| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
decorum In The Supreme Court
00:03:39
|
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| The government. | ||
| Remember this? | ||
| I'm sitting there and I'm sitting beside a colleague, a lawyer, a member, I mean, on our committee. | ||
| And it was almost one of those moments where, you know, you got to keep there's certain decor and decorum. | ||
| You got to keep in, I mean, you know, the way you got to act in the Supreme Court. | ||
| But it was almost like, I almost just like sit up and said, like, that's the whole stinking point, right? | ||
| She's on the highest court in the land and made that statement. | ||
| So they want to pack more people in the court who will say things like that and I guess believe things like that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll leave this here to take you live to Capitol Hill, where the House is about to gavel in to start legislative business today. | |
| Live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Ordering the previous question on House HRES 426, adoption of HRES 426, if ordered, and a motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 1223 if ordered. | ||
| The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote pursuant to clause 9 of Rule 20. | ||
| Remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute votes. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business of the House, the vote on ordering the previous question on House Resolution 426, on which the yays and nays are ordered. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the resolution. | ||
| House calendar number 28, House Resolution 426. | ||
| Resolution providing for consideration of the joint resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 13, providing for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V United States Code of the rules submitted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of the Department of the Treasury relating to the review of applications under the Bank Merger Act, | ||
| Providing for consideration of the joint resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 31, providing for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V United States Code, of the rules submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to review of final rule reclassification of major sources as area sources under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act and waiving a requirement of clause 6A of Rule 13 with respect to consideration of certain resolutions reported from the Committee ON Rules. | ||
| The question is on the ordering of the previous question. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a 15-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A series of three roll call votes here, beginning with a procedural vote on allowing debate on two measures that would repeal Biden administration regulations, dealing with expedited bank merger reviews and limiting toxic air pollutants from industrial facilities. | |
| We're expecting a vote on approval of those debate rules after that. | ||
| That allows, also allows for an expedited process to pass the president's tax and spending bill. | ||
| Speaker Johnson is attempting to move quickly with that legislation as the Rules Committee is scheduled to meet late tonight, starting at 1 a.m. Eastern, to further work on what the President is calling his one big beautiful bill. | ||
| By the way, we will be carrying that Rules Committee meeting live for you here on C-SPAN, again, starting at 1 a.m. Eastern. | ||
|
The Way We'll Get a Picture
00:05:16
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|
unidentified
|
Republican leadership. | |
| Sorry about that. | ||
| I think that's the way we're going to get a picture. | ||
| While members vote here, earlier today Republican leaders spoke about their plans. | ||
| Here's a look. | ||
| Heads up. | ||
| Golly, golly. | ||
| It is tight in here, isn't it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
yeah much more sensitive Well, good morning, everybody. | |
|
Delivering on Border Security
00:15:40
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| House Republicans just finished hearing from our president, and he delivered a clear message. | ||
| And that message was, get the job done. | ||
| Everyone in that room agreed we will deliver this victory for the president and more importantly for the American people. | ||
| The stakes are too high, and we will not miss our chance. | ||
| Now, switching gears to news that broke over the weekend, the American people are smart, but we already knew that. | ||
| When the Biden-HER tapes were released on Friday, it proved that Democrats hid and lied about Biden's condition. | ||
| The American people knew they were being lied to. | ||
| And this week, I hope no one takes the Democrats' bait or the Democrats' word for anything, especially when they keep lying and fear-mongering about the One Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| We will not let them get away with their lives. | ||
| And I hope you all ask them about the tapes this week. | ||
| Two, really interesting. | ||
| Contrast that with House Republicans who will remain on offense this week as we advance our One Great Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| We will pass this transformational legislation for the families who just lost loved ones to the border crisis. | ||
| Families like Lankin Riley and Rachel Morin, who were both killed by violent, illegal immigrants, like Zach Cullen, who lost his life to fentanyl, and Agent Raul Gonzalez, who lost his life pursuing an illegal immigrant near the border. | ||
| This historic opportunity to secure our border and make our communities safer. | ||
| This bill provides technology to improve border enforcement. | ||
| This bill provides resources to support border patrol agents that they so desperately need. | ||
| This bill provides funding to deport more violent, illegal immigrants and materials to finish the wall. | ||
| We have an opportunity right now before us to make generational investments in the safety of our communities. | ||
| Let's close the floodgates and remove those that never should have been here in the first place. | ||
| But let's not forget some of what other wins are in our bill and what's at stake. | ||
| Like the people and the mom and pops, the businesses that are facing historic tax increase, if we don't get this bill done, they will not survive if we don't pass this bill. | ||
| And those on Medicaid who need it strengthened, sustained, and secured. | ||
| It's time we put them first, not illegal immigrants. | ||
| That's what we promised the people, and that's what we intend to deliver, to put the American people first. | ||
| And the One Big Beautiful bill delivers on those priorities. | ||
| And I know every single House Republican will be proud of its passage. | ||
| Because when it's all said and done, history will remember that Republicans put Americans first, and the Democrats didn't. | ||
| And now I would like to turn it over to our chairman, Mark Green. | ||
| Thank you, Speaker. | ||
| Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Alejandro Majarcas' reckless disregard for the rule of law created an historic border crisis. | ||
| Under the Biden and Harris administration, 13 million inadmissible aliens poured into our country, overwhelming Border Patrol and CBP officers wasting billions of taxpayer dollars and, of course, throwing many of our communities into chaos. | ||
| Illegal gang activity, influx of fentanyl. | ||
| You've heard us talk about it before. | ||
| I saw an article the other day from one of you guys, 60% decrease in the murder rate in one city where ICE had removed the gang members. | ||
| After four years, the American people were sick of it. | ||
| They're tired of it. | ||
| And of course, they gave Republicans the trifecta because we put them first. | ||
| As of April, Southwest border encounters were down over 90%. | ||
| And that's down from the lowest point in the previous administration. | ||
| And that lowest point happened not because of anything that the Biden administration had done. | ||
| That lowest point happened because of what Texas did with Operation Lone Star. | ||
| But even from that point, it's down 90% in April, the best numbers we've had ever in the history of this country, and that's because of the actions of this president, who delivered on his promise to secure the border and enforce our laws. | ||
| But if Congress fails to act, this success will be short-lived. | ||
| I'm proud of the Committee on Homeland Security's work to include common sense border security legislation. | ||
| That is a generational opportunity to actually secure our border. | ||
| We've tried so many times in the past. | ||
| Now we will codify these executive actions, and we will do our job in Congress and resource this effort. | ||
| $7 billion to recruit and train new border agents, billions of dollars to fix, to build the wall, and it's a high-tech lights, cameras, access to observe, $5 billion in technology enhancements, all the support that we can give to the border states. | ||
| We're going to expand Operation Stone Garden, those grants for those states that actually work with the Department of Homeland Security to secure our border, all in this bill, all because the American people said enough is enough, and all because they elected Donald Trump and a Republican Congress. | ||
| I now will be followed by one of my mentors and heroes in this building, Jim Jordan. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| You know why the Democrats dislike this bill so much? | ||
| Because it's so darn Republican. | ||
| Does three fundamental, embraces three fundamental Republican principles. | ||
| Cut taxes, secures the border, requires work. | ||
| We're the party that believes you should let mom and dads keep more of their money to chase down their goals and dreams. | ||
| We're the party that believes you should actually have a secure border. | ||
| This bill does it, as Chairman Green just pointed out. | ||
| And we're the party that believes able-bodied adults, if they're going to get your money, should have to work. | ||
| It's good for taxpayers. | ||
| It's good for the economy. | ||
| Most importantly, it's good for that individual. | ||
| This bill embraces three fundamental principles of our party. | ||
| That's why I think it's really important that Republicans lean in and go tell the American people how important this legislation is, how it keeps faith with what we told the voters we were going to do last November, why they elected us, and it's right on point. | ||
| So I'm confident we're going to get there this week, get the votes that we need to get this thing passed, because it does the things we said we were going to do. | ||
| And with that, I yield to the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Smith. | ||
| Thank you, Jim. | ||
| President Trump promised and delivered, and now the House will too. | ||
| The One Big Beautiful bill stops the largest tax increase in history and focuses benefits on workers, families, farmers, and small businesses. | ||
| It unleashes Made in America manufacturing and delivers on President Trump's promise to all American workers. | ||
| This is an economic growth agenda combined with historic spending reforms that protects those in need and puts America on a path to a better future. | ||
| $140 billion in your tax dollars shouldn't go to illegal immigrants who have broken the law. | ||
| Instead, Republicans are putting that money towards no tax on tips and no tax on overtime. | ||
| Fortunately, 77 million Americans have already weighed in. | ||
| We're going to deliver on the president's promises and we're going to help working and middle-class Americans. | ||
| This is very personal for me. | ||
| I grew up in a single-wide trailer in a town of less than 5,000 people. | ||
| The average income in my hometown is just over $24,000. | ||
| My priority is the working class. | ||
| That is the priority of President Trump, and that is the priority of the Republican Party. | ||
| And this bill delivers for them. | ||
| My neighbors back home and hardworking families and communities, just like in Salem, Missouri, and all across the United States. | ||
| According to the Council of Economic Advisors, the no tax on tips policy alone will lead to an additional $1,700 in the pockets of each of the 4 million different tipped employees working in communities throughout this nation. | ||
| Family take-home pay will increase up to $13,300 under the One Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| And the same study showed that tax relief for seniors, meanwhile, would increase the average take-home pay for qualifying seniors by approximately $450 per year. | ||
| I'm proud to say we're taking the President's promise and going even farther by delivering even greater benefits for them. | ||
| I've said it before, and I'll say it again. | ||
| Failure is not an option. | ||
| We have to deliver for the American people. | ||
| Please to turn over to Whip Emmer. | ||
| Thanks, Jason. | ||
| This week, House Republicans face a historic moment that has the potential to revive the American dream and solidify the comeback that has already begun under President Donald J. Trump. | ||
| From our nation's farmers to police officers working 60 hours a week, from America's top manufacturers to small businesses on Main Street, our one big, beautiful bill holds promise for every American. | ||
| In fact, nearly 1,000 organizations, nearly 1,000 organizations have already expressed support for the policies within the bill. | ||
| The Job Creators Network described our reconciliation bill as, quote, exactly what the country needs to jumpstart the economy and guarantee the safety and prosperity of Americans for decades to come, end quote. | ||
