Maxine Waters

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade on the Financial Services Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster), a member of the Financial Services Committee and of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets on the Financial Services Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.J. Res. 41 would roll back the SEC's rule that implemented an important congressional mandate in Dodd-Frank requiring oil, gas, and mining companies to publicly disclose payments made to foreign governments for access to their natural resources. That rule helps fight corruption in the extractive industries sector, provides investors with crucial information on their investments, and enables citizens to demand greater accountability from their governments for spending that serves the public interest. It also helps to diminish the political instability in resource-rich countries, which is not only a threat to investment but also to our own national security. Specifically, the disclosure rule enables shareholders to make better informed assessments of opportunity costs, threats to corporate reputation, and the long-term prospects of the companies in which they invest. In addition, opening the extractive industries to greater public scrutiny is key to increasing civil society participation in resource- rich countries, which are often underdeveloped countries that are politically unstable, rife with corruption, with a history of civil conflict fueled, in part, by natural resources. Moreover, the SEC's rule is a reasonable disclosure and places no limits or restrictions on who companies can pay money to, how much, or what for. After 5 years of robust debate and input, the final rule accommodated a number of industry concerns, providing companies with a generous 4-year phase-in period and a case-by-case exemption process for companies that face implementation challenges. The SEC also allowed companies to comply with the disclosure by using a report prepared for other substantially similar disclosure regimes, which include regimes in the European Union and Canada. Nevertheless, Republicans continue to claim that the SEC's rule is harmful and puts American companies at a competitive disadvantage to their foreign competitors. Well, Mr. Speaker, they are entitled to their own set of opinions, but they are not entitled to their own set of facts. I suppose these are alternative facts. The truth is that U.S. companies are not the only ones required to make these disclosures. Many foreign companies must report under the U.S. rules, including a number of state-owned oil companies, such as China's PetroChina and Sinopec, and Brazil's Petrobras. Also, after the SEC issued its initial rule in 2012, the rest of the world followed our lead, establishing a global standard for the public disclosure of extractive payments companies make to governments. A wave of transparency laws have been adopted in foreign markets that mirror the U.S. law. This includes legislation in the European Union, Norway, and Canada, which are all now in force. These laws cover the vast majority of oil, gas, and mining companies that compete with U.S. firms. Now, leading global oil companies like BP, Shell, and Total, as well as Russia's state-owned companies--Gazprom, Rosneft, and Lukoil--are entering their second year of reporting under EU rules without any negative impact. So contrary to Republican claims, U.S. and foreign companies already compete on a more level playing field here and abroad. Therefore, rolling back the SEC's disclosure rule would directly undermine the interests of extractive companies in having a level playing field. Worse, once the rule is nullified by this resolution, the SEC would not be able to put another rule in place that is substantially similar. This would create different reporting regimes directly contravening what companies have requested from the SEC. And, the SEC final rule accommodated industry concerns by including a generous phase-in period. U.S.-listed companies are not required to report until 2019. The rule also provides for case-by-case exemptions if covered companies face any implementation issues. Therefore, the rule does not put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage, nor does it impose an unreasonable compliance burden. I would also point out to my Republican colleagues the importance of the SEC's disclosure rule in protecting U.S. national security and energy security interests. Specifically, it helps protect U.S. national security interests by helping prevent the corruption, secrecy, and government abuse that has catalyzed conflict, instability, and violent extremist movements in Africa, the Middle East, and beyond. As ISIS demonstrated, nonstate actors can benefit from trading natural resources in order to finance their operations. Project-level disclosures in the rule will make hiding imports from nonstate actors more difficult, thereby limiting their ability to finance themselves with natural resource revenues. Corruption and mismanagement of oil revenues destabilizes regions and leads to conflict. And, resource-rich countries like Venezuela, Iraq, and Angola are considered to be among the top ten countries perceived to be the most corrupt according to Transparency International. In addition, transparency of Russian companies and its extractive industry is critical. The SEC's rule would create transparency of Exxon and other company payments to the Russian Government. Gazprom, Rosneft, and Lukoil are already disclosing under the U.K. rules, and BP has already reported payments to the Russian Government. The SEC's disclosure rule will make a crucial contribution as Russian citizens seek to follow the money received by their government. A vote to roll back the SEC's resource extraction disclosures would be a vote to abandon U.S. leadership in the fight against global corruption. I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose H.J. Res. 41. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I am referring to H.R. 724, which would rescind President Trump's refugee ban so that green card holders like Bessar Yousif, a refugee from Iraq on his way home after getting engaged in Kurdistan, won't get detained in LAX.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose this budget, which is designed to repeal--not replace--ObamaCare. I am adamant about this because of what I have witnessed all of my life. I am going to share with you--and some of you may have never heard of these things--that I have watched people die from preventable diseases. I have watched, over the years, from the time I was a child, where people had home remedies. They didn't have any prescription drugs. I watched as my great-grandmother was in pain, in tears, because of arthritis and rheumatism. We had to rub her down with something called liniment. I have watched men get up and try to go to work with pneumonia. They tried to heal pneumonia with what was known as hot toddies. I have watched as children have died. Little children used to walk around with little bags around their neck with something in it called asfidity that was supposed to protect them from harm. They had pneumonia. They had colds. That is all they had. They didn't have a doctor. They died from preventable diseases. Now we have 20 million more people who are insured under this healthcare plan. This is a healthcare plan for all Americans. The Republicans will tell you that, yes, they are going to give you something better, but they have been saying this for 8 years. They have been after what is known as ObamaCare for 8 years. Why don't they have a remedy? Why don't they have a plan? Why don't they have anything? They didn't have anything when they started to attack ObamaCare, they don't have anything today, and they are not going to have anything better than the ACA.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. No, I don't yield back.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I thank the Chair. I have made it known. I have asked for the investigation. If there is no assistance from the House, I would appreciate allowing other kinds of cooperation. I must say this, Mr. Speaker, if we were sitting in on the House and if we were streaming, then the House would know what to do since they investigated our past actions when we were trying to bring attention to gun violence in this country. So I don't really accept the fact that the House has no role in this and that it should not be participating in it. The House participates when it wants to, and I am asking the House to participate and investigate in this the same way you did when you decided that somehow it was improper for us to stream from the House on this issue.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I am requesting an investigation by the House.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I would like to request an investigation of this incident because it does not seem to be coincidental. I was speaking about the SEC, and I was speaking about President-elect Trump and how he could influence the SEC and his relationship with Russia when I was interrupted.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I am requesting an investigation by the House.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me point out how H.R. 78 tilts their decisionmaking process toward Wall Street. First, let's go back and review everything the President-elect said about Wall Street, and then we can understand exactly what is being done here. In August 2015, President-elect Trump told CBS: ``The hedge fund guys didn't build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky. They make a fortune. They pay no tax. It's ridiculous, okay?'' In January 2016, Trump told Iowans: ``I'm not going to let Wall Street get away with murder. Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us.'' I repeat, he said: ``Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us.'' In February of 2016, Trump said: ``I know the guys at Goldman Sachs, they have total control over Hillary Clinton.'' In July of 2016, Trump tweeted: ``Hillary will never reform Wall Street. She is owned by Wall Street.'' He also told Iowans: ``I don't care about the Wall Street guys. I'm not taking any of their money.'' Now, Trump has totally betrayed his promise to drain the swamp. He has appointed Goldman Sachs bankers to the Treasury and the National Economic Council, and his pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission is a lawyer whose career has been based upon defending Wall Street, including Goldman Sachs. This legislation today is part and parcel to that betrayal. This is how you do it: cost-benefit analysis, you can attach this to any and all monetary and financial services legislation. You can attach it wherever you would like and, thus, cause the delays, cause the undermining of legislation, put the SEC in the position where it has to defend in court, costing them more money that they don't have because they have denied them adequate funding. This is what this is all about. How do we get our Wall Street friends and cronies back into the business, because Dodd-Frank began to deal with them and to reverse some of what had been happening for far too long. Now they come with this attack and they talk about cost-benefit analysis. Mr. Chairman, this is what they are going to use to ride their way back into making sure that they give the protection and the advantages to all of their friends on Wall Street. Mr. Trump was not about draining the swamp. He is about making sure that there is a swamp, digging it deeper and wider. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gonzalez), a new member of the Financial Services Committee.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, just as I opposed the bill before us today in the previous three Congresses, I rise in opposition to it now. Republicans have crafted H.R. 78 to tie the hands of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, and to prevent it from issuing new rules to address market failures and protect investors. At the same time, the bill would enable the Trump administration to easily repeal important Dodd-Frank rules by tilting the SEC's decisions toward what is best for industry and, worse, what enriches the President-elect and his cronies. Before I discuss H.R. 78, I think it is important to point out that 14 members of the Financial Services Committee, as well as the millions of Americans they represent, are being denied the opportunity to discuss this bill through hearings and markups. We are barely into the second week of this Congress and the Republican leadership is completely ignoring regular order--despite Speaker Ryan's declaration less than a week ago of a return to regular order--by skipping the committee process to bring this bill to the floor; but this is par for the course. In the other Chamber, Senate Republican leadership is similarly jamming Donald Trump's conflicted nominees through the confirmation process even before the FBI has completed background checks. And with barely 10 days until his inauguration, Donald Trump has already given up on ``draining the swamp'' and has broken his promise to hold Wall Street accountable by nominating Wall Street insiders to nearly every key economic and regulatory post. Let me turn back to the problems with H.R. 78. During the past four Congresses, Republicans have sought to increase the cost-benefit requirements that are related to SEC rulemakings even though the Commission is already subject to stringent economic analysis for which it is held accountable. Current law requires the SEC to conduct the same economic analysis that is required of all agencies under the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Congressional Review Act, and the Regulatory Flexibility Act. Unlike other financial regulators, the SEC has additional statutory requirements to study how its rules affect market efficiency, competition, and capital formation. Additionally, in 2012, the SEC voluntarily issued internal guidance on economic analysis for rulemakings that closely follow Executive Order No. 12866. Since adopting this guidance, the SEC has dramatically expanded its economic analysis capabilities, including by increasing the staff and the budget of its economics division by more than 300 percent over the last 5 years. In any other reality, the SEC would be held up as a model of effective economic analysis. When asked by Republicans in Congress to review the SEC's analysis, the inspector general concluded: We determined that the SEC's use of its current guidance has been effective in incorporating economic analysis into the rulemaking process. H.R. 78, however, goes much, much further in radically directing the SEC to no longer be concerned with the protection of investors. In fact, the only reference to investors anywhere in the bill is in a provision requiring the SEC to consider the impact these rules will have on ``investor choice.'' The American public knows full well that ``investor choice'' is a code for industry's wanting to offer a menu of predatory products, such as subprime--toxic--mortgages or retirement products that are designed to bankrupt low- and middle-income Americans and line the pockets of Wall Street executives. Further suggestions that the bill is only codifying the cost-benefit executive orders are false as the bill omits one key provision from those orders: the prohibition of private rights of action, which is simply the right to sue. As a result, H.R. 78 provides industry with endless avenues to sue the SEC and, thereby, puts pressure on the regulator to adopt the rules it wants and to repeal everything else. What is worse, the bill is the first signal to Wall Street that the SEC is leaving the enforcement business. H.R. 78 provides no new funding for the SEC to address the substantial, analytic, and potential litigation responsibilities the bill would create even though the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the analytical workload alone would cost $27 million. Let's not fool ourselves that Republicans are going to increase the SEC's funding. That is at the top of their agenda--kill the SEC by taking away the funding that they need to be the cops on the block. Members of Congress just finished debating a bill that caps the SEC's sister agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, at a woefully inadequate funding level for the next 5 years, denying the CFTC the hundreds of millions of dollars it needs to adequately police the swaps markets. Further, Donald Trump has nominated a lifelong defender of Wall Street's to lead the SEC, which I can only assume means that Trump's SEC will equally pillage the Commission's overworked enforcement staff to help pay for the Republicans' planned repeal of Dodd-Frank. As President-elect Trump takes office next week, beginning what is the most conflicted administration in U.S. history, I urge my colleagues to join me, investor and consumer advocates, public pension plans, civil rights groups, labor unions, and supporters of financial reform in opposing H.R. 78 to ensure that the actions of Trump's SEC are in the interest of America's economic stability and not in Russia's or Wall Street's interests. I am amazed that the Republicans can be so blatant, so noncaring to come to us at this time with a bill that would basically take our cop on the block, the SEC, and literally obliterate it. I am absolutely amazed that they have the nerve and the gall to try this in face of everything that we already know about what they have done to strip it of its appropriate funding. But now with all of the debate and the concern about Trump and Russia and everything that is going on, they would come here with this bill today and try to pull this off. