i would actually be considered designated i recognize myself for five minutes this is a bill that went to this committee previously went to the for the house and a member was offered the committal motion was offered  favored but it is clear that was it was going to pass that was and i believe that i should honor that decision so what we have is a bill which includes an amendment would first like to thank mr castle mr carson and mr boren for working with me on the language in this bill addressing illegal gun used in public housing i would also like to thank chairman frank supporting us in working to address the concerns we have with this bill the illegal possession of firearms is a serious problem and we face in this country contributing much harm to society in the form of gun violence an issue we can all agree is unacceptable current law or allows it to terminate a lease of the p h a or only determines that a tenant is illegally using a controlled substance or abusing alcohol to the point where it is interfering with the health safety or right to the peaceful enjoyment of the presence by the residents this bill was simply add to current lore and language is not as strong as i would have liked mr cat mr carson mr castle and i worked with mr boren to craft a language that we could all agree on and would allow this bill to move forward since the n r a and i disagree disagree when it comes to gun issues this was not an easy task however i have learned over the fifteen years that i have been an advocate for this issue that is necessary to compromise in order to make progress this is how it is able to pass and sign into law the first major gun bill since  four the next improvement act this bill is important to p ha's across the country and i support its passage again i prefer stronger language related to a legal guns and ph but compromises necessary i support the current language  thank you very much mr chairman unfortunately i have grave concerns about the legislation that's before us today i was honored to be an original co sponsor of a thirty five twenty one the original public housing  t management improvement act my former colleague on the financial services committee mr cyrus of new jersey personally approached me and asked me to work with him on addressing this issue i was pleased to lend my support to eventual legislation which have settled three outstanding issues that have slowed the implementation of asset management the amount of the management of housing agencies to use a portion of their capital operating expenses as allowed under the statue and the kinds of housing agencies that must convert to asset management the bill passed the financial services committee on a voice vote but when we went to the floor with th non controversial legislation the minority sought to add a provision that would prohibit housing agencies from implementing gun control policies that are stricter than the local law  what the minority basically said was these government properties that we assist low income families with these families who live in this government property should have the right no matter what the statistics are about violence no matter what the to the districts are about gang violence and  murder on our government property where we subsidize families we want them to be able to possess a gun that's basically what it said i was a little taken back that development for years we have been telling housing authorities to reduce crime while the administration systematically cut public housing funding by twenty seven percent since fiscal year two thousand  and eliminated programs to by crime i am sensitive to the fact that we have some members who believe in gun ownership and that the r n a gets very much involved in these issues to ensure that there's not a crack there's not an open door there's no way that anyone could even began to talk about prohibiting the possession and use of guns no matter where it is i'm sensitive to that and i'm sensitive to the negotiations that have gone on as my colleague from new york said this is tough business and sometimes you have to make compromises that perhaps you don't feel so great about but it's necessary to try in some way to resolve issues particularly when you're dealing with something like asset management and some public policy that needs to be developed that would help the  management of our public housing developments not having said all of that in many areas in this country we have public housing developments that are in deep trouble i mean deep trouble we have poverty that is concentrated we have young people who have found that the only way to build powerful and important is to belong to a gang to own a gun we have stories that are constant about people having to duck gunfire people having to dive under beds people having to keep their doors locked and bolted and not been able to go outside because at night there's gunfire all over the place we know that this takes place and while i respect the concerns of the n r a and others about the right to own a gun it seems to me that when you have exacerbated problems like the ones that we all know that we add in public housing we would do everything that we possibly could to reduce the violence and the risk possessed in public housing if people feel so strongly about that live in public housing let them move let him get out let him go someplace else but this is our better all property this is property where we know what the problems are problems that cost us a lot of money to try and stem and to fight and so i would simply say that we need to be top enough are responsible enough to say yeah you know there are problems and we need to do something about it and even for those who said they believe in the right to possess a gun under any and all circumstances that they need to modify that and say on this federal public property where we have a concentration of poverty and crime and violence that we're not going to push this issue and say to public housing tenants and to young bang bang is another we've got to make sure that in strong opposition to this amendment because basically what you're saying is that people would be denied i believe their constitutional right to possess a firearm if they lived in public housing and i think that is not something that this committee should be doing nor should this congress be doing the language it's in there now as someone illegally using a firearm can  changing that but for us to pass legislation that would deny people's constitutional