| The National Association of Manufacturers said of this landmark legislation, quote, we need certainty now, and this is the moment to deliver one big beautiful bill that lets us compete and win, end quote. | ||
| Their warning could not be more true. | ||
| The time to get this done is now. | ||
| Not only does this legislation make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent and implement no tax on tips and overtime pay, it also unleashes American energy, cuts waste, fraud, and abuse, and allows President Trump to continue his successful deportation and border security operations. | ||
| And that's only naming a handful of things this bill accomplishes. | ||
| Our reconciliation bill delivers on President Trump's America First agenda, and it does so while saving the American people over $1.6 trillion. | ||
| The one big, beautiful bill is truly a once-in-a-generation chance to get America back on track. | ||
| House Republicans must seize this opportunity and quickly, as my good friend Jason Smith just said, failure is not an option. | ||
| With that, I turn it over to our leader, Steve Scalise. | ||
| Thank you, Whip. | ||
| Well, this morning, President Trump had a strong and clear message to a packed House Republican conference. | ||
| And that is after months of long, intense discussions over really important differences and issues. | ||
| This one big, beautiful bill has come through the committee process, and it's time to end the negotiations, unify behind this bill, and get it passed on to the Senate. | ||
| And what President Trump really talked about was the things that we all talked about during the campaign, how important it was to prevent a tax increase on working-class families. | ||
| Low- and middle-income families would see a large, painful tax increase if this bill were not to happen. | ||
| And look, we all know every Democrat's going to vote no. | ||
| They've bragged about it. | ||
| They are fighting tooth and nail to stop us from preventing a tax increase. | ||
| Democrats also have made it clear they want open borders, and they sure don't want the provisions of this bill, as Chairman Greene and Chairman Jordan talked about, that will give our Border Patrol agents the tools they've been asking for for years to finally have the technology to be able to compete with the drug cartels and have better tools than the cartels of Mexico have to secure our border, | ||
| to complete construction of the wall, to deport criminals who came to America to harm our citizens. | ||
| And President Trump is finally following through, following through on that promise to secure our border, but he needs more tools to do it. | ||
| Something we also ran on was producing more energy in America. | ||
| And this bill reverses the Biden-era policies that shut off American energy, making our country more dependent on hostile nations, giving Putin billions of dollars a month more to fund his war in Ukraine by shutting American energy off. | ||
| This bill opens it back up again. | ||
| It generates more money. | ||
| It generates opportunity for families. | ||
| It generates higher wages for hardworking taxpayers. | ||
| It will generate real economic growth to lower inflation, to lower costs at the grocery store, to lower interest rates, all the things that 77 million voters gave us a mandate to go deliver on. | ||
| I know we've got a few final issues to resolve, but as President Trump said today, it's time to stop the talking and we need action. | ||
| We need to deliver for those families who have been waiting way too long for the results that are in this one big, beautiful bill. | ||
| A lot of great policies to deliver for those families is just waiting. | ||
| We're going to deliver this week. | ||
| We're going to bring the bill. | ||
| Failure absolutely is not an option. | ||
| We've got to get this done. | ||
| The man leading that charge here in the House, who President Trump had some great words about as our speaker, Mike Johnson. | ||
|
Proud Republican Moment
00:05:51
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||
| Thank you, Leader. | ||
| Thanks to all these great leaders standing behind me. | ||
| I tell you what, we're in a very good mood this morning. | ||
| We had an epic time on the Hill. | ||
| I don't think there's ever been a time when I've been more proud to be a Republican, to be an American. | ||
| We're on the verge of making history here, and everybody feels it. | ||
| In that room today with President Trump, it was filled with standing ovations and high energy and high excitement because everybody senses what's happening here. | ||
| It was a great esprit de corps, and we're blessed to serve under and with a president who understands the necessity of these relationships and is willing to roll his sleeves up and come stand in the trenches to be a part of this excitement of what's happening. | ||
| From the outset of the budget reconciliation process, we have sought to enact President Trump's full agenda, not just parts of it. | ||
| And that's why we call it the One Big Beautiful Bill, because really everything is sandwiched into this. | ||
| The American people were sick of wasteful spending and high inflation and open borders and weakness on the world stage. | ||
| And you know what we're working towards right now? | ||
| The opposite of all those things. | ||
| President Trump has used his executive authority in historic ways to stop much of the bleeding. | ||
| But Congress has a role and a responsibility to step in at this stage to stitch up and mend those wounds for good. | ||
| And that's what this legislation is about. | ||
| We cannot leave the American people waiting or wanting. | ||
| The One Big Beautiful Bill enshrines into law and funds President Trump's promises. | ||
| There's a lot of them because we had to make them because after the last four years, everything was an absolute disaster. | ||
| So he's promised to cut wasteful spending and save taxpayers' money. | ||
| Check. | ||
| That's what we're doing. | ||
| Make permanent historic tax cuts and prevent the largest tax hike in U.S. history. | ||
| Check. | ||
| That's what we're doing. | ||
| Invest in our national defense and homeland security in a fiscally responsible manner. | ||
| That too. | ||
| Reestablish American energy dominance. | ||
| And basically restore common sense to the government. | ||
| That's what the American people elected him to do. | ||
| This bill does all that and so much more. | ||
| And as a reminder, we're right on schedule. | ||
| Our House budget resolution gave instructions to 11 separate committees in the House to write their portions of the budget reconciliation bill, and they did it right on target. | ||
| Every instructed committee exceeded those targets, in fact, that they were given through our resolution. | ||
| That means the committees that were told to spend have spent less. | ||
| And the committees that were told to save actually found more savings than they were targeting. | ||
| And the bill delivered more than $1.5 trillion in savings mandated by the budget resolution. | ||
| That is historic. | ||
| There's never been anything like it before. | ||
| And we're proud to deliver it. | ||
| This is a whole of Congress response to a whole of government problem. | ||
| And the results of all this work for over a year has now come to fruition. | ||
| Every House Republican has engaged in the process. | ||
| The White House has been involved, as you saw most recently within the last hour. | ||
| The Senate has been involved. | ||
| Constituent groups from around the country made their voices heard. | ||
| And that's why, as the whip said, nearly 1,000 organizations have issued enthusiastic public endorsements about this legislation. | ||
| I don't think there's ever been anything like that. | ||
| No legislation has ever garnered that much support. | ||
| It's really something. | ||
| We never promised it would be easy. | ||
| We never thought this was going to be an effortless process because when you're doing this much in a bill this large and complicated and comprehensive, there's a lot of opinions in the room. | ||
| We respect that in the Republican Party. | ||
| We're people of deep principle and settled philosophy, and you're going to get differences of opinion when you work through these things. | ||
| That's part of it. | ||
| We welcome it. | ||
| Nothing in Congress is ever easy, especially when you have small margins. | ||
| But we are going to land this plane and deliver this. | ||
| And we're proud what we've accomplished together. | ||
| Every member of the conference can be proud of this legislation in the end. | ||
| It's truly a nation-shaping piece of legislation. | ||
| You heard some of the highlights here. | ||
| Let me just give you a couple of things that haven't been mentioned yet or can't be mentioned enough. | ||
| Some of the big conservative wins in the bill that are common sense wins. | ||
| The previous question is ordered. | ||
| The question is on the adoption of the resolution. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask for a recorded vote, please. | ||
| A recorded vote is requested. | ||
| Those favoring the recorded vote will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number have risen. | ||
| A recorded vote is ordered. | ||
| Members will record their vote by electronic device. | ||
| This will be a five-minute vote. | ||
|
Mr. President's Tax Bill
00:07:38
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|
unidentified
|
Members now voting on passage of the rules governing debate for two bills. | |
| One would streamline reviews on bank merger approval processes. | ||
| The other would nullify regulations to limit toxic air pollutants from industrial facilities. | ||
| That rule would also allow the House to bring out President Trump's tax and spending bill the same day it's reported out of the House Rules Committee. | ||
| Well, we just heard from House leaders after President Trump took a rare trip up Constitution Avenue earlier to meet with Republican members on the tax and spending bill. | ||
| Following that meeting, the Speaker and President Trump answered reporters' questions. | ||
| Here's a look. | ||
| Mr. President, Mr. President, Andy Harris said he didn't convince enough people to vote for the bill. | ||
| He said he didn't adequately convince enough people to vote for the bill. | ||
| What was the expression you use now? | ||
| Were you embarrassed? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Andy Harris said that adequately convinced enough people to vote for the bill. | |
| The House Freedom Congress. | ||
| You mean after this speech? | ||
|
unidentified
|
After this speech, that's how we're going to be able to do it. | |
| Well, what do we see at the voters? | ||
| I think it was a great, great talk. | ||
| It wasn't a speech. | ||
| We talked about things. | ||
| Who do you work for? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nurse. | |
| Who? | ||
| Nurse. | ||
| I don't even know what the hell that is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hold on. | |
| You got to get it. | ||
| Get yourself your real business. | ||
| Mr. President, let me tell you. | ||
| Let me tell you. | ||
| I think we have unbelievable unity. | ||
| I think we're going to get everything we want. | ||
| And I think we're going to have a great victory. | ||
| And this man has done a great job. | ||
| And I think this was a tremendous session. | ||
| You may want to say something. | ||
| Yeah, it was a great meeting. | ||
| The party is unified. | ||
| The House Republican Conference is excited. | ||
| Multiple stand-in ovations. | ||
| They love this president. | ||
| The people back home love what he's doing. | ||
| It's historic. | ||
| And everybody understands the scope and the meaning of this. | ||
| If we do not accomplish this mission, every one of you, all the American people, are going to have the highest tax increase that you've ever had. | ||
| Among the debt ceiling clip that's approaching and all the other problems, this is the bill to do it. | ||
| I think we're going to get done, Mr. President. | ||
| The Democrats want to raise your taxes. | ||
| If this doesn't work, this doesn't get the numbers that the Republicans want. | ||
| And I think it does. | ||
| I think it's all Republican votes. | ||
| The Democrats are going to be raising your taxes by 68%. | ||
| And they will not do the, we're going to have an 85% cut in drug costs. | ||
| 85% cut in drug costs. | ||
| The Democrats, the drug prices are going to go up. | ||
| I can't imagine a Democrat not voting for this. | ||
| I think the Democrats, if they don't vote for it, that means they're voting for an increase in drug prices. | ||
| Think of that. | ||
| Versus an 80 to an 85, maybe 75, but could be an 85% cut in drug costs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Mr. President, will you need to reach out to individual members? | ||
| Will you need to make a pitch to individual members? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's what I did today. | |
| That's really what we did today. | ||
| I think it was a really great. | ||
| That was a meeting of love. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me tell you. | |
| That was love in that room. | ||
| There was no shouting. | ||
| I think it was a meeting of love. | ||
| There were a couple of things that we talked about specifically where some people felt a little bit one way or the other, not a big deal. | ||
| And I covered them. | ||
| It wasn't so much a speech. | ||
| I covered certain points. | ||
| And I think there was, I'd be very surprised. | ||
| You told me you were losing pressure. | ||
| No, I didn't tell them. | ||
| Who told you I said I'm losing the money? | ||
| But it's a liar. | ||
| Wait a minute. | ||
| Who's told you that? | ||
| What we heard from people inside the room. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Totally true. | |
