in generations. That's what we are faced with today, ladies and gentlemen. That's what we are faced with today, Madam Speaker. So what are we going to do about it? Well, in the past month we passed the stimulus bill which is designed to do at least five things to get our country back on track. First, it rebuilds our infrastructure, our roads, bridges and waterways. It builds a new energy grid so we can get power throughout our Nation in a cheaper and more efficient way. Second, it creates a new energy economy. If we want to keep sending tons and tons of money across the waters to the Middle East, then we should do nothing, keep the status quo. That's what our friends on the Republican side of the aisle would like us to do, just vote no, we like the status quo. But I don't like the status quo. I don't like sending our hard-earned dollars to the Middle East year after year after year, and we are creating a new energy economy within the stimulus bill. We are helping our States which have found themselves to have lost lots of revenue over the last 6 months, so they can continue to employ teachers and firefighters and policemen. So we are helping our States continue to provide the services that we so desperately need right now. There are tax cuts within the stimulus bill and within the budget for almost every American, but not the wealthiest 5 percent, so that each one of us gets a little bit of a break, but we are not giving it to the top people who have had the break for the last 8 years. The last thing it does is it provides assistance to people who have been laid off and need assistance with unemployment or with their COBRA health insurance so they don't just run into a wall, to get us through this difficult period. President Obama inherited a budget deficit that was $1.3 trillion. It is a lot of money. It is more than any of us can comprehend being in the red. When President Clinton left office, we had a budget surplus. We were paying off the debt, and we got just the opposite when President Bush left office. We are doing three things in particular to get us out of this predicament. First is to provide a new energy economy, similar to the stimulus, but the budget moves this forward another 4 years. Second, it deals with health care which is something that everybody has talked about for years but really little has been done. And for each company out there, for each individual, we have seen our health care costs going up. We have to come at it a whole different way, and that is what the budget proposes. The third thing is to make sure that our education system, our kindergarten through 12th grade, and then our higher education system is the best in the world so we continue to be able to compete globally, so that business comes here and stays here and doesn't go overseas like it has been doing. It is a very ambitious agenda, but it is one that is going to take us into the 21st century, something we didn't do during the last eight years of a Republican Administration. We just lived on borrowed time and borrowed money. And now it is time to move forward. The budget that has been proposed reflects those particular values. At the same time, it maintains for middle America, for 95 percent of Americans, smaller taxes. But it is a difficult predicament we are in now. This President has provided to the Congress a budget that is going to get us out of this ditch, and it is going to take the work of each and every one of us to move forward.

Mr. PERLMUTTER

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Chair, I just ask for an ``aye'' vote on amendment No. 2.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Chairman, I would begin by thanking the chairman of the committee, Mr. Rahall, for bringing this critical bill to the floor today. One of the most pressing dangers posed by wildfires is the thousands of acres of dead woods and dead trees caused by invasive species, particularly the bark beetle in my own State of Colorado and throughout the Rocky Mountain West. These insects have created literally millions of square miles of dead forest which endanger thousands of communities should they ignite into flames. This amendment simply clarifies that the FLAME fund can be used for containment activities to prevent a burning fire from reaching dangerously infested areas, which pose a higher risk of the intensification and spread of that wildfire. While not regionally specific, my amendment is especially relevant to the Rocky Mountain West. From Canada down to New Mexico, the bark beetle epidemic has been called ``the largest known insect infestation in the history of North America.'' This epidemic has the potential to cripple our communities, our forests, our tourism sector, our economy, and our way of life in Colorado. But heaven forbid a forest fire should start in an infected area; far more will be lost. The effects of the bark beetle infestation are apparent in the transformation of our mountain landscape, which has been described as turning ``a blanket of green forest into a blanket of rust red.'' To put this transformation into perspective, in my own State of Colorado and in Wyoming in 2006, there were 1 million acres of dead trees. In 2008, it is expected to total over 2 million. These acres of dead trees trigger and perpetuate catastrophic fire risk and scope. The FLAME Act will play an instrumental role in helping to suppress these catastrophic wildfires. My amendment will explain further and make clear the Secretary of the Interior's and the Secretary of Agriculture's authority to provide suppression activities in response to crisis insect infestations. I ask for the Members to support this important amendment. With that, I yield to the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

