Steve Stivers

Mr. STIVERS

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. STIVERS

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a fellow Ohioan who had distinguished service in this body for 25 years and made a huge difference for everyday Americans for 25 years. Today would be his birthday, Congressman Mike Oxley, Chairman Mike Oxley, who made a huge difference. I did not have the honor of serving with Congressman Oxley, but what I did have was a chance to meet him and have him be an adviser and a mentor. When I got here and got on the Committee on Financial Services, a committee that he was formerly the chairman of, he took me under his wing. He introduced me to hundreds of people. He helped me find my way here. He helped make sure I got on the path to being a good legislator. He did that, not really knowing me before that. He became a great friend, a great mentor, and a great adviser. I am really thankful that he was willing to share his time and energy and talents with a guy like me. I want to thank his wife, Pat, his son Chadd, and all the whole Oxley family for letting him share his life, even after he left Congress, with folks who were coming in brand new, trying to make a difference. He will be remembered as somebody who made a difference for all Americans who wanted to figure out how to make sure they could invest their life savings and not be taken advantage of. Obviously, the famous bill that bears his name was part of a bipartisan response to the Enron crisis. He deserves the credit for saving our financial system and making sure it was safe and sound in the future for all Americans. He would always take on tough issues. He would always work with people across the aisle. That is who he was and what he did. He served the people of his district proudly, and he worked to bring people together. He was loyal, optimistic, and pragmatic. Even though he was a strong Republican, he would work with Republicans and Democrats to get things done. I think there is a lot that we could all emulate from Mike Oxley's service. We could learn a lot today and in the future. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Pat, and the entire Oxley family during this difficult time. Even during his time when he had lung cancer, he was optimistic and happy and helping other people. I know he has got to be a tough guy to lose and not have around every day because he brightened everybody's day. I know I miss him, and I know you will miss him, and America misses Mike Oxley, and they should. I hope that in saying good-bye today, we can honor his incredible legacy that he left and the difference he made for America into the future. I just want to remember Mike Oxley as the incredible patriot and friend and mentor that he was and say Godspeed, Mike Oxley.

Mr. STIVERS

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and the folks on the committee for their great work on this bill. I stand today to support the bill and also to recognize one of the sections is the Veterans Dog Therapy Act, which was rolled into H.R. 3016. We lose 22 of our former servicemembers every day to suicide. This legislation will create a pilot program at three to five of our VA facilities, which is modeled on the Warrior Canine Connection program for getting access to service dogs for our veterans. Veterans enrolled in this program with service dogs have seen improvements in their PTSD and TBI-related symptoms. Additionally, it is shown that veterans who own service dogs have fewer symptoms of depression, better interpersonal skills, a lowered risk of substance abuse, and better overall mental health. While no one thing can help cure our suicide epidemic among veterans, this is a good start. I want to thank Tim Walz for being my cosponsor on this bill. I am glad it is rolled in. I urge my colleagues to support this provision as well as the entire bill.