| Totally true. | ||
| I never used the term. | ||
| I didn't say losing. | ||
| I didn't even talk about it. | ||
| In fact, it's the opposite. | ||
| I think we're getting into that. | ||
| I'm not losing patients. | ||
| We're ahead of schedule. | ||
| Anybody that told you that is a liar. | ||
| Wait a minute, wait a minute. | ||
| I never mentioned the word losing patients because I'm not losing patients. | ||
| We're ahead of schedule. | ||
| Why don't you go back to your source and tell them they're liars if the source even exists? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senators are already talking about making a number of candidates of Medicare. | |
| Is that okay? | ||
| We want them to swallow this bill. | ||
| In some cases, they have things that I like even better. | ||
| No, it always happens. | ||
| There'll be some changes. | ||
| Maybe surprise. | ||
| John Thune and Mike have been very closely aligned on this. | ||
| They've been moving it up together. | ||
| Apparently, you said don't act with Medicaid apparently. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can say in the room, there is some concern among some Republicans, including Senator Josh Halding, that this could impact benefits and that could amount to a hidden tax on the public. | |
| Here's what I said. | ||
| Here's what I say. | ||
| What do you want to say to those members who are saying waste fraud and abuse for Medicaid? | ||
| If you find waste or fraud or abuse, we want to strengthen Medicaid. | ||
| We want to strengthen Medicare. | ||
| Waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| The Democrats will let illegals be on. | ||
| They'll destroy it. | ||
| It will be destroyed. | ||
| They want to have illegal immigrants be on. | ||
| And if you do that, because it wasn't designed for that. | ||
| Waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you guarantee that your voters who supported the re-election, working-class voters, will not lose health insurance under this bill? | |
| Oh, they won't lose health insurance. | ||
| Not only that, remember, I'm cutting drug prices by 85%. | ||
| And right now, I'm saving it. | ||
| I'm saving the whole thing because I did something that nobody was willing to do. | ||
| Other countries pay a tiny fraction what we do. | ||
| And I instituted favored nations. | ||
| We're now going to pay the lowest in the world. | ||
| We're going to be the equivalent of the lowest country in the world. | ||
| People go to London, they go to Canada, they go to other countries, many other countries, because they want to buy their pharmaceutical products, their drugs, at a fraction of the cost. | ||
| Now we're going to have the lowest cost anywhere in the world, and nobody else would do that but me. | ||
| And that might be an election by itself, might be election-winning. | ||
| Now, when you add that in, when you put that into Medicaid and Medicare, we just strengthen Medicare and Medicaid. | ||
| And the Democrats won't do that. | ||
| You know why? | ||
| Because they're taken care of by the drug companies and the ones that are taken care of are hard. | ||
| Nays are 208. | ||
| Without the resolution is adopted. | ||
| Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business of the question on the suspension and rules and passing of HR 1223, which the clerk will report the title. | ||
| H.R. 1223, a bill to require a plan to improve the cybersecurity and telecommunications of the U.S. Academic Research Fleet. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And for the purposes. | |
| The question is, will the House suspend the rules and pass the bill? | ||
| So many as are in favor of say a. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chairs, two-thirds be in the affirmative of the book. | ||
| For what purpose, gentlemen from California, seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I request the yeas and nays. | |
| The yays and nays are requested. | ||
| Those favoring a roll call vote for the yays and nays will rise. | ||
|
James S. Brady Briefing Room
00:06:11
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| A sufficient number of having risen, the yays and nays are ordered. | ||
| Members will record their vote by the electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
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House votes now on a bill requiring the National Science Foundation to develop a plan to improve the cybersecurity and telecommunications of the U.S. Academic Research Fleet. | |
| The bill calls for the plan to be provided to Congress within one year after that bill is enacted. | ||
| While votes are tallied here, earlier at today's White House press briefing, White House staff and children of members of the media took questions from reporters. | ||
| Hi, everybody. | ||
| Hi, guys. | ||
| Good afternoon, everyone. | ||
| It is such a pleasure to see so many beautiful faces in this room and so many future leaders. | ||
| Hi, Eloise. | ||
| You look so cute back there. | ||
| I'm so excited to host this briefing today in honor of National Bring Your Kids to Work Day. | ||
| And it's great to see so many future leaders here. | ||
| Welcome to the James S. Brady Briefing Room. | ||
| My name is Caroline Levitt, and I am the White House Press Secretary for President Donald J. Trump. | ||
| He is the 45th and now the 47th President of the United States. | ||
| My job at the White House is to communicate the President's message to the American people and to answer questions from journalists who work in this building every day, many of whom are your moms and your dads. | ||
| Now, they ask me some pretty good questions, but I'm sure you will all have excellent questions to ask me yourselves. | ||
| So before we open it up to questions today, I will give you a very short update on what the president is working on. | ||
| Earlier this morning, President Trump traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with members of the House of Representatives to talk about the one big, beautiful bill that we are trying to pass through Congress. | ||
| The President is now back at the White House where he is taking meetings. | ||
| And later this afternoon, he will be making an announcement from the Oval Office with our Secretary of Defense. | ||
| He's in charge of our military, Pete Hegseth. | ||
| So I want to thank all of you for coming today. | ||
| It's great to have you here at the People's House. | ||
| And you have some very special parents who perform a very special job. | ||
| And we are here to make America great again. | ||
| And we live in the best country in the history of the world. | ||
| And we are all very blessed to be here. | ||
| So with that, thank you. | ||
| I am happy to take some of your questions. | ||
| And why don't you start us off, beautiful little girl? | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| She's thinking very hard about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can ask it. | |
| You can ask it. | ||
| She wants to know if Donald Trump likes to give hugs. | ||
| Oh, does he like to give hugs? | ||
| You know, I think he does. | ||
| I have seen him give many hugs to children and his family and our beautiful first lady. | ||
| So yes, I do think he likes to give hugs. | ||
| You're welcome. | ||
| Emily, would you like to ask a question? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| What is the funnest part about your job and the hardest part about your briefing room? | ||
| Well, that is definitely a very good question. | ||
| I think the most fun part about my job is doing things like this with all of you in the briefing room and answering so many great questions. | ||
| I think the hardest part of my job is also doing things like this in the briefing room and answering all of these questions. | ||
| And reading the news is a big part of my job every day. | ||
| I wake up and read the newspaper and watch the news and listen to all of the things that your parents are reporting on in the news. | ||
| And that's a big part of my job every day. | ||
| Frankie, go ahead. | ||
| What is President Trump's favorite food? | ||
| Well, President Trump loves a lot of different foods, but I think his favorite is probably steak. | ||
| I've had steak with him on many occasions and he likes to eat a big, beautiful steak. | ||
| Do you like steak, Frankie? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes? | |
| Okay. | ||
| Jack, nice to see you. | ||
| I like your hat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're welcome. | |
| Would you like to ask a question? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What's the state of the border? | |
| What's the state of the border? | ||
| I can assure you the border is the most secure it has ever been in the history of our country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I think your dad works for the Homeland Security Council, so that's a very apropos question. | |
| And your dad's doing a great job securing the border. | ||
| Hazel Jane, what a beautiful name. | ||
| Would you like to ask a question? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Actually, can you come back to me? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| I can come back to you. | ||
| I'd be happy to. | ||
| Bobby Lynn? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How many people has he fired? | |
| How many people has he fired? | ||
| Thus far, actually, we have not had anyone fired with the exception of one individual who did leave their job. | ||
| But we have a great team here so far. | ||
| So good. | ||
| Thank you for the question. | ||
| Yes, little man. | ||
| Is that your mommy? | ||
| Your mommy is a great team. | ||
| The yays are 412. | ||
|
Mr. Barr Defends Bank Mergers
00:15:29
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| The nays are 11. | ||
| Two-thirds being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended. | ||
| The bill is passed, and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| goes to this side. | ||
| What purpose does the gentleman from Kentucky seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 426, I call up Senate Joint Resolution 13 providing for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V, United States Code, of the rules submitted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of the Department of the Treasury relating to the review of applications under the Bank Merger Act and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the joint resolution. | ||
| Senate Joint Resolution 13, joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V, United States Code, of the rules submitted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of the Department of the Treasury relating to the review of applications under the Bank Merger Act. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 426, the joint resolution is considered read. | ||
| The joint resolution shall be debatable for one hour, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services or their respective designees. | ||
| The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Barr, and the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Waters, will each control 30 minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the resolution under consideration. | ||
| Without objection, Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this joint resolution of disapproval. | ||
| We ask all members you can take your conversations off the floor. | ||
| We're going to conduct the business of the House. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this joint resolution of disapproval that would nullify the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's final rule that makes it more difficult for banks to merge and merge in a healthy way. | ||
| That's why I introduced the House companion, HJ Res 92. | ||
| Today, we have the opportunity to prevent future administrations from issuing arbitrary rules on mergers and acquisitions that lack robust cost-benefit analysis and would make it significantly harder for financial institutions to grow and compete. | ||
| Banks in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky and throughout the country are facing challenges in managing the high costs of complex regulations. | ||
| Furthermore, customers now demand advanced technological features such as mobile and online banking, which require substantial capital investments. | ||
| Mergers often present the only viable path for these institutions to keep up with these regulatory and technological costs and continue serving their local communities. | ||
| They also play a vital role in ensuring the safety and soundness of the financial system. | ||
| By enabling stronger, well-managed institutions to acquire weaker ones, especially those struggling due to local economic conditions, we can prevent bank failures and the panic that they cause. | ||
| Instead of making it harder for banks to merge, we should be eliminating outside obstacles to mergers, enhancing competition and innovation, and ensuring that Americans, especially those in rural and underserved communities, retain access to physical branches with employees who understand their local economies. | ||
| That's why I introduced H.R. 1900, the Bank Failure Prevention Act, which includes a shot clock to ensure timely decisions on merger applications. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I come from Kentucky. | ||
| It's a basketball crazed Commonwealth. | ||
| And we care about the shot clock. | ||
| Well, we should care about the shot clock on merger applications as well. | ||
| My bill would restore fairness and predictability, preventing delays and giving banks the stability they need to focus on serving their customers and growing their businesses. | ||
| The Bank Failure Prevention Act will help community and regional banks thrive in today's competitive environment, providing for a shot clock on the review of those merger applications, providing better outcomes for consumers. | ||