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

Mr. PERLMUTTER

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, I listened to my friends on the other side of the aisle. The problem is they forget, and they're kind of revising history. It's the Republican President and a Republican Congress that drove this country into the ditch financially and economically, and what we've got to do is change the course of this Nation. That's what the President is undertaking to do, by providing small business with tax credits, with assistance as to funding of their particular projects, because that's where the real engine of our economy is--in small businesses. So, last week, the President announced various initiatives to assist small business to make credit available to them for their various projects, to purchase their loans so that they could go forward, so small banks could make loans to small businesses. This President is making available to 95 percent of us tax credits. So for 95 percent of the American public, they will see their taxes go down. So my friends on the other side of the aisle forget the history that brought us here. The Republican administration, by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest while prosecuting a war, put us in a very difficult position, but we will get it out by changing the direction of this Nation.

Mr. PERLMUTTER

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I submit the following for the Record. [From Parade, Feb. 15, 2009] I Must Save My Child (By Melissa Fay Greene) WHEN SUSAN AXELROD tells the story of her daughter, she begins like most parents of children with epilepsy: The baby was adorable, healthy, perfect. Lauren arrived in June 1981, a treasured first-born. Susan Landau had married David Axelrod in 1979, and they lived in Chicago, where Susan pursued an MBA at the University of Chicago and David worked as a political reporter for the Chicago Tribune. (He later would become chief strategist for Barack Obama's Presidential campaign and now is a senior White House adviser.) They were busy and happy. Susan attended classes while her mother babysat. Then, when Lauren was 7 months old, their lives changed overnight. ``She had a cold,'' Susan tells me as we huddle in the warmth of a coffee shop in Washington, D.C., on a day of sleet and rain. Susan is 55, fine-boned, lovely, and fit. She has light-blue eyes, a runner's tan, and a casual fall of silver and ash-blond hair. When her voice trembles or tears threaten, she lifts her chin and pushes on. ``The baby was so congested, it was impossible for her to sleep. Our pediatrician said to give her one-quarter of an adult dose of a cold medication, and it knocked her out immediately. I didn't hear from Lauren the rest of the night. In the morning, I found her gray and limp in her crib. I thought she was dead. ``In shock, I picked her up, and she went into a seizure-- arms extended, eyes rolling back in her head. I realized she'd most likely been having seizures all night long. I phoned my mother and cried, `This is normal, right? Babies do this?' She said, `No, they don't' '' The Axelrods raced Lauren to the hospital. They stayed for a month, entering a parallel universe of sleeplessness and despair under fluorescent lights. No medicine relieved the baby. She interacted with her parents one moment, bright-eyed and friendly, only to be grabbed away from them the next, shaken by inner storms, starting and stiffening, hands clenched and eyes rolling. Unable to stop Lauren's seizures, doctors sent the family home. The Axelrods didn't know anything about epilepsy. They didn't know that seizures were the body's manifestation of abnormal electrical activity in the brain or that the excessive neuronal activity could cause brain damage. They didn't know that two-thirds of those diagnosed with epilepsy had seizures defined as ``idiopathic,'' of unexplained origin, as would be the case with Lauren. They didn't know that a person could, on rare occasions, die from a seizure. They didn't know that, for about half of sufferers, no drugs could halt the seizures or that, if they did, the side effects were often brutal. This mysterious disorder attacked 50 million people worldwide yet attracted little public attention or research funding. No one spoke to the Axelrods of the remotest chance of a cure. AT HOME, LIFE SHAKILY returned to a new normal, interrupted by Lauren's convulsions and hospitalizations. Exhausted, Susan fought on toward her MBA; David became a political consultant. Money was tight and medical bills stacked up, but the Axelrods had hope. Wouldn't the doctors find the right drugs or procedures? ``We thought maybe it was a passing thing,'' David says. ``We didn't realize that this would define her whole life, that she would have thousands of these afterward, that they would eat away at her brain.'' ``I had a class one night, I was late, there was an important test,'' Susan recalls. ``I'd been sitting by Lauren at the hospital. When she fell asleep, I left to run to class. I got as far as the double doors into the parking lot when it hit me: `What are you doing?' '' She returned to her baby's bedside. From then on, though