Maxine Waters

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker and Members, we have heard a lot of conversation from the opposite side of the aisle about what the SEC has done or has not done. As a matter of fact, it was represented that the SEC had misinterpreted the bill. That is not true. We absolutely need rules of the road. We need to make sure that we are protecting investors. We need to make sure that we are not allowing folks to be put at great risk who don't understand or know what is happening in these rooms. I am concerned about these demo days on campuses where students may be encouraged in these presentations to invest their parents' money or get their parents involved in schemes that they may not be aware of. Why is this so important to us? It is important to us because we have arrived at a time in the Congress of the United States where we recognize the need for consumer protection. Prior to the recession that we had that was created in 2008 because of the subprime meltdown and the faulty products that were placed out in the marketplace by banks and financial institutions, consumers were really ignored and not protected. We have payday loans that target our communities that charge 400 to 500 percent interest and take advantage of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We have all of these fraudulent mortgages that almost brought this country down, that created a recession--almost a depression--and we are still finding out about some of the exotic products that they put out on the market that tricked people into signing on the dotted line who eventually lost their homes. We have the fiduciary duty that we have been debating in Congress. Do you know why we are debating that? We are debating that because we have investment advisers who were in conflict with the people they were supposed to be protecting and supposed to be advising, and they literally were advising seniors, who had savings for their retirement, to invest in plans that they would ultimately lose all of their money in. So in addition to payday loans and fraudulent mortgages and conflict of interest and fiduciary, we have had mandatory arbitration and on and on and on. We have arrived at a time when Democrats are implementing Dodd-Frank. We are making sure that we have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is doing the work that had not been done all of these years. Yes, we are concerned about this. We supported the JOBS Act. We supported it with an amendment that I put in there that said that you must take reasonable opportunities to ensure that you know who these investors are. We are talking about accredited investors, folks who have resources, folks who know how this game is operated, folks who can protect themselves. They have lawyers, they have consultants, all of that. What we don't want is--we don't want these students and we don't want people who walk in off the street who may be presented with an opportunity that is not a real opportunity. For example, what if we had something like Corinthian that is a private, postsecondary school that we had to close down, or DeVry University, or the University of Phoenix, or the Trump University? Any of these could present themselves as credible businesses to be invested in, only to find out later that the students have been misled, they have not gotten jobs, they don't have anything. They have not made any money. We are saying this is another effort to simply protect those who oftentimes are the targets of the rip-offs and the fraud. I would ask my colleagues to support the amendment that I am going to put to the bill to make sure that they know who is in the room. I would ask them to support this simple amendment that was made in order in the Committee on Rules to make sure that we are protecting those investors and keeping them from getting ripped off. Now, some of my friends on the opposite side of the aisle would have you believe that we are not interested in capital formation, that we are not interested in entrepreneurship, that we are not interested in joint ventures. That is absolutely not true. As a matter of fact, folks on this side of the aisle are fighting to make the financial institutions responsible and the banks to make loans where they should be making loans. We have to have a CRA to make sure that they are doing what they should be doing with the depositors' money and on and on and on. We fight for small businesses every day. We joined up with our colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle to support the JOBS Act even though we had some concerns, and the SEC tried to make sure that we had the kind of legislation that would protect these investors. Now they are saying: We don't like what the SEC is doing. They are misinterpreting it. They are messing this all up. Well, that is not true. Now, we know they don't like the SEC. As a matter of fact, they do everything that they can to limit their funding so that they cannot be effective. But these are our cops on the block. The SEC is our cop on the block to try and make sure that we limit the rip-off and the fraud and the undermining of average citizens in our society. We support the JOBS Act. We believe that we should not have these operations on the campuses without knowing who is in the room and allowing investors to be put at risk. Mr. Speaker and Members, I would ask for a ``no'' vote on the bill. I am going to ask for an ``aye'' vote on the amendment that is going to come up. If my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle accept this very, very reasonable amendment, then I will vote to support the bill. But if they don't show any concern or compassion for the interests of investors, then I cannot support the bill, and I will ask my caucus not to support the bill. It is as simple as that. When are we going to stop the fraudulent operations in this country that rip off working people every day, rip off students, and don't care about our investors who are interested in capital formation and investing in real enterprises that can help to grow their business and make some money themselves? When are we going to recognize we can do both? We don't have to just be on the side of those who would take advantage of people. We must be on the side of both--our investors who are willing to put up money and our businesses who need capital formation--but somehow we always end up letting the most vulnerable people in our society be the target of fraud by those who take advantage of them. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned during the general debate on H.R. 4498, I am offering this amendment today in order to clarify and improve the bill. If this amendment is accepted, I am prepared to support this legislation. Indeed, I support the goal of connecting angel investor groups with companies seeking funding, particularly startups and emerging firms. Angel investor groups tend to be comprised of highly sophisticated individuals with significant experience investing in higher risk offerings. They tend to curate their groups carefully and are good gatekeepers for these demo day events. As such, my amendment seeks to support the efforts of these angel investor associations without creating a harmful loophole in some of the protections we put in place when we adopted the JOBS Act of 2012. This amendment includes several provisions to advance these goals. First, my amendment stipulates that no sponsor of a demo day can collect finders' fees for connecting investors to companies. This provision ensures that event sponsors--colleges, nonprofits, trade associations, or otherwise--don't have perverse incentives to drum up securities sales. Second, my amendment limits the relief offered under the bill to actual operating companies in the ``real economy.'' As such, it excludes certain entities like shell companies and investment vehicles like hedge funds. I think that my amendment is appropriately calibrated to ensure that the benefits provided under the bill go to startups like technology firms or manufacturing companies rather than opaque or speculative firms. Third, my amendment would codify the relief the SEC has already provided for angel investor groups as it relates to these demo days. This will provide legal certainty to these groups without opening up any new loopholes. Let me describe how this would work. If the company wants to hold a demo day and also condition the market for a securities sale, as H.R. 4498 would allow, they would have to curate the group of people that attend the event. To be clear, under the bill as currently drafted, companies aren't limited to holding science fair-style demonstrations. They can discuss actual securities being offered, the types and amounts of those securities, who has already subscribed to their offerings, and how they intend to use the proceeds of the offering. Under the SEC's relief and codified in this provision in my amendment, companies can hold these presentations, can talk about their securities, and can solicit attendance. They can even avoid the accredited investor verification requirement in the JOBS Act. They just have to call their existing networks of accredited investors and angel investor group members rather than blasting out an invitation to an entire college campus. If companies do want to blast out the invitation to entire campuses, they still can; they just have to abide by the verification provisions in the JOBS Act. In summary, this amendment I am offering today ensures that no loopholes to the JOBS Act verification requirement are opened up, that all manner of conflicted fees are prohibited, and that the benefits of the bill go to actual operating companies. And that is very important, actual operating companies. Mr. Speaker, whether it is through my work to clarify and improve the JOBS Act during the 112th Congress or my work with members on the committee this Congress to amend the definition of ``accredited investors'' or through my amendment today, I have long shown a willingness to work in good faith on issues related to capital formation. I would urge my colleagues to adopt my amendment so that we can all support a strong, bipartisan bill. Mr. Hensarling brags about how many Democrats supported this bill. He brags about the fact that, in committee and then on the floor, we all tried to be very cooperative in the JOBS Act. And I bent over backwards to ensure that we could get a JOBS Act to see what could happen with creating jobs, but what they have done now is to go a step further beyond what we agreed upon. Mr. Speaker, I ask for an ``aye'' vote on my amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I would just like to point out that here is a Democrat on this side of the aisle who is offering to the Republican side to support the idea that you would raise the asset level for these small banks if only you would support minority banks, if only you would have a plan for CRA, if only you would do the right thing, if you care about the constituents, and they are rejecting it.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker and Members, my friends on the opposite side of the aisle, who have brought this bill to the floor, claim they care about community banks, even when we know this bill will just result in more consolidation among small financial institutions. Just yesterday the Republicans repealed the mechanism by which we would wind down systemically important firms. This puts us back to the days of September 2008, when our largest financial institutions could not only threaten the entire economy, but also the stability of our community banks. Remember that when Wall Street banks cratered our mortgage system, they devastated the entire economy in ways that damaged not just workers and borrowers, but also small financial institutions. Republicans, likewise, later today will repeal the independent funding for the Financial Stability Oversight Council, our regulator expressly charged with examining the largest, most interconnected, most complex, Wall Street firms. Again, the