rights just because they are poor doesn't make sense and doesn't i think say much about our  we should not deny people the right to own guns just because they're poor i didn't say that and i do not wish for my work to be defined that way what i said was we should not ownership possession of guns in public housing because the extent of the violence that is documented all over this country in public housing i went on to explain that where you have a concentration of poverty you have a concentration of young people who belong to gangs a concentration of young people who drop out to feel that they are more important that they have power believe gentlewoman just repeated what i said was that you're saying that people that are in public housing are generally poor and that you do not believe that because they are poor and living in public housing that they should be have the ability that living there no i didn't say that is certainly the way that was communicated because did you not say that people live in public housing or generally poor what i said was that i am concerned about this issue because of the balance why do you keep leaving out the word by law it is because of the loss of life it is because of the loss of life  and violence that i am concerned about this man i went on to explain what lead to the kind of violence that we have been some of these when you reduce it to saying violent i don't know whether that's true or not but what i do know is for the people that live anywhere whether it's public housing or a public street in america the right to own and possess a firearm for their personal protection should used because that they're living in public housing in so ineffective a gentlewoman is saying that their public housing is a more violent place to live even a greater maybe need for those folks to have someone to protect themselves and with reclaim in your book my top gentlewoman from new york will state again that i think the main support that we have to remember that the p h d s will still have the right to a vic someone from a tenant from the house if they basically use a gun in any illegal way and i think that's important to remember we can have a disagreement on that but if you look at those tenants that are expelled from housing because they basically were selling or mr chairman i move to strike the last word joe you're going to i would oppose the general ladies amendment because i think it restricts the second amendment rights of public housing residents but mr chairman i am pleased today that we are marking up a bill that includes language to protect the second amendment rights of public housing tenants a few months ago it came to our attention that public housing authorities including one located here in washington d c were forcing individuals to give up their second amendment rights in order to reside in taxpayer subsidized public housing they were asking potential residents to sign leases that would effectively take away their constitutional guaranteed second amendment rights to own a gun for sport for hunting or for protection i know that these are law abiding tenants that we are concerned about they are criminals they're mostly prohibited from living and public housing already but even if tenets complied with each and every district of columbia gun ownership law they would be pro here from storing a gun and their own homes under the d c public housing authority's policy as you may recall mr chair i offered a motion to recommit when we last consider this bill on the house floor that would protect the second amendment rights a public housing tenant i want to thank the chairman for including this important provision which  residents of public housing that they share the same legal rights to possess lawful property and to take measures to defend their lives as do homeowners who control their estate just because an individual who lives in public us out housing assistance may be poor does not mean that they should have to abrogate their second amendment rights this will assure americans living in public housing of their personal right to possess firearms for hunting or self really does say on page three authorities may not require registration or possession of any firearm the possession of which is not prohibited or the minute to insert a personal view i would reluctantly oppose the gentleman amendment although i would favor it in principle but as a practical matter i think it's problematic  i don't know that i have a unique perspective on this committee but i'm one who spent an entire lifetime the day i got married growing up in public housing i lived in the projects of the city of new york in brooklyn and in queens almost my entire life and you're right there are thoughtful decent people that come out of those projects and still live in those projects i know a little bit more about survival than i do about the constitution but the constitution does make certain guarantees but there are a there is an order of priorities in life and i think that the main priority that we should be mindful of is the right of survival the right of people to be able to grow up especially children in an environment that's safe and not filled with with danger and threats to their lives on an everyday basis and the more guns that are in society especially in think the right for people to survive is more important than other rights that we may ascribe but the fact of the matter is the point of my comments is the house has made its collective majority opinion known and indeed if we sent this bill back to the house exactly the way it came which is what i understand the amendment basically does it's very possible we just get it back at ping pong to protect nobody and offers nothing i think the compromise that's worked out is a very good compromise orlow it's not ideal from either side perspective but i think that we have to consider the fact that we do need to pass a bill the gentlewoman from new york comes up with a a very concise way forward and i will be supporting that i'm attempting to do am i to understand that but compromise that has been worked out basically says you can post again but  if there is an illegal use of the gun you can be evicted is that the essence of the bill i would urge new york knotting is not fair to the record or i would i would yield to the gentlewoman from new york thank you thank you and i think this is where compromise is missing the point here if the gun is used illegally that tenant if they live in that particular project or