she would continue to build her family (the Axelrods also have two sons) and support her husband's career, Susan's chief role in life would be to keep Lauren alive and functioning. THE LITTLE GIRL WAS AT RISK OF falling, of drowning in the bathtub, of dying of a seizure. Despite dozens of drug trials, special diets, and experimental therapies, Lauren suffered as many as 25 seizures a day. In between them, she would cry, ``Mommy, make it stop!'' While some of Lauren's cognitive skills were nearly on target, she lagged in abstract thinking and interpersonal skills. Her childhood was nearly friendless. The drugs Lauren took made her by turns hyperactive, listless, irritable, dazed, even physically aggressive. ``We hardly knew who she was,'' Susan says. When she acted out in public, the family felt the judgment of onlookers. ``Sometimes,'' Susan says, ``I wished I could put a sign on her back that said: `Epilepsy. Heavily Medicated' '' At 17, Lauren underwent what her mother describes as ``a horrific surgical procedure.'' Holes were drilled in her skull, electrodes implanted, and seizures provoked in an attempt to isolate their location in the brain. It was a failure. ``We brought home a 17-year-old girl who had been shaved and scalped, drilled, put on steroids, and given two black eyes,'' Susan says quietly. ``We put her through hell without result. I wept for 24 hours.'' The failure of surgery proved another turning point for Susan. ``Finally, I thought, `Well, I can cry forever, or I can try to make a change.' '' Susan began to meet other parents living through similar hells. They agreed that no federal agency or private foundation was acting with the sense of urgency they felt, leaving 3 million American families to suffer in near- silence. In 1998, Susan and a few other mothers founded a nonprofit organization to increase public awareness of the realities of epilepsy and to raise money for research. They named it after the one thing no one offered them: CURE-- Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy. ``Epilepsy is not benign and far too often is not treatable,'' Susan says. ``We wanted the public to be aware of the death and destruction. We wanted the brightest minds to engage with the search for a cure.'' Then-First Lady Hillary Clinton signed on to help; so did other politicians and celebrities. Later, veterans back from Iraq with seizures caused by traumatic brain injuries demanded answers, too. In its first decade, CURE raised $9 million, funded about 75 research projects, and inspired a change in the scientific dialogue about epilepsy. ``CURE evolved from a small group of concerned parents into a major force in our research and clinical communities,'' says Dr. Frances E. Jensen, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. ``It becomes more and more evident that it won't be just the doctors, researchers, and scientists pushing the field forward. There's an active role for parents and patients. They tell us when the drugs aren't working.'' The future holds promise for unlocking the mysteries of what some experts now call Epilepsy Spectrum Disorder. ``Basic neuroscience, electrophysiological studies, gene studies, and new brain-imaging technologies are generating a huge body of knowledge,'' Dr. Jensen says. Lauren Axelrod, now 27, is cute and petite, with short black hair and her mother's pale eyes. She speaks slowly, with evident impairment but a strong Chicago accent. ``Things would be better for me if I wouldn't have seizures,'' she says. ``They make me have problems with reading and math. They make me hard with everything.'' By 2000, the savagery and relentlessness of Lauren's seizures seemed unstoppable. ``I thought we were about to lose her,'' Susan says. ``Her doctor said, `I don't know what else we can do.' '' Then, through CURE, Susan learned of a new anti-convulsant drug called Keppra and obtained a sample. ``The first day we started her on the medication,'' Susan says, ``her seizures subsided. It's been almost nine years, and she hasn't had a seizure since. It won't work for everyone, but it has been a magic bullet for Lauren. She is blooming.'' Susan and David see their daughter regaining some lost ground: social intuition, emotional responses, humor. ``It's like little areas of her brain are waking up,'' Susan says. ``She never has a harsh word for anyone, though she did think the Presidential campaign went on a little too long. The Thanksgiving before last, she asked David, `When is this running-for-President thing going to be finished?' '' CURE is run by parents. Susan has worked for more than a decade without pay, pushing back at the monster robbing Lauren of a normal life. ``Nothing can match the anguish of the mom of a chronically ill child,'' David says, ``but Susan turned that anguish into action. She's devoted her life to saving other kids and families from the pain Lauren and our family have known. What she's done is amazing.'' ``Complete seizure freedom without side effects is what we want,'' Susan says. ``It's too late for us, so we've committed ourselves to the hope that we can protect future generations from having their lives defined and devastated by this disorder.''

