Consumer Protection and Recovery Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and we are glad that Brady is there. Go blue.
Mr. Speaker, I have long championed bipartisan legislation to increase consumer protections from fraud and scams, particularly for our Nation's seniors and vulnerable populations.
In April, the House passed by an overwhelming majority H.R. 1215, the Fraud and Scam Reduction Act, which I led with my friend and colleague, Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester.
Our bill creates the Senior Scams Prevention Advisory Group and the Senior Fraud Advisory Office within the FTC to better assist the agency and employers with monitoring, identifying, and preventing mail, telephone, and internet fraud.
I have also championed legislation that cracks down on robocall scams and Medicaid patient abuse and fraud. These efforts are particularly important, as we saw scams increase at an alarming rate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But I cannot support H.R. 2668, the deceptively mis-advertised bill before us today. This bill was rushed through an entirely partisan process without addressing significant concerns from Republicans to protect fundamental due process rights and prevent the FTC from operating unchecked, as it did in the 1970s.
I hoped the Energy and Commerce Committee would have had the opportunity to hear from the full slate of FTC commissioners on this bill, the same commissioners who testified in the Senate one week prior to our legislative hearing and commented on what should be included in any legislative fix to 13(b).
Make no mistake, I fully support giving the FTC necessary tools to bring just enforcement actions against fraudsters and scammers, including restitution for harmed consumers. However, H.R. 2668 gives the FTC these new expansive tools without much-needed guardrails, all under the guise of protecting our constituents.
Just this past April, in a rare 9-0 unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that section 13(b) of the FTC Act does not authorize the Commission to seek, or the Court to award, monetary relief including disgorgement or restitution.
The Court stated that the Commission grossly misused its authority and encouraged Congress to address the issue with a bipartisan--and that was their term--bipartisan legislative solution.
But the bill before us today is anything but bipartisan. This bill would grant the FTC a 10-year statute of limitations for this newfound authority, allowing the FTC the ability to go after conduct that is no longer occurring in the marketplace.
There is a reason that a 5-year statute of limitations or less is standard in many Federal and State statutes. As the committee learned from the former head of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, shorter statutes protect against surprises through the assertion of claims long after the conduct, when evidence may be stale or no longer available, and encourage the timely filing of claims by regulatory agencies.
Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee tried countless times to work with Democrats on a compromise solution to these issues, all to no avail.
My good friend, the Republican leader of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee, Representative Bilirakis, proposed a compromise amendment that would allow the FTC to go after bad actors while also respecting due process rights. His amendment even addressed the concern raised from my friends in the majority on the statute of limitations.
This was a sincere offer from Republicans to address Democrats' concerns and meet them halfway, and it even received bipartisan support in committee.
But instead of coming to the floor with a bipartisan bill, Democrats rejected our efforts and jammed through this partisan bill without consideration for its consequences.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 2668. Come back to the table and work with Republicans to find a compromise solution that provides the FTC the tools to actually protect our constituents. That is what we must ask and that is what I ask.
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