Republicans want the biggest players to escape scrutiny, thereby threatening our smaller community institutions. Republicans also have failed to put forward credible housing finance reform. Recall that in 2013 the chairman brought up his PATH Act, which would have all but excluded small banks and credit unions from the secondary market, especially handing the keys to our mortgage markets over to the largest Wall Street banks. By eliminating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, community financial institutions across the country would have had mortgage lending come to a halt. Finally, remember that Republicans are willing to hold our government hostage over favors that help the largest banks and only expose our community financial institutions to more risk. We need not go too far back to remember the 2014 fight over the government spending bill, where Republicans were willing to risk a government shutdown in order to repeal Dodd-Frank's swaps pushout rule, which would have required our largest banks to separate their riskier derivatives activity from the accounts holding depositors' money. Let us be clear. My chairman has said over and over again, and never fails to remind us, that he hates Dodd-Frank. He wants to get rid of Dodd-Frank reforms. He said he would do anything to get rid of Dodd- Frank and the reforms that were put in place by the Congress of the United States and signed by the President. He forgets what happened in 2008. He forgets the meltdown. He forgets the risk. He forgets about the almost depression that we found ourselves in. He does not want to strengthen the hand of regulators. He does not believe that our regulators should have on their agenda consumer protection. That is why, in all of this struggle, whether it is talking about the small banks or--you should hear him on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He hates that Bureau, and he wants to dismantle that Bureau because they do not want regulations, really, for the biggest banks in this country. Oftentimes, what they are doing is they are benefiting the big banks, but they are making it look as if they are benefiting the smaller banks. So we have to push back very hard on these attempts. Moving from $1 billion to $5 billion is an absolute unraveling of our agreement. It is wrong to work so hard with the opposite side of the aisle and come to an agreement, only to have them renege on it. But, in the final analysis, it is because they would rather put their influence and their time in on what amounts to helping the big banks and not the small banks and forget about what this does to our communities. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. On Tuesday in the Committee on Rules, I reminded Members that I came to the Committee on Financial Services--it was known as the Banking Committee back then--in the wake of the savings and loan crisis. One of the biggest lessons I took away from that time was that we must be precise when we mandate changes to bank safety and soundness rules, even when our intent is to help community financial institutions. Congress' intent may have been to help savings and loans serve their communities, but by not being measured and considered in its actions, Congress transformed the savings and loan industry into one that serves speculative investments and irresponsible CEOs. That recklessness led to a banking crisis that brought down more than a thousand institutions, cost taxpayers more than $120 billion, and robbed many communities of access to affordable banking products. As I have said, it is important that the small bank holding company policy statement threshold is carefully calibrated so it cannot be abused by speculative investors. If the threshold is raised too high, it will have the opposite of the intended impact. It will lead to mergers and acquisitions, riskier banking activities, and a reduction in banking services and credit availability to rural, low-income, minority, and underserved communities. That is why 2 years ago I worked diligently with my Republican counterparts to pass a bill that raised the threshold to $1 billion in assets, providing additional funding resources to 89 percent of the banks in the United States. That was smart, bipartisan legislating, a decision that we came to after consulting the regulators, researching the industry, and carefully considering the ramifications of the proposal. In addition to that bill on the small bank holding company policy statement, I and my fellow Democrats in both the House and the Senate also introduced comprehensive legislation that would reduce compliance costs at community banks. We introduced this legislation, which included carefully targeted reforms that would allow small banks to thrive rather than encouraging consolidation, as this bill would do. Our support for small institutions is also why my fellow Democrats and I have been supportive of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has used SMART data analysis to thoughtfully calibrate their rules for the needs of small banks. We often forget that in the run-up to the crisis, many small banks were pushed out of the lending business by unregulated, nonbank lenders. The CFPB has now created an even playing field, and small banks and credit unions are a bigger share of the mortgage market now than they have been in years. Carefully considered reforms provide relief to community banks without creating unintended consequences in a complex financial system with many players. Unfortunately, the legislation before us today would, as my friends across the aisle say over and over again, hurt the people it is trying to help. After we worked in good faith with Republicans to come up with a smart, targeted reform, we are now attempting to use this issue as a political wedge. It is exactly that kind of thinking that set the groundwork for the savings and loan crisis and left thousands of communities without access to banking services. I would urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to