Mr. PERLMUTTER

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor today to rise to recognize two extraordinary people, Susan Axelrod and her daughter Lauren, for their work on issues concerning epilepsy. One of the very first meetings I had in the Congress was with Susan Axelrod, who came to visit me because she knew that I have a daughter with epilepsy. As parents of kids with chronic illnesses, and many people have family members who have chronic illnesses, it is a life-consuming endeavor to try to find a cure. Susan founded the nonprofit organization called CURE, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, to educate the public, encourage research and raise funds for epilepsy. Susan's research through CURE revealed a new drug treatment which has stopped Lauren's seizures for the last 9 years. In the decade since its inception, CURE has raised millions of dollars and has made great strides in the scientific community to develop research projects which one day may find a cure for other people with epilepsy like my daughter Alexis. Susan also assisted me with a bill to help returning service men and women who have suffered brain injuries and now are having seizures. I applaud her commitment to increasing funding for epilepsy research, and I honor her today. I will submit for the Congressional Record an article about Susan and Lauren's commitment to curing epilepsy published in Parade Magazine dated February 15, 2009, entitled ``I Must Save My Child.''

Mr. PERLMUTTER

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Well, Mr. Courtney, one of the things that you've made the point so well, and Mr. Dreier, when he and I were arguing about the stimulus bill 2 weeks ago, is the immediacy of this, the urgency of this. The time to act is now, not 10 weeks from now, not 20 weeks from now. I mean, your friend's life was on the line. Mr. Dreier's friend, it was a tragedy because of job layoffs and a number of other things. So Mr. Dreier, explaining it as somebody on the other side of the aisle, but still wanted to vote no. And what I've seen--and not to really pick on the other side because it's time for us to move forward in a positive way--their position is, just say no, we like the status quo. This country can't afford the status quo any longer. We need to move quickly, we need to move with purpose, and we need to move now. Because whether it's to maintain or create new jobs, provide COBRA where jobs have been lost, maintain State government--backfilling them so we keep the teachers and the firefighters and the policemen and the maintenance workers employed in this difficult time--or to assist people who have suffered, we've got to move now. And this Congress and this President are moving now. Now, my friends on the other side don't like it, but their old ways-- and I'm pointing to the record deterioration of the budget--have just driven us right into the ditch. I said that before. We have to turn this around. And so we will, under the President's approach and the congressional approach, reduce what was a record deficit that we've inherited by almost half or more, doing so in a way that creates new jobs, creates a new energy economy, creates a health care system that works, and at the same time assisting people who have fallen on hard times. So I just appreciate working with all of you to get going on these problems and to turn this around. I will now yield back to my friend from Kentucky, or to my friend from Connecticut.