Transcripts For CSPAN U.S. House Of Representatives 12132017 20171213

Will be conducted as fiveminute votes. The Unfinished Business is ordering the previous question on House Resolution 658. The clerk house calendar number 410, House Resolution 658, resolution providing for consideration of the bill h. R. 1638 to require the secretary of the freshy to submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees on the estimated total assets under direct or indirect controls by iranian leaders and providing for consideration of the bill h. R. 4324 to require the secretary of the treasury to make certifications with respect to United States and foreign Financial Institutions aircraftrelated transactions involving iran and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore the question is on ordering the previous question. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a 15minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 229 and the nays are 189. The previous question is ordered. Question is on adoption of the resolution. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. Mr. Speaker, i ask for a recorded vote. The speaker pro tempore a recorded vote is requested. Those favoring a recorded vote will rise. A sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of epresentatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 238 and the nays are 182. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. For what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition . Mr. Woodall mr. Speaker, by the direction of the committee on rules, i call up House Resolution 657 and ask for its immediate consideration. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. Members will clear the aisles, take your conversations from the floor. The clerk will report the resolution. The clerk house calendar number 109, House Resolution 657. Resolved, that upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the house the bill h. R. 2396, to amend the grammleachbliley act to update the exception for certain annual notices provided by Financial Institutions. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the committee on Financial Services now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any further amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except, one, one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on Financial Services, two, the further amendment printed in the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution, if offered by the member designated in the report, which shall be in order without intervention of any point of order, shall be considered as read, shall be separately debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question, and three, one motion to recommit with or without instructions. Section 2, upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the house the bill h. R. 4015, to improve the quality of proxy Advisory Firms for the protection of investors and the u. S. Economy, and in the public interest, by fostering accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and competition in the proxy Advisory Firm industry. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. An amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of rules Committee Print 11546 shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any urther amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except, one, one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on Financial Services, and two, one motion to recommit with or ithout instructions. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from georgia is recognized for one hour. Mr. Woodall thank you very much, mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during consideration of this resolution, all time is yielded for the purpose of debate only, but i would like to yield half of my time, 30 minutes, to my friend from colorado, mr. Polis, pending which i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Woodall mr. Speaker, id also like to ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to evise and extend their remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Woodall mr. Speaker, ive had the opportunity over the last couple of weeks to bring a number of bills from the Financial Services committee to the floor. We talk so much about regular order and having a process where the committees are doing their work, where the authorizers are deep into the details and then were bringing those bills to the floor for the entire house to vote on. We have that opportunity again today. Mr. Speaker, the rule today brings two bills to the floor. H. R. 2396, which is the privacy notification technical clarification act. Brings that under a structured rulemaking in order the only amendment that was offered, a bipartisan amendment offered by mr. Clay and mr. Trott, and it also brings h. R. 4015 to the floor, mr. Speaker. Thats the Corporate Governance reform and Transparency Act of 2017. We do not have any germane amendments offered so we bring that under a closed rule today. Mr. Speaker, id remind my colleagues, as is the way of my chairman on the rules committee, a notice was sent out to all members and will to be sent out to all members for each set of bills that we consider in the rules committee soliciting any amendments or ideas that folks may have. We sent out that notification, but for these two bills, we received only one germane amendment. Mr. Speaker, i wont go into great detail about these individual bills because were fortunate to have the sponsors here on the floor for the rule today. But what i do want to say is that this is another series in a line of commonsense authorizing pieces of legislation, things that moved through committee in a bipartisan way. Theyre going to make life just a little bit easier for the American People. We have a chance today if we support this noncontroversial rule to bring these two noncontroversial bills to the floor and make that difference together, a difference we all came to washington to make. With that, mr. Speaker, id ask all my colleagues to consider supporting this rule as well as supporting the two underlying pieces of legislation, and i would reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from colorado is recognized. Mr. Polis i thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Polis mr. Speaker, i rise in opposition to this rule. Looking that we are at today has two bills under it. This is the 56th closed rule, allowing no amendments that were bringing to the floor this year. Over the past year we have not considered any legislation under an open rule that would allow republicans or democrats to bring forward amendments here on the floor. When the 115th congress opened, speaker ryan promised regular order bills would make their way to the floor after hearings and markups. Instead, we have seen bill after bill rushed to the floor, many bills havent gone through committee or skipped hearings. Thats true for the failed health care bill. Its also true for the tax bill currently in conference, the major bill this congress. This tax bill that somehow we understand there is a, quoteunquote, deal on before the Conference Committee even met, was crafted behind closed doors and no member was able to offer their ideas on the house floor. I offered several bipartisan amendments in the rules committee, but they were locked out as were amendments from every other democrat and republican that chose to offer amendments. The tax legislation would explode our debt. Its a giveaway to wealthy corporations, and does nothing to help the middle class. Now, the benefit of having an open process is creating better ideas, having democrats and republicans bring forward their ideas, see who can muster a majority of votes here on the floor of the house, and include that in the tax bill. Were a legislature. Thats how were supposed to work. Instead, a bill is crafted behind closed doors, to raise taxes on 78 million americans and add 1. 7 trillion to the debt. When you add to the debt, that is a tax on future americans. Instead of taxes them today youre taxing them tomorrow, and the tax and spend Republican Party continues to add to the deficit and add to the debt day after day after day. Look, we only have a few legislative days left before the end of the year, and we have very important work to do like reauthorizing the Childrens Health Insurance Program and funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. Theres millions of americans have that have been devastated by hurricanes in texas, louisiana, puerto rico, florida, the Virgin Islands and congress has not stepped up to the plate. Theres over 800,000 aspiring americans that are at risk of being deported from the only country they have ever known as home because of the reckless inactions of President Trump. Congress needs to act to find a real solution so dreamers can continue to work legally in the communities that they live in and they continue to thrive and give back to make our country even greater. So we have a lot of critical tasks ahead, which is why im really surprised with all of this work to do and only seven or eight days to do it that here we are considering two bills where well have our debate but theyre not theyre not bills of great importance. Were using our floor time very limited, seven days before the end of the year, when we could be debating tax reform and offering amendments, when we could be addressing the needs of the dreamers, when we could actually be doing something about the deficit, reining in outofcontrol wasteful government spending. Were not doing any of that. Were doing two minor bills that are, you know, favors for Public Companies or whoever they are, happy to talk about them. Will do my role in debating. One i am even supportive of, but theyre completely separated from the actual concerns of the American People. No wonder the Approval Rating of this institution is under 15 . Because we continue to debate these minor bills under a closed process when with this very week we could have had an open process for tax reform. We could be voting on 10, 20 amendments a day, passing some and rejecting some. I have no problem if i bring forward some democratic amendment and it fails. Thats the process. Thats fair. But we have bipartisan, commonsense amendments that should be part of tax reform. Representative schweikert and i have a bill to provide a de minimis exemption on taxation for use of krypto currencies, for amounts to be used in everyday purchases 600. Lets put a vote on it. I hope a majority of congress agrees. If not, im a big boy. I can go home. They wont be able to fight for the issues that my constituents have hired me to fight for. Its not only the frustration i have, not only the frustration many republicans have but its the frustration of the american that the American People have with this institution. Now, lets get to these bills. Look, again, typically the Financial Services committee did not hold a hearing on either of these bills. Its a closed bill. H. R. 2396, the privacy notification technical , sharing on act information with third parties and, look, were all for reducing unnecessary regulations. When i get to the next bill, the republicans are actually trying to add paperwork and regulations, but this one does. But it picks a very to get rid of one. It gets rid of privacy notices from Financial Institutions that tell consumers that they can share or sell your personal information. Of all the places to cut paperwork, why would you want to cut the one piece that consumers and retailers actually care about . Back in september, 143 million americans had their personal and Sensitive Information shared widely as a result of a data breach at equifax. Congress should be looking at ways to better secure our Sensitive Information, a cybersecurity bill, better information sharing. Instead, of actually making it easier for our personal information to be shared more widely and giving you as a consumer less ability to find out where its being shared. A hearing would be helpful to understand the full effects of this legislation to see what the unintended consequences are , and we do know that it would eliminate clear disclosure to consumers about their privacy rights. Never a good thing, especially in these times, including consumers ability of opting out having their information sold to third parties. We can do better. He other bill, h. R. 4015 makes a change to how proxy Advisory Firms provide information to shareholders and would require they make their recommendations available to companies. This bill is problematic from a number of perspectives, so heres what it does. Proxy Advisory Firms provide independent Advisory Services for investors and have fiduciary responsibility to their investors. Under this legislation, they would actually have to open themselves up to lobbying for companies and add additional paperwork, theyd have to register with the s. E. C. Whereas they now dont before trying to issue vote recommendations or trying to change the corporate board. So heres who the players are in this fight. On the one hand you have Public Companies. On the other you have investors, which means your pension fund and mine, mr. Speaker. It means university endowments. I know you all dont like those and youll tax them soon. It means perhaps you as an individual investor through a mutual fund or other vehicles. So investors on one side, public corporations on the other. But the problem is its not the shareholders of the Public Companies. Its the insular governance and management structures of those organizations, and many of them do need to be shaken up in the name of efficiency. There are many examples of investor pressure thats been applied to good effect, to meaningful reforms in Corporate Governance, preventing conflicts of interest, making sure the board that oversees the c. E. O. Are not just his golfing buddies and hes only the board or shes on the board of their companies too. So ive generally been on the side of investor empowerment on that. You know, not to the extreme, not to make it impossible to be c. E. O. On a publicly traded company, to run a publicly traded company but if anything we should make sure that the actual owners of the company are empowered to make the changes they need to increase efficiency. This bill goes the wrong way. It adds red tape, adds paperwork and adds regulations to investors, and prevents them from being able to exert influence in the same way they do today, adding one degree of additional regulation and paperwork to allow them to do the kinds of Good Governance activities in terms of running competitive fights for boards of directors. I get theres another side. There could be a steaming underbelly to investor engagement as well. There are some that care only about shortterm gains, that try to institute practices or bully management in a way thats not conducive for longterm value, rather bump, pump and dump schemes that they try to make money off of and i totally get that, but in general it is the owners of the company to whom the fiduciary