Mr. STIVERS

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 595 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for H.R. 1675, the Encouraging Employee Ownership Act of 2015, and for H.R. 766, the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015. House Resolution 595 provides for a structured rule for consideration of both H.R. 1675 and H.R. 766. The resolution provides 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services for H.R. 1675 and H.R. 766. Additionally, the resolution provides for consideration of all seven amendments which were offered to H.R. 1675, and two of the three amendments offered to H.R. 766. Finally, Mr. Speaker, the resolution provides for a motion to recommit for each bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution and the underlying legislation. H.R. 1675 is a vehicle for a group of five legislative items, and I will speak about each one of them briefly by title. Title I, the Encouraging Employee Ownership Act, would amend SEC rule 701, which hasn't been modified since 1999. Although small companies are at the forefront of technological innovation and job growth, they often face significant obstacles that are often attributable to the proportionately larger burdens on them that securities regulations--written for large public companies--place on small companies when they seek to go public. SEC rule 701 permits private companies to offer their own securities as part of written compensation agreements to employees, directors, general partners, trustees, officers, or even certain consultants without having to comply with very expensive and burdensome security registration requirements. SEC rule 701, therefore, allows small companies to reward their employees through employee stock ownership in a company. These ESOPs have been very successful. The $5 million threshold in rule 701 has not been adjusted since 1999. If the disclosure threshold had been adjusted for inflation, it would be more than $7 million today. The SEC has authority to increase the $5 million disclosure threshold via rulemaking, but like the 500 shareholder rule that we had to fix--and my colleague from Colorado was very active in helping with--rule 701 has not been changed. It is unlikely to happen without congressional intervention. That is why this is so important. This is about getting employees access to ownership in their companies. It is about building ownership structures that make these companies stable over time. It allows businesses to incentivize their employees with a direct stake in the ownership in their company. It will help with employee retention, makes sure that these firms have great opportunities for retirement programs, and helps employees reap some of the benefits of their life's work that they worked so hard for every day. I will give an example, Mr. Speaker. There is a company in my district called Allied Mineral. I talked about this, as my colleague from Colorado may remember, yesterday in the Rules Committee. Allied Mineral is a company in Hilliard, Ohio, that has an ESOP, or employee stock ownership model, and many of those folks who operate forklifts in their warehouse will retire with over $1 million in their 401(k). It really helps these folks want to stay in their company; therefore, it improves retention and cuts down on training new employees, but it helps them in their retirement. It is a great vehicle to make these companies productive and stable, as well. That is title I. Title I is really important. Title I is pretty universally agreed to. Title II, the Fair Access to Investment Research Act, directs the SEC to create a safe harbor for certain publications or distributions of research reports by brokers or dealers distributing securities, such as exchange-traded funds. An exchange-traded fund is an investment company whose shares are traded intraday on stock exchanges at market-determined prices. Investors can buy and sell exchange-traded funds through a broker or in a brokerage account, just as they would any other publicly traded company. Over the past three decades, exchange-traded funds have grown from 100 funds with about $100 billion in assets to over 1,300 funds worth $1.8 trillion in assets. However, due to anomalies in our securities laws and regulations, most of the broker-dealers don't publish research about these exchange-traded funds, despite their growth in popularity. The SEC has implemented similar safe harbors to what this bill would suggest for other asset classes, including listed equities, corporate debt, and closed-end funds. This section will help investors get access to useful information when deciding whether to invest in exchange- traded funds and similar products. Title II, I think, is also pretty agreed to. Title III, the Small Business Mergers, Acquisitions, Sales, and Brokerage Simplification Act, amends the Securities Exchange Act to exempt merger and acquisition brokers from registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Merger and acquisition brokers perform services in connection with the transfer of ownership of mostly smaller privately held companies. An estimated $10 trillion of privately owned companies will be sold or traded as baby boomers retire and folks want to figure out what to do with their life's work and how to move their company in a way that the company can continue to exist. But it is important for us to reduce the costs associated with this flow of capital because the registration with SEC for these M&A brokers can be very expensive. M&A brokers currently help successful entrepreneurs take the capital out of their company and maybe move on to the next phase of their life, while simultaneously aiding new entrepreneurs in the ability to invest their capital in the continued success of their company. They foster economic development, growth, and innovation. Despite the valuable services of these M&A brokers, the compliance costs for this new regulation with the SEC and FINRA can be very expensive. For each individual broker inside an organization, it can cost $150,000. Ongoing costs are about $75,000 a year. Let's say somebody does four deals a year. Deals take a little while to happen, and they are not going to do a ton of deals. A small firm might do that few number of deals. If you do four deals a year, the first year you have just added $75,000 to the cost of each deal. That is too high. It is causing problems. We need to make sure that we streamline this and allow these small companies to have access to the same type of access to capital that our big companies have. The limit in this is up to $250 million in sales. As many people in this Congress know, up to about $500 million in sales is what we call middle-market companies. Middle-market companies dot the maps of each one of our districts. These middle-market companies aren't necessarily names you might recognize or the American people would recognize, but they are the fastest growing part of our economy. They are major employers in our communities, and they deserve access to capital, just like the big companies do. So that is why title III is so important. It will relieve some of the fees for these merger and acquisition brokerage houses that help these companies get access to capital. Title IV, the Small Company Disclosure Simplification Act, provides a voluntary exemption for emerging growth companies, again, with annual revenues up to $250 million from the eXtensible Business Reporting Language. Basically, it is exportable files. The data is still available. The point here in title IV is that the data will be available, but it might not be in a downloadable format that you can put in a spreadsheet. You might have to look at it in a PDF. Investors look at a lot of things in PDF. I can look at PDFs on my phone, and it won't deny anybody information. But the cost of this new format is adding up to $50,000 in costs for these small companies. The question is: Does the cost really meet the benefit? So it allows an exemption for these small companies. And, again, it is an optional exemption. It is not a mandatory exemption. It doesn't end this downloadable program, but it allows these small companies to be more flexible in the way they do it because of the cost. Title