Maxine Waters

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, having said that, I would like to discuss a point that I do not think has been given enough attention yet in this debate. Iran could move in any direction over the next 15 years and the postagreement dynamics in Iran would play out in a number of ways. We are aware of the less benign scenarios. There is also the scenario in which the agreement helps to amplify the voices of those in Iran who want peace in regional and international accommodation. I have hope with respect to this latter possibility, and I will tell you why. It is because more than half the population of Iran today--almost 55 percent--is under 30 years old, and the youth unemployment rate is somewhere between 27 and 40 percent. I hope that these young people, given the opportunity to work, to achieve prosperity, and to live peacefully, will, in fact, help animate the kind of change in Iran that will, indeed, move it to become a responsible member of the world community. This is a possibility that I urge Members to keep in mind when they vote on the resolution before us today. I have no more time, but I would just urge my colleagues to support this important deal and agreement, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have left?

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney), the author of this legislation.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to thank my colleague and friend, Mr. Green, for introducing this important bill, the Homes for Heroes Act of 2015. This bill aims to help prevent low-income veteran families from falling into homelessness, while also providing relief for those who are currently homeless. This bill achieves these aims by elevating a position at HUD aimed specifically at coordinating efforts to ensure that all Federal agencies working to house our homeless veterans are working together at maximum capacity. This position will work closely with the HUD Secretary to achieve these outcomes. The Homes for Heroes Act will also ensure the long-term coordination of services for homeless veterans by requiring HUD to submit a comprehensive annual report to Congress on the housing needs of homeless veterans. This bill will help ensure that we continue to make progress on the goal of ending veteran homelessness so that we can ensure that every veteran has a roof over their head. Recent efforts to house our homeless veterans have seen bipartisan support in both the House and Senate in the form of supporting robust funding for the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program, also known as HUD-VASH. This bill should be no different. Our veterans have been at the forefront of protecting this country, and we have an obligation here in Congress to protect and provide for those who are most vulnerable. No person in the country should be deprived of a safe, decent, and affordable place to call home. No person should be deprived of a roof over their head. This bill would help to ensure that we are taking care of those who have taken care of this country. In addition, this bill is supported by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a national advocacy organization committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the United States. An identical bill passed the House last Congress. I urge my colleagues to again pass this important piece of legislation. I want to thank Mr. Green for his persistence in bringing forth this legislation. It is another wonderful moment for him. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my colleague from California (Mr. Peters) for working on this important issue and introducing this bill. This bill, entitled the Housing Assistance Efficiency Act, makes two key changes to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act that are long overdo. Specifically, this bill is designed to fix two technical problems that have arisen in HUD's homeless assistance programs due to technical errors in the language in the HEARTH Act, which was a bipartisan bill that significantly reformed the homeless assistance programs in 2009. Among other things, HUD's homeless assistance programs help homeless people pay rent when they move out of shelters or off the streets and into housing. Since the inception of these programs, local nonprofit organizations have received funding from HUD to administer efficient and cost- effective rental assistance programs, working with local landlords to get places for homeless people to live. Unfortunately, in 2009, when certain programs were merged under the HEARTH Act, these nonprofits became ineligible to directly administer permanent rental assistance. This unintentional result of the HEARTH Act has created huge uncertainty on the ground for many nonprofits who work hard to house our homeless populations across the country. The permanent fix in H.R. 1047 would be extremely helpful for communities that are working to end homelessness for chronic individuals, veterans, children, and other populations. The second provision in H.R. 1047 addresses the Emergency Solutions Grants Program, a program aimed at homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing activities. The bill would amend the current HUD requirement to reallocate unused, returned, or otherwise newly available funds twice per year to just once per year. This change provides HUD and local agencies with administrative relief, while having no negative impact on beneficiaries of these programs. In addition, this program is supported by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a national advocacy organization committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the United States. An identical bill passed the House last December on the suspension calendar by voice vote. I urge my colleagues to again vote in favor of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Peters).