| I look forward to marking up this important legislation in the House Financial Services Committee this week. | ||
| The OCC's merger rule under the Biden administration would have taken us in the exact opposite direction. | ||
| It would have upended decades of precedent by shifting the burden onto banks to prove their merger should be approved, rather than requiring the OCC to demonstrate how the merger conflicts with statutory factors. | ||
| This would be fundamentally unfair, increasing confusion for banks seeking to merge and massively increasing the delay on the pendency and review of these applications without any kind of deadline on the review. | ||
| Additionally, the rule would have abandoned expedited review for mergers for small, well-capitalized banks. | ||
| Before the Biden-era regulation, there was an opportunity for expedited review of healthy mergers when there's small and well-capitalized institutions involved. | ||
| But unfortunately, because of the Biden regulation, this resulted in a much more protracted process. | ||
| Expedited reviews are essential to avoid prolonged, costly merger review processes that hinder banks from maintaining their employee base or investing in technology. | ||
| Instead, long drawn-out application processes create an environment of uncertainty due to regulatory delays, even when the proposed transaction is relatively simple. | ||
| At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, consumers are the ones who are hurt most when their banks are caught in limbo and forced to devote resources to navigate the merger process instead of enhancing their own products and services. | ||
| The Democrat-led OCC rule was driven more by a progressive ideology against mergers in all sectors of all kinds in the economy rather than sound rational policymaking. | ||
| In fact, the Biden-Harris OCC did not even coordinate with the other banking regulators such as the Federal Reserve Board before issuing this final rule. | ||
| Creating different merger rules for banks with different charters would add significant ambiguity for both banks and their customers. | ||
| Thankfully, the current OCC under President Trump has recently indicated they will abandon this flawed rule. | ||
| However, without this Congressional Review Act resolution, there is nothing to prevent a future administration from reintroducing this damaging rule that would prevent healthy, beneficial mergers from occurring. | ||
| Community and regional banks, as well as their customers, should not have to fear that the rules will change dramatically in a few years. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I can already anticipate the argument from my good friend from California. | ||
| I know what she's going to say here in just a few minutes. | ||
| She's going to say, look at the Republicans. | ||
| They're supporting mergers of big, big, bad banks. | ||
| And that hurts Americans. | ||
| To the contrary, Mr. Speaker, allowing healthy mergers to prevent bank failures allows for healthy financial institutions to compete with the big Wall Street banks. | ||
| If you want more competition for big Wall Street banks, you should support this resolution of disapproval because you're going to create stronger competitors to the big Wall Street banks. | ||
| But if you oppose this resolution, like the gentlelady and the ranking member of our committee is about ready to do, she's defending the regulatory moat that protects big banks from real competition. | ||
| The Democrats' opposition here are defending big banks without competition. | ||
| And that's why I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support healthy competition to prevent bank failures and to disapprove of this unwise regulation from the Biden administration. | ||
| I urge all my colleagues to support this resolution and prevent the regulatory whipsaw that has proven so detrimental for banking institutions and the American people who rely on them. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Kentucky Reserves, the gentlewoman from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| I'm so pleased that Mr. Barr from Kentucky referred to me because the big banks hate me. | ||
| They love him. | ||
| They support him. | ||
| They don't support me. | ||
| So let's see whose side he's on. | ||
| As a matter of fact, he's here talking about, you know, Big Bird not being in support of big bank mergers because he's trying so hard to get more community banks. | ||
| Well, we need more community banks, but he's a long way from getting what he's talking about. | ||
| But the fact is, we really do need them because of the big bank mergers. | ||
| One of the things he could do to increase having community banks that relate to the neighborhoods, relate to the people in the communities, is stop allowing these big mergers to take place. | ||
| Well, let me go on. | ||
| I rise to express my opposition to HJ Res 13, a Congressional Review Act resolution that would rescind a rule Office of the Comptroller of the Conservative Currency has put forth to improve their bank merger application review procedures. | ||
| Consumer groups, experts, and I have long rung the alarm bell as the federal government rubber stamped bank mergers for decades to the detriment of competition. | ||
| The result has been a growing number of banking deserts where communities like even one bank branch. | ||
| Let's see what happens after a merger. | ||
| Mr. Barr, I want you to listen to me. | ||
| I want you to know what happens after these big bank mergers. | ||
| They close branches. | ||
| They close down branches all throughout the communities. | ||
| They lay off the workers. | ||
| They need less workers, and so they start laying them off. | ||
| They raise interest rates and fees on their customers. | ||
| We lose relationship banking, community involvement, and a personal touch from your neighborhood bank. | ||
| When these big bank mergers come in, you don't have tailors anymore. | ||
| As a matter of fact, when they close down the branches, you try and get them on the telephone. | ||
| Have you tried to talk with a bank manager on the telephone with these menus that they have? | ||
| They run you around from so-called extension to extension to extension. | ||
| You lose all of these relationships. | ||
| So, in fact, while thousands of bank mergers were approved the last few decades, the last bank merger application that regulators denied, the last one that was denied in 2003, 22 years ago. | ||
| Meanwhile, community banks have disappeared as the number of banks declined from more than 18,000 in 1990 to fewer than 5,000 today. | ||
| Meanwhile, the biggest banks have grown much bigger through mergers and not surprisingly, are charging customers more for banking product and services. | ||
| For example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that the largest banks charge between $400 and $500 every year in additional interest and other fees for their average credit card holders compared to smaller community banks and credit unions. | ||
| In fact, that negative consumer impact is one of the many reasons I and more than 90% of the public commenters urge regulators to oppose the recent Capital One and Discover merger. | ||
|
Rubber Stamped Regulators?
00:15:13
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| I think you supported that, which created the largest credit card issuer. | ||
| But the Trump administration approved it anyway, and I know you did what Trump wanted you to do. | ||
| We already have enough mega banks with too much corporate power. | ||
| In the mid-1990s, the 20 largest banks held 15% of all bank assets. | ||
| Today, they hold more than 65% of all bank assets. | ||
| And the four largest mega banks hold more assets than the next 75 largest banks combined. | ||
| Now, these mega banks are just too big to manage. | ||
| Now, take Wells Fargo for example. | ||
| They grew larger through mergers and then repeatedly violated the law and harmed millions of consumers. | ||
| It got so bad that the Fed, under former Chair Janet Yellen's leadership, imposed an asset cap that remains in place to this day. | ||
| Now, that's not easily done. | ||
| You don't hear Treasury doing that, placing asset caps. | ||
| But they did that because of the way that Wells Fargo Bank had just mismanaged and disregarded its customers. | ||
| So, to curb these rubber stamp mergers, former President Biden issued an executive order to encourage the Department of Justice and the banking agencies, including the OCC, to strengthen their merger reviews. | ||
| Get more information. | ||
| Find out what they intend to do. | ||
| How are they going to provide more services? | ||
| And that's what President Biden tried to get done with the OCC. | ||
| Get more information. | ||
| Don't just rubber stamp them and let them merge and do all the things that I've just alluded to. | ||
| After going through a public notice and comment process, the OCC, which oversees most large banks, including the four largest commercial banks in the country, published a final rule last year that made several common sense improvements to its merger review procedures. | ||
| First, it eliminated a fast-track procedure where even the largest bank mergers could receive automatic approval of their mergers 15 days after their public notice comment period closed. | ||
| Second, the OCC required merger applicants to file the standard merger application to ensure they had enough information to weed out harmful mergers. | ||
| And third, the rule provided guidance, something industry often asked for. | ||
| Specifically, the OCC provided guidance on how they would consider statutory factors when reviewing an application, making the process more transparent. | ||
| Rolling back these reforms is dangerous, especially at a time when Doge is firing staff at the OCC and the other bank agencies, making it harder for them to carefully review these mergers. | ||
| Well, I guess Elon Musk didn't stop with all of the other agencies that they were undermining and firing and laying off. | ||
| They decided that they would fire staff at the OCC and the other bank agencies, making it harder for them to carefully review these mergers. | ||
| But what Elon Musk was doing is consistent with what he's been doing, and I guess what Trump wants him to do, they want less services. | ||
| They want to make sure that they're supporting the biggest banks with these mergers, the biggest banks that's going to close down the community relationships that we have with community banks. | ||
| Moreover, I do not know why Republicans rush this bad bill to the floor bypassing a committee markup. | ||
| That would have been prudent. | ||
| As I would point out, this resolution is actually a giant waste of time as it would rescind a rule that was already rescinded by the OCC. | ||
| You heard me right. | ||
| President Trump's acting comptroller of the currency rescinded this very rule last week when it issued an interim final rule that took effect on May 15th. | ||
| But I'm not surprised that my Republican colleagues weren't paying attention to this development. | ||
| Maybe they were. | ||
| Maybe they think that it was something that Trump had said to Elon Musk, go get it done, an executive order. | ||
| But maybe they felt that this is one of those executive orders that would get ruled out by the courts when we absolutely oppose them. | ||
| This bill is only moving because Republicans needed to waste time while they hammer out how best to give $5 trillion in tax breaks to billionaires. | ||
| They needed more time to figure out if tens of millions of Americans would lose Medicaid, whether millions of children would lose access to food stamps, and just how many consumer watchdogs they would fire at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. | ||
| It doesn't matter that the United States bond ratings are downgraded, that foreign investors are dumping U.S. investments, or that small businesses are struggling to keep their lights on. | ||
| No, Republicans are instead rescinding a rule that Trump already rescinded. | ||
| I tried to give you credit for why he might be doing this, but what you have done is you have just disregarded that it's already been done. | ||
| And you came over to waste some time just to make sure that that executive order perhaps won't work. | ||
| Well, and much later tonight, when the rest of Americans is sleeping, Republicans are going to figure out just how many Americans they can squeeze to pay off their billionaire overlords. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this is a bad bill being considered under worse circumstances. | ||
| I don't know why we're wasting time on this floor. | ||
| I urge members to reject this wasteful, harmful, anti-competition bill, and I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentlelady reserved from Kentucky is recognized. | ||
| I thank the Speaker for the recognition. | ||
| And before I yield some time to my good friend from Florida, I want to take the opportunity to respond to a few of the points that my friend from California made that maybe she's misunderstanding what the law actually says. | ||
| And when I refer to the law, I'm referring to the Congressional Review Act, which is the statute that we're invoking here to invalidate this Biden-era regulation. | ||
| Because the gentlelady from California says that this is a waste of time. | ||
| The Trump OCC has rescinded the rule. | ||
| We don't need to do this. | ||
| I would remind the gentlelady from California that the reason why we need to do this and why we're invoking the provisions of the Congressional Review Act is that passing a resolution of disapproval under this law ensures that a substantially similar bad rule can never be reintroduced in the future without scrutiny. | ||