set the record straight. I have in my hand a statement from United States Senator Sherrod Brown. It is a statement on House Bill to Alter Federal Reserve Small Bank Holding Policy Statement. U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, issued the following statement today on legislation--that is this legislation, H.R. 3791--that would increase the asset threshold for the Federal Reserve small bank holding company policy statement: ``I understand that proponents of H.R. 3791 have mentioned a similar provision that I included in a larger bill in 2013 as somehow relevant to the current debate before the House of Representatives. It might be relevant if the House was also engaged in a real effort to address too big to fail, and it might be relevant if time had stood still. But since 2014, Congress and regulators have provided significant regulatory relief to community banks and raised the threshold of the small bank holding company policy statement to $1 billion. Raising the threshold to $1 billion was where Congress, regulators, and stakeholders could find broad bipartisan consensus on this issue, and I support that. I do not believe we should take further action to raise the threshold, and it is wrong to suggest otherwise.'' So, ladies and gentlemen on the opposite side of the aisle, don't use Sherrod Brown's name one more time because this statement puts that to rest. He is not in support of raising this threshold to $5 billion. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, we have no more speakers.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Royce amendment, which the Financial Services Committee considered last November as H.R. 3738. The amendment is yet further evidence of the Republican plan to kill Dodd- Frank with a thousand cuts. If adopted, the Office of Financial Research would have to disclose its research agenda at the beginning of each year, potentially alarming markets, just as the underlying bill, the Royce amendment, would mean that any study of the OFR would become corrupted. Our market actors would see that the OFR, an office that makes recommendations to the Financial Stability Oversight Council about systemic risks, was concerned about a particular topic. In response, those actors would begin to change their behavior even if the OFR might later conclude that there was never any risks to our economy. In addition, this amendment would require OFR to go into great detail when disclosing what it plans to study, something that is not done by any other research organization. Finally, I am troubled by the amendment's provisions requiring the OFR to disclose its consultations. Internal consultations and deliberations are explicitly excluded by the Freedom of Information Act and for good reason. Individuals would not likely participate in OFR studies if their offline, candid remarks were made part of the public record. Will this prevent industry lobbyists and trade associations from commenting? Of course not. They will continue earning their keep, and the amendment gives them even more opportunities. Why would independent researchers, academics, and scientists want to weigh in on a public fight? This amendment, the underlying bill, and many of the other Republican initiatives we have seen this year all share the same goal. They are aimed at undoing all of the progress the Obama administration and Democrats have made in the last 8 years. How many times are we going to find ways to kill financial reform? How many times are we going to vote to kill job-creating agencies, like the Export-Import Bank? How many times are we going to vote to get rid of ObamaCare and the health insurance of millions of Americans? There is important work to be done, passing a budget, for one, ending homelessness in America, funding the administration's requests to help combat the Zika virus, helping Puerto Rico to restructure their crippling debt so that the island can grow and prosper and create jobs. When are Republicans going to hear the cries of everyday Americans? I encourage Members to support their constituents by continuing to fight for these issues and oppose Republican attempts like this to simply roll back Democrat reform. I urge a ``no'' vote on the Royce amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Under Democratic leadership, our country has made tremendous strides in creating jobs, in growing the economy, and in stabilizing the housing market since the depths of the 2008 recession. This was despite significant headwinds from both overseas crises and Republican intransigence. Instrumental to our achievements is the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which has bolstered our Nation's financial stability and has brought accountability to the entire system. Among its many accomplishments, such as protecting consumers from predatory practices, Dodd-Frank sought to address the excessive risk taking by the largest and most complex financial institutions by creating the Financial Stability Oversight Council--that is FSOC--and the Office of Financial Research, OFR. These two agencies were charged with looking at the big picture and identifying cracks in the system that could cause a breakdown in our economy. They oversee all aspects of the financial system and our largest institutions that can cause systemic risk. FSOC works to identify and to address systemic risk posed by large, complex companies and activities before they threaten the stability of the economy. It provides for the cooperation and information sharing between agencies in order to research and correct threats before they become crises. OFR helps to provide the necessary tools to FSOC by collecting and analyzing data on the health of our financial markets and by conducting research on potential sources of financial instability. It flags emerging threats and shares that information with other regulators so that they can intervene before a crisis occurs. Together, these two agencies have addressed the devastating, widespread failures in