responsibilities of the directors and c. E. O. Lie and we should empower them for better or for worse to make the changes to increase the overall productivity of the company. We should not burden investors with additional red tape, as republicans are doing, by creating more bureaucracy and paperwork and Compliance Costs with this bill. Frankly, i was surprised to see this bill come out of Financial Services because republicans have been fairly consistent in trying to remove regulations from doddfrank. Thats generally been the approach. I supported the removal of some of those unnecessary regulations. Others are important regulations, like this privacy disclosure, that i dont think is a good idea, but here they are adding reporting requirements above doddfrank. They are outdoing doddfrank. They are saying theres not enough paperwork, not enough money going to lawyers and accountants. We will make them file more paperwork for the s. E. C. I think thats the wrong way to go i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle the resist to burden shareholders who actually own companies with additional costs and paperwork and prevent them from making necessary management improvements to the companies at at the end of the day are run for them, not for the benefit of management. Thats why i oppose this bill. Shareholders should have a right of partial information about the company they i vested. We should minimize paperwork where possible. I have been proud to support a number bipartisan proposals to do that. This bill goes the opposite way. I reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. The gentleman from georgia is recognized. Mr. Woodall thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as i may consume. Sometimes theres a lot of pressure on the rules committee. Get get own here and you some of the most knowledgeable folks on both sides of the issue, on both sides of the chamber, and youve got to be prepared to refute the detail after detail after detail that might confuse folks back home. It gives me great pleasure today to not have to spend any time refuting anything that my friend just said because we the important thing about developing a reputation is, its just laughable to suggest that republicans are coming to the floor today to undermine prifesism its laughable to suggest that republicans are coming to the floor today to increase paperwork and red tape. And it is not only laughable, but it is inaccurate to suggest that its republicans coming to do this, mr. Speaker. Bipartisan bills to the floor today. Id reich to yield time, mr. Speaker, to id like to yield time, mr. Speaker torques my friend from michigan, mr. Trot, his bill passed out of committee, to the floor today. Id reich to yield time, mr. Speaker, to id like to yield 4020, a huge bipartisan vote. It went through a hearing, arkup. It was everything that makes this institution work properly. I appreciate him for bringing the issue forward and like to yield him five minutes to talk about the tremendous bipartisan effort that hes put together. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Trott i want to thank my riend from georgia for yielding and for his hard work on this rule. Mr. Speaker, i rise in support of the rule today which allows for consideration of h. R. 2396, the privacy yielding and for his hard work on this rule. Notification technical clarification act. I would like to begin by thanking chairman hensarling for guiding this bill through committee, and chairman sessions for his work on bringing this rule to the floor. I also want to thank my friend, mr. Clay, for his very helpful amendment. One of the reasons i came to congress was to reduce the Regulatory Burden in our country so that businesses could have the freedom to grow, thrive, and create jobs for hardworking americans. This bill is about modernizing one of those outdated regulations that has been a burden to businesses and consumers alike, the privacy notification rules. A couple minutes ago my friend from colorado gave a very nice speech about daca, about tax reform, about the Public Opinion of this institution. But the speech had nothing to do with consideration of this rule today. When he finally got around to talking about the rule, he said, we should not allow the rule to move forward because the underlying bill, 2396, in light of the equifax scandal, we should not be eliminating privacy notices and allow banks to circumvent those rules because its going to hurt consumers. None of this is correct. This bill is a very simple bill. It deals with all the finance companies and relieves them from the burden of having to send out privacy notices to consumers year after year when the policy hasnt changed. If the Auto Finance Companies change the rule, change the policy, they have to send out new privacy notices. If a consumer calls up and says i know the policy hasnt changed but id like to seat rule, they can go on the website or ask the policy be mailed to them. This bill in no way harms consumers. Just last year we passed a bipartisan bill that allowed banks to stop sending privacy notices to consumers if nothing in the policy had changed. This noncontroversial measure passed by voice vote with members on both sides of the aisle real identifieding realizing the companies were wasting enormous amounts of paper and money, sending out duplicative and unnecessary privacy notices year after year. The bill achieved its goal. Millions of dollars that would have been spent on paper and poseage have been put back in communities. By bill builds on this success provision to Companies Lending money to people buying vehicles this. Means that those who extend credits to consumers who buy vehicles from ford, g. M. , provi Companies Lending money to people buying vehicles harleydavidson, and other iconic american companies, would receive the same benefit as banks. More importantly consumers will no longer be bombarded with the neverending stream of little print, privacy notices and policies that havent changed. This is a bipartisan commonsense measure. I encourage my colleagues to support the rule and allow debate to begin on this legislation. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields. The gentleman from colorado reserves. Georgia reserves, soarry. The gentleman from colorado is recognized. Mr. Polis before i further yield to the gentleman from new york, i want to insert in the record the bill summary from the majority, the republicans on the rules committee, for h. R. 4015. Without objection. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Polis the reason i do is my colleague from georgia somehow said that it was laughable that this characterization that its adding paperwork, thats what this bill does. In this exhibit, this is republican summary of their own bill. It says, the information contained in these statements must be filed with the s. E. C. The whole bill is about adding paperwork. Thats what the bill does. You can can argue its paperwork you want. Corporate c. E. O. s want it and existing board members, but investors dont. E talking about additional paperwork. There is nothing in that statement that can you refute because the republican bill summary explains thats what they are doing. There is no disagreement. Hes correct. Paperwork. There is nothing in that statement that can you im sure there are some democrats that support these bills. Some republicans. Some republicans and democrats might oppose these bills. Thats what the bill does. It adds paperwork. Thats why i was surprised to see it come out of the Financial Services committee that in general has been more interested in reducing paperwork. Here they are interested in adding Compliance Costs and paperwork to investors. With that id like to yield to the gentleman from new york. To say if id have we defeat the previous question, ill offer an amendment to the rule to bring up representative maloneys bill which would block the f. C. C. s rule from net truthality to take into effect. I ask unanimous consent town sert the text of my amendment in the record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Polis to discuss the proposal i yield four minutes to our distinguished gentleman from new york, mr. Maloney. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for four minutes. Mr. Maloney i thank the gentleman from colorado. I rise today to urge my colleagues to we defeat the previous question, ill offer an amendment to the rule to bring up representative defeat the previous question so we can turn our attention to the issue that is so critical for this right now. Ress i speak of the federal communication commissions decision and its assault on Net Neutrality. The f. C. C. Is expected to vote tomorrow right now. I speak of the federal to eliminate the rules that protect our internet. They are about to fix something that is not broken. Now, maybe the words Net Neutrality make your eye glaze over but its critical to all who use the internet. Its not that complicated. We call the rules to eliminate the current internetanyahu newt trality because they keep the net neutral for everyone. A neutral internet means we all have access to the same legal content and services, no matter where or how we get the internet. These rules arent new and they are working. In fact, when you think about it, one of the last places where quality really raines in our society is on the inter reigns on our society is the net. Its one of the few places left all on ca where were equal footing. Thats the all on equal footing. Thats the current Net Neutrality system we must protect. The folks who want to end that spur spur innovation. E these really, mr. Speaker . Its hard to look at the internet as its blossomed in america and say we lack innovation. Innovation is everywhere. Look at the new apps and websites and services we rely on every day. This innovation exists not in spite of Net Neutrality, rules to this inknow vation exists in large part because of it. Net neutrality is not a bug, mr. Speaker. Net neutrality is a feature. That is why we must protect it. The real reason that people want to end Net Neutrality is money and profitability. Getting rid of Net Neutrality would expose consumers to all sorts of practice that right now are banned. Practices like throttling, which means the Internet Company doesnt have to provide the same access to all companies. So they dont like one company, they can slow down your access to that site. Could block the site entirely. They could tell a streaming service like netflix they have to pay more. Or make their site work could b differently. These extra costs are going to get passed on to all of us, consumers. While some us have a few choice when is it comes to Internet Service providers, most dont. How many have more than one option when it comes to internet in your home or office . These companies have a functional monopoly. So many of them can do basically whatever they want and not lose customers. Thats why we need some commonsense rules in place to protect consumers. These rules are called Net Neutrality. What can we do to stop the f. C. C. From harming this Free Internet . I have introduced legislation in the last couple days that would block this proposal and protect the internet. H. R. 4585, the save Net Neutrality act, would simply prevent the f. C. C. From relying on this process they have used to roll these rules back. Its that simple. And we know the f. C. C. s rule making process was so messed up, so corrupted, so crew screwed up its being investigated right now by the new York Attorney general. I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to defeat this previous question so we can move to thetodebate my bill and save Net Neutrality act and address this critical issue. This is our chance to protect the internet as it has always existed. An internet thats working fine as it is. To the f. C. C. , we say, if it aint broke, dont fix it. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore gentleman from colorado reserves. The gentleman is recognized. Mr. Woodall i yield myself such time as i may consume. To say i agree with my friend. I, too, said to the f. C. C. In 2015, if it aint broke dont fix it. I thought the first 20plus years of the internet were marked by innovation and freedom. I wanted to keep that innovation and freedom flowing. The Obama Administration wanted to insert itself into the internet infrastructure in ways it had never inserted government in infrastructure before. And from the numbers i have seen, my friend may have different numbers, suggests that Infrastructure Investment has declined over those two years. First time in the history of the internet Infrastructure Investment. Reasonable men and women can digs agree disagree, mr. Speaker, but understand Internet Freedom and innovation is what we all want to protect. Unfortunately its not what this rule is focused on today this. Rule is focused on simplification and expansion coming out of the Financial Services committee. Mr. Speaker, one of the gentleman i had the pleasure of in 2011 is d with the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. Duffy. Hes one of the sponsors of one of these bills we have before us today. Hes been a leader in the Financial Services field in his seven in 2011 is the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. Duffy. Years. Id like to yield him five minutes to talk about the impact his legislation will have on the process today. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. Mr. Duffy i appreciate the gentleman for yielding. Before i get to my bill f. I could address a few points that have been brought up in this debate which im surprised the fact the rules committee doesnt talk about the rule. Talk about a whole bunch of different issues. The gentleman from georgia is correct. Infrastructure investment in the internet has gone down over the last two years. I would agree if its not broken why did President Trump president obama try to fix it . It was working really well for 20 years. In regard to the tax bill, thats being debated, i think were looking at some unique arguments that are being made. The democrats are over there, they are fighting for the poor, middle class american and republicans are fighting for the rich. Its a great line. I love the line. But lets look to the wealthiest communities in america. Go look right outside of d. C. Look in northern virginia. Are those wealthy communities, those in Virginia Republican or democrat . They are democrat. L. A. , san francisco, boston, new york, all really rich communities that elect democrats. Biggest iest and corporations, think of the Tech Industry in california or the biggest banks in america, what are they . They are democrats. And thats why biggest when the debate comes up you see democrats fighting for loopholes and preferences for their big wealthy friends. Thats why when republicans here in this house, maybe to write off the mortgage interest on a Million Dollar home, that might be too much. Maybe we should lower it to 500,000 maybe we should lower it to 500,000 of mortgage interest deduction. My Democrat Friends freaked out. Oh, no. The poor middle class people in community who have a Community Dollar mortgage, they are just having a tough time getting by. That was the argument that was made. You talk about investment in my bill, you want to talk about Pension Funds . Whats happened to Pension Funds in america . Whats happened to american 401ks . Theyve gone through the roof because were lowering rules and regulations in a smart way and were going to reform our tax code to let families and businesses keep more of their income because they can spend it better than anyone in this town. They do it well. And so if you want to tank the markets, do what youve been doing and tank tax reform. I want to get to proxy Advisory Firms. Its taken a while to get here. But the role of proxy advise ry firms in shaping corporate Advisory Firms in shaping corporations is important. They shape them on how they vote to the shares of the corporations they own. Youre like, thats pretty he about thats pretty behind. Thats not a big issue. In 1987 it was 47 . Today investors only owen 75 of american corporations. Billions of shares Institutional Investors control and look to proxy advisors for advice and there are two firms that control 97 of the market. So two companies basically are having a huge influence on american Corporate Governance and theyre involving in the writing and analysis and reports and voting recommendations that affect fundamental corporate transactions like mergers and acquisitions and shareholder proposals. A huge impact on Corporate Governance. They are not immune from conflicts of interest. For example, in addition to providing recommendations to Institutional Investors about how to vote, proxy Advisory Firms may also advise companies about Corporate Governance issues, Rate Companies on Corporate Governance, help Companies Improve those ratings and advise proponents about how to frame proposals to get the most votes. I am going to come back to that in a second. But there was a Stanford University study that said, Institution Investors with assets of over 100 billion or more, they make 10 of the voting decisions which means they flow 90 to proxy Advisory Firms. I dont know if youre familiar with the mafia but you have the store keeper on the block and hes robbed one night, right, gets beaten up and robbed and the next day the thugs come in and say, hey, hey, i here you were out last night. You pay a little fee. Well take care of you and make sure youre not robbed anymore. Thats exactly what proxy Advisory Firms are doing. Oh, you got a bad recommendation. Let me tell you what, you buy our services and we can help you in the future. Just pay the ransom and well help take care of you and future recommendations. This is not the way Corporate Governance should work. So my bill brings transparency and accountability to proxy Advisory Firms. I thoughts thats what democrats want. Mr. Woodall mr. Speaker, i yield two additional minutes. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. Mr. Duffy bringing in more competition in the industry. Investors. Tter for specifically, again, a bipartisan bill. Republicans and democrats voted for this legislation. But well ensure proxy Advisory Firms are registered with the s. E. C. How bad is that registering with the s. E. C. . A little oversight. Disclose. We will disclose potential conflicts of interest. How radical is that idea . Shouldnt all parties be aware of it . I dont know why my friend across the aisle, the gentleman from colorado, would be opposed to that . Maintain a code of ethics. Thats not shopping schocking. Most people would agree to that point. And make publicly available of methodologies in forming analysis. Again, this is transparency. This is a commonsense bill that both republicans and democrats have voted for because weve recognized and, again, i am not a big regulation guy, as the gentleman from colorado pointed out, but when you consolidate a great deal of power in two companies to have a huge impact on american Corporate Governance, that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. And to have a little more oversight, to have a little more transparency, to have a little more accountability is a really, really good thing, and some of the Smallest Companies have been the biggest complainers about how these proxy Advisory Firms have held them hostage. So lets support the small innovators, the big job creators in america who are complaining about the big proxy Advisory Firms, lets stand with them and the families that they employ and the future families, if theyre successful, will employ, and lets give a little more control to proxy Advisory Firms. I ask support of this great bill. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from colorado is recognized. Mr. Polis i yield myself such time as i may consume. You know, i can see my friend, mr. Duffy, is excited about this, very engaged. You know, its a hard issue. I dont think Many Democrats are excited either way. Theyll decide where they stand. Its a fight between corporate c. E. O. s and big Institutional Investors. I mean, you know, theyre both fine. You have to pick one or the other in voting yes or no on this bill. I think as democrats were more interested in how other people are doing that are working for those companies, how were doing about Sustainable Practices over time. Yeah, theyll vote for Institutional Investors or for corporate c. E. O. s and insular boards, fine. It does add paperwork. We talked about that. Mr. Duffy said it adds paperwork. Democrats will like it. Yeah, there are some democrats that voted for it. I dont want to add more paperwork. I want to streamline it. I think democrats will agree with the corporate c. E. O. s over the Institutional Investors. Ive taken a company public. Ive run Public Companies. Ive seen this world. I think its a good thing that the share of i dont have statistics in front of me. The gentleman from wisconsin said something along the lines f 47 to 75 of the capital is institutional. The big problem in Corporate Governance is not too much shareholder engagement. Its not enough. When you have a few shareholder base, when you dont have Institutional Investors, when you have, you know, per verbially 200 people that each own half a percent of the company and they never talk or know each other, the ability to run a business amuck plagues our public marketplaces. So to have sophisticated active investors that own enough and can work together, sometimes through these proxy fights when it comes to it, to be able to maximize longterm value is a good thing. Its a good thing. And of course everybody can point to times that its been good for companies and times its been bad. Generally speaking if is this bill is adding paperwork to move the bar the wrong way, to move it towards management away from shareholders. I agree you need to balance. I wouldnt support a bill that moved it all the way to shareholders either. Youre just encouraging agitators to get in on a shortterm basis and speculative basis. I think were close to the right place. If you ask me where i would move it, i would move it a little the other way to empower shareholders. In fact, i have a bill that does that. Its part of a bigger bill, but its a bill that gives shareholders more of a direct say over the pay of top executives. Because, again, there is a problem with insular corporate boards. Part of the answer is empowering Institutional Investors and empowering individual investors. So, look, democrats will hold their nose and vote for either corporate c. E. O. s or for big investors and thats fine. I firmly think that the best interest of our economy and the people and sustainability lies in moving it towards the investors. This bill moves it the wrong way and adds paperwork and cost to the investors. I really think it moves the wrong way, which is why i oppose this bill, and i urge my colleagues to vote no. There was also a discussion mr. Duffy mentioned, why arent we just talking about the rule . Its because, mr. Speaker, like 56 other rules, its a closed rule. What else can we say about closed rules . We said everything. Theres no amendments. I could spend an hour complaining about how theyre not allowing amendments in and its closed and so 56 other rules but its more productive to get to the underlying issue because we had the debate on closed rules 56 times. Just in the last 10 months. Thats a record, mr. Speaker. You should be proud of presiding over a Record Number of closed rules for the United States congress, but its not very interesting to talk about for another hour. So theyll talk about an interesting bill. A minor bill. I think i discussed that. I mean, we have a government shutdown. We have an issue with tax reform. We have dreamers. We have a million things we could be doing. This is a minor bill. Ok. Lets talk about the merits of giving the current corporate boards that might be too insular and current c. E. O. s and management a little more power, like this bill, by increasing red tape and paperwork of investors versus empowering investors. Fine. Lets cast our ballots. We will see what happens. Another issue thats very important and timely that this congress should get to is the one my good friend, mr. Sean patrick maloney, raised. When we defeat the previous question, well bring up a question, as the cofounder of apple, Steve Wazniak said, the end of Net Neutrality would end the internet as we know it. It is an issue every american citizen is looking to us to take leadership on. In my time in office, i had to make a number of controversial votes. I mean, you know, whether its for Affordable Care act, repeal of this or that and oftentimes i hear from constituents on both sides. We got thousands of letters for the Affordable Care act, thousands of letters against it. Net neutrality has been a singular experience in my years in congress. We received 1,500 calls and over 5,000 emails about the issue, and i asked my staff to double check this because i didnt believe this and they did. 100 of the emails and calls were for Net Neutrality. Thats right. Not a single constituent of mine contacted me on the other side in a district that has a plurality of unaffiliated voters in a similar then similar number of republicans and democrats, so its not partisan. Its certainly united rrps, unaffiliated voters and democrats in my district to be unanimously for Net Neutrality which surprised me. But it also means that congress should not be tone deaf to that, and thats why its important to defeat the previous question. Republican senators like senator thune have come together to call on colleagues to come together and protect Net Neutrality. My good friend from colorado, mike coffman, announced we should the f. C. C. Should delay their vote and that we should protect Net Neutrality. Its common sense, mr. Speaker, and by defeating the previous quebec we can get onto an issue that the American People care about rather than a fight between c. E. O. s and investors and which side you take. Its about protecting your internet in your home so you can access the content of your choice. A consumer issue and an issue for Small Businesses. We had a digital roundtable last night, mr. Speaker. I think thousands of people from my district watched as i had several experts, including several Small Businesses from colorado talk about the importance of Net Neutrality to them in creating jobs and being able to have a predictable and Sustainable Business model and being able to compete with large companies. So i hope that we can defeat the previous question and get onto that. If not i am going to ask my colleagues to vote no on the bill that adds paperwork and costs, requiring s. E. C. Filings for the investors that are fighting bills that are fighting proxy fights, and then i urge my colleagues to look closely at the privacy bill. That one, again, i would not characterize as a major bill. Ill be voting no. I understand there might be some republicans and democrats voting yes on that one as well. But, you know, whether they delete that clause or not is hardly the game changer for the economy that tax reform will be. I have ideas, bipartisan ideas, bills that i sponsored with my republican colleagues that should be part of tax reform that would help the economy go, that would create far more jobs than a two sentence disclosure whether its there or not. Frankly, more importantly whether proxy people will have to file with the s. E. C. , i mean, i am sure they will be able to do it. Yes, republicans want to give them more paperwork and create more bureaucracy and im sure they will survive. Open process tax reform. We could be debating amendments right now and voting on it. Like our job. Like, you know, 100 amendments from republicans and democrats. I would be open to lets consider bipartisan amendments. Throw out amendments that only republicans support or democrats support. You know what, or to be fair, youre in the majority, mr. Speaker, how about just amendments that republicans alone support or bipartisan, you dont have to do democratic only . Lets just have an open process. Lets allow some amendments, every amendment was locked out of tax reform. I offered, what, 16 myself. I remember my colleague, mr. Woodall, was there. There were commonsense ideas. There was a little fix i did with mr. Tipton from colorado fermented , thats tea. Cory gardner supports it our senator in the senate. Next to no fiscal impact. The rules Committee Still didnt allow me to debate the amendment on the floor for 10 minutes, for five minutes, for one minute. Enough with these closed rules. I reserve the balance of my time. The gentleman is recognized. Mr. Woodall i am prepared to close when he is. The speaker pro tempore gentleman from colorado. Mr. Polis i am prepared to close and i yield myself the balance of the time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Polis we have a couple problems with this rule. First of is recognized. All, the rule brings to the floor the wrong bills. These are minor bills. Ill give a recap in a moment. Oh, my goodness. Two sentences after disclosure. And a little more filing costs for pensions and investors. Ok. Well get past that. They probably wont become law anyway. You can blame it on the senate, house. But most of these things we do dont become law. I understand many of my colleagues are frustrated with the senate. Whatever the case we do these things. There is stuff that might become law, could become law, like tax reform. Like the fact the government is shutting down next week if we dont continue the funding. We have a clock ticking on our debt ceiling. 