| We obviously know that there are bad regulators from the prior administration that prevented healthy mergers and prevented bank that would have prevented bank failures. | ||
| And so there's no guarantee that we're not going to have an equally bad regulator in the future. | ||
| That's why we have to take out this insurance policy against bad regulators in the future. | ||
| That's what the CRA is. | ||
| It sends a clear message for balanced regulations that foster competition and innovation without excessive bureaucracy. | ||
| And it safeguards against unchecked regulatory actions, ensuring that future rules undergo careful oversight. | ||
| Now, I want to address this assertion that bank merger applications are just rubber stamped by regulators. | ||
| Well, if there's any evidence that that's not true, it's proof from the prior administration. | ||
| Not only was there not a rubber stamp, there was so much scrutiny that they never happened. | ||
| They languished. | ||
| There was no shot clock. | ||
| There was no review. | ||
| They just sat there and languished. | ||
| And you know what happened? | ||
| As a result, banks withered on the vine, waiting for a decision because of regulatory paralysis from the previous administration. | ||
| There was hardly a rubber stamp. | ||
| There was never a decision. | ||
| Frankly, all we're asking for is a decision one way or the other, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| Green light, red light. | ||
| Don't just sit there in purgatory forever and not make a daggone decision. | ||
| That's the problem we're trying to fix. | ||
| And with respect to the gentlelady's concern about closed branches, we're concerned about the lack of branches. | ||
| We're concerned about banking deserts. | ||
| That's exactly why Republicans introduced a bill to allow for more de novo charters. | ||
| We want more banks, not less. | ||
| We want more competition, not less. | ||
| We want those new banks to form in those underserved communities, urban, rural, suburban, wherever they are. | ||
| We need more. | ||
| So my question to the gentlelady, the ranking member, why did she vote against that? | ||
| If she's so concerned about no branches, not enough branches, banking deserts, why is she voting against making it easier for new banks to form in those places where there are no financial services? | ||
| So with that, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield two minutes to a great leader on our committee, Mr. Haradopoulos from Florida, who will also offer his wisdom on this subject. | ||
| Gentleman from Florida is recognized for two minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I want to stand in support of Congressman Barr's good legislation. | ||
| And let me remind those listening about this idea that the tax issue is so important. | ||
| Let's be clear here. | ||
| The current rate on highest earners in the United States is 37 percent. | ||
| If our bill passes, it will stay at 37 percent. | ||
| So there's no big tax break for the rich, as they claim over and over. | ||
| It is 37, 37. | ||
| So let's be very clear on that message. | ||
| Second, who's getting the big tax cuts in this bill? | ||
| Seniors, Social Security, people who earn tips, people who work overtime. | ||
| Those are the hardworking Americans who've supported the president and want to push this bill forward so that we all enjoy economic success. | ||
| But getting to this issue today, I think it's so important that Congressman Barr put it perfectly. | ||
| This is consumer protection. | ||
| This is fair competition because the prior administration's OCC rule burdened businesses with excessive red tape, particularly targeting small banks and limited beneficial mergers. | ||
| Reversing this rule allows for essential mergers that drive innovation, lower operational costs, and benefit consumers. | ||
| And remember, this rule was issued without coordinating with any other federal agency. | ||
| This is why the smart decision we are making today will codify and make a strong decision as we finally have truly competition against the big boys that people say they're fighting against. | ||
| This is a common sense issue, and I'm proud to support Congressman Barr on this as a member of the Financial Services Committee. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| I thank the gentleman for yielding back. | ||
| And as to our Democrat colleagues' concern that this legislation and allowing for healthy mergers to happen in the banking sector would somehow diminish financial services or customer service would somehow be lost, it's actually the opposite. | ||
| When you have healthy mergers among especially community banks or small regional bank acquiring a community bank that allows them to add scale, that allows them to invest in the very technology that provides the customers with better services, with better, more innovative financial services and products. | ||
| So far from losing customer service, this is a way for smaller institutions, regional banks, to come together into combinations, invest in more technology to lower costs to help those customers to increase access to financial services in ways that they can better compete with the mega banks. | ||
| And with that, I reserve my time. | ||
| Gentleman Reserves, gentlelady from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker and members. | ||
| I yield myself additional time as much as I may need. | ||
| When we talk about rubber stamping, oftentimes people don't really know what we're talking about. | ||
| What I'm saying is that we need to have better review. | ||
| The OCC needs to be able to do everything possible to ensure that they know what these big banks are going to do and whether or not they're going to close down branches, whether or not they're going to lay off people, whether or not people are only going to be able to go to their telephone or to the internet and somehow and try to get someone to talk to. | ||
| Let me tell you what a definition of rubber stamping is. | ||
| In 2023, the OCC approved, you won't believe this, 22 of 23 mergers within 60 days. | ||
| That's 95% done in two months. | ||
| Now that's what you call rubber stamping. | ||
| That's what you call the big businesses, big banks being able to do whatever they want to do. | ||
| All they have to do is get individuals like my friend on the opposite side of the aisle to stand up and support them with what they want to do. | ||
| Again, I'll remind you that when these big mergers take place, they lay off people and they close down branch banking. | ||
|
Wells Fargo Mergers Controversy
00:14:57
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| That's why we have what we call deserts that exist in communities. | ||
| Deserts because there are no branch banking. | ||
| The big boys don't really care about branch banking. | ||
| They're big and they are doing exactly what I have indicated in making more money by laying off more people, having less services, charging larger interest rates. | ||
| I'm not on the side of big banks. | ||
| I'm on the side of the people. | ||
| And so let me continue. | ||
| The Republicans may claim this bill also prevents the OCC from updating its merger review procedures in the future. | ||
| But why would they want to do that with just one banking agency? | ||
| Perhaps they forgot that we have two other banking, federal banking agencies in the Federal Reserve and the deposit, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. | ||
| Not only will this resolution freeze the OCC's review procedures in time and arguably prevent them from even providing guidance to applicants on how their review procedures work, but it allows other federal bank regulators, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, to update their procedures. | ||
| This would likely lead to regulatory arbitrage, where banks seek to merge with banks within a charter where the primary regulator has the weakest review standards. | ||
| In fact, we saw this kind of arbitrage in the lead up to the 2008 global financial crisis when the weakest banks would seek to get a charter from the weakest regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, OTS, until their banks failed and Congress shut down the agency in 2008. | ||
| So I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentlelady Reserves, the gentleman from Kentucky is recognized. | ||
| Let me just address a couple of the arguments that just made. | ||
| I think I heard the ranking member say that what we're trying to do is let them do whatever they want to do. | ||
| That's actually not at all the case. | ||
| The merger review process is a very involved process. | ||
| There's quite a bit of scrutiny that goes into approving these mergers. | ||
| And in fact, what we want to do here with the resolution disapproving of this is to actually force the agencies to make a decision one way or the other. | ||
| The problem we've seen, especially in the previous administration, is not necessarily that they disapproved a merger. | ||
| They just didn't make a decision. | ||
| So if it's in the interest of financial stability to reject a bank merger, then that very well could be a legitimate regulatory decision. | ||
| But make the decision. | ||
| That's what we're saying here. | ||
| Make the decision. | ||
| And if the gentlelady is concerned about layoffs, about employees of banks losing their jobs, the surest way that you'll have massive layoffs and workers losing their jobs is for a bank merger application to presented, to be presented to the agencies and have literally no decision. | ||
| Because the acquisition target, guess where the employees are going to go? | ||
| They're going to go away. | ||
| They're not going to stay with the bank. | ||
| What we're saying is give the merger applicant a decision. | ||
| One way or the other, that's the best way you can have worker retention in the banking sector. | ||
| And with that, I yield two minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Moore. | ||
| Gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for two minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today in support of Senate Joint Resolution 13 to overturn a Biden-era rule that threatens competition, undermines community banks, and diminishes consumer choice. | ||
| Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency introduced unnecessary impediments to prevent healthy bank mergers with limited justification. | ||
| Community banks are the cornerstone of local communities, and often mergers present an opportunity to allow them to better keep up with the costly compliance and technology cost. | ||
| Unlike the member from California, I represent a rural area in North Carolina, and I've seen firsthand what happens to banks that are not allowed to grow, frankly, because of a lot of the over-regulation that they've had to deal with, particularly these last four years in the Biden administration. | ||
| And I've seen the opposite. | ||
| I've seen the fact that North Carolina continues to grow, that thousands and thousands of people are leaving from states like California that are over-regulated, over-taxed, voting with their feet, coming to states that are much more business friendly, much more consumer-friendly. | ||
| And that's the kind of policies that we need to be adopting in Washington. | ||
| This resolution is going to ensure that future administrations cannot create complicated review processes that lock out competition, provide unnecessary delay, and keep things in limbo for unknown periods of time. | ||
| In the true spirit of competition, this resolution cuts burdensome red tape, allows banks to get back to what they do best, serving customers and serving communities. | ||
| This is a step in the right direction. | ||
| And comments were made earlier on the other side about the big, beautiful bill that we're going to be passing, hopefully, this week. | ||
| This is another step, another step to move this economy forward, to finally unshackle American energy, to finally move forward and reduce taxes, to let that American spirit continue to grow. | ||
| These are the kinds of things that we need to be doing. | ||
| These are the kinds of things that we are doing. | ||
| And I appreciate the time. | ||
| With that, I yield back to the gentleman from Kentucky. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you for your excellent comments. | ||
| And I think another important point that needs to be made in the context of this resolution of disapproval of the Biden-era OCC rule is what's actually happening in the marketplace. | ||
| I think the arguments made on the other side of the aisle assume an antiquated market where all the only competition that exists are banks competing with banks. | ||
| That's not the case anymore. | ||
| We're living in 2025. | ||
| And in 2025, the advent of all kinds of non-bank financial services has to be taken into account when you look at the merger landscape in banking. | ||
| We have fintechs, we have non-banks, there are credit unions, there's farm credit, there's all kinds of payment systems, movement to stable coins and the blockchain. | ||
| Financial services looks a whole lot different than it did even 25 years ago. | ||
| And so when you're doing an analysis of the propriety of a bank merger, you can't just look at whether or not this leads to some level of consolidation in the banking sector. | ||
| You have to look at it in terms of competition across the financial services landscape. | ||
| And in order to achieve the scale to provide the same level of services, to provide the same level of technological convenience, to provide the same level of underwriting and access to capital that consumers are being accustomed to now in this very competitive landscape, | ||
