Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time
that has been allotted to me. Thank you very much, Mr. Cummings.

I rise to oppose H.R. 50, an anticonsumer deregulatory bill that
would stop rulemaking by our Nation's financial overseers dead in its
tracks. In 2008, we witnessed the worst financial crisis since 1929,
which halted lending to small businesses, left millions without a home,
and pushed countless Americans into personal bankruptcy and ruin, after
which my colleagues and I in Congress worked diligently to put in place
serious and comprehensive safeguards to prevent another collapse.

Nevertheless, today House Republicans are suffering from selective
amnesia when they push this legislation to undo financial reform.
Indeed, this bill, H.R. 50, places significant administrative hurdles
on our regulators, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and
the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Certain provisions require our regulators, who are tasked with
protecting consumers and investors, to conduct onerous, industry-
friendly, cost-benefit analysis and to submit their rules for review to
the Office of Management and Budget. This hurts their ability to act
independently and in the best interests of the public.

In addition, this bill would arm special interests with a time-tested
weapon to delay and kill reform, the opportunity to challenge our cash-
strapped regulators in court on every rule. But this is the ultimate
point of the bill: to make regulating everything from securities,
fraud, payday loans, credit cards, insider trading, and derivatives
that much harder.

Most concerning is that Republicans want to pay for the cost of their
new burdens by depriving the one regulator charged with protecting our
Nation's consumers of tens of millions of dollars.

Mr. Chairman, this is just the latest in a never-ending effort to
unravel the important protections for consumers and taxpayers this
Congress put in place following the worst crisis in a generation.

With our economy still recovering from the $14 trillion financial
crisis, with families in my own district and probably yours still
struggling with foreclosure and unsure how they will be able to make
ends meet in retirement, we simply cannot undermine fundamental reforms
or the agencies enforcing them.

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