Providing For Consideration Of Senate Amendment To House Amendments To Senate Amendment TO H.R. 3221, Housing And Economic Recovery Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CASTOR. I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 1363 provides for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 3221, the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. The rule makes in order a motion by the chairman of the Committee on Financial Services to concur in the Senate amendment, with the text of the House amendment printed in the Rules Committee report.

The rule provides 2 hours of debate on the motion, with 80 minutes controlled by the Committee on Financial Services, and 40 minutes controlled by the Committee on Ways and Means.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act and this rule. Our landmark legislation today throws a lifeline to families who are struggling to maintain the American dream of home ownership during this housing crisis and the economic downturn.

Families across America are being forced to make heart-wrenching decisions in order to stay in their homes. What will they pay for in this day and age, with rising gas prices, property insurance rates escalating, the cost of health care rising? But nothing is more fundamental than having a safe and clean home for your family.

The good news is that many of us in the Congress understand, and we are going to stand up for families and ensure that if you work hard and you play by the rules, the tools and resources will be made available to you to help you stay in your home.

The American people have a number of champions here in Congress that understand the importance of a safe, clean and affordable home. Chairman Barney Frank has spent countless hours in providing the tools necessary for families across this country to have a safe, affordable place to live.

Chairwoman Maxine Waters of California has spent a great part of her career dedicated to affordable housing for American families.

Speaker Pelosi and the Chairwoman of the Rules Committee, Louise Slaughter, are champions of American families and affordable housing as well.

Madam Speaker, today three million to four million families are expected to lose their homes to foreclosure. And when a home in your neighborhood ends up in foreclosure it affects everyone. It is usually sold at a reduced rate, and the values of homes throughout the neighborhood are affected. We have all seen these eyesores with overgrown grass, broken windows and in disrepair.

Well, that is why we are all in this together. It is vital that we fight to maintain the property values of our communities.

Madam Speaker, just a few weeks ago I had my first foreclosure workshop to get families together with lenders to try to get to a point where they could work out their loans. We were very surprised. We had over 600 individuals show up who were either in foreclosure, had fallen a month or two behind, or could see on the horizon, because of an adjustable rate loan or some family circumstance like the loss of a job or the kids going off to college, that they needed a little bit of help.

Well, we have been very active in this Congress because while this is a problem that, yes, critically affects a State like Florida, in the Tampa Bay area that I have the privilege to represent, and it affects California desperately, Ohio, Nevada, no part of the country has been immune from the sub prime lending crisis.

Fortunately, this American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act comes at an important time. But, you know, this Congress has been working on this for over a year and a half. So many of the initiatives contained in this package have been passed by the House of Representatives. This ``New Direction Congress'' has worked, in a bipartisan way, to pass most of the initiatives that are contained in the act today.

Families should know that H.R. 3648, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, was passed and did become law at the end of last year; passed by a margin of 386-27 here in the House. It provides that over the next 3 years, families who have had to sell their homes in foreclosure will be spared from getting hit by a larger tax bill, in addition to the pain of losing their homes.

There are a number of other critical components in the Housing Rescue Package that were previously passed by the House. And I would like everyone to note, because we will probably hear a great deal of debate here today on the housing package. Everyone should note that almost all the initiatives contained in the bill today were passed over the last year and a half by wide, bipartisan margins.

First, the Neighborhood Stabilization Act. That was approved in May by a vote of 239-188. It provides grants to the States and local governments to purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed properties and turn them into safe, affordable places for folks to live.

And I would like to recognize and thank the White House for removing its veto threat. It had threatened to veto this entire package that had been negotiated with the White House over this small section that provides important tools to our State and local governments to tackle those properties that are up for foreclosure, the ones that are overgrown, that have the broken windows, allows them to go in and purchase those properties and turn them into affordable housing for families who are in need.

The package also includes the important provisions of the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act that we passed in May of 2007 by a vote of 313-104. This is vital legislation today because it establishes new and extensive oversight and regulatory authority over the Federal National Mortgage Association, Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, Freddie Mac.