supervision and regulation that brought our economy to its knees in 2008. They fill the regulatory gaps to make sure that no institution, however powerful, can circumvent our rules and regulations. This crucial work is supported by a majority of Americans-- Republicans and Democrats--who favor Dodd-Frank and the reforms it has implemented. Yet, instead of recognizing the importance of these institutions and the interests of the American public, House Republicans are undermining our regulators' efforts to the benefit of the industries that are lining their own pockets. I am troubled by the amnesia that plagues my colleagues about the causes of the 2008 financial crisis and why Wall Street reform was so critical. We created FSOC and OFR because our fractured regulatory system allowed firms to skirt the rules of the road. This behavior left millions homeless and unemployed, and it plunged us into the worst recession since the Great Depression. What is worse is that hundreds of communities across the country are still struggling to recover. By cutting off FSOC and OFR's independent funding streams, H.R. 3340 will subject the agencies to the volatility of the congressional appropriations process and the same funding uncertainty faced by the SEC and the FCFTC. Make no mistake. The bill before us today is part of a concerted effort by House Republicans to impede the progress of financial reform. Yesterday Republicans passed a bill in committee to repeal the only mechanism to unwind a megabank without destabilizing the economy as well as a bill to eliminate funding for the bureau tasked with protecting consumers from predatory loans. Earlier today and for much of this month, committee Republicans will depose public servants at the CFPB, Treasury, and FSOC, despite agencies providing thousands of pages of documents at the Republicans' request. Soon I expect my chairman to bring up bills repealing the rest of our reform. Democrats in the House are all too familiar with these attacks. Are we not? Republicans have proposed $6 trillion in cuts to initiatives like Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps. They have prevented us from debating America's sacred right to vote. Most Republicans voted against upholding the full faith and credit of our Nation's debt. I could go on and on and on. So, to my colleagues, we have pulled the cover off of them, and we are pointing out to you in no uncertain terms how they are singularly focused on killing Dodd-Frank reforms. They are not exercising their oversight responsibility. They are determined that they are going to have their way, and they have it under the banner of overregulation. Well, that old argument is tired, ladies and gentlemen. Overregulation every time they want to do something for the big banks, et cetera. I urge my colleagues to oppose this coordinated attack and vote ``no'' on this harmful bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to take a moment and talk about why we created the FSOC and the OFR in the very first place since my Republican colleagues seem to think that more regulatory cooperation and the overseeing of our financial system is such a bad thing. Simply put, we created FSOC to look across regulatory silos and detect, prevent, and mitigate systemic risk in the U.S. financial system so that we would never again be caught off guard when major financial firms, like AIG, fail. Recall that AIG created an entire business model that was designed to avoid regulation, which sent its major operations and risky credit default swaps to the London-based unit, AIG Financial Products, which, in turn, was guaranteed by the U.S. parent company. What is more, AIG was allowed to select as a regulator the Office of Thrift Supervision, OTS. According to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which is the FCIC, the OTS failed to effectively exercise its authority over AIG and its affiliates. It lacked the capability to supervise an institution of the size and complexity of AIG's. It did not recognize the risk inherent in AIG's sales of credit default swaps, and it did not understand its responsibility to oversee the entire company, including AIG Financial Products. As we all know, this regulatory arbitrage ultimately spelled failure for AIG because its enormous sales of credit default swaps were made without putting up initial collateral, setting aside capital reserves, or hedging its exposure--a profound failure in corporate governance, particularly in its risk management practices. In having just witnessed the takeover of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers a mere 24 hours before, the U.S. Government stepped in and committed more than $180 billion to ensure that AIG's collapse didn't bring down the rest of the financial system to which it was so interconnected. From there, the Bush administration requested the authority to bail out the big banks. When the dust began to settle, Democrats in Congress worked to come up with a solution to eliminate this regulatory arbitrage and encourage our financial regulators to communicate with one another. Of course, the commonsense solution was to create a council on which each of our financial regulators had a voice and could meet to consider gaps between the agencies' interconnectedness within the financial sector. This council would also hold each regulator accountable to how the regulators as a whole were mitigating systemic risk to our economy. To help inform and support the council, we created the Office of Financial Research to research and report on potential systemic risk to our economy. Dodd-Frank ensured that the council of the OFR and that Congress would all be focused on emerging threats to our economy and would never be caught unawares by another AIG. H.R. 3340, however, undermines these reforms, and it should be opposed. Mr. Speaker and Members, many of the Members on the opposite side of the aisle are talking about our oversight responsibility, but they don't even exercise oversight responsibility or get the