800,000 inspired americans dont know if they can go to work legally like today because of President Trumps decision to end their provisional status. These are real issues. Cost of Health Care Going up for my constituents. And yours. But were not doing that. Were bringing up two bills. Ill give you the summary of them. En these two bills, closed process, no amendments. If i was able to offer floor amendments, as i said, i could offer an amendment that would actually move the balance the other way, towards investors and empowering investor activism. Perhaps looking to give them more safer pay, if you will, over executive pay. And reigning in some of the problems of this bill. But were not allowed to offer any amendments on the floor. , again, ain, again again, gain, again, gain, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, gep, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, gain, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again. Thats 56 by my count. Thats again, again, again, republican have brought bills to the floor and havent allowed democrats or republicans to offer amendments. Look, my colleagues can say democrats, were great on this, they had too many when they controlled t you know what, first of always republicans set a record. 56 times this is the most number of closed rules ever. Im not here to defend the democrats. If the democrats were in charge they should offer more open amendments. There is no question. But republicans, whatever they complained about the democrats, they outdid them by a big factor. 0 months, 56 bills that no Single Member of the house is allowed to offer an amendment on. Just to have a fair up or down vote. Its wrong. Its wrong. Thats why i hope my colleagues can defeat this rule to say enough is enough. We have to defeat this rule and move on to the issues important to the American People. I yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from georgia is recognized. Mr. Woodall thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Woodall my friend from colorado is right. Time management is an important issue here on the floor. And we have to manage it whether its closing statements or whether its floor time throughout the day, every bill we bring to the floor is not going to be the most important bill we bring to the floor, mr. Speaker. By definition. And i hope my colleagues were listening intently to my friend from colorado. Not necessarily during his opening statement. And certainly not during his closing statement. But during the middle statement where he was talking about his vast knowledge of corporate boards and corporate structures. I have the pleasure of serving on the rules committee with mr. Polis, mr. Speaker. And there are not going to be many members of this institution that have either been more successful in their private life, not just talking about it, but doing it, when it comes to leading institutions. And members who work harder to try to find some Common Ground to move things forward. I was just telling my staff, mr. Speaker, that it troubles me more when mr. Polis is on the floor and we cant find agreement. Because i believe very often he tries harder than most to find that agreement here. Sometimes, mr. Speaker, you see it on the front page of the newspaper day after day after day, folks talk about this institution as if well never find agreement with icher. Each other. There are issues where finding agreement is hard. Where we fundamentally disagree with each other. Its not the case today. Today the case is that we have two bills that moved through regular order in the Financial Services committee. That means, mr. Speaker, that the committee took up the legislation first. That the committee sorted out the legislation first. And, mr. Speaker, these bills, both of them, passed the Financial Services committee with big bipartisan votes. There are many opportunities for us to come to the floor and talk about things that divide us. That we will never find agreement on. Thats not today. Today we have a chance to come to the floor and talk about differences that we can make together. Differences that are not just bipartisan but differences that are nonpartisan, good ideas that can make a difference one life, one bill at a time. Mr. Speaker, these bills are coming today under a closed rule for one under a structured rule, for the other thats true. For the uninitiated, mr. Speaker, that means amendments are not going to be offered. It doesnt mean that amendments werent allowed mr. Speaker. We sent out the call to the entire house of representatives t 435 members. We said we have two bills coming before the rules committee. We want you to send us all of your ideas. All of the different ways that you think these two bills can be improved. We got back one. One. And we made it in order for a vote on the floor of the house. Dag gum it, mr. Speaker, i think it will make the bill better. I intend to support that amendment. Its a democrat amendment t came from mr. Clay on the other side of the aisle, i intend to support it because it will make the bill better. Are there issues that are are partisan, that are structured in such a way that having an open rule isnt the choice that gets made . Of course there are. Of course there are. Think my friend is right think criticize the majority when the process gets closed out. But today, mr. Speaker, i think my friend is wrong. To suggest that the process is being closed down. The process was opened up to the entire institution. One amendment was are partisan, that are structured in such a way that received. One amendment was made in order. I hope, mr. Speaker, that will be a practice we continue going forward. Two good bills today, mr. Speaker, if my colleagues support this rule. One from my friend, mr. Trott, one from my friend, mr. Duffy, and the bipartisan amendment offered by my friend, mr. Clay. I urge all my colleagues to support this rule and i hope they will come back to the floor and support the underlying bills as well. With that, mr. Speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. I move the previous question. The speaker pro tempore the question is on the the question is on ordering the previous question on the resolution. So many as are in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. Mr. Polis on that i request the yeas and nays. The speaker pro tempore the yeas and nays are requested. Those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. A sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 , further proceedings on this question will be postponed. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition . Mr. Hensarling mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 658, i call up h. R. 1638 and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. He speaker pro tempore does the gentleman have a unanimous consent request for general leave . Mr. Hensarling i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous materials on the bill under consideration. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Pursuant to House Resolution 658 and rule 18, the chair declares the house in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of h. R. 1638. The chair appoints the gentleman from michigan, mr. Mitchell, to preside over the ommittee of the whole. The speaker pro tempore the is in the the chair the house is in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of h. R. 1638 which the clerk will report the title. The clerk a bill to require the secretary of the treasury to submit a report to the appropriate congressional estimated on the total assets under direct or indirect control by Certain Senior iranian leaders and other figures, and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore the chair pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as read the first time. The gentleman from texas, mr. Hensarling, and the gentlewoman from california, ms. Waters, each will control 30 minutes. The chair estimated total assets under direct or re gentleman from texas. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, i yield myself such time as i may consume. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, i rise in strong support of h. R. 1638. The iranian leadership asset Transparency Act, introduced by my colleague and dear friend from maine, mr. Poliquin. This legislation requires the treasury secretary to report to congress on the assets held by the Islamic Republic of irans most senior political and military leaders, and on the probable sources and uses of those assets. A classified version if necessary would be available as appropriate to congress and a public version of the report would be posted on the Treasury Departments website in english and in the major languages used within iran. That could easily be downloaded. The genius of this latter point is that it will allow the average iranian to understand and circulate information of how their leaders are in a phrase, robbing them blind, as well as aiding and abetting terrorists. Irans top political mill alternative Business Leaders, if military and Business Leaders, if there is much of a distinction between those roles in iran, fund terrorist related activity. Through intricate Financial Arrangements that give them great flexibility in moving their money. According to the nongovernmental organization, transparency international, characterized is by high levels of official and Institutional Corruption and there is substantial involvement by irans security forces, particularly involving the Islamic Revolutionary guard corps. Unsurprisingly, members of irans senior and political military leadership have acquired significant and personal institutional wealth by using their positions to secure control of major portions of the Iranian National economy. Some estimates put the iron grip at a third or more of the country east economy and some individual holdings in the billions of dollars. All at a time when the average iranian citizen earns the equivalent of about 15,000 a year. The unwise sanctions relief provided to the Obama Administrations nuclear deal with iran resulted in the unwarranted removal of many iranian entities that are tied to government corruption from the list of entities sanctioned by the United States. Thankfully, however, the Trump Administration has in recent months levied a number of needed new sanctions on iranian ndividuals and entities. Still the perceived corruption in high ran is higher than ever. The Treasury Department has identified iran as a country of quote, primary concern for Money Laundering. Separate lith state department has continually identified iran as the worlds foremost state ponsor of terrorism. Iran has repeatedly provided support for acts of International Terrorism and quote, continues to sponsor terrorist groups around the world prince pale through its Islamic Revolutionary guard corps. The bill before us requires the Treasury Department again to list the known assets of Senior Iranian officials in a form that is understandable and accessible to individual iranians as well as to those in the financial or business sector who might be hopefully concerned about inadvertently doing business with a corrupt iranian entity. It requires treasury to test the effectiveness of the sanctions and make appropriate recommendations of the the bill passed the Financial Services Committee Last month with bipartisan support vote of 4316. The house approved a nearly identical bill a month ago by a strong vote of 282 to 143. As passed by the committee, this years version has an important addition, a sense of the Congress Section that urges the treasury secretary to seek information for the report from private sector sources that search, analyze and if necessary translate publicly available high veer asity official records overseas and provide methods of analyzing such data useful to law enforcement. These Services Provide information that could augment information that is gathered often by classified means and provide a public report that gives the world a better picture of the true nature of irans economy. I urge passage of this thoughtful bill and i appreciate mr. Poliquins leadership to bring us here today and i reserve. Georgia reserves. The gentlelady from california. Ms. Waters the legislation before us, h. R. 1638, the iranian leadership asset Transparency Act represents what the republic karen majority has become very good at doing, advancing bad Public Policy while claiming to advance the public interests. H. R. 1638 the iranian leadership asset Transparency Act would require the secretary of the treasury to report to congress on the estimated total assets under direct or indirect control of Certain Senior iranian leaders and other figures along with a description of how these assets were acquired and and are employed regardless of whether such individuals are subject to u. S. Sanctions. Although increasing transparency into corrupt regimes is a laudible goal, h. R. 1638 works counter not only to its own stated objectives but also u. S. National security interests. First, the level of scrutiny that would be needed to produce a credible report would place a very real strain on the Treasury Department. Diverting significant resources away from treasury investigators who are tasked with targeting conduct that is actually sanctionable implementing u. S. Sanction programs and uncovering illicit conduct across the globe including importantly, efforts to identify the web of business interests that continue to enable north korea to evade u. S. And International Sanctions. In addition to diverting scarce and critical resources, the bills required report would have little use as a compliance tool given that most parts would be classified undercutting the objective to help make Financial Institutions required compliance with remaining sanctions more easily understood. In fact, the creation of such a list which would not be tied to any prohibition or legal action would more likely create confusion among the office of foreign assets controls regulated public and also mislead companies to believe that the treasury list replaces the Due Diligence efforts that they should be doing prior to engaging in business. Mover, the costs of the report would be classified. The bill would do little to draw attention to the corruption and unjust enrichment of their leaders, which is another stated purpose of the bill. In fact, any classified portion would inevitably be rejected by both the Iranian Regime and its people as u. S. Propaganda and predictable attack on the countrys government by the United States. The true purpose of this legislation is to create repewtational risks for companies that might seek to do legitimate business with iran. For this reason, the bill would be a strategic mistake and its report would be seized upon by iran as an intentional effort to discourage International Investment in iran, which would be viewed by iran and likely by the major world powers who joined us in the jcpoa as well as a violation of the u. S. Expressed commitment under the nuclear deal not to interfere with the full realization of the relief provided to iran under the accord. When an identical version of this bill was considered last congress, the Obama White House threatened to veto the bill stating that it would endanger Irans Nuclear program is and remains scluse i havely peaceful. Mover, the Obama Administration cautioned that the report called for in the bill would also compromise intelligence sources and methods. On that score, i would also note that the reporting requirement in the legislation calls for information about how sanctions, evasion and illicit conduct is practiced and potential countermeasures. It seems far from prudent to give tips to our adverse areas about how we learned about their misconduct and how we plan to respond. This legislation would have very limited practical utility despite the diversion of resources it would take to produce. It also fails to meet its own stated objectives including serving any usefulness as a compliance tool. Finally, the measure would have a negative impact on the continued viability of the nuclear deal which is a central objective. Im hardpressed to think of a single peace of legislation that works so strongly against every single policy goal. Few issues are more important to global peace and security as preventing iran from acquiring Nuclear Weapons. This bill would do nothing to advance this goal. And if enacted, it could do damage to the important progress that has been made. I would urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this measure. And i reserve the balance of my time. The chair the gentlewoman reserves. The gentleman from texas. Mr. Hensarling i ask unanimous consent to enter letters regarding h. R. 1638. The chair that will be covered by general leave. Mr. Hensarling i yield myself 10g seconds to remind the Ranking Member that in the state departments latest country report on terrorism, iran is labeled the quote, worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Why we would want less information as opposed to more information on that rogue state is beyond me. At this time, i am pleased, pleased to yield five minutes to the gentleman from maine, the sponsor of the legislation and a distinguished member of the Financial Services committee, mr. Poliquin. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Poliquin i appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of my bill and mr. Chairman, im grateful to you for moving this very important bipartisan bill. And i also want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, mr. Speaker, who supported this bill last year. Unfortunately, it got stuck in the senate and we have to do it again this year but im thrilled to be here. Mr. Speaker, the primary responsibility of every member of congress whether on the left side or right side of the aisle, no matter state what you are from, the major responsibility, the primary responsibility is to support and defend our constitution. And to me, that means protecting our families and those american citizens abroad. Now our moms and dads across this country are increasingly alarmed by the frequency of terrorist attacks at home. Another attempt two days ago in new york city. Today, there are 1,000 investigations dealing with terrorist activities across this land in all 50 states. And thats why h. R. 1638 is so important. This bill will help keep our families safe and keep them free. And in doing so, we must make sure this issue is not a political issue. National security never should be a political issue. Mr. Speaker, the iranian government as mr. Hensarling just mentioned, is the chief sponsor, the chief state sponsor of terrorism and instability in this world. Their military leaders, including the Islamic Revolutionary guard, they train, arm and fund terrorist organizations around the world. They become experts at using the internet and social media to radicalize and recruit and direct terrorists around the globe including here in the United States of america. Mr. Speaker, the iranian government has american blood on its hands. Now, mr. Speaker, there are approximately 70 to 80 top political and military leaders in iran that control about onethird of their domestic economy. They use their power to corrupt the telecommunications industry, the Construction Industry and other important ones in that land. Now reuters has conducted an investigation through publicly available information that found that the Supreme Leader of iran has accumulated tremendous personal wealth through a foundation claiming to help the poor. Now while the corruption has grown in iran, the average citizen there earns the equivalent of 15,000 per year. Mr. Speaker, the citizens of iran and the people of this world should know how much wealth has been accumulated by those that sponsor terrorism and what that money, sir, is being used for. And Companies Across the globe that are looking to do business with iran should understand what they might be getting into. So i disagree with my colleague from california, the Ranking Member, who says, you know, this is going to possibly create confusion. It will possibly cause businesses around the world to hesitate from investing in iran. Guess what, mr. Speaker . Hats a good idea. , act is a straightforward maine, commonsense bill and simply requires the department of treasury to collect and to maintain into post online. The list of these 70 to 80 senior political and military leaders and the their personal assets, how this money was acquired and what its being used for. And as mr. Hensarling mentioned, it will require the Treasury Department to post this on their website as well as the three languages that are mostly used in that country. And i might also add that my colleague on the other side of the aisle might be a little bit confused about this issue, but the information posted on this website will be that which is publicly available. There will be no information posted there t be that congress doesnt have access to. Critics of this bill are saying, well, you know, its not a good idea to expose the iranians government corruption and funding of terrorism because if you do so, well, the iranian political and military leaders might not want to work with us. Are you kidding . These are the radicals who regularly chant death to america. Hoping that these folks will abandon their support of by not shedding light on their corruption doesnt make any sense. Hope, mr. Speaker, hope is not a National Security strategy. My bill makes sure that Congress Gets its priorities straight. Protecting American Families here at home. Safeguarding our troops around the world that are fighting for our freedom. That is what we should be doing every way we can and thats what this bill does. Mr. Speaker, i would like to say using one click of a computer from any corner of the globe to help expose illicit activities by the chief state sponsor of terrorism is a very, very good idea. Lets stand up for all the peaceloving nations in the world. Lets stand up to help our families protect their kids. Lets stand up to protect our homeland. I ask everyone, republicans and democrats, please vote yes for h. R. 1638 iranian leadership asset Transparency Act. I yield back any time that i might have, although im doubtful that i do. The chair the gentlewoman from california is recognized. Ms. Waters thank you. I yield five minutes to my friend from washington, a member of the Financial Services committee, mr. Heck. Mr. Heck i thank the Ranking Member. Ladies and gentlemen of the house, mr. Speaker. This bill targets the leadership of iran and frankly thats probably a worthy goal in some regards. I think it eventually envisions publicizing negative information about them. And that might be an effective tool as well. We all know that. Weve been through campaigns. We know negative advertising works. That said, i oppose this legislation. And i do so for two reasons. The first of which is resources are finite. Theyre not unlimited. Theyre finite. Tracking down all the assets of these named iranian leaders takes significant time and effort and personnel. And where are those resources supposed to come from . All around this city serve agitating for deeper cuts to nondefense discretionary accounts. And if were going to make cuts, were going to have to make some tough choices. The personnel responsible for implementing this bill would be diverted from terrorist financing and Money Laundering. Let me say that again. The people the personnel responsible for responsible for implementing this bill would be diverted from terrorist financing and Money Laundering. Propaganda about corruption of iranian leadership, which i stipulate to here up front, could be valuable. But it cant be more valuable than stopping actual terrorist financing. Terrorist financing should be our target. Money laundering should be our target. Not guard variety corruption. We had a lengthy discussion in Committee Just yesterday about using Money Laundering authorities to fight human trafficking. For gods sake, that has to seem more valuable than propaganda. That has to. So until we solve these tight budget constraints, i think we need to make the hard choice about what our priorities are and how to prioritize resources for stopping, again, Money Laundering and terrorism financing. Threeve effort to a world where leave this effort to a world where the skeft has been lifted the sequester has been lifted. Ed second the second reason i oppose this legislation, shouldnt we apply this principle more broadly . The idea here is that we should investigate and publicize it when a countrys leadership has undisclosed assets, especially if they are overseas. Thats the point of this legislation. We should investigate and publicize it when a countrys leadership is using Government Resources to enrich itself. But why . Why just apply that principle to iran . Im informed in my point of view here by which is des moines found in this black legget by wisdom i found in this black leatherbound book that i received when i was sborn into office five years ago when i was sworn into office five years ago. Let me share it with you now. How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye . You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers eye. When is this congress, when is this Congress Going to turn its attention to the plank in our eye . With that, i yield back the balance of my time. The chair the gentlelady from california reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, im very pleased now to yield three minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. Royce, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee and a Senior Member of the Financial Services committee. The chair the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. Mr. Royce i thank the gentleman. Well, with all due respect to the arguments on moral equivalency with respect to iran, the reality is that this is a government that starts its morning prayers with death to america, death to israel. And the ayatollah makes it clear he means it. So, yes, we should try to remove the plank from our eye. But we should not remove our eyes from the fact that what we have in terms of policy being directed from the ayatollah and the Islamic Revolutionary guard corps is a policy that calls for the destruction of the United States of america. Now, mr. Speaker, this has a powerful goal, this bill. And it is to expose the corrupt nature of the Iranian Regime. But when we talk about why, the answer is because the personnel responsible for carrying out these assassinations that have us concerned, for carrying out terror are in fact the leadership in iran of these organizations that we attempt to identify here. That is the job of doing research, terror research, and cutting off terror finance. Thats what were supposed to be doing. This regime claims to be more than a government. It claims to be a revolution. They call sthesms the islamic rev they call themselves the islamic revolution. But when you look at it closely, the regime in tehran resembles something else. A criminal interprice. Because from the Supreme Leader to the revolutionary guard, these socalled servants of the revolution control 1 3 of the iranian economy, because they seized it. They seized everybodys private property. In terms of these companies. The Supreme Leaders empire alone is worth 95 billion. His is called the execution of the imams order. It holds stakes in just about every sector of the iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications. And these funds are not simply used to enrich iranian officials. Thats not our problem here. Its not that theyre propping up the regime. Its, thanks to irans lack of Money Laundering control, they are easily used to destabilize the entire region. Thats what theyre doing now. By funding terrorism abroad and fueling irans Ballistic Missile program at home, these icbms by the way, they announced are intended for us. So thats why, as this bill says, the Treasury Department, and the bill notes this, has identified iran as a jurisdiction of primary Money Laundering concern. This means that any transaction with iran risks supporting the regimes ongoing illicit activities. Their terrorist activities. And i thank my colleague, mr. Poliquin, for introducing this bill. And chairman hensarling for working with us to get it to the floor. Thank you. The chair the gentleman from california is recognize the gentlewoman from california is recognized. Ms. Waters thank you very much. I yield five minutes to the gentleman from oregon, a longtime supporter of diplomacy, with iran and strong supporter of the nuclear deal. Mr. Blumenauer. The chair the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. Mr. Blumenauer i appreciate the gentleladys courtesy. And i appreciate her advocacy on this. This is serious business. And there are people, no secret, in the administration, there are people in congress who would like to undermine this agreement. The mixed signals that have been sent by the administration are truly disturbing. One has to wonder what north korea is thinking about, that there are people who suggest that we ought to go ahead and blow it up, when in fact they are abiding by the terms of the agreement. And that is officials in the administration agree with this. What sort of deterrent is that to north korea in terms of its reckless action with Nuclear Weapons . It seems to reinforce that behavior. But there are also elements in iran, hardliners who didnt agree with this agreement, who felt that it was too evenhanded. Who felt that the leadership gave up too much. Who dont want closer relationships with the United States or the other western powers that worked with us, including china and russia, to enact this historic agreement. Which, as i pointed out, agreed even by officials in the Trump Administration, iran has abided by. Are they a nation of bad actors . Absolutely. There are forces within the government that are very destructive. But the point is we focused on something that all of us agree is absolutely critical. And thats not having iran rushing forward to become another nuclear state. And we have seen that the breakout time under this agreement has lengthened. Its acting as we intended. And it was also one of those rare areas where we actually had germany, great britain, france, russia and china working with us to negotiate an agreement. Now, this is going to be perceived as an effort by the United States to undermine the agreement. Should we give them and the hardliners in iran an excuse