housing will be and have the right to be evicted but you can't go beyond the newer members and even if you have a gun that was illegal and you disturb other people then you can be thrown out reclaiming only guns that are owned legally can be there and this is in addition reclaiming my time the point the point of the compromise succinctly just illegal use of a firearm as a and the victim offense in addition to whatever the other things the law might provide it manage thank you very yes in fact the local law does not allow for the possession of illegal guns period by anybody right thank you mr chairman if i may and just wrapping this up i understand all of the arguments and everything that's attempt at let's take a vote on the bail i maintain based on also  the gentleman from new york my experience in working in and around public housing authorities when i first started out in the business by about the biggest one in the country jordan downs  gonzague all of these areas and it may be a little bit different when you were raised in public housing but i stick by my attempt to amend this bill so that we don't have possession of this amendment correct the heading so would say that a possession literally just conforms to what we just decided to keep doing is there any debate on the members not the questions on the technical and seven six seven the payment systems protection act the court will designate a bill entirety when it was first presented have a bill in to repeal it this is not that we did have a hearing on the regulations i want to be very clear i am opposed to the b philosophically because i'm not judge of other people's leisure time but there's a particular problem with the method of enforcement actually let's get a little legislative history here there was a chairman of th in there the gentleman from new york mr false i think it was because they were so interested in banning gambling that the poor banks got dragged into this in the banks really don't have a central role in this but the chairman and ranking member wanted very much to add to the jurisdiction of this committee so they propose dealing with it through this bank system namely by prohibiting the banks i believe they burden the banks under me and we have an overwhelming response from banks and credit unions and other people in the business of processing financial transactions that say this is burdensome we hearing on the regulations and the two representatives from the department of the treasury and the federal reserve made a very clear in their testimony that they consider that we have given them a very impossible job for one thing there is a dispute about whether or not betting on a horse racing is legal or illegal in the internet now it is not surprising to encounter second question here which is ok if you're going to do that can you find a way to do with it does not burden the financial institutions and that is why i am in favor of the legislation today it doesn't go too far as i would like but it does a hold on the regulatory process which a disappoint is only confusing the banks and not doing anything about gambling the general amount about i thank the chairman the fastest growing addiction and america is not drugs it's gambling it represents the according to the harvard school of government where the chairman attended harvard we received a letter from the director of the institute on politics where he said it is the most socially financial enterprise studies on bankruptcy have shown that as many as twenty percent of bankruptcies are caused by gambling a chronic gambling problem now not up to chairman frank it's not up to ranking member baucus it's not up to individual members of this committee  moral judgment on whether or not we're going to outlaw gambling decisions made by the states and some of the all have made that they have said we do not want it we had forty nine attorney generals i believe the nevada attorney general was the only one because there's a split the received a letter to the members of this committee from three attorney generals democrats and republicans two democrats and one republican urging behalf of the attorney general's association what is what is their number one reason that we passed this law in two thousand and six and why the people of all banned internet gambling and why the attorney generals have written other universities who have sent to this congress and this committee with the president of that institution or someone  at that university urging us to keep this by it's the effect on our you that's what this is all about to me it's not to  is crack cocaine for gamblers there are no needle marks there is no alcohol on the breath click the mouse and you lose your house states this audience would vote yes because most of you are here representing the internet gambling industry you're representing an industry that is a criminal enterprise you're not you're not a criminal you're your representative you have every right in a democracy to be here i don't i don't i don't criticize you for that but i will tell you that the more and more teenagers were gambling until two thousand and six and i'm also going to stop right there and the university of pennsylvania and at this time i'd like to distribute this to all members b efore they vote because they need to see this the annenberg public policy center at the university of pennsylvania released a study that showed that the two thousand and six law had substantially reduced internet gambling here's their quote the decline and internet gambling was not surprising in view of the past last fall two thousand  women are showing a decline compulsive and problem gambling on our university campuses and in our community the two thousand and six law has had its intended effect what effect was one third of college students who gamble on the internet ultimately attempted suicide that is why the right of suicide on our college campuses has double in the past ten years and study after study has found that the most significant driver of that addiction the fastest growing addiction thank you mr chairman recognized for five minute things chairman ed let me say at the outset that certainly admire the ranking members dedication on this issue but i want to emphasize at the top that this is not a gambling amendment it's a banking amendment  we can discuss the merits of the underlying legislation that was adopted in two thousand and six but the reality is the regulations that have been published back in october of two thousand and