IV requires the SEC to report to Congress on the XBRL requirements so that it can better analyze and understand how to utilize XBRL and structure data moving forward. Finally, we have title V, the Streamlining Excessive and Costly Regulations Review Act, in the Securities and Exchange Commission. It actually is built on some executive orders. Title V is modeled after executive orders that the President did last year. It would force the independent agencies and require the Federal Reserve, OCC, and FDIC to review regulations at least every 10 years and identify any outdated and unnecessary regulations that are imposed on depository institutions. We need to do the same thing for the SEC. That is what this does. I think it will help streamline and make sure that paperwork is more reasonable over time, especially for duplicative, outdated, and overly burdensome regulations. So that is H.R. 1675. The other bill is H.R. 766, the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act. You may have all heard about Operation Choke Point, where law enforcement, the Department of Justice, partnered with a lot of other agencies. Their plan was to ``choke off'' banking services from businesses that they found undesirable. Rather than investigating and prosecuting companies that were alleged to have committed crimes like fraud and any other misdeeds, the Department of Justice issued subpoenas to financial institutions to ask about entire industries and effectively coerced financial institutions to cease offering banking services to many of those industries. The Department of Justice partnered with the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to identify merchants that they said posed high risk for consumers, notwithstanding the question of whether these merchants were operating under the law or illegally. In doing so, the FDIC equated legitimate and regulated industries, such as coin dealers, firearms and ammunition sales industries, with inherently illegal activities, such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia. So that is the real problem here, that they didn't separate out legal businesses with illegal businesses. If they want to do something with regard to businesses that are already illegal and make sure that those folks can't get access to banking services, that is a legitimate thing. But the way they identified high risk made a lot of legal businesses lose their access to financial services. They were terminated by their banks and they had, in many cases, no place to turn. This is a blatant overreach by our Federal regulators. And many of us, including me, believe this bill is an important step to make sure that businesses that are legally operating have confidence that they will have access to banking services. That is the key here. This last section of this last bill makes sure that legally operating businesses have access to legal banking services and that the banks can't be intimidated by their regulators to make sure that legally operated businesses don't have access to banking services. I look forward to debating these bills with our House colleagues. I urge support for both the rule and the underlying legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like quickly to respond to what the gentleman referred to, and he did change some of my words. I said that these are legally operating businesses. Mr. Speaker, by the gentleman from Colorado's own admission, these are not federally legal businesses. They are illegal under Federal law. Marijuana is illegal in U.S. Code 21, section 812. The gentleman knows that. Maybe we should debate whether marijuana should be legal under Federal law. If he wants to debate that, that is okay. But this is a recognition for banking services of businesses that are operating lawfully under both Federal and State law, not ambiguous businesses that are legal under State law but illegal under Federal law. At the most, these businesses are ambiguous, but clearly they are illegal under Federal law. I didn't say businesses that are operating legally under State law in my comments. I said legally operating businesses. That means under Federal and State law. We live in a Federal republic with a State and a Federal Government. If something is illegal under Federal law, under U.S. Code 21, section 812, then it is illegal. Those businesses are not legally operating businesses. That is the distinction. That is why the amendment from Mr. Perlmutter and Mr. Heck was not allowed, because these businesses-- drug-related businesses--are illegal under Federal code. That is the reason we are not debating that amendment here. I would say to the gentleman's point earlier where he wanted a minute of debate, I think he has gotten more than a minute on both sides on this. So he has done pretty well. I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), a fellow from the Rules Committee.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher). He is a member of the Foreign Affairs and Science, Space, and Technology Committees.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to address two quick points made by the gentleman. With regard to H.R. 1675 and exportable data, the gentleman tries to claim that this data will not be available. It will be available in scanned-in information, so you can still look at it and see it. It is not pen and paper data the way he alleges. It is still very accessible on the electronic systems. It is just not exportable data. The question is: Is that exportable data worth the $50,000 cost for these small companies? It is only a few small companies that will benefit from being relieved from this burden because the cost is more than the benefit. Secondly, the gentleman continues to ignore the fact that marijuana businesses are not legal under Federal law. If he wants to have the debate about whether they should be legal under Federal law, we should have that debate. That is not germane in this bill. What we are talking about are legal businesses that are legal under Federal and State law, not ambiguous businesses that are only legal one place or the other. In our Federal system, there is both a Federal and a State component. If he wants to debate making marijuana legal at the Federal level, that is legitimate; it is just not germane in this bill. This is for businesses that are legal at the State and Federal level. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter), who is a distinguished member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that had a lot of hearings on Operation Choke Point.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado's points. These two bills are great bills. The first bill helps to preserve and to incentivize employee stock ownership. It decreases burdensome regulations so as to allow these middle market companies, which I talked about earlier, to have access to capital and to continue to grow, and it ensures that entrepreneurs can have access to the capital markets in an affordable and efficient way. H.R. 766 addresses legal businesses. Again, I want to stress ``legal'' businesses. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Speaker, I think, would welcome the day of the Articles of Confederation. He wants to ignore that we have the State and the Federal governments. He wants the States to just make decisions and not allow the Federal Government to do anything. If marijuana is illegal at the Federal level, that is a fact. If he wants to have the debate about making marijuana legal at the Federal level, we should do that. That is not germane to this bill. These businesses are, at best, ambiguously legal, and they are clearly illegal at the Federal level. So let's clear up the ambiguity. Then they can have the same access that other legal businesses have, like gun dealers and automotive dealers and short-term lenders, which are already legal at both the State and Federal levels. They need access to banking services. H.R. 766 makes sure they will continue to have access to banking services. There are some amendments that I will be supporting and that others will be supporting. Make one's mind up on the amendments, but I think both of these bills are important. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bills.