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This bill is the product of years of thoughtful consideration and negotiations. I am very pleased with the compromises that were reached on this bill, especially some additional tenant protections that include rent affordability restrictions for existing tenants. There are currently about 640 properties that are subject to restrictions in the Low-Income Housing Preservation and Resident Homeownership Act of 1990, otherwise known as LIHPRHA. LIHPRHA imposed some significant restrictions on property owners, which have proven to be problematic by making it more difficult for property owners to preserve these aging properties. This bill would help address this issue by providing affected property owners with greater flexibilities on the condition that they comply with basic requirements that ensure that the properties are adequately maintained and that tenants do not see dramatic increases in rents. By providing these flexibilities, property owners will have better access to capital to carry out repairs and other improvements that will help preserve these aging properties and ultimately benefit tenants. Particularly in light of the current rental housing crisis, this is an important bipartisan measure that seeks to preserve our affordable housing stock. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. I encourage support for this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this bill would create a pilot program within HUD which would allow for energy and water efficiency upgrades to be made to certain private multifamily HUD properties at no cost to the government. Under this innovative pilot program, investors would provide all of the upfront capital to make the improvements, and they would only get paid based on a portion of the cost savings that result from the improvements. If there are no cost savings, the losses would be completely on the investors, not HUD or the taxpayers. This is a rare win-win situation. HUD and taxpayers benefit from cost savings; tenants benefit from the improvements made to their homes; investors benefit from the profits, and of course, the environment benefits from the more responsible use of natural resources. This bill also ensures accountability by requiring a third-party evaluation to verify any cost savings and also by requiring the Secretary to report on the outcomes of the pilot within a year of enactment. There is simply no reason for bipartisan bickering on a bill like this. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I urge support, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. During the foreclosure crisis of the last several years, we have learned how important the role of mortgage servicing is to our economy and our constituents. I am proud of the work we did in the Dodd-Frank Act and of the work that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau continues to do to reform the practices of the mortgage servicing industry. Unfortunately, this Congress has not been able to move legislation on broader housing finance reform. While we have left this business unfinished, there has been a large shift in the structure of the mortgage servicing industry, as nonbank servicers who are supervised by State regulators play a much larger role than they have in the past. That is why I am supporting the good, bipartisan work Mr. Perlmutter and Mr. Luetkemeyer have engaged in to make sure that State and Federal regulators are working together to understand the changes in the mortgage servicing industry and to make sure bank and nonbank services are treated appropriately under new financial rules. This study will give regulators the information they need to monitor the impact of capital standards on the mortgage servicing market and encourage State and Federal regulators to work together to ensure that all mortgage services are appropriately capitalized, regardless of who regulates them. H.R. 1408 will ensure that regulators are paying close attention to a vital part of our housing and financial system, and I am happy that we were able to work with the majority to pass this bill. So I thank you, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am once again pleased to support this bill related to small business capital formation. This legislation has broad bipartisan support and clarifies the intent of Congress when we passed Dodd-Frank. H.R. 432, which Representatives Luetkemeyer and Maloney worked on in a bipartisan fashion, exempts advisers to small business investment companies, or SBICs, from registration with the SEC in cases where they are inappropriately being required to do so. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress explicitly exempted advisers to SBIC funds and advisers to venture capital funds from registration. However, the SEC has interpreted the language in the act as still requiring registration if a fund's adviser advises both. This, to me, is not consistent with the act, and I applaud the authors of this bill for solving this problem. This bill would also exclude SBIC fund assets from the calculation of fund assets triggering the $150 million registration threshold, another provision I believe is reasonable. The SBIC program was created in 1958 to help small businesses grow. It is a self-funded program and has provided needed capital to communities via the partnership between the Small Business Administration and private businesses. I am also comfortable with the exemptions provided in this legislation because the SBA actively oversees SBICs, ensures compliance, and restricts leverage. I am pleased that we are able to work together in this committee to ensure the continued vitality of this longstanding program. Last Congress, I met with an SBIC located just outside of my district, Escalate Capital Partners, which finances technology firms. Since 2010, the firm has financed 27 companies and increased its payroll by 2,000 jobs. However, this firm is being inadvertently caught up in unnecessary SEC registration because, with SBIC assets under management being counted, it exceeds the $150 million exemption threshold we established in Dodd-Frank. Without undermining the key systemic risk and investment protection requirements we established under Dodd-Frank, H.R. 432 provides Escalate Capital Partners and similarly situated SBICs with targeted relief. So I applaud the bipartisan coauthors and urge Members to support this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that this bill addresses an oversight in the JOBS Act that established new, higher thresholds for registration, termination of registration, and suspension of public reporting for banks and bank holding companies, but not for savings and loan companies. In the JOBS Act, we recognized that banks and bank holding companies were inadvertently becoming public companies by virtue of their securities being distributed to a larger number of shareholders than permitted under the securities laws, even though these institutions were largely held within their own communities. Accordingly, we provided banks and bank holding companies with regulatory relief by raising the thresholds that trigger public company reporting. H.R. 1334 would extend this relief to savings and loan companies which, like banks and bank holding companies, are still subject to mandatory public reporting requirements by the banking regulators; so information will continue to be available to shareholders and the public. Last Congress, we passed this noncontroversial bill out of committee and on the House floor. Since that time, the Securities and Exchange Commission has, under its own authority, proposed to extend the JOBS Act provision to savings and loan companies. The SEC estimates that approximately 90 of the 125 savings and loan holding companies that have a class of registered securities would be eligible to terminate registration or suspend reporting under its proposal. I am pleased to support this bill, which will extend the benefits we provide in the JOBS Act to those 90 companies that represent an additional class of community banks. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand here with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle today to support so many pieces of legislation that have come out of the Financial Services Committee. I have always said with Dodd-Frank, where there were technical problems or oversights or unintended consequences, that I would work with my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle, and much of what you see here today, that is what we have done. Just as there may have been some unintended consequences in Dodd- Frank, we find that with the JOBS Act, there were unintended consequences; and certainly, I stand with them in correcting those. It could happen in any legislation; we know that. This is an example of that. I am very, very pleased to support this legislation today. I reserve the balance of my time at this moment.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1723, the Small Company Simple Registration Act of 2015 is a commonsense provision to help smaller companies avoid having to obtain an audit related to a filing that is itself already audited. The bill would no longer require a company to amend its registration statement when it issues a quarterly or annual filing. Although one witness noted the concern that all information would no longer be reflected in a single document, she recommended that the SEC's public filing system be improved and that the issuer be required to post the registration statement on its Web site, complete with hyperlinks to the documents that are incorporated by reference. This seems like a reasonable approach. I believe that the SEC can do both and likely would if H.R. 1723 is passed. This one change has the potential to help companies save $10,000, and with all SEC filings able to be quickly found online, it does not diminish investor protections in any way. Last Congress, this provision was unfortunately attached to a larger bill that did not make a lot of sense. I am glad to see it has now been offered on its own, as I think it now has a much better likelihood of moving to the President's desk. I certainly support the adoption of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, transparent trading of derivatives, along with realtime reporting of trades to swap data repositories, is a crucial element of the Dodd-Frank Act. This bill makes necessary technical changes to better enable our Nation's regulators to share that data about derivatives with one another and with their foreign counterparts. An unintended result in Dodd-Frank of trying to protect both regulators and the data repositories from burdensome litigation was that other regulators lacked the authority to pay future legal expenses, thus threatening to prevent the sharing of information. This was clearly not intended as one of the primary goals of title VII, to enable regulators and the public to better understand the derivatives market. H.R. 1847 addresses those concerns and is supported by the industry and advocates, like Americans for Financial Reform, alike. I also understand that the bill includes additional changes to the legislation requested by the SEC to better target the statutory change. I thank Representative Moore and Representative Crawford for working together in a bipartisan manner to address these issues and solve a very real threat to cross-border regulatory cooperation and oversight. I urge support of this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), who happens to be the ranking member for the Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The Improving Access to Capital for Emerging Growth Companies Act is a good bill and is the product of bipartisan compromise. The bill was amended last year to address certain investor protection concerns while still retaining key relief for small businesses. H.R. 2064 amends title I of the Jumpstart Our Business Start-Ups Act of 2012, to provide emerging growth companies--that is, EGCs--with additional flexibility when going public. During a hearing on this bill in the Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee, one witness expressed concerns that 2 years of financial statements are necessary for the SEC to compare years during its review, and, at a minimum, issuers should be required to provide what they have. My fear is that, if a company were allowed to delay its filing, as this bill would allow, it would only likely delay the SEC's review, resulting in no real benefit to the issuer. I would also like to emphasize the problem Congress gets into when it preempts the regulators by trying to issue rules by legislation. When we get it wrong, it takes another act of Congress to fix it. However, I support this legislation today because it seems as if a consensus has emerged that this technical fix is appropriate. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Delaney). It is because of his leadership not only on this issue, but on small business, the opportunities of EGCs, and the fact that his negotiations on this legislation led us to bipartisan support.

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I think that this is the last bill that we are taking up on suspension today. What you have seen is a fine example of both sides of the aisle working to do the best thing that we could possibly do for our constituents. There have been bills that were presented today that were suspect, perhaps, when they first were introduced; there were bills today where we had technical corrections; there were bills today where we had bipartisan support where we never thought we would get bipartisan support. I would like the work that we have done on the floor today to demonstrate that we do have the ability to work together in the best interests of the citizens of this country; and to the degree that we understand that even in Dodd-Frank where there may still be some concerns, that we can be civil about it, that we can be considerate about it, and that we recognize that not only may there may be places for technical corrections in Dodd-Frank, but in the JOBS Act and other bills that we have heard today and that we will hear in the future. I am very pleased to have been a part of the work that we have done here on this floor today to get together in a bipartisan way, again, to act in the best interests of all of the people of this country. I yield back the balance of my time.