Consumer Financial Protection Safety and Soundness Improvement Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the ranking member for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, we are still feeling the effects of a crisis that largely came about because the referees who oversee the soundness of our financial system were not on the field. We took the referees off the field. As a result, millions of Americans are still out of work. But while Democrats have worked to restore proper oversight to Wall Street, Republicans want the referees off the field again, and that would put us all at risk. This legislation puts the special interests ahead of the public interests by weakening the very entity that shields responsible consumers from financial abuses.

Last year, Congress passed an important Wall Street reform bill in order to prevent a job-destroying financial crisis from happening again. And one of the most crucial parts of that bill was the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog, a watchdog that would look out for the interests of ordinary Americans who want to sign mortgages, apply for student loans, and start businesses on honest and fair terms.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is empowered to ensure that lenders provide clear, plain-language explanations of loan terms and to help stop the kind of abusive and deceptive loan practices that helped drive our economy off a cliff. If such protections had been in place in the last decade, the odds of a crisis occurring would have been significantly less.

And I want to tell my friend from Alabama, he said that there was no congressional involvement. In fact, of course, the President does appoint, but it is with the advice and consent of the Senate so that the entire Senate, as is normal, is involved in this appointment.

The Republican legislation that we have on the floor today would make it much easier to overturn these consumer protection rules. It would make the people's watchdog far weaker at a time when they are needed more than ever. This legislation is part of the Republicans' stated goal to dismantle Wall Street reform, protecting special interests but leaving Americans unprotected from another crisis.

Removing America's defenses when we have not even fully recovered from the last crisis is a new level, in my view, of irresponsibility. I urge my colleagues, think of what we have been through; think of our responsibility to make sure it doesn't happen again; think of our responsibility to make clear that the interests of your constituents come first, and vote this bill down.

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