Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chair, I want to thank the ranking member and the chair of the committee. I would also like to say that this is a situation where there are--and I have even seen myself--some closures of accounts, which I think were not adequately justified, but this bill doesn't just solve that problem. It solves a whole lot of problems that are not problems.
So they take what could be a legitimate issue, and then they use that little hole in the tent to push in a whole bunch of other stuff that will literally weaken the whole system.
My good friend from South Carolina, if that was all the bill said, it wouldn't be that bad of a problem, but that is not only what it says. In fact, it weakens financial protections and lets bad actors in the system off the hook. If we are concerned about small accounts being closed, we should focus on that issue, but this particular bill goes way beyond that.
As Members contemplate how they want to vote on this bill, they had better think about and read this bill carefully because it goes far beyond just simply calling for a justification for arbitrarily closing accounts. That is why I oppose the bill.
I oppose the bill, the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act, H.R. 766. This bill would do the opposite of what is asserted in the title. H.R. 766 would not protect customers of financial institutions actually. Instead, it would make it more difficult to hold financial institutions accountable, and it will achieve that goal in a bait-and- switch way by acknowledging what may be, in some cases, a legitimate issue of arbitrary account closures, but then coming in, sneaking in the back door, all this other stuff, to weaken the financial system.
Many Americans, including those who saw the movie ``The Big Short,'' cannot understand how so few people went to jail for the schemes that caused the financial crisis. People made loans they knew would fail, sold those bad loans to investors, and caused the financial crisis that cost our economy $14 trillion.
Twelve million people lost their jobs, and 11 million people lost their homes. Who went to jail for all this mortgage fraud? Well, I think there is only one person I have been able to find. I would be happy to find anyone else. Teresa Giudice from ``The Real Housewives of New Jersey,'' football player Irving Fryar, and straw buyers in Michigan, those are the only people I could find who went to jail for this. Other people who committed massive fraud, they paid fines, but they walked away.
I am incredibly frustrated by the fact that the Department of Justice has not pursued more criminal prosecutions of people at the multinational corporations who caused the financial crisis. But the answer to that problem is stronger enforcement, not to take away the most important tool Federal prosecutors have to pursue financial fraud.
There is this thing called FIRREA. I know people watching C-SPAN are like, what is that? These Congress people always speak in acronyms. It is the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act. FIRREA was specifically designed to hold bankers accountable for destabilizing the financial system with their fraudulent activity. This bill weakens that.
In an Orwellian twist, it says that FIRREA cases cannot be brought when fraud is committed against a bank instead of by a bank. I will say it again. If this bill passes today, FIRREA cases can only be brought when fraud is committed against a bank and not by a bank. That is bad.
It also limits law enforcement's subpoena power. Don't we want to be able to subpoena these guys? Why would we want to be able to weaken that?
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Mr. ELLISON. It eliminates the bankers' regulators' ability to ensure safety and soundness of the financial system. We need to enforce the law, not wink at it.
Members, they are dangling a shiny, little object in front of you by saying they are going to stop arbitrary account closures. This bill is way more than that. I urge a ``no'' vote.
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