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to my friend Mr. Lucas' amendment. This amendment rejects the bipartisan compromise negotiated over 4 years to strike the right balance regarding interaffiliate swaps. Indeed, Democrats like Ms. Moore and Republicans like Mr. Stivers carefully negotiated a way to balance the needs of operating companies like airlines and refineries. This amendment, however, would exempt swaps between affiliates, including megabanks like Goldman Sachs and J.P.Morgan, from the mandatory margin, clearing, trade execution, capital, and every other protection under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. While we generally agree that swaps between affiliated corporate entities do not pose a systemic threat, we are deeply troubled about this desire to undermine all swaps rules and harm our economy. During testimony on a similar version of this amendment, the CFTC's former chairman, Gary Gensler, stated that such an exemption would provide a big loophole around our derivatives rules and that it would ``blow a hole in Dodd-Frank.'' Specifically, the amendment exempts affiliate swaps no matter where the affiliate resides. So, an affiliate could reside in a foreign jurisdiction that lacks any swaps regulation and share its risks with a U.S. affiliate, but our regulators would be prohibited from imposing any safeguards such as initial margin or capital requirements. Why would we pass such a self-inflicted wound? With that, Mr. Chairman, I urge all Members to vote ``no'' on this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 238, a bill that would hamstring the ability of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to protect our Nation's farmers, manufacturers, municipalities, and retirees. Indeed, the agency has weighty responsibility to oversee our commodity, futures, and swaps markets to ensure that they are not only fair to market participants, but also that they are protected from manipulation, fraud, and abuse. Such misconduct in these markets can impact everything from the price of oil, natural gas, and bread, to the interest rates on mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. As we saw in the financial crisis, fraud and abuse in the swaps markets can lead to systemic risks. Recall that credit default swaps, made famous by AIG, fueled the crisis, bankrupted millions of homeowners, and cost taxpayers trillions of dollars. To prevent that from happening again, Congress, in the Dodd-Frank Act, gave the CFTC new authority over the swaps market and required it to adopt reforms which, thanks to its hard work, are largely in place. But rather than applaud the work of the CFTC and provide it with funds it needs to do its job, Republicans continue to seek to undermine its regulatory authority, impose new procedural hurdles, and ultimately thwart its ability to protect the American people. For example, H.R. 238 would impose onerous burdens and introduce new litigation risks by requiring the CFTC to conduct what is known as cost-benefit analysis slanted toward the industry, tying the CFTC's hands and setting up roadblocks to prevent them from doing their job and protect investors. This is a tactic used by opponents of financial reform to prevent, delay, weaken, and now under a Trump administration, repeal any rules implementing the Dodd-Frank Act. This bill also would make it harder for the CFTC to police the overseas derivatives operations of megabanks like Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America, even though the risk may still be borne by U.S. taxpayers. It also creates an unreasonable and hard-to-overturn presumption that the regulations of the largest eight foreign swaps markets are equivalent to U.S. regulation, allowing global megabanks to opt out of CFTC regulation. H.R. 238 is simply a bad bill, but not leaving well-enough alone, Republicans are attempting to make it worse through multiple amendments. Troublingly, the Lucas amendment would create loopholes in our swaps regime by exempting trades between affiliates. Therefore, such trades would not have to comply with certain reporting, clearing, or initial margin requirements, creating a dangerous blind spot in the markets. What is more, the amendment is in direct contravention to already-provided, targeted relief, including the inter-affiliate clearing exemption that Congress passed in a bipartisan fashion in the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which contained numerous safeguards to ensure appropriate CFTC oversight. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing that and other harmful amendments, and oppose H.R. 238.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Yes, sir. I seek recognition to get an explanation of what happened on C-SPAN today. Did this House have anything to do with it? I would like to explain that today while I spoke on the House floor on H.R. 78----

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Yes, I am.