Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1062, SEC Regulatory Accountability Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SESSIONS. House Resolution 216 provides a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 1062. This rule provides for discussion and opportunities for every single Member of the majority and the minority to participate in this debate. We made in order every single germane amendment that was submitted to the Rules Committee on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us today is really quite simple. It is a commonsense solution to preventing unnecessary and overly burdensome government regulation, or perhaps an opportunity to understand why the government might be perpetrating a rule that would impact our free enterprise system. It requires the SEC to perform cost-benefit analysis before finalizing any major rule. It also prevents the implementation of the rule if the benefits do not outweigh the costs.

Through this bill, the American taxpayer will be protected from needless regulations that would impede economic growth without providing effective consumer protections. In other words, Mr. Speaker, we're here to ensure that the SEC provides balance with the rules and regulations that are in a major context when it issues these rules on the marketplace.

In January of 2011, President Obama signed an executive order directing all non-independent agencies, such as the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and others, to abide by the same rules that we're providing for today in H.R. 1062. However, because it is an independent agency, the SEC is not required to follow the President's rules.

The legislation before us today creates parity and opportunity for Congress to work with an agency and other non-independent agencies on a better way for them to promulgate the rules that they do and show a balance in the marketplace, just like the President asked other government agencies to do.

Furthermore, this legislation in no way weakens consumer protections or reduces accountability in the financial services industry. To the contrary, this proposal ensures that regulations issued by the SEC are effective and based on sound policy. Consumers and businesses alike will benefit from a reformed regulatory process.

So I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this rule and ``yes'' on the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend, the gentleman who brings up many good points about jobs, job creation, the ability for this Congress to be able to effectively hear from the American people about the issues and ideas that they're facing, come to resolution

in this body, work with our friends in the Senate, and to get legislation to the President of the United States. I think that should be and has been what our goal is about, and it should be our goal also to find common ground.

What's interesting is that this piece of legislation that we're handling now actually went to the banking committee, Financial Services Committee, as an agreement we more or less thought would be a suspension item; in other words, a piece of legislation that there was widespread agreement on that it would be good to put in the rules as one of a group of pieces of legislation, this would be a good idea to have the SEC accept this as part of what they do when they issue a rule.

Now what's happened is it has turned into a larger fight as a result of us wanting to simply make sure that the rules that apply to other Federal agencies also apply to independent agencies. So we thought we were doing the right thing to come and work together, and it's fair, I guess, I assume, to do that, even though we are trying to talk about this rule today.

If we want to talk about the budget and things that are presently being evolved, then we need to listen to our Democratic friends about the budget. They're not happy because we passed in this House an opportunity to have a budget that in the next 10 years would balance, a balanced budget.

The gentleman Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Budget Committee, came up to the Rules Committee and he spoke about how this President, every single year that Barack Obama is President, with the help of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, raised spending, put rules and regulations on the American people that are causing the lowest level of job creation that we've had in over 40 years, a trillion-dollar deficit every single year. And even with this massive tax increase that was a signing bonus for the President that took place in December, we still are going to run a trillion-dollar deficit. So what my friends, the Democrats, said upstairs in the Rules Committee, what they're for is raising spending another trillion dollars and raising taxes another trillion dollars.

Mr. Speaker, I do understand there's widespread disagreement. There's widespread disagreement when our friends that control the Senate, the Democrats, want to do the exact same thing in their body to this country, raising spending another trillion dollars, raising taxes another trillion dollars.

So they make a good point. Why won't we appoint conferees?

Well, Speaker Pelosi, back in 2009, took more than 2 months to do the exact same thing that they want us to do.

What is occurring is that our chairman, Paul Ryan, is working with their chairman on the agreement of how they would go about doing their job of having a conference on the budget because, you see, when you start so far apart, of trying to balance the budget, trying to not put more rules and regulations and taxes on the American people to where they stand a betterchance, not only of taking care of their own families, and providing for their children to go to college and to be able to pay for it, and to take care of their lifetime needs when they retire, that requires a basic sense of simply agreeing with what people are trying to do versus having the government come and provide a government-run health care system, having the government provide student loans, having the government expand government and take care of people endlessly.
And so there's two different visions, one of raising taxes $1 trillion, raising spending $1 trillion, which is what the Democrats want to do, versus trying to balance our budget, work our way out of problems, grow our economy, jobs, job creation and investment. That's what we're trying to do, and that's what Republicans talked about last month.

That's why we came forth with a budget when the Senate hadn't even done a budget, under Democrat leadership, for 4 years.

That's why we are leaders in Washington. Republicans are leaders in the House of Representatives. We maintain the control. We follow the order and listen to the American people of trying to make their lives better, not grow a government that will be out of control, like an Attorney General who, upon taking the oath of office, then decides when he does and when he does not want to make decisions, and whether he recuses himself; or whether you have an IRS that's out of control and in people's lives and making decisions that are politically based.

Mr. Speaker, this is the reason why we need a government that is smaller, more efficient, and does not have time or the inclination to become all things to all people, and to tell the American people what they will do and control our lives. That's why we're here today.

And, Mr. Speaker, I couldn't be happier than to say today we're on the floor trying to talk about what we thought was an idea that would be accepted by every single person in this body as a great idea.

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, you know, I think it's very interesting that they're trying to argue that we're trying to get in the way of the SEC. Yet the SEC, in their rules and regulations, have put an impact on small business of $1.75 trillion.

Mr. Speaker, what we're trying to do is apply the same principles and ideas that President Obama had to an agency that spends its life doing rules and regulations. And to say that doing their job correctly, with a balance, is something that we shouldn't require them to do is a silly argument.