Mr. STIVERS

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 594 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule for H.R. 3700, the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2015. House Resolution 594 provides a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 3700. The resolution provides 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services. Additionally, the resolution provides for consideration of 14 amendments offered to H.R. 3700. Finally, Mr. Speaker, the resolution provides a motion to recommit for the bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution and the underlying legislation. H.R. 3700 is a package of several bipartisan provisions that have been voted on by the House Financial Services Committee and received bipartisan support multiple times since 2006 in both Republican and Democratic Congresses. H.R. 3700 cuts down on inefficient and duplicative regulations. The bill employs a commonsense approach to mitigating the overlapping and redundant procedures that have made rental assistance programs unnecessarily burdensome for some tenants as well as private owners and investors in affordable housing. The portions of H.R. 3700 that are particularly important to me and many of the large metropolitan housing authorities around the country create positive changes based on project-based vouchers. The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority, in my hometown, does a lot of vouchers. They have a strong record of converting slums into mixed-income neighborhoods. They help make sure that the needs of those who live there come first and that we help build strong communities around them. An integral part of this approach is often project-based vouchers that can be provided to encourage the development of mixed-income housing facilities. However, because the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority is approaching its cap for project-based vouchers, as many metropolitan housing authorities around the country are, their capacity to build new mixed-income communities that are thriving and strong is at risk. This bill authorizes public housing authorities to project-base up to 20 percent of its authorized voucher allocation rather than 20 percent of its voucher funding. This change ensures that the unauthorized number of vouchers is more stable. It will help make it easier for housing authorities to plan their future investments in the communities they serve. Knowing Charles Hillman and the great people at the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority and the great work they do, I would sure hate to see them taken off the front lines in our war against poverty. We need to make this change. It is just one example of something that is really good in this bill. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill is projected to actually save $311 billion in discretionary spending over just the next 5 years. The savings associated with the flexibilities and regulatory burden relief provided to local housing authorities will result in substantial improvement in the return on investment for taxpayers and help make sure that the affordable housing programs we have are sustainable. Mr. Speaker, the bill passed the Financial Services Committee, which I serve on, with a vote of 44-10--a strong bipartisan vote. It is my understanding that the sponsor of this legislation has worked over the past few weeks with the ranking member of the committee, Ms. Maxine Waters of California, to address an amendment that she offered--which has been made in order under the rule--which will alleviate the concerns of some Members about this legislation. So, even though it only passed 44-10--which is pretty good--I think we can actually see a bigger improvement when it hits the floor, because I think the sponsor has worked with the ranking member, Ms. Maxine Waters of California, to alleviate some of those concerns. I look forward to debating this bill with our House colleagues, and I urge support for both the rule and the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to quickly address the issue raised by the gentleman. I alluded to it, but I didn't speak to it maybe as clearly as I should have. I believe that there is an agreement between the chairman of the subcommittee as well as the ranking member of the full committee on an amendment that Ms. Waters is offering with regard to the provision that you refer to. I will tell you, I am going to be voting for that amendment, and I would urge you to vote for it. I believe it is going to pass. It may just be a voice vote. If you are here, vote on it by voice. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Florida said, this is a good bill. It is a commonsense bill. It reforms our housing programs so they make sense for people. It makes them more efficient. It saves $300 billion. It is a no-brainer. I hope that we can pass the previous question so that we can actually move to passing this bill and doing important reforms that will make government more efficient and help people in the war against poverty. I urge my colleagues to support the rule, support the previous question, and support the resolution.