To protect the taxpayers, we are instituting new requirements for the safety and soundness of the portfolio operations of these regulated entities. We need to make sure that we have oversight on the effects of the financial and housing finance markets of all these alternatives and provide an alternative to the current secondary market system for housing finance.

Madam Speaker, last September we also passed an important part of this package, the Expanding Home Ownership Act of 2007, by a margin of 348-72 here in the House. This is a critical piece because it expands access to the middle class to the low interest, low fee loans provided by the Federal Housing Administration. These FHA loans are a much better option to the sub prime loans. We are going to take a proactive step here to allow families facing foreclosure to qualify for the low interest, no fee loans offered by the FHA.

The housing package today also includes the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act of 2007. That was passed here in the House last October by a vote of 264-148. This creates a new, innovative fund that will be used to build more affordable housing for hard working families and families who have lost their homes due to foreclosure. The new trust fund will focus on construction, rehabilitation and preservation of affordable housing in our hometowns. It will pool monies to target housing for families with the greatest economic need.

And our efforts come at a critical time if we can get this trust fund up and running. See, the Federal money for affordable housing has largely disappeared under the current administration over the past 7 years.

In many communities like mine, housing agencies have thousands on the waiting list. In my hometown of Tampa, Florida, during a 1-week open enrollment session, more than 10,000 seniors, veterans and families indicated a need for housing. But instead of receiving housing, they are placed on a waiting list, and the waiting list takes up to 4 years, and it is so long that the Tampa Housing Authority is unable to help others that need it.

Madam Speaker, another important part of this housing package is the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007. Yes, we passed this here in the House last November by a vote of 291-127. It requires States to license all mortgage professionals and mandate criminal background checks, requires exams and a ban on felons participating in the mortgage loan industry.

We all know that the predatory lending was rampant during the sub prime loan run up. And I would like to draw your attention to anyone that would like to examine in depth the details of predatory lenders and how they worked. Go to the MiamiHerald.com Web site and review their series on predatory lending that they have run over the past couple of days. It is outstanding.

They reviewed thousands of pages of court documents, State industry reports, internal e-mails, and police reports from 2000 to 2007 and they discovered that over 5,000 people with criminal histories during that time became loan originators, a rate of nearly two a day. Worse, those include over 2,000 who had committed financial crimes such as fraud, money laundering, and grand theft. Too many of our neighbors were outright lied to and steered into unaffordable, exploding adjustable-rate mortgages without being given an option for a fixed rate and are now facing foreclosure which harms their families and all of us in their community.

To accompany this extensive package, what has been added that really has not been voted on by the House today is a request by the Treasury Secretary for new standby authority to buy stock or debt in the GSEs if it is determined that an emergency exists. This is something of an insurance policy against broader losses in the housing market that could bubble up.

Mr. Speaker, our efforts here today are absolutely necessary. Families across this country are depending on us. It's unfortunate that while the House and the new-direction Congress has been focused on affordable housing over the past year and a half and has passed terrific, substantive legislation, that it's taken a few months to get it enacted and passed in the end.

Thanks again to Chairman Barney Frank for headlining our negotiations with the other body and with the White House. And I feel secure that a large bipartisan vote here today will prove that we can stand up and address this housing crisis across this country.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. CASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to correct the record here because this House of Representatives has been working in a bipartisan way for almost 2 years now on housing legislation. In fact, in my opening statement, I chronicled the number of bills starting last year that have been passed in this House by substantial bipartisan margins and sent over to the Senate where they waited. To say that there's been no opportunity for amendment or debate, that's wholly inaccurate.

Out of this package, it contains at least five or six bills that had committee hearings, extensive hearings, the opportunity for amendment in committee, the opportunity for debate, previous debate, debate on the floor, amendments here on the floor, debate in the Rules Committee.

So I think it's important that the record reflect that reality.

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