That's like saying that Republicans and sequestration--when it was a President Obama idea. It is the President's idea. Sequestration--he's the one that proposed it. We're the ones that simply took him up on his idea. And he signed it into law.

They're arguing with themselves about the things which are good. Once again, the President initiated sequestration. We worked with the President as a back-stop. There we are.

The President issues this same ruling, asking agencies to please make sure they include cost-benefit analysis, but don't apply it later to someone who spends their life doing rules and regulations.

Mr. Speaker, it's an amazing world that we live in. We thought, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, Jeb Hensarling, after testimony in meetings and in feedback thought, the SEC actually agreed with this. We simply put it in as something they ought to be doing on a regular basis.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have right now a gentleman from the committee who has spent time and heard the testimony and understands that this should be a piece of legislation that we all agree with because it's common sense.

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Mr. SESSIONS. You know, Mr. Speaker, what we're trying to do is to put in writing exactly what the gentleman talked about why are they promulgating the rule, what effects would their rule have, and why what they do makes sense and is in a balanced way. That's what we're trying to do here today. It makes sense to me. I wish it made sense to more people in this body.

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Mr. SESSIONS. Do you know what? We didn't for 4 years either. We did not have a budget for 4 years. It is actually not required by law. We operated as two bodies--us, we in the House, trying to move forward with a budget that we did pass, and the Senate acting like it wasn't important.

I completely agree with the gentleman from Maryland. I think we should do it. That's why Republicans came up with the process of ``no budget, no pay.''

I think we will see very quickly an opportunity for the ideas around this issue to materialize. We'll find out what the differences are, maybe why we haven't done it.

That's not what this bill is about today. I'll have the conversations. I'll be able to speak cogently. And I will tell you that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) and, I believe, because I know him well, the gentleman from Maryland should have a chance to keep doing their work because they believe it's part of the process.

So I offer nothing but accolades of the gentleman, the young gentleman, who is the ranking member of the Budget Committee. And he knows that. He knows what kind of a person I am. I would not say it if I didn't believe it.

But I did not come prepared today on this bill because it is not what it is germane about, and I will respond to him. As a Member of House Republican leadership, I will tell you that our Speaker is interested in moving this body through.

The gentleman from Ohio understands how important regular order is, how important doing budgets is, how making sure that the American people have a chance to know what we're doing. I mean, we actually read bills before we pass them, Mr. Speaker.

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Mr. SESSIONS. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be on the floor today as we approach this issue about the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, in that we would simply codify in the law an understanding that they would need to, as they have the task of addressing the large rules and regulations that they have--but not for every rule and regulation--put a cost-benefit analysis in their process. It makes sense.

I find it very amazing that our colleagues have taken this to the level that they have in trying to say that we're doing this to be for big banks and against the

American people or consumers. That is a farfetched idea. It is about the rules and regulations that they talk about, just like government agencies would be required to have.

In a larger sense, here is why we are here today. Here is why Republicans are doing what we are doing with the budget, with a jobs bill that was passed by this body, why we are trying to talk about what we would do with sequestration--the President's idea. This House has passed numerous times information, our ideas, giving the President the ideas about how we think sequestration should work, a debt limit. We are faced with another debt limit vote here in our future. Two weeks ago, the House talked about how that should be handled. That bill was completely mischaracterized.

The reason we are here is that, under Barack Obama and Democrats, our country is having a $1 trillion deficit every year, and there is not one year in the future that they can point to in which we would balance our budget even for one year. If you cannot balance your budget, if you cannot control yourself--your spending habits, your insatiable appetite to grow government--then it means that we are on a dangerous trajectory.

Look at this, Mr. Speaker. This is history. This is what lies ahead. This is the demise for our children of America being a great Nation. This is why Republicans are down here. This is our past. This is our future. Republicans are here with ideas about balance, structure, working together--the SEC or other agencies working together--to the benefit of growing jobs, balance, things that make sense, instead of a government that's out of control with an IRS with a political agenda and with the Department of Justice abusing its powers that were invested in the Constitution's and the Bill of Rights' understanding of a balance.

This reminds me of a prior administration, under Richard Nixon, when he used the IRS and the Department of Justice to punish his enemies, people he disagreed with.

Mr. Speaker, we are here on a broad range of ideas, evidently, today. When I woke up, I thought it was just about a balanced rule for the SEC, for them to apply in their rules and regulations a chance to say ``cost-benefit analysis'' so that those to whom they provide regulations would understand and the SEC would understand for their some 175 lawyers and 50 economists who look at the marketplace. Let's balance this out. That's what I thought we were here for. Instead, I have learned today we are here to talk about the budget, that we are here to talk about sequestration, that we are here to talk about a lot of things which all embody themselves in: our country is in trouble.

We are in trouble because the President of the United States is for a bigger activist government, for a health care bill that will cause us to lose 2 million more jobs and will keep small business smaller. It will harm our future. Republicans are here simply with common sense and balance today just to talk about the SEC. I welcome the chance for my colleagues, as they have done today, to come to the floor. The gentleman, Mr. Van Hollen, is one of my closest friends on the Hill. He is a man who I work with on a regular basis, and I respect him. His ideas related to moving forward on the conference should be answered, and I anticipate they will. I simply came unprepared as to that answer today.

So, Mr. Speaker, as always, I will finish where I started and say Republicans are trying to provide leadership. Our great Speaker, John Boehner, does understand regular order and that it is important to read bills before you pass them.

We believe in coming to the floor and talking about ideas before problems occur. That's what we've been doing. That's what the Rules Committee is about. And the legislation that we have handled since January has been all about trying to work together to let the American people know we get it. We're going to balance what we do with their needs and desires to make sure that this country remains strong and is ready for its future because, Mr. Speaker, I, like you, have children who need our country to be prepared for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying legislation.

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