Mr. STIVERS

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Charles Lewis Scott (Chuck), who passed away on November 20, 2015 at the age of 91. Scott was a photographer and co-founder of the widely respected Ohio University School of Visual Communication in Athens, Ohio. Scott was born in Grayville, Illinois in 1924. He became a Photographer's Mate First Class in the U.S. Navy after training in Pensacola, Florida. Scott went on to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross and three war medals for serving during World War II in the Pacific. After returning home from the war, Scott earned his degree from the University of Illinois and worked as a photojournalist for the Champaign-Urbana Courier and the student newspaper. Scott worked as a photographer at various newspapers early in his career, and was later named the graphic director for the Chicago Daily News. He earned his master's degree in 1970 and became the picture editor for the Chicago Tribune in 1974. Throughout his career, Scott earned over 100 awards in state, regional, national, and international competitions, including the Photographer of the Year award in 1952 and the Newspaper Editor of the Year award in 1966 from the National Press Photographers Association. He was first approached by Ohio University in 1969 to expand the visual education program in the School of Journalism. Following two years at the Chicago Tribune, Scott returned to Ohio University in 1976 in the College of Communication. Two years later, Scott co-founded the Institute of Visual Communication with his son-in-law Terry Eiler. By 1986, the Institute became the School of Visual Communication and was eventually moved into the College of Communication. Alumni of this program have gone on to work at The New York Times, National Geographic, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and many other prestigious publications. There is no doubt of the enormous contribution Chuck Scott has made to the photojournalism industry and the tremendous impact he had on Ohio University and especially, his students.