| healthy mergers are needed for banks to compete with all of the financial technology that's happening in the landscape in the in the in the in the economic landscape that is not being taken into consideration by my friends on the other side of the aisle I reserve the balance of my time gentleman reserves gentlelady from California thank you very much Mr. Speaker you know we tend to come to the floor when we're producing Legislation, | ||
| and we talk about a lot of ways that bills have to go through different kinds of discussions, different kinds of meetings, etc. | ||
| And oftentimes the people don't really understand what we're saying when we talk about things like mergers and we talk about the OCC and we talk about review and all of that. | ||
| Let me just try and talk about it in ways that people understand. | ||
| First of all, I have said and I stand by the fact that with these big bank mergers, they close down branch banking. | ||
| They close down the banks in the communities. | ||
| Why do they do that? | ||
| They do that because they want to save money. | ||
| But what happens when they close down the bank? | ||
| Now, in many communities, and in my own community, when banks were closed down, all you had was the ATM. | ||
| You didn't have anybody you could talk to. | ||
| And so when people go to the bank and they only have the ATM, what do you do when you want to talk about an automobile loan? | ||
| What do you do when you want to talk about a mortgage? | ||
| Who do you talk to? | ||
| Who answers questions about the credit cards, about things that show up on the credit card that you don't know about? | ||
| Who do you talk to? | ||
| I don't know who you talk to. | ||
| You sure can't ask the ATM about that. | ||
| The ATM cannot give you the kind of services that branches give you. | ||
| And the reasons branches were there in the first place are when you have these big bank mergers that close down the branch bankers. | ||
| Well, let me elaborate on an earlier point that I made. | ||
| We've seen how the largest banks have grown too big to manage through these bank mergers and then repeatedly broke the law and harmed their customers. | ||
| For example, a few years ago, when I chaired the Financial Services Committee, we investigated Wells Fargo after they were found to have engaged in a pattern and practice of violating the law. | ||
| The bank illegally pre-possessed service members, cars. | ||
| They failed to submit a credible living will. | ||
| They overcharged small business retailers for credit card services. | ||
| They flunked their Community Reinvestment Act exam. | ||
| They discriminated against people of color seeking mortgage loans. | ||
| To top it off, they pressured the employees to cross-sell their products, which led to the creation of millions of fake accounts without customers' permission so that staff could reach unrealistic sales goals. | ||
| Now, if my colleague on the opposite side of the aisle wants to challenge me on that, and I don't think he does, because that's why we fined them when we discovered what they had done. | ||
| Can you imagine a huge bank like Wells Fargo, too big to manage, having all of this unlawful activity, and leading to the creation of millions of fake accounts without customers' permission so that staff could reach these unlisted sales goals? | ||
| This is unbelievable, but this is what happened. | ||
| And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they know that this happened and they know what we had to do with Wells Fargo. | ||
| As a matter of fact, it was after all of this revelation about these unlawful activities that we were able at least to help get rid of some board members and the CEO. | ||
| All had to go. | ||
| But this is what happens when you allow big, big banks to keep merging. | ||
| They're too big to manage. | ||
| And they give up on customer service that branch banking is all about. | ||
| And so I just wanted to bring that to your attention so that I could make them remember what happened with Wells Fargo. | ||
| Wells Fargo was originally founded in 1852 and it grew in part through several bank mergers, including in 1998 merger with Northwest and an acquisition of Wachovia during the 2008 financial crisis. | ||
| Wells Fargo became one of the biggest banks and the 10th largest public company in the world based on sales, profits, assets, and market value. | ||
| But in our investigation, we learned that a senior official at Northwest had an aggressive cross-selling and product sales strategy, and he brought that approach to Wells Fargo. | ||
| This strategy was adopted and spread throughout the business, including to former Wachtovia branches and retail bank operations that Wells Fargo acquired. | ||
| Wells Fargo CEO John Stump was fully aware that Wells Fargo's focus on this cross-selling combined with aggressive sales goals and associated incentive compensation plans could encourage employees gaming and create compliance problems. | ||
| The bank was fined again and again until in 2018 I pushed the bank regulators to use their full toolkit to hold a repeat offender like Wells Fargo accountable. | ||
| The Federal Reserve under former Chair Janet Yellen's leadership that I mentioned earlier about putting a cap on assets used one of the tools regulators rarely use and I repeat rarely is this used to impose an asset cap on the bank until the bank cleaned up its act. | ||
| What it said basically was you can't keep doing this and making money. | ||
| You can't keep doing this and profiting off the backs of your customers. | ||
| You can't keep doing this and getting richer and richer and richer. | ||
|
Economies of Scale and Banking Mergers
00:06:37
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| And so she capped, put an asset cap on the bank until the bank cleaned up its act. | ||
| And that cap remains in place seven years later. | ||
| So I hope members will think of our constituents, including the service members, the seniors, the students, the veterans, and our neighbors that Wells Fargo harmed when deciding if we could make bank mergers easier. | ||
| And if you do, you will vote no on this harmful bill. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman Reserves, the gentleman from Kentucky is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, listening to my colleague from California just reminds me to make the point that economies of scale is not inherently bad. | ||
| Economies of scale and big, large financial institutions serve our economy. | ||
| Community banks serve our economy. | ||
| Mid-sized banks serve our economy. | ||
| Regional banks serve our economy. | ||
| Super-regional banks serve our economy. | ||
| And yes, big banks serve our economy. | ||
| They serve different parts of the economy. | ||
| And at the larger end, the globally systemically important financial institutions, they make markets. | ||
| They are part of why we have the deepest, most liquid, most competitive capital markets on planet Earth. | ||
| This is not a bad thing. | ||
| This is a good thing. | ||
| Those large institutions are capable of serving large multinational corporations that make the United States a destination for capital flows in our country. | ||
| They are a magnet for foreign direct investment. | ||
| They help us with countering terrorism. | ||
| They give us a global visibility that we wouldn't have if we didn't have large, globally important financial institutions that were Ford-positioned in other continents that allowed us visibility into financial flows and help our law enforcement and our intelligence agencies find bad actors. | ||
| That is a good thing. | ||
| That's not a bad thing. | ||
| It's important, though, that we preserve the dynamism and the diversity of our banking sector. | ||
| That's why we also want large regional banks, regional banks, mid-sized banks, and yes, community banks and micro banks. | ||
| We want it all. | ||
| It's the diversity and heterogeneity of the banking sector that makes our system the best in the world. | ||
| That's why we want healthy mergers. | ||
| We want de novo charters to backfill, but we want healthy mergers so that we have a constantly dynamic and healthy banking system. | ||
| Now, the gentlelady cites this one particular case of fraud in one large bank. | ||
| And she's right. | ||
| It was a bad case. | ||
| And it was properly punished by the regulators. | ||
| And she cites to a case of cross-selling and overly aggressive marketing and sales goals program and compliance problems. | ||
| It's true, there were. | ||
| But it's not because there are healthy mergers in this country that that happened. | ||
| That's not why that happened. | ||
| That could have happened in a regional bank. | ||
| That could have happened even in a smaller bank. | ||
| It happened to happen in a larger bank. | ||
| But guess what? | ||
| There's a lot of other large banks in this country where they didn't have those problems. | ||
| When there are problems, that's why we have regulators and bank examiners, and they fix those problems to make sure that they never happen again. | ||
| But you know what can help prevent those problems from happening even more than regulators, even more than central planning from Washington, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| Competition and choice. | ||
| Competition and choice. | ||
| That particular institution that she's talking about, that the gentlelady is talking about, maybe they didn't have enough competition. | ||
| Maybe they didn't have enough competition, Mr. Speaker, because we had regulators that prevented healthy mergers to enter into their market space and actually compete and take customers who are unsatisfied with that cross-selling. | ||
| The whole point here is that we want a dynamic marketplace so that we can create competition. | ||
| That's the best form of consumer protection. | ||
| Not a regulator, not an examiner, not regulatory Regulatory inaction or regulatory indecision, that's not consumer protection, but healthy mergers to allow for greater competition of the big banks. | ||
| That's the way to protect consumers. | ||
| And I'll make one other point before I reserve as well, and that is that when we say that large banks are not inherently bad, what we mean by that is that when you allow for a merger, let's say of two regional banks, and you allow that scale, that economies of scale to take place, and where there are investments in technology, not only do you give the customers of that larger institution, that successor merged institution, | ||
| with greater resources to provide lower cost services, more technological advancements, but yes, you allow them to invest in what? | ||
| Consumer protection. | ||
| You allow them to make sure that people in their organization are not making mistakes with cross-selling, making sure that they're using the latest technology to ensure that everybody's getting the right deal and the best deal and the most financial inclusion possible given that particular customer's circumstances. | ||
| So, far from promoting problems, this bill will actually help solve the problems. | ||
| With that, I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman reserves, the gentlelady from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| As we consider whether we should make the approval of bank mergers easier, I have another example of how mergers have led to major problems. | ||
| In 2020, the Federal Reserve and the OCC fined Citigroup $400 million over serious ongoing deficiencies relating to its risk management systems. | ||
| Now, this is very, very important. | ||
| Every bank must have risk management, but when they get too huge, not only do they not have the proper risk management, it doesn't work very well. | ||
|
Too Big to Manage
00:02:49
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| It was a long-standing issue that Citi had after they went through a series of mergers in the 1990s. | ||
| When the 2020 fine of $400 million was imposed, now there was an article in the Wall Street Journal that explained how mergers harm the bank. | ||
| They wrote, and I quote: Regulators have long fretted that the hodgepodge of systems, a legacy of a string of deals in the 1990s that turned Citigroup into a financial powerhouse, could make the bank vulnerable to costly and potentially damaging missteps. | ||
| Too big to manage. | ||
| A recent high-profile error, Citigroup's accidental $900 million payment to creditors of cosmetics company Revlon, gave credence to their concerns, quote, end quote. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| The bank lacked sufficient controls because of its past mergers. | ||
| Too big to manage. | ||
| And accidentally paid $900 million to Revlon, which quickly went into litigation. | ||
| But the bank did not correct their problems. | ||
| Regulators fined them again last year, but earlier this year, we learned that Citibank made another big payment error. | ||
| The bank, I love this one, the bank intended to pay a customer $280, but somehow accidentally added way too many zeros to the transaction. | ||
| For 90 minutes before an employee caught the mistake, one lucky customer had $81 trillion credited to their account. | ||
| Woo! | ||
| Unfortunately, for that customer, the bank corrected their error. | ||
| And far too often, these kind of mismanagement mistakes actually lead to harm for consumers. | ||
| In fact, since 2000, Citigroup has paid over, listen at this, $27 billion in fines, settlements, and consumer remediation, including 42 actions related to consumer protection violations. | ||
| This includes discriminating against Armenian American credit card applicants, overcharging other credit card holders, and market servicing violations that could have helped homeowners avoid failure. | ||
|
Why Big Banks Can Afford Fines
00:11:29
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| So again, this is the logical conclusion. | ||
| If we have faster mergers, we will have fewer and fewer banks that are bigger and bigger and indeed too big to manage. | ||