to walk away because we violated it . What are going to be the assessment of our allies who are deem deeply committed to this and who are deeply committed to this and have resisted efforts to unravel it . We need all the help we can get in the international arena. And weve watched this administration systemically isolate us this last week with the reckless decision to go ahead and relocate the embassy or at least claim were going to relocate the embassy, condemned by virtually everybody else in the world. Were standing alone with an action to destabilize a very volatile situation. And this comes forward at a time when iran is abiding by it. The ahead and crank up report on the assets of a variety of irans senior political, religious and military leaders, including people who arent subject to the sanctions. Its been mentioned a strain on a department that has finite resources it. Needs to focus on things resources. It needs to focus on things. Taking away resources for efforts to target on actual sanction ability. It seems to be decidedly wrong headed. Its interesting that congress had, until this week, to reimpose the sanction lifted under the agreement per trumps decertification in october. Congress chose not to. I think that was a wise decision. To me it indicates, at least some indicate that the agreement has been largely successful. But if were going to jeopardize the framework, giving the hardline elements an opportunity to claim that were repudiating, giving them a green light, to some of the folks there who have no intention of being able to work in a cooperative basis, we ought not to fan the flames. We ought to be trying to nurture opportunities for cooperation. Focus on areas where they are doing things we dont agree with. If you want to target some specific sanctions that we somehow havent imposed, that are within the purview of the framework, wouldnt violate it, go ahead. But having these actions i think sends the wrong signal. Its the wrong resource. And i think its important to reject this legislation. The chair the gentlemans time has expired. The gentlewoman reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, im pleased to yield three minutes to the gentleman from minnesota, mr. Emmer, a hardworking member of the Financial Services committee. The chair the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. Mr. Emmer thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you, mr. Chairman. Since our founding, and as Ronald Reagan emphasized regularly, america has stood as a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedomloving people everywhere. Today we have an opportunity to shine a little brighter. As we continue our battle to defeat terrorism, the Islamic Republic of iran remains dangerously corrupt. While the average iranian earns a mere 15,000 a year, corrupt top political and military leaders control an estimated 1 1 3 of the of the of the nage he is of the nations total economy. These same leaders are more often than not the same ones who repeatedly provide support for acts of terrorism in the middle east and continue to sponsor terrorist groups around the world. Unfortunately irans government continues to tolerate this corruption, which is why the state department is name has named iran as a country of primary concern for Money Laundering and continues to be listed listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. These officials who perpetuate such destructive and destabilizing behavior should and need to be exposed. Today i encourage my colleagues to support h. R. 1638, the iranian leadership asset Transparency Act. This bill will require a list of the known assets of Senior Iranian officials to be made publicly available in all three of irans major languages. Specifically the u. S. Treasury secretary will submit a report to congress on the assets held by irans most senior political military and Business Leaders and on the probable sources and uses of the assets. This report will serve as yet another tool in the tool box of businesses and Financial Institutions, both foreign and domestic, to better comply with existing sanction regimes and International Financing financial restrictions. It will provide clarity and certainty for companies when determining the legitimacy of their business partners, if they decide that doing business with iran is in their interest. Moreover, with this information, with better knowledge of where their money is going, iranians who wish to invest not in terrorism or corruption but in freedom can. Today we can help the freedomloving people of iran, we can help shine a light on irans corruption, and america can continue to be a shining city on a hill. Appreciate the work of and i thank chairman hensarling and Monetary Policy trade subcommittee chairman barr for moving an important bill through the committee and to the floor today. I urge my colleagues to vote on h. R. 1638 and yield back. The chair the gentlelady from california is recognized. Ms. Waters mr. Speaker and members, i would like the author of this bill, mr. Poliquin, and perhaps the chairman of our committee, mr. Hensarling to answer the question that i am about to propose, and that is this. We have allies with us in this agreement. This is an agreement that was worked on for a long time. We have russia, we have china, we have germany, england and france. What are our allies saying about ur attempt attempt to interfere with the agreement . What are they saying about whether or not we can be trusted to live up to the commitments we have made . What are they saying about our attempts to add to length then and to create new, really what have become obstacles to peace . I would ask my friends on the opposite side of the aisle as they talk about targeting certain leaders, i dont know what leaders they are talking about and wanting to know about their assets and where their assets came from and how theyre being used. I want to ask my friends on the opposite side of the aisle, are you willing to do that for certain leaders in our own country . I just heard from one of the speakers, i believe it was mr. Royce from california, that of tified the work of one the supposed leaders and it seems to me that it did not nearly match the worth of those who are in our cabinet and higher places in our government and i wonder what are we trying to do. So first answer the question, if you will, about what our allies are saying. And secondly, answer the question about disclosure as it relates to those at the highest office in our country and those who are serving in the cabinet. And also when you talk about Money Laundering, answer the question about the relationship between the leader of this country and deutch bank, who is known as a Money Laundering bank that is involved with the president of the United States. I reserve. The chair the gentlewoman reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Mchenry im pleased to yield three minutes to a the who is neverm ohio an apollingist to the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Mr. Davidson. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Davidson i just have to say im in shock. Im listening to the kind of thinking that if it had caught on in the 1980s, may have allowed the cold war to continue. When i enlisted in the army i was privileged to serve in germany and see the truth of generations of work and also see the concern that germans had that Ronald Reagan was going to cause world war iii and actual leadership was somehow a problem. But instead we saw, mr. Gorbachev didnt tear down the wall or United States of america, but east german people tore down the wall. Why did they do that . They knew the truth on the other side. Mr. Poliquins bill is to help the people of iran get their country back. They are under a strong authoritarian leadership system that has oppressed their people and caused harm throughout the region and throughout the planet. Meanwhile im so thankful this is a bipartisan bill. The members opposed to this uld ask more disclosure of companies c. E. O. s than enemies our country. I was sent here to support and defend the constitution of the United States. This bill does not violate the jcpoa. It doesnt touch it. It simply says that we are going to gather this information and as for diverting resources, this is the leading state sponsor of terror and it is focused on the problem and gives the people of iran a chance for the freedom that so many of the peoples of the world enjoy. Im thankful that we have the opportunity to try to make this difference. I encourage every member of the house to vote for it and those who thought they were opposed to reconsider a rational measured action to try to change the world for good. I yield back. The chair the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The gentleman from texas reserves. The gentlewoman from california is recognized. Ms. Waters thank you very much. Mr. D like to yield to poliquin to try and get some information that i think is very important to understanding how this bill would work. The gentleman who just spoke said that this has nothing to do with the agreement. Then what is it youre adding to . What is it you are trying to change or make better . If it has nothing to do with the agreement, then why are we doing it . Mr. Poliquin, i ask you to respond to this description of what this bill is all about. Mr. Poliquin thank you for the opportunity to respond. The gentlelady from california on the other side of the aisle, i want to make sure i make things clear. Im not sure if it was the gentlelady or someone saying why we would divert resources away from fighting terrorism to post this information on the treasury website, it costs too much. With respect to the gentlelady, c. B. O. Estimates it will cost 500,000 to do it for two years. The United States Treasury Department has a budget 14 billion per year. Ms. Waters reclaiming my time. Thank you for wanting to talk about something else. I yielded to you to help me with information about what was stated that the gentleman that spoke before you said that this bill had nothing to do with the agreement. So reclaiming my time, let me just continue. Is the gentleman prepared to respond to the question that i have raised . Mr. Poliquin yes. Ms. Waters you are going to talk about what this bill has to do with the agreement when the gentleman has stated it has nothing to do with the agreement. Mr. Poliquin i will respond to the question. Ms. Waters i will yield. Mr. Poliquin thank you very much. The dangerous Iran Nuclear Deal that was put together two years ago has absolutely nothing to do with exposing the wealth that has accumulated by corruption by e top 70 to 80 iranian politically and military leaders and the Ranking Member knows this has zero to do with Iran Nuclear Deal. Ms. Waters reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. We know there are individuals that are sanctionable in the deal and what i thought you were attempting to do is to expand that and to identify more leaders and try and understand where the assets come from, what do they use them for, whether or not they are involved in Money Laundering but the gentleman said it had nothing to do. Mr. Poliquin would the gentlelady yield . Ms. Waters my yielding to you did not help me. So i shall continue. Having said that, i will reserve the balance of my time. The chair the gentlewoman reserves. I would remind everyone to direct your comments to the chair, please. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, i yield myself 30 seconds just to say, the Ranking Member was speaking, i went back yet again to read the ninepage bill, nine pages, no where is the jcpoa mentioned in the bill. Iran was the leading state sponsor of terrorism before the jcpoa and they remain the worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism after the jcpoa. And we ought to know about the leadership of this terrorist nation. And i think the next speaker will tell us even more. Im pleased to yield three minutes to the gentleman from north carolina, mr. Budd. The chair the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. Mr. Budd thank you, mr. Speaker and mr. Chairman. I rise in support of mr. Poliquins bill, the iranian leadership asset Transparency Act and i thank him. Not commun common these days to see iranian fingerprints over the instability that plagues the middle east. Our own state Department Class files iran as a country of Money Laundering and International Terror financing. Just this weekend, we saw their handy work yet again. This time it was lebanon, where the iranianbacked hezbollah influenced government called for economic sanctions on the United States. Why . Simply for recognizing jerusalem as the capital of israel. Now just a few at the top of this corrupt Iranian Regime are flushed with cash and support terror in the middle east while iranians get by on an average salary of 15,000. Accountability for those profitting at the top of the expense of those suffering at the bottom, it is long overdue. Luckily, mr. Poliquins bill helps us to achieve this goal that the Treasury Department provide a report to congress on the Financial Assets of these Senior Iranian officials involved in corruption and finance. This bill will shed light on iranian terror activities and let the people know how their leaders actually operate. This is a key aspect of the bill since most of the news in iran is disseminated through governmentcontrolled outlets. Information in the country is hard to come by. The bottom line is this, this is an important piece of legislation that will help disrupt the Iranian Terror Network and i urge my colleagues to support this measure. Lets send a message that this peoples house is united on this front and lets send a message to the iranian people that we are with them as well. I want to thank my friend, mr. Poll quinn sfr maine, for his leadership. And i urge adoption for his legislation. Mr. Speaker, i yield back. The chair the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The gentleman from texas reserves. The gentlewoman from california. Ms. Waters may i inquire how much time i have left . The chair the gentlelady from california has 10 1 2 minutes. Ms. Waters mr. Speaker and members, i have a statement of administrative policy from the previous president where he advised us when this bill came before the house before that it would be vetoed by the administration. I would like to read from you to you from one of the paragraphs. This required public postings may be perceived by iran and likely our joint comprehensive plan of action partners as an attempt to undermine the fulfillment of our commitments in turn impacting the continued viability of this diplomatic arrangements that prevents iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. If the jcpoa were to fail on that basis, it would remove the constraints on nuclear program, lead to the unraveling of the International Sanctions regime against iran and deal a devastating blow to the credibility of americas leadership and our commitments to our closest allies. I think that