regulators in and have a real discussion with them about how it all works. AIG was complicated. None of the Members of Congress really understood how it operated, how it was formed, how it was set up, and what it was doing. We have learned our lesson from AIG, and I hope that the Members of this Congress will not forget it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My friends on the opposite side of the aisle keep talking about accountability and what Congress' responsibility is and what the Constitution says we should do. But I find it very interesting, while they are claiming that OFR and FSOC should be given more oversight, they don't seem to really want to exercise the responsibility to do that. Republicans claim that only when OFR and FSOC are subject to the annual appropriations process, will these two entities be accountable to Congress. However, how many times has the Financial Services Committee requested the director of the Office of Financial Research to testify? Only one time. Section 153 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires that the OFR director testify before our committee annually, and yet, OFR Director Berner has only been invited to testify once in the last 4 years--the only time being in March of 2013. That means for more than 3 years, our committee, under Republican leadership, has shirked its duties to oversee the OFR. Any Member who has met Director Berner can attest that he has always stated his eagerness to update Congress on what OFR is doing. Mr. Speaker, this bill is not some valiant attempt to hold FSOC and OFR accountable, no. This bill is yet another attack on a Dodd-Frank financial reform by Republicans, who never supported financial reform in the very first place. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

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

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

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

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to H.R. 3340, which would impede the important work of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, commonly referred to as FSOC, and the Office of Financial Research, referred to as OFR, by subjecting their funding to the congressional appropriations process. This bill would also hamstring the OFR's ability to conduct impartial research by requiring the Office to solicit public comment before issuing any report, rule, or regulation. Just in case people don't understand who FSOC is, it includes the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the National Credit Union Association, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and independent members with insurance expertise, chaired by the Treasury Secretary. What you have is every representation from all of these oversight and regulatory agencies coming together, working together in the best interests of this country, identifying risk and where that risk is and what to do about it. But the changes that are now being suggested or being made in this bill will have serious adverse effects on financial stability in the United States. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act created FSOC to oversee and prevent threats to our financial markets, and the OFR was established to support FSOC's critical work with analytical research. Dodd-Frank specifically empowered both agencies with independent budgets, the same way our other banking regulators, like the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, operate. The FSOC and OFR are funded outside of appropriations, through fees on large financial institutions. They were meant to be funded by the institutions they oversee and be shielded from congressional politics. Republicans say they want accountability by overseeing regulators' budgets, but what they really want is control, so they can eliminate funding for these agencies altogether. This bill would prevent efforts to properly mitigate systemic risk, to the detriment of the entire economy; and in this Congress, it would subject the agencies to the uncertainty caused by the dysfunctional, failed Republican budget process. All we have to do is look at the struggles facing the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. They continue to be underfunded, despite dramatic changes in the markets. It is a struggle every year to secure adequate resources to supervise complex institutions to the benefit of industries, but at dramatic cost to our economy. Understandably, the administration opposes this bill, and the President's senior advisers would recommend a veto. The administration specifically says that subjecting these bodies to congressional appropriations would hinder their independence and would limit their ability to monitor and address threats to financial stability. In addition, this bill would interfere with OFR's work. Republicans also say they want transparency and cost-benefit analysis with regard to OFR's activities, but what they really want is to give industry a leg up on our regulators. In addition, by requiring the OFR to tell the industry what it is studying, the bill would corrupt OFR's findings and could have a chilling effect on its important work. For similar reasons, I also will be urging my colleagues to oppose an amendment by Mr. Royce that we will consider later on today that requires detailed disclosure of the OFR's research agenda and practices. This is not the norm of any research organization and would severely limit OFR's ability to conduct rigorous, impartial analyses. Our regulators need to act with certainty, impartiality, and position resources to conduct robust oversight of our financial markets so that we can properly detect and deter systemic risk. Unfortunately, this bill will be a step back in that effort, not forward, and it is further evidence that Republicans seek to dismantle Dodd-Frank and the improvements we have made in our financial markets, one bill at a time. I am going to urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.