Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Chair, this is really two bills that have been put together. One deals with Operation Choke Point, and for reasons explained by the majority, it is important that we pass that part of the legislation. The other imposes restrictions on FIRREA, and for reasons eloquently expressed by the ranking member, I do not support that part of the bill. I, frankly, do not know how I am going to vote because of these portions of the bill, one is important to pass, and the other is a restriction that I cannot support.

I will point out for all of us who want to deal with Operation Choke Point that it is unfortunate that these two bills have been put together into one because we know the President isn't going to sign this bill if it has got the FIRREA portion in it. So it is my hope that we put on the President's desk a bill that protects American businesses from Operation Choke Point, a bill that the President can sign.

I want to use the time allotted here to try to improve the Operation Choke Point provisions because I hope they are ultimately signed into law.

Now, why are those Operation Choke Point provisions important? As the majority has explained, various businesses that are currently unpopular with the bureaucracy are being targeted, and it is an extremely powerful tool to destroy a business and to cut off its access to financial institutions.

Today they come for the gun stores and the tobacco dealers. And I don't have friends who are gun store owners and tobacco dealers, so some would say I should be quiet. But I do not know who the next President of the United States will be. And as I listen to the Record, I know that if they have the power, they will come after the Planned Parenthood clinics and the environmental organizations.

Woe be to a Congress that yields extreme power to the executive branch in the expectation that the executive branch will use it in a way that they favor knowing that the tide turns and the other party could be in control of that branch. So it is important that we improve the Operation Choke Point provisions of this bill.

Every speaker who talked about the Operation Choke Point provisions of this bill focused on mom and pop businesses, domestic businesses. Every bit of the discussion in committee focused on that, and that is why it is important that this bill not have an unintended consequence never discussed by anyone at committee; that is, that it would affect our anti-terrorism and national security efforts.

So in the words of the Democratic Daily Whip from Whip Hoyer, the Sherman amendment clarifies that the underlying bill does not prevent banking regulators from requesting a financial institution terminate a relationship because the customer poses a national security threat, is engaged in terrorist financing, or is domiciled in Iran, North Korea, Syria, or another state sponsor of terrorism.

I think it is a step forward to improve the Operation Choke Point portions of this bill. I think that, as further improved, those provisions should and, I believe, will become law. So I ask support for an amendment that makes it clear that a bill that was discussed only in the sense of domestic businesses, only in the sense of ma and pa and Main Street, does not have an effect that the author never included in our national security policy.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Maxine Waters).

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Mr. SHERMAN. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, this bill will be going through the legislative process. It is important that we improve the Operation Choke Point provisions.

I have enjoyed working with the gentleman from Missouri, and I hope that he will see fit to accept this amendment and to narrow it to a focus outside of terrorism policy.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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