is a very powerful statement. Nd i do know that iran is in compliance, that we monitor. We have a very strict and strong monitoring program. And theyre in compliance. And so the question becomes, if, indeed, they are in compliance, why would we interfere with the plan . Why would we jeopardize this plan that has been worked on with our strong allies in an attempt to try and find another y to say that iran must be scrutinized . Everything in this plan has to do with discontinuing the development of nuclear capability. And i think we should respect the work that we have done with discontinue all these attempts to undermine the deal that we have entered in with and to cause our allies to distrust us. I reserve. Mr. Hensarling im pleased to yield three minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. Lance. The chair the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. Mr. Lance thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of the iranian leadership asset Transparency Act. And i thank chairman hensarling and representative poliquin for their leadership on this issue. We must be scrutinizing the financial dealings of Senior Iranian political and military leaders. It is in the National Security interest of the United States to understand the International Web of finances that supports terror operations and other nefarious causes. I am pleased that this bill includes an amendment i proposed to target the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy organization. A position currently held by ali akbar salali to the list of iranian leaders named in threnlslation. Given irans violations of in this legislation. Given irans violations of International Law and its clear ties to International Terrorism, it is after all the leading sponsor of state terrorism across the globe, we should be monitoring the finances of the head of its nuclear program. To ensure compliance with sanctions and other laws. For years the Iranian Regime has been mired in institutionalized corruption. To the detriment of the people of that great country. The nexus of Nuclear Weapons, state sponsored terrorism, Money Laundering, secret financial agreements, and mass pistolering from the iranian people pilfering from the iranian people is a cause for great alarm. This legislation is a response to all of that. It is completely bipartisan in nature. It is the way we should act in the house of representatives, in a bipartisan capacity. The National Security interests of the United States know no partisan bounds. Mr. Speaker, we need all of the tools at our disposal to investigate the finances of this terrorist regime. I urge a yes vote on mr. Poliquins legislation. The chair the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The gentleman from texas reserves. The gentlewoman from california is recognized. The gentlewoman from california. Ms. Waters i continue to reserve the balance of my time. The chair the gentlewoman reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, may i inquire how much time i have remaining on my side . The chair the gentleman has 5 3 4 minutes. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, im happy to yield 2 1 2 minutes again to the sponsor of the legislation, the gentleman from maine, mr. Poliquin. The chair the gentleman is recognized for 2 1 2 minutes. Mr. Poliquin thank you, mr. Speaker, very much. I did want to respond to the gentlelady from california and for other folks who are on the other side of this agreement. This bill, rather. First of all, i think its very clear to the world that the iranian governments been cheeth on the nuclear deal almost since day one. I think it was within months, mr. Speaker, that they test fired both medium range and long range Ballistic Missiles in violation of an eightyear ban on developing those conventional weapons. So i think its kind of silly for us to be debating here about a government that sponsors terrorism and vows to wipe israel off the face of the earth and kill as Many Americans as they can, as a leadership regime thats going to abide by this agreement when theyve proven they are not. Second of all, as i mentioned several times, my bill has nothing to do with this agreement. But then again, someone on the other side of the aisle, mr. Speaker, also said, well, we think american officials, american leaders should be responsible for disclosing that. Heres the difference. America does not sponsor terrorism. The iranian government does. And thats exactly what were trying to get at, mr. Speaker. Im trying to understand what folks who will not support this bill are going to say when they go back home at christmas time, when they had an opportunity to shed sunlight on the top political and military leaders in iran who are ripping off the iranian people and who are sponsoring terrorism, why it is a bad idea to make sure this information is public to the world as well as the iranian people. Id like to understand what theyre going to say when they go back home and talk to their constituents. Mr. Speaker, mr. Chairman, i am grateful for this opportunity. This is a terrific bill. It does something very commonsense. Put pressure through sunlight, through transparency on the chief sponsor of terrorism in the world, the Iranian Regime. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield back my time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The chair the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The gentleman from texas reserves. The gentlewoman from california is recognized. Ms. Waters thank you very much, mr. Speaker. I appreciate the information that is being shared by my colleague, mr. Poliquin. And im going to yield more time to him to explain to me, if the missiles that youre describing in iran that are not a part of the deal, of the plan, are they similar to the missiles that are being fired with Nuclear Warheads from north korea . I yield to the gentleman. Mr. Poliquin can you repeat the question again . I didnt understand it. Ms. Waters i said the missiles that youre referring to, that youre concerned about, with iran, that are not a part of the plan, are they similar to the Ballistic Missiles that are being fired from north korea with Nuclear Warheads possibly on them . Mr. Poliquin the missiles that i was referring to are very clear, to the gentlelady from california, they deal specifically with the Iran Nuclear Deal, which is a dangerous deal for this world and for this country. Has nothing to do with north korea. Ms. Waters are they more dangerous than the missiles from north korea . Mr. Poliquin what difference does that have to do with the Transparency Act . Dealing with iranian officials . Ms. Waters ill tell what you difference it makes. Here we are with threats from north korea, and the president of the United States unwilling to be involved with diplomacy, who rather would like to basically mimic and mock the leader of north korea by calling him little rocket man. Mr. Poliquin will the gentlelady yield . Ms. Waters and telling the secretary of state, it is no use to talk with him. And so here we have the north korea who have already indicated that they have missiles that will reach us right here in the United States , anywhere in the United States, and youre telling me about your concern, about missiles in iran that are not a part of the nuclear deal. Reclaiming my time. You are still on my time. I reserve the balance of my time. The chair the gentlewoman reserves the balance of her time. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, i have no other speakers. I believe i have the right to close. The chair the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. The gentlewoman from california is recognized. Ms. Waters thank you very much. May i inquire as to how much time i have left . The chair the gentlewoman has six minutes remaining. Ms. Waters how many minutes . The chair six. Ms. Waters thank you very much. Id like to enter into the from jay tatement street that is in opposition to this legislation. And i also have the statement that i read a paragraph from, from the previous Obama Administration. Id like unanimous consent to enter them both into the record. The chair the request will be covered by general leave. Ms. Waters thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, and members, we are opposed to this bill. Not because we are not concerned about the security of our country and security of our allies in the middle east. But members on the opposite side of the aisle dont care any more than we care. But we respect when our leadership and our country gets involved and negotiates with another country, such as they have done with iran, and they come to some agreements, we would like our country to live up to the agreement. When we have included in that agreement a description of the monitoring that will be done, and when that monitoring is being carried out, and when it is represented to us by those that we have in charge of that monitoring, that that country, iran, is in compliance, we believe them. And when we trust our negotiators, we trust our country, we trust our leadership, and iran is in compliance, there is no reason to try and undo the deal. Theres no reason to come behind the agreement and what has been negotiated and begin to think of ways that you believe we ought to expand that agreement. We could, in the congress of the United States, come up with a new idea every day. With all of the members of this house, with all of the different thoughts and possible ideas, and everybody thinking theyre smarter than everybody else, we could come up with all kinds of plans. To interfere with that agreement. But i would advise the members of this house and the members on the opposite side of the aisle, you do not need to do this. This is a bad idea. I would advise you to put faith in the negotiations that have gone on and accept the representations about compliance that we are being given, we are being assured that not only is the monitoring taking place, but iran is in compliance. So again, im so worried about our role in this country today. And the fact that our leadership is being diminished day by day because of the way that our president and the white house is handling our relationships with other countries. As a matter of fact, we see a president that is endangering us and destroying relationships constantly. I mentioned that we have in this deal, russia, china, germany, england and france. And ask the question, what are our allies in this agreement saying about our attempts to interfere with the agreement . Do they agree with you . Are they consulted . Are they unhappy about what is being done . I suppose they could do the same thing in their countries every day. They could come up with new ways to interfere with the agreement, they could begin to ask questions about us and why were doing what were doing. They could even ask questions about why are we concerned about the assets of those who are not sanctionable, when were not concerned about the assets of our own president. Mr. Toll quinn, this is your bill. You want to know about the assets of leaders mr. Poliquin, this is your bill. You want to know about the assets of the leaders in iran. You have seen your president s tax returns . Do you know about his assets . Do you know where they have come from . Do you know about how theyre utilized . I dont think so. And so i think its very, very important for us to do everything that we can to have our allies trust us, to live up to the deals that we make, not to ask more of others than we are willing to do ourselves. No. Were not sponsors of terrorism. Were people who have always tried to avoid war. And unfortunately weve engaged in it and we know that it is not the best answer to trying to deal with the problems that we encounter around the world. And i do believe that we honestly tried to avoid war and that we worked for peace. This is working for peace. And peace in the middle east is one of the most important goals that we should have. And i see the opportunities of that eroding every day. So i would ask you to think about what youre doing. I believe that your intentions are good. But i think its a bad bill. And so, mr. Speaker, and members, i thank you, i would ask for a no vote on this bill. It is not needed. I think it creates problems with our allies and they begin to wonder whether or not they can trust us. We are an honorable people. And we are leaders in the world. Even though it is being questioned more and more. So i would ask us to vote no on this bill. The chair does the gentlelady yield back . Ms. Waters i yield back the balance of my time. The chair the chair reminds all members to address their remarks to the chair. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, i inquire how much time i have remaining. The chair the gentleman has 3 3 4 minutes. The gentlelady from california has none. Mr. Hensarling i yield myself the balance of the time. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Hensarling mr. Chairman, i find it fascinating how often the Ranking Member criticized our own president and didnt have one critical comment for the president of iran. The nation which our state department, including the obama state department, has labeled as the worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism. But yet in the last almost hour weve not heard one single critical word. We hear much about the jcpoa, the Iran Nuclear Deal, perhaps one of the worst arrangements, International Agreements thats ever been entered into by our country, but look as i may in the legislation, and its nine pages long, not 90, not 900, you will not see the jcpoa in it. Mr. Poliquins bill, the iranian leadership asset Transparency Act is just that. It is seeking greater International Transparency for the leaders of this rogue nation, regardless of the jcpoa. Lets remember what the gentleman from ohio reminded us, that it was because of information, including Radio Free Europe that went across the iron curtain, that ultimately brought that curtain down and freed millions. We want to make sure the iranian people know about their own leadership. Our own state department has id the iranianislamic relutionnary guard corps, kurds quds force, continue to play a role in iraq, syria, and yemen. The Ranking Member says, lets not say anything about their leadership because we might hurt their feelings. The state department goes on to say, iran continued to recruit fighters from across the region to join iranian affiliated shia militia forces engaged in conflicts in syria and iraq and has even offered a path to citizenship for those who heed this call. Yet the Ranking Member says, lets not report on the leadership of this rogue regime because theyre very sensitive people. The state department goes on to say, hezbollah continued to work closely with iran in these conflict zones playing a major role in supporting the syria governments efforts to maintain control and territory and providing training and a range of other support for iranian aligned groups in iraq, syria, and yes, maam b yemen. Yet we continue to hear from the Ranking Member that we shouldnt learn anything about their leadership. Again, we might step on their toes after the jcpoa and we wouldnt want to do that. We wouldnt want to be insensitive to International Terrorists. In 2016, his bello hezbollahs leader boasted, quote, we are open about the fact that hezbollahs income, ebs expenses, its weapons and rockets are from the Islamic Republic of iran. How much more do we need to know . Why do we continue to have members of the United States Congress Come to the floor of this institution and somehow want to seemingly protect the leaders of this rogue regime . We want to know more information, we want to disseminate this information, we want the whole world to know about the leadership of the worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Thats exactly what the gentleman from maine is trying to do. I salute him for his leadership and encourage all members to vote aye for his bill. The chair all time for general debate has expired. In lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the committee on Financial Services printed in the bill it shall be in order to consider as an original bill for purposes of amendment under the fiveminute rule an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of rules Committee Print 11547. That amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be considered as read. No amendment to that amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be in order except those printed in part a of house report 115463. Each such amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report, by a member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment and shall not be subject to demand for division of the question. It is now in order to consider amendment number 1 printed in part a of house report 115463. For what purpose does the gentleman from illinois seek recognition . Mr. Schneider i have an amendment that the at the desk. The speaker pro tempore the the chair the clerk will designate the amendment. The clerk amendment number 1 printed in hougs report 115463 offered by mr. Schneider of illinois. The chair pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from illinois, mr. Schneider, an a member opposed each will control five minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois. Mr. Schneider i rise to offer my bipartisan amendment to the iranian leadership asset Transparency Act. I would like to thank my colleague from texas, judge poe, for joining me in this effort. Iran is a bad and dangerous actor in a volatile region of the world which is why congress enacted sanctions in response to the Ballistic Missile program and support for terrorist proxy groups. We must hold Senior Iranian leadership accountable for destabilizing actions in the region and around the world. The legislation on the floor today is an effort to shine a light and focus our efforts on assets held by top iranian officials including the Supreme Leader. Members of the down soifl guardians, members of the Expediency Council and high ranking leaders. Specifically the bill thrires secretary of the treasury to report to Congress Information on the assets held by Senior Iranian leaders. Included in the report are recommendations on how to improve the effectiveness of sanctions to prevent these assets from being used by iranian officials to further develop irans Ballistic Missile program. My amendment simply but importantly expands this requirement to include irans human rights abuses. We should be using every tool in our toolbox to make clear that iran to iran that its human rights abuses are unacceptable. Human rights situation in iran is appalling and abuses perm nate many aspects of iranian society. In iran, repression and persecution of members of different religious faiths, including sunni muslims, christians and bahais is pervasive. The state Departments International religious freedom report of 2016 cites at least 103 members of minority religious groups imprisoned for their religious activities. Since 1979, iran executed more than 200 bahai leaders and over the past 10 years has conducted more than 850 arbitrary arrests of bahai individuals. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not protected categories from discrimination and same sex acts are punishable by flogging and possibly death. Arbitrary and unlawful killings are numerous. The state departments annual human rights report says the iranian government announced 114 executions by august of 2016 and that unofficial reports suggest a total of 461 executions by the end of that year. The u. N. Put this is number even higher at 530 executions in 2016. Freedom of speech is limited. Media censored. Publications have been banned an closed by the government. Harassment and detainment of journalists continues in iran and irans citizens are not allowed to criticize the government, Supreme Leader or religion. In 2016, 79 of the candidates running for the assembly of experts and 58 running for the islamic consult tative assembly were disqualified by the guardian council. We condition we cant forget about the americans and other foreigners who iran has detained and continues to hold, including the following individuals whose family members testified before our the house foreign affair ommittees earlier this year. Nizar zaka and Robert Levinson who has been held for more than 10 years. These are just a handful of examples of egregious human rights abuses by the iranian government. This amendment helps ensure the funds held by senior ire ranian leaders do not contribute to human rights abuses and u. S. Sanctions are best positioned to improve the human rights situation. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this amendment. The chair the gentleman reserves. For what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition . Mr. Hensarling i i claim time in opposition to the amendment though im not opposed. The chair without objection, the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Poe i thank the chairman for the time and i thank mr. Schneider for the amendment, im glad to be a cospon or of the amendment. Mr. Speaker, the iranians are a serious threat to the world, to interNational Security. Irans Foreign Policy is very clear. The ayatollah has said it numerous times and continues to say that the Foreign Policy of iran is first, destroy israel. Second, destroy the United States. They have never wavered on this goal and they are doing everything they can militarily to eventually try to reach those two goals. But the greatest victims of the mue las regime in tehran are the people of iran. They have been hold hostage by the Supreme Leader who obviously cares more about Ballistic Missiles and International Terrorism than taking care of the livelihood of the people who live under this regime. The regime that has become a Notorious International leader in suppression, execution, torture, inhumanity, the world knows about whats taking place in iran. And the good people of iran have no political space for expression or dissent. If they decide to dissent from the actions of the ayatollah, well, its off to jail, or theyre hung in the public square. We saw what the regime did to protesters of the Green Movement in 2009. Despite what some people still try to say, the current government is not seeking any sort of moderation. Over 3,000 executions have taken place under the regimes socalled president rohani. Scores of human rights defenders and political activists are still in prison under house arrest and they havent been charged with anything. And of course they havent been tried. United states needs to prioritize elevating the voices of the iranian people who are persecuted under oppression by this regime. These iranians really represent the best of the iranian civilization and they are going to be the future of iran. We should take note whats happening to them. It should be the u. S. Foreign policy to focus significant attention on the serious Human Rights Violations taking place in iran. Im happy to support and join mr. Schneider in this amendment which will require the Treasury Department to issue recommendations as to how we can better prevent the mullahs for continuing the violent assault on the human rights of the iranian people. The United States must be at the forefront of this battle for human rights and decency for the iranian people. We must call out the ayatollah and the mullahs for what theyre doing. They are persecuting, violating human rights, of the iranian people. The Iranian Regime is the number one state sponsor of world terror and it also rains down terror on its own people. We need to put the squeeze on them even if it hurts their little feelings. I urge support of this amendment and i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from illinois is recognized. Mr. Schneider thank you. I again thank my colleague, judge poe and yield back. The chair the gentleman yields back, the gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Poe i thank the gentleman for bringing this amendment to the floor. Gladly support it. And i yield back the balance of my time. And thats just the way it is. The chair the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from illinois. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair the ayes have it. He amendment is agreed to. It is now in order to consider amendment number 2 printed in part a of house report 115463. For what purpose does the gentlelady from new york seek recognition . Ms. Meng mr. Chairman i have an amendment at the desk. The chair the clerk will designate the amendment. The clerk amendment number 2 printed in part a of house report 115463 offered by ms. Mention of new york. The chair pursuant to House Resolution 658, the gentlelady from new york, ms. Mention, and a member opposed each will control five minutes. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from new york. Ms. Meng thank you, mr. Chairman. I rise to offer an amendment that i think every member of this body can support no matter how they intent to vote on final passage of h. R. 1638. This amendment simply seeks to insert a single new requirement into the report required by h. R. 1638 and that new requirement is as follows. Quote, an assessment of the impact and effectiveness of u. S. Economic sanctions programs against iran. Whether you voted for the iran deal or against it or whether you think economic sanctions are an effective diplomatic tool or something that sounds better than it is, i hope you will support this amendment. We should make evidencebased policy decisions in this body whenever possible and toward that end we should know whether or not the sanctions that we passed here work. If were going to require a new report from treasury in this bill, and that report must include, quote, a description of how treasury assesses the impact and effectiveness of u. S. Economic sanctions programs against iran, end quote, i think its only appropriate to ask for the assessment itself and that is what this amendment does. Let me put it another way. Understanding how we count votes in america is important. But at the end of an election, i want to know the final tally of who won, who lost, what did we learn. Similarly i think its important that if treasury is going to have to produce a new report on sanctions against iran, pursuant to h. R. 1638, that we understand exactly how treasury intends to assess the impact and effectiveness of those sanctions. Even more importantly, though, i think this report should include the results of that assessment. Particularly when it comes to sanctions we have authorized. That is all this amendment seeks to require and i hope everyone in this body will support it. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i reserve the balance of my time. The chair the gentlelady reserves. For what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek in addition . Mr. Hensarling i rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment though im not opposed. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Hensarling thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the gentlelady from new york for her amendment. I note that she was a supporter of h. R. 5461, a nearly identical bill that passed the house in the last congress, i think her amendment is a valuable addition to h. R. 1631 and indeed we should always know the effectiveness of the programs that we promote and in this case we do need to understand how effective economic sanctions may be so i appreciate her leadership and i would urge all members to vote aye on the amendment and i yield back the balance of my time. Ms. Meng thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield back. The chair the gentlelady yields back. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentlelady from new york. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The amendment is agreed to. The chair the question is on the amendment in the nature of a substitute, as amended. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. The amendment is adopted. Accordingly under the rule the committee rises. The speaker pro tempore mr. Chairman. The chair mr. Speaker, the committee of the whole house on the state of the union has had under consideration h. R. 1638 and pursuant to House Resolution 658 i report the bill back to the house with an amendment adopted in the committee of the whole. The speaker pro tempore the chair of the committee of the whole house on the state of the Union Reports that the committee has had under consideration the bill h. R. 1638, and pursuant to House Resolution 658 reports the bill back to the house with an amendment adopted in the committee of the whole. Under the rule the previous question is ordered. Is a separate demand on any amendment to the amendment adopted in the committee of the whole . If not the question is on adoption in the nature of a titute, as amended amendment in the nature of a substitute, as amended . Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. Third reading. The clerk a bill to require the secretary of the treasury to submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees on the estimated total assets under direct or indirect control by Certain Senior iranian leaders and other figures and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore the question is on passage of the bill. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The gentleman from texas. The yeas and nays have been requested. Those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise. A sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. Pursuant to clause 12a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess subject to the ca the vote is to roll back Net Neutrality rules. Live thursday at 10 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan3. Cspan. Org. Or listen to it live with the free cspan radio app. Now, representative scott taylor, member of the appropriations committee, serving areas in the Second District in virginia. Good morning. Rep. Taylor good morning. Host budgets must be passed. What are