| And so, let me just say that when I told, when I said how much they had been fined just a moment ago, Citigroup, one could think, how could they be fined that much money? | ||
| How can they afford it? | ||
| Where do you think they got that money from? | ||
| Where do you think that money came from? | ||
| Why do you think that doesn't matter to the big banks? | ||
| It's just a matter of doing business. | ||
| You know where that money comes from? | ||
| It comes from the customers. | ||
| That's why we have to make sure that the customers are serviced properly, that when a big merger wants to have support from the government, that they will have been vetted in such a way that OCC understands very well how you're going to service these customers. | ||
| Are you going to close down these branch bankers? | ||
| How are you going to help somebody that's looking for a mortgage? | ||
| What are you going to do to the person that can't talk to the ATM because they're trying to get a car loan? | ||
| And so these are legitimate questions. | ||
| These are legitimate answers that need to be given. | ||
| And so I want to just say this. | ||
| The money does not fall out of the sky that allows them to pay millions and millions of dollars in fines. | ||
| It comes from charging the customers, increasing interest rates, laying off employees so you have less employees to pay and the services get worse and worse and worse. | ||
| The customers are the victims of these big mergers who do not want to be reviewed properly and who you support in not wanting to be reviewed properly. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentlelady reserves, the gentleman from Kentucky is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, let me give you an example of where a merger that was recently approved certainly doesn't hurt consumers but helps consumers and creates more competition. | ||
| The gentlelady cites the approval of the Capital One Discover merger. | ||
| You know what that merger did? | ||
| It created a third option in addition to MasterCard and Visa for consumers to access in terms of a payment network. | ||
| That's not diminishing competition. | ||
| That's creating more competition. | ||
| More competition for Visa, more competition for MasterCard, ask Visa and MasterCard. | ||
| They'll tell you. | ||
| This is a very formidable competitor to MasterCard and Visa now that there is an approved merger between Capital One, a substantial credit card business, a substantial payment business, and Discover with their substantial network. | ||
| You create a third option for consumers. | ||
| That is pro-competition, not anti-competition. | ||
| Another point: this is not just about big banks, it's about small community banks. | ||
| We are scrutinizing today the Biden OCC's regulation. | ||
| What did that regulation do, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| It eliminated expedited procedures for approval of what? | ||
| Community bank mergers. | ||
| Small, non-complex mergers that would allow those community banks to serve those small communities better. | ||
| And that regulation eliminated that. | ||
| Here's what the Trade Association of the Smallest Banks in America says about that Biden regulation. | ||
| Here's what the small banks say about that regulation. | ||
| The ICBA strongly opposes the elimination of the expedited review and streamlined applications. | ||
| Not every transaction is complex. | ||
| For example, in instances where two community banks within the same market attempt to merge and the merger does not pose significant financial stability, consumer protection, competition, or safety and soundness concerns, the OCC should treat the transaction as non-complex and permit for review under streamlined procedures. | ||
| Makes sense to me. | ||
| Makes sense to me that we would have streamlined, expedited procedures so that we can make sure community banks can continue to compete. | ||
| This is not about big banks. | ||
| It's about small banks and the survival of small banks under the avalanche of red tape that came at them after Dodd-Frank. | ||
| After the avalanche of competition from non-banks and credit unions and fintechs and blockchain companies, we want these small banks to survive, to continue to serve their communities. | ||
| This is the way they do it. | ||
| And finally, I want to make a point that hasn't really been discussed here today in this debate, and that is we should remember the lessons of Silicon Valley Bank. | ||
| And there was a very, very significant panic because of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, and there was a run on that bank. | ||
| We don't want that to happen again. | ||
| We don't want a panic. | ||
| We don't want a run. | ||
| We want to prevent bank failures. | ||
| And the way to prevent bank failures is to allow strong banks to acquire weak banks. | ||
| We want to make sure that a failing bank can be saved by a white knight. | ||
| Delaying approvals of healthy mergers is very dangerous, very dangerous for financial stability. | ||
| We need this legislation so that we never have a bad regulation that would prevent regulators from allowing expedited approval of mergers that help save the system. | ||
| iReserve. | ||
| The gentleman reserves, the gentlelady from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I'm just sitting here being absolutely shocked by some of my own words when I take a look at the fines that we have charged both Citi and Wells Fargo. | ||
| And I see that each of them have paid $27 billion in fines, but they're still in business. | ||
| You know why? | ||
| Because they make so much money. | ||
| This is just the cost of doing business. | ||
| We break the law. | ||
| They're going to fine us, but we can afford it. | ||
| And we'll go on doing what we do. | ||
| This is what happened with the big, big banks that you allow to merge without understanding what they're all about and what is their commitment to the consumers. | ||
| If, in matter of fact, they can afford to pay $57 billion in fines, money that they have collected from their customers, and they only see this as the cost of doing business and keep on doing business, keep on getting fines. | ||
| What are we talking about? | ||
| Listen, I'm not opposed to credible mergers. | ||
| Democrats just want mergers that result in a bank that will follow the law and serve the community. | ||
| We want to make sure that they have the systems in place and the management to follow the law. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because the consumer is on the hook and the taxpayer is on the hook. | ||
| I want my colleagues to know that I have not talked to anybody recently who was happy with their bank. | ||
| They have problems getting the services because the banks keep cutting back on the employees and trying to push everybody to the ATM. | ||
| We can do better than this. | ||
| We can understand when the mergers want to take place. | ||
| Who are these entities that want to merge? | ||
| How huge is this going to make this bank? | ||
| What are they going to do about branch banking? | ||
| With that, the gentleman from Kentucky is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, let me quote the Federal Reserve Governor now, the Vice Chair of Supervision, Michelle Bowman, who talked about the pro-competition benefits of healthy mergers. | ||
| She said, reducing the efficiency of bank MA activity can be a deterrent to healthy bank transactions. | ||
| It can reduce the effectiveness of MA activity that preserves the presence of community banks in underserved areas, prevent institutions from pursuing prudent growth strategies, and actually undermine competition by preventing firms from growing to a larger scale, effectively creating a protected class of larger institutions. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, we had a hearing that was called when the ranking member was the chair, and she called in all the CEOs of the biggest banks in the country. | ||
| But in this particular hearing, the gentlelady from California also hauled in some of the CEOs of the regional banks, the big regional banks, in addition to the G-SIB Wall Street banks. | ||
| And I just noticed that the CEO of a successor institution that was formed by the merger of two regional banks was sitting right next to the CEO of one of the largest banks on planet Earth. | ||
| And I asked the CEO of one of the largest banks on planet Earth. | ||
| I said, this gentleman who's now the CEO of a big regional bank is sitting next to you. | ||
| Can you tell me what is a more formidable competitor to your big Wall Street bank? | ||
| Is it the original small regional bank, the other small regional bank, or is it the combination of those two regional banks that made a bigger regional bank? | ||
| And he said, undoubtedly, it's the bigger regional bank that poses a bigger competitive threat to me, the big Wall Street Bank. | ||
| Not all mergers are bad. | ||
| There's a lot of mergers that help create more competition. | ||
| That's what we want. | ||
| And more importantly, Mr. Speaker, it provides better financial services and products and access to the American dream for the American people. | ||
| That's why we want to disapprove this bad regulation. | ||
| That's why we want to make sure that mergers are allowed to allow for distressed banks to sell themselves instead of failing and thereby insulating the deposit insurance fund from losses. | ||
| This is to help financial stability, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| So I urge all of my colleagues, for the reasons that we've outlined today, to help us invalidate this bad regulation, to make sure that no regulator in the future can pass another bad regulation like this that would prevent healthy mergers. | ||
| And for goodness sake, if you want dynamism and competition in a diverse banking system, support our agenda that not only allows for healthy mergers but also provides for regulatory tailoring so that we provide relief to the small community banks so that they can compete, relief to the regional banks so that they can compete. | ||
|
Yea and Nay Votes Requested
00:03:04
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| And for goodness sake, clear the way for de novo charters, new banks to come into the system. | ||
| I don't know for the life of me why my friends on the other side of the aisle who complain about big banks won't allow for healthy mergers to compete with them, won't allow for new banks to come into the system by over-regulating the heck out of the sector. | ||
| Allow there to be a dynamic, diverse banking system. | ||
| And for these reasons and others, as I explained earlier, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and I yield back. | ||
| All time for debate has expired. | ||
| Pursuant to the rule the previous question is ordered on the joint resolution. | ||
| The question is on the third reading of the joint resolution. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| Third reading. | ||
| Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V United States Code of the rules submitted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of the Department of the Treasury relating to the review of applications under the Bank Merger Act. | ||
| The questions on the passage of the joint resolution. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I request the recorded vote. | |
| The recorded vote is requested. | ||
| The yeas and nays are requested. | ||
| Those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20. | ||
| Further proceedings on this question will be postponed. | ||
| Pursuant to Clause 8 of Rule 20, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote, where the yeas and nays are ordered, or votes objected to under Clause 6 of Rule 20. | ||
| The house will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time. | ||
|
VA's Fox Grant Program
00:15:42
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| For what purposes the gentleman from Illinois seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 1969, the No Wrong Door for Veterans Act, as amended. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the bill. | ||
| Union calendar number 76, H.R. 1969, a bill to amend and reauthorize the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon-Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs. | ||
| Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Boston, the gentleman from California, Mr. Takano, each will control 20 minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois. | ||
| Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 1969 as amended. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today in support of 1969 as amended. | ||
| Now, this bill was introduced by my friend and colleague, Representative Miller-Meeks. | ||
| The bill is a powerful reminder that mental health and physical health go hand in hand. | ||
| This bill extends authorization for a Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant program. | ||
| House Republicans created the Fox Grant program to expand the reach of VA's mental health services through community-based organizations where veterans and their families live. | ||
| The organization who have qualified for the Fox Grant program provide traditional and non-traditional mental health and therapy support services to veterans in need. | ||
| This ensures VA services are reaching everyone who need them. | ||
| We should, without question, continue the Fox Grant program. | ||
| This bill also recognizes that being in the military is a fiscal task. | ||
| If our country wants to make veterans whole after their service, it only makes sense that VA should provide the means for fiscal activity. | ||
| Representative Miller-Meeks' bill will make adaptive prosthetics a necessity, a necessary medical service. | ||
| This would help our veterans to return to active activities they were accustomed to or even explore new opportunities. | ||