Mr. STIVERS

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 529 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for H.R. 1210, the Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act, and H.R. 3189, the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act of 2015. House Resolution 529 provides a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 1210 and H.R. 3189. The resolution provides 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services for H.R. 1210 and for H.R. 3189. The resolution provides for the consideration of one amendment to H.R. 1210 and consideration of six amendments to H.R. 3189. The resolution also provides a motion to recommit for each bill. In addition, the rule provides the normal recess authorities to allow the chair to manage pro forma sessions during next week's district work period. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution and the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker, as you know, the 2008 financial crisis was caused, in part, by the subprime lending meltdown. Financial institutions would originate loans. They would sell off 100 percent of those loans with no skin in the game to some investment party, a third party, and they would keep their fee. But they wouldn't keep any of the risk. This led to a lot of loans to individuals and families that had an inability to repay those loans, and that resulted in our crisis. The bottom line was these institutions had no skin in the game. The situation became so egregious that, at one point, there was a term in the industry called a NINJA loan. NINJA stood for no income, no job, no assets. Borrowers across the country were being given loans by loan originators. Those originators knew they were impossible to repay, but the originators didn't care because they took their fee and had no skin in the game. When the borrowers began to default on these loans, banks and others holding these mortgages began to lose tremendous amounts of assets, which precipitated the financial collapse. In response, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which reforms mortgage lending and makes a lot of changes. One of those is around the ability to repay. The Dodd-Frank statute created a category of loans called qualified mortgages that are deemed to comply with the law's ability-to-repay requirements. It provided a safe harbor from lawsuits, and it made sure that that safe harbor also covered regulatory action, provided that those loans met certain characteristics and underwriting criteria. While it is important that we ensure the creditworthiness of potential homeowners and home buyers to avoid repeating our past mistakes, the current regulatory environment has unnecessarily restrained mortgage lending and has made it difficult for some creditworthy borrowers to obtain a loan. The bottom line of this crisis was that it was created by no skin in the game. The Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act would provide much- needed regulatory relief and allow consumers to buy a home and ensure not only that there is some skin in the game--there is 100 percent skin in the game. The banks and institutions that make these portfolio loans have 100 percent skin in the game. They lose dollar one when the loans go bad. This bill provides that, when residential mortgages are held by that originator, the bank, if they hold them in their portfolio as opposed to being sold into the secondary market, they will be considered a qualified mortgage for the purpose of ability to repay. It will make sure that more financial institutions have an incentive to make loans to individuals and the requirement for making those loans will be to take the entire risk, not pass that risk on to some un-named third-party investor, but keep that risk in their portfolio. That is why it is called the Portfolio Lending Act. They will have 100 percent of the skin in the game. This legislation will also help borrowers gain access to mortgages that they badly need. H.R. 3189, the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act, pulls back the curtain at the Federal Reserve and makes it more accountable and transparent to the American people. The Federal Reserve has more power and responsibility today than ever before, and that is precisely why this law is so important. The institution needs to be modernized, and the decisions they make need to be transparent and predictable to the marketplace. The FORM Act, as it is called, requires the Federal Reserve to transparently communicate its monetary policy decisions to the American people. It does not require them to choose any one method. Some people talk a lot about the so-called Taylor rule. This bill does not require the Federal Reserve to use the Taylor rule or any other process. It just requires that, when they make decisions, they need to make that decision and the reasons behind it transparent to the American people and explain how they make their decisions. Whether they use a rule or whether they use some other process, it needs to be transparent. This bill also requires the Federal Reserve to conduct a cost-benefit analysis that every other Federal agency already has to comply with so that we know whether the costs of complying with the regulations exceed or are less than the benefits of those regulations. It is simple common sense. Other agencies use this cost-benefit analysis today. The FORM Act protects the Federal Reserve's independence, as it requires the Federal Reserve to generate a monetary strategy of their own choosing, but requires them to give more accounting of their actions and transparency to their actions. The bill ensures that the American people understand how the Federal Reserve makes the decisions they make and why they make the decisions they make. Mr. Speaker, I know that I, along with many of our colleagues in the House, have believed for a long time that we should audit the Federal Reserve. I am pleased to inform my colleagues that this legislation requires an audit of the Fed, and it contains provisions that remove restrictions placed on the GAO's ability to conduct an audit of the Federal Reserve. It directs the GAO, in fact, to conduct an audit of the Federal Reserve within 12 months of enactment and requires the GAO to report to Congress within 90 days of completion of that audit. As the Federal Reserve plays an outsized role in the health of our Nation's economy, it is imperative that we make sure that their opaque structure is made transparent so the American people understand the decisions the Federal Reserve makes and why they make them because it has such an incredible impact on our economy. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to debating these bills with our colleagues in the House as well as the amendments yet to come, and I would ask adoption of both the underlying bills and support of the underlying bills. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to address, Mr. Speaker, a couple of the gentleman from Florida's points about the process. Under our new Speaker, we have had five rules. Four have been structured, and let's look at today's rule. All of the germane amendments were made in order. In fact, to H.R. 1210, there is one amendment, and it is a Democratic amendment; to H.R. 3189, there are six amendments, and four are Democratic amendments. That is 75 percent of the amendments are Democratic amendments. That is a pretty open process. I am leaving out the fact that we also allow for a motion to recommit to each of the bills.