seven  woefully fail in many respects significantly we had a hearing here on april second where the regulators themselves acknowledge that they were unable to come up with a real definition of what unlawful internet gambling is which means that that we are requiring the banking community not just to enforce federal law but in effect to define what the terms of that law and it's for that reason that we find any number of justice to jointly develop regulations to define the term unlawful internet gambling at the april second hearing the representative from the federal reserve said the activities that are permissible under various federal and state gambling laws are not well settled and we can be subject to varying interpretations so again we are asking the banks to define what unlawful internet gambling is and a letter from the chamber of commerce dated june twenty third it states the greatest flaw of the proposal is a complete failure to clarify what constitutes a restricted transaction simply put if the government proposes  deputize the banking and payment processing industries then it should provide clarity to the meaning of the laws that they would be expected to enforce and so that is why i am calling to have the regulations rescinded and to have no ones devise which would accurately and adequately define unlawful internet gambling and it is not just the chamber of commerce but also i would bring attention especially to my fellow republicans at the financial services roundtable the national association of federal credit unions and the credit union national association all endorse the amendment to the nature of subsidy which i am offering today also i would point out the advocacy office submitted a comment to the proposed regs saying that they have not properly analyz economic impact of the proposed rule on small businesses again i would drive that home to my fellow republicans we are the party that supports small business and yet the f b i says that these regulations do not seek into account the extra burdens t on them or the costs also mr chairman i am the amendment requires treasury treasury department to compile and maintain a list of unlawful internet gambling businesses and i recall at the hearing on april second it was the ranking member let me just take a moment to thank the ranking member for his really unfailing courtesy throughout this he and i are on opposite sides of this issue because he and his staff i've been extremely cooperative and courteous to me i want to emphasize that but it was  list of unlawful internet gambling businesses and i would emphasize again this is not a gambling amendment this is a banking amendment that is why the chamber of commerce the credit unions and the financial services roundtable so concerned about these  regulations strongly urge the adoption of this amendment i thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue certainly i thank congressman paul for his leadership and i would hope that this will be considered in a bipartisan way and not whether you're for or against gambling but whether or not you believe the we as a committee and as a congress should be imposing unforeseeable mandates on the banking community and then subject them to prosecution later on protect them  subject them to actions against them by the federal government and this is something we should not be doing let's take the time let's get it done right and let's have regulations that mean something and all the substantial i know well the fine without of your back the balance of my time children's play well and that means no criticism of you and i'm sure they very much appreciate it i'm sure they've been much appreciate the kind words there were two like no no no it's an impersonal group of representative and by the way if you look at college students as i read the newspapers there's a terrible problem with addiction to video games i read when a new video game comes out about people being online for three and four days and people talk about how they miss classes and they got the game and they did nothing else but i regret that and i think we should urge people not to do it but i wouldn't criminalize it but this is a separate issue we are talking about to regulate particularly with the amendment we're three removed my co texas and i want to repeal the whole thing that may take one more presidential campaign but we're getting there the general and then i propose something to say no regs don't new york's the third level of this he says no regs until you tell the people you are regulating what they're supposed to do and not do whether or not horseracing is legal or not the gentleman's obama said the passage of the law had a good impact i'll accept that for now from his we're talking about the regs these rights didn't exist so to the extent that the gentleman claims that the boy has already had a beneficial effect that will continue presumably because nothing in what we do today will suspend that part of it we do say that to go further and burn the bank and if there was ever a time not to burden the banks it is today to complicate the payment system further to oppose restrictions on them and by the way i was taking place to be joined in this by the general of new york mr king because one of the arguments we heard earlier was oh this is very important because this has been a subterfuge for terrorism i do think with a general new york having over the memo we will probably be spared being accused of being soft on terrorism today since that is an accusation that would easily lay against a gentleman from new york we're talking about the moral objection people have to gamble we can debate that elsewhere but what do you have making the banks lives miserable for particularly since all the amendment says don't do the regulations until you've clarified and we heard the to regulate the treasury and the fed they basically can't do it so you are putting the banks at risk if people want to find other ways to ban this then i will vote against them but they can go ahead and do it deal more directly with the internet but hijacking the financial payment system of this country at a time when it's under major stress and giving them the job of carrying not that we repeal the bill not that we don't regulate but that we don't regulate i mean until we know what the regular you supposed to achieve this is really putting the cart before the horse we're telling the regulators to come up with regulations before we have to find what it is the regulations are supposed