| We must not let our veterans' time and service be what holds them back from living the rest of their lives. | ||
| I want to thank our health subcommittee chairwoman for her leadership on both issues. | ||
| This bill is a fantastic idea that will save veterans' lives, and I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 1969 as amended. | ||
| And with that, I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman reserves, the gentleman from California is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| You're recognized. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in hesitant support of H.R. 1969, the No Wrong Door Act as amended. | ||
| This bill would reauthorize the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program or Fox Grants for fiscal year 2026. | ||
| Now, as the ranking member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, one of my top priorities has been and will continue to be veteran suicide. | ||
| Bless you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| The Fox Grant Program is an important tool in our arsenal for this work. | ||
| Community-based programs are a crucial part of a public health approach to suicide prevention. | ||
| However, I do have significant concerns with this legislation's approach to reauthorizing this program. | ||
| We must ensure that we reauthorize this program in a way that ensures it is effective and robust as possible. | ||
| I would like to take this time to highlight some of those concerns. | ||
| First, based on congressionally mandated reports that the committee has received, VA has not established enough metrics to allow Congress to monitor the success of the program. | ||
| Additionally, in our view, grantees are not collecting or reporting complete data for all participants, which further limits Congress's ability to determine whether the program is meeting its intended purposes. | ||
| It is clear that this bill, as drafted and amended, will not do enough to improve data collection and make clear what data grantees are responsible for collecting. | ||
| This bill would also compound this issue by requiring grantees to use the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale to screen participants for their baseline mental health when entering the program. | ||
| Now, while this scale is widely accepted, clinically validated behavioral health, while this scale is widely accepted, clinically validated behavioral health screening. | ||
| While this scale is a widely accepted clinically validated behavioral health screening instrument, its primary use is to measure a patient's suicidal ideation and the severity of suicidal risk at a given point in time. | ||
| Now, VA already requires Fox grantees to screen the participants using a number of other validated screening tools, both at baseline and after connecting veterans to additional support. | ||
| Each of these tools measures other upstream factors of mental health that contribute to veterans' suicide risk, such as levels of emotion, optimism, work satisfaction, and social support. | ||
| Limiting grantees to the use of a single screening instrument that measures suicide risk at a point in time will further limit our ability to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the Fox Grant Program on improving veterans' mental health. | ||
| Now, perhaps more importantly, Congress is not and should not be in the business of mandating the use of a particular clinical tool. | ||
| Not only does it micromanage providers or guarantees in terms of determining the most clinically appropriate tool, it also arbitrarily limits providers and grantees from using a different tool in the future if it is determined to be more effective. | ||
| Finally, I remain concerned about language that would dramatically alter the entities that would be eligible to receive grants. | ||
| Specifically, we oppose language that would add quote-unquote health care providers as eligible grantees. | ||
| The Fox Grant program was designed to allow community-based organizations to help address upstream suicide risk factors and provide services to support veterans' needs. | ||
| It was never intended to directly provide clinical care, particularly mental health care. | ||
| Now, combined with my existing concerns about the bill's lack of requirements to strengthen data collection and demonstration of effective outcomes, I remain extremely concerned that opening eligibility up to new types of grantees without establishing additional definitions, guardrails, or oversight will weaken the quality of care provided to veterans. | ||
| In its current form, H.R. 1969, as amended, does not reauthorize this grant program in a way that will meet the needs of our veterans. | ||
| Just two weeks ago, we held a markup where my Republican colleagues rejected several amendments to improve this version of the bill, including an amendment I offered that would have at least partially addressed my concerns. | ||
| Thus, the bill that we have that the bill that we are considering today is not the one that considers any of the areas of improvement that I had hoped that could be incorporated into the legislation at the committee level. | ||
| Now, I believe that Senator Warner's bill to reauthorize this program, S793, is a better starting place that will help ensure that we reauthorize the strongest possible version of this grant program. | ||
| I hope we will have an opportunity to engage in robust renegotiation and discussion with my Republican colleagues and our Senate counterparts to ensure we advance the strongest possible bill to prevent veteran suicide. | ||
| That said, while I have serious concerns about how this bill would reauthorize the program, I want to make clear that I understand that this grant program is a critical piece of VA's efforts in ensuring veterans receive the outreach support and services they need and deserve when it comes to their mental health. | ||
| So, therefore, I hope that moving forward we can work together along with our Senate counterparts to reauthorize the Fox Grant program in a responsible way and ensure it is as effective and robust as our nation's veterans deserve. | ||
| Thank you, and I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| The gentleman reserves, the gentleman from Illinois is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| At the end of the fiscal year, the Fox Grant Program expires. | ||
| This bill will keep the Fox Grant program going. | ||
| We have made important improvements to the grant program, the bill that is before us today. | ||
| I look forward to continuing to work with stakeholders and veterans groups to find ways to make even more improvements to the Fox Grant Program. | ||
| But I won't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. | ||
| We can't let this life-saving program that veterans and their families rely on stop. | ||
| That is what we are here to do. | ||
| And when it comes to the screening tool, it is essential that all guarantees use the same protocol to determine the effectiveness of the services and programs. | ||
| The Columbia Suicide Serverity Rating Scale is currently a tool used by VA as one component of an eligibility screening and identifies individuals with suicidal thoughts and behavior. | ||
| If we simply allow guaranteed to use whatever protocol they choose, this could create differing approaches and confusion. | ||
| The bill simply requires that guarantee servers include this essential screening tool. | ||
| The code says include, not exclude, or only. | ||
| This bill, as amended, preserves VA's flexibility to ensure the best results for veterans who are seeking mental health services in their most desperate moments. | ||
| When it comes to Common sense to allow those who are already provided mental health services to receive grants for a suicide prevention program. | ||
| Not only are these applicants subject to the same level of scrutiny as previous years' guarantees, but also receive the same amount of funding. | ||
| The idea that this creates a loophole or expands community care is far from reality. | ||
| Adding qualified providers to the list of grantees helps keep the door open for veterans seeking mental health services. | ||
| The reality is this program is set to expire in September, and we cannot allow this to happen. | ||
| Delay jeopardizes this program. | ||
| We have big problems to solve. | ||
| Adding qualified mental health providers will only help. | ||
| And I can appreciate the fact that the Senate has a different perspective. | ||
| However, I find their approach to be business as usual for Congress and VA. | ||
| Their bill would simply reauthorize the program for longer and with more money. | ||
| It would also oblige VA to provide more vague reporting requirements and briefings. | ||
| In other words, more money and more bureaucracy. | ||
| In this program, if this program has been perfect, maybe this would be a good idea. | ||
| But I think we can do better by ensuring the program continues longer while giving Congress the opportunity to make some revisits and revisits these programs. | ||
| With that, I would like to yield as much time as she may consume to my good friend from Iowa, Dr. Miller-Meeks. | ||
| The gentlelady is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Chairman Bost, for allowing me time. | ||
| I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1969, the No Wrong Door for Veterans Act. | ||
| As a 24-year Army veteran, a physician, and a member of Congress, I've seen the toll that service can take on our veterans, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. | ||
| And I've heard from too many who feel forgotten once they've taken off the uniform. | ||
| And while I respect my colleagues' comments from the other side of the aisle, to ask for data, for metrics, and for outcomes, but not to provide a tool for these grantees seems to be the wrong path to take. | ||
| 17 veterans die by suicide every single day. | ||
| That number should shake this chamber. | ||
| It's a national tragedy and a moral call to action. | ||
| This bill reauthorizes and strengthens the VA's Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program, one of the most effective tools we have to get local, trusted organizations the funding they need to help struggling veterans. | ||
| In Iowa, I have seen incredible work being done by people like Shane Sawyer, an Air Force Special Operations Combat Veteran who helps lead the Quad Cities Vet Network. | ||
| He brings veterans together not just to socialize, but to survive, to reconnect with the tribe they lost, to rediscover their identity, and to talk to people who understand what they've been through. | ||
|
Keeping Vets From Falling Through The Cracks
00:03:03
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| His work saves lives, that simply. | ||
| This bill helps him and thousands like him do even more. | ||
| It also includes my Veterans Sport Act, which ensures veterans can access adaptive prosthetics for sports and physical activity. | ||
| Because recovery isn't just about prescriptions, it's about purpose. | ||
| Whether it's walking a golf course or playing a team sport, these activities can be the difference between isolation and hope. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, we made a promise to our veterans. | ||
| This bill is about keeping it. | ||
| It ensures no veteran falls through the cracks. | ||
| No door should be the wrong door when a veteran is in crisis. | ||
| And no door should be the wrong door when it comes to making our veterans whole. | ||
| I urge all of my colleagues to vote yes on H.R. 1969. | ||
| Let's do the right thing by those who put everything on the line for us. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, we have no more speakers. | ||
| I'm ready to close, and I reserve. | ||
| The gentleman reserves, the gentleman from California is recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I'm prepared to close. | ||
| California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to share my position on H.R. 1969, the No Wrong Door Act, as amended. | ||
| I will always be supportive of efforts to prevent veteran suicide, but I remain concerned that this bill does not do enough to ensure the Fox Grants program is working as intended. | ||
| Veterans deserve our best legislative efforts, not legislation that creates more problems than it solves and that does not take steps to improve suicide prevention efforts. | ||
| That being said, I will not stand in the way of forward progress on veteran suicide prevention efforts, but I strongly urge my House and Senate colleagues to work with us to ensure that final reauthorization of this program is as robust as possible, and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman's yield back the balance of his time. | ||
| The gentleman from Illinois is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Once again, I encourage all members to support this legislation. | ||
| I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| Okay, gentlemen, yield back the balance of his time. | ||
| The question is: will the House suspend the rules and pass the bill H.R. 1969 is amended? | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| Any opinion of the chair, two-thirds being in the affirmative. | ||
| For what purpose, the gentleman rise? | ||
| I object to the vote on the grounds that the quorum is not present and make a point of order that the quorum is not present. | ||
|
Get Essential Contact Info
00:02:56
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| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, further proceedings on this question are postponed. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 12A of Rule 1, the chair declares the House in recess subject to the call of the chair. | ||
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