Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Madam Chairman, here we go again. It is appropriations season in the House of Representatives, so we know what that means: once again, the American public can bear witness to our Republican colleagues' underfunding our Wall Street cops on the beat and attacking Wall Street reform with endless budget riders.

Indeed, by my count, there were 34 separate Republican amendments filed to the Rules Committee that would undermine, undercut, or underfund our financial regulators. These amendments span the gamut of special interest giveaways--from undoing critical consumer protections to exposing investors to financial predation, to undermining financial stability.

First, and perhaps most importantly, both the base bill and many of the amendments we are considering today stab at the heart of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the sole regulator tasked with protecting students, servicemembers, seniors, and other borrowers in the consumer lending marketplace.

To name just a few of the provisions that would harm the CFPB, this bill would: end the Bureau's independent funding; bog the CFPB down in gridlock by replacing its efficient Director structure with a partisan, bureaucratic commission; halt the Bureau's efforts to end forced arbitration clauses in credit card contracts and give consumers their day in court; rescind the CFPB's guidance that helps to prevent racial and ethnic discrimination in automobile lending markets; defund the Bureau's efforts to stop predatory lending to borrowers looking to purchase a manufactured home; and make it harder for the CFPB to bring enforcement actions against bad actors.

What is more, the bill would halt the CFPB's efforts to stop the debt trap created by predatory payday lending. As a report released just last month by my office revealed, these lenders are adept at skirting State laws. That is why we need strong Federal rules of the road. Unfortunately, this bill would ensure that payday lenders can continue to rip off our constituents and push them deeper into the cycle of debt.

Democrats will offer amendments today to remove these harmful provisions in the bill, and I urge all of my colleagues to support our efforts.

This bill also would cut funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission--that is, the SEC--which oversees our growing, complex capital markets and needs sufficient resources to police them effectively.

Republicans have shown us time and time again that they don't want the SEC to be able to do its job. That is why they are proposing nearly 15 percent less than the SEC has said it needs to properly oversee the 26,000 market participants under its purview. It is also 3 percent less than the agency received last year, which already was a shoestring budget for a regulator tasked with implementing and enforcing significant aspects of Dodd-Frank, the JOBS Act, and other important legislation.

To make matters worse, the bill, along with Republican amendments, would limit critical information for investors in companies by rescinding current or future disclosure requirements on CEO pay, climate change, conflict minerals, and political spending by big corporations, as well as limiting shareholders' ability to elect directors to corporate boards.

Finally, the bill also undercuts the Financial Stability Oversight Council--that is, FSOC--which keeps our financial system safe by looking out for systemic risk throughout the system and closing the gaps in our once-fractured regulatory framework.

Standing with other Democrats, I will offer amendments to strike some of the most harmful provisions of this bill. But make no mistake, even if these amendments were adopted, Democrats cannot support this legislation, which so gravely underfunds and undermines Wall Street reform that it is fair to say it would expose us to another financial crisis.

I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this very harmful legislation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source