Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018
Floor Speech
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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
One size does not fit all. As an enthusiastic supporter of the CHOICE Act, I must confess it is not perfect. You have been told all financial regulators should be subject to the power of the Federal purse. Well, this regulatory agency, the National Credit Union Administration, uses no Federal funds to operate, to administer, or to manage the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund--let me repeat, uses no Federal funds.
Now, when nontaxpayer funds are required to be federally appropriated, hopefully, this strikes you as an odd idea. But when the funds in question are placed under the appropriations process and are subject to being swept for other Federal spending measures, I hope that bothers you--not strikes you as odd, but bothers you.
Credit union member-generated insurance funds are now, by virtue of being put into the appropriations process, subject to being swept for other Federal spending processes.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Aguilar).
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Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to my colleague from the financial institution folks, one of the things in the CHOICE Act is the Mick Mulvaney-generated transparency amendments that we are not trying to strike. It is not like we are hiding anything. And I missed the part where it says, oh, the fact that they are not taxpayer funds makes it okay that we go ahead and try to sweep those into that.
I also missed the fact, quite frankly, that this is different than something like the Bureau of Consumer Protection folks who were an out- of-control executive branch agency using federally appropriated funds to do as they darn well please.
I missed the fact where we have got a problem with credit unions taking care of their own administration and their own insurance.
And I, finally, missed the fact where, quite frankly, we have absolutely no problem with respect to these folks' performance record.
So when you talk about going out and getting nontaxpayer-generated funds and saying we are going to bring those--by the way, good luck for these folks to get under our budgeting process. I won't say anything more than that, Mr. Chairman. Good luck.
Whose budget are they going under? Who are we waiting for approval so we can say keep doing the things the way you were? So I will just say that this is a problem that does not exist with a solution that is being applied because of other regulators, which I agree with, but it is like to suggest, quite frankly, that the CHOICE Act was perfect and doesn't need a second look on a small thing like this, I mean, hats off to the committee. It is the only perfect committee I know of that has ever existed.
Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I will just say this: We ought to take a look at what track records are. And when we take a look at that and we look at unintended consequences, when you start branching out, for those of you folks in Production Credit Association territory and things like that and the budget issues and all of that other sort of stuff, it is like these folks are doing a good job. Let's let them continue to do that.
Mr. Chairman, I would urge your bipartisan, nationwide support, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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