to accomplish and we put the financial system at risk people in the financial system can be penalized look we yesterday in this markup did something similar with money service companies where the banks were told that they could be held liable if they had a relationship with a money service company and that company was doing things that your didn't do and we will be the banks that liability we essentially said i looked at the banks are not the cops here the banks are supposed to go do things wrong but they don't have subpoena power they don't have investigated and what we're trying to do today is exactly what we did yesterday money servicing money servicing as we said they have a function we talked about further regulating that function for you made some very good points about the i think absence of good consumer regulation in that area but we don't say that the banks will be held liable for doing this the banks should be interesting though i take a different position than the ranking member of the committee on what we should do i think i agree with about everything he says about the dangers of gambling because i think there is there are a lot of problems to dealing with and so that's  personal sentiment but the issue here is is how we regulate moral behavior i find it interesting that yesterday we were talking about regulating moral behavior on the house floor and on our side of the aisle we said it shouldn't be the government's responsibility to tell people who should have birth control pills or not we believe the parents should you know way this is exactly the same issue course there's a split on both sides of the eye on which moral behavior which economic behavior you want to regulate course my position is is that we should regulate very little either economic behavior or moral behavior but here today we believe we can regulate moral behavior by regulating the internet well i've got a strong opposition to this whole idea because the internet happens to be very very important sometimes even important campaigns you know and things like that and but it's important for everybody because everybody complains about the media right and left democrats and republicans but there is a third option that is information over the internet now you can regulate the internet for good things but not bad things once you get in this business that you can regulate the internet for doing the good things of making people act better you open up the door for all kinds of regulations so it is the protection of the internet that i'm very interested in i want the privacy of the internet but also approaches in economic terms i believe individuals have a right to spend the money the way they want and it is true some people spend their money unwisely some people waste their money and this is an economic issue as well as a moral issue so if you can regulate how people can spend the money on the internet and do these things  then it opens up a can of worms because everybody's going to have a different item that they want to regulate and this this to me is the most important issue but also there are special interests involved the people who like casinos to like gambling so ironically the people who who don't want internet gambling to happen are siding with those individuals who like gambling at the casino so there's no way you can do that but the real issue is what the role of government ought to be and government is very important to regulate you know theft and fraud and violence but when it comes to economic behavior and moral behavior we just get into trouble and i just noticed so often around here that both sides of the aisle seem to seem to get mixed up their one side so interested in regulating economic behavior because they might do the wrong thing and the other side say we have to regulate moral behavior because somebody might do the wrong thing what about individuals why can't they make up their own minds why can't the parents assume responsibility whether has to do with gambling or birth control pills to me to me it's the same same issue it's matter of who sorts these things out is an imperfect society but over many years have come to the conclusion that when we depend on our government to make these very very delicate decisions on how we act morally and economically the government messes up because the powerful special interests influences our decisions in the decisions are made for it for political reasons rather than based on the principles of liberty and principles of the constitution principles of states rights all of these issues get pushed aside because there's so much power and influence that gravitates here in washington d c but i feel very strongly that  the privacy of the internet is worth protecting and that the concept of who regulates economic and moral behavior is the issue that is at stake here there are regulatory issues here and i'm pleased somebody can understand some of these regulations a little better than i can maybe sort out some of those problems and that's fine but the overall issue is what this should the role of government be i would like to see the role of government of course greatly reduced in this case i think that decision making on internet gambling should be held in the hands of the individual and if it involves kids the responsibility is with the parents and today we have enough technology available that we can monitor i voted against the original bill and i expressed myself at that time in much the same way that mr paul has just expressed himself  but i think that's probably irrelevant at this point it seems to me that this is in most respects the same discussion we had yesterday on ms malone in the processing of payments but we were unified in our position that the banks shouldn't bear the responsibility it is equally unfair to banks to place this responsibility on them to decide what's legal or illegal without very on whether people ought to be allowed to gamble or not really is not the underlying issue here my position on whether people to supervise their children better is it's our responsibility to to have somebody we have apparently not been willing to do it ourselves we were perfectly content to kick legal and what shouldn't be legal and then and that we kicked the ball over to the regulators don't know how to enforce this and haven't been able to figure it out and so they counted it over to the y was advocating for removes that responsibility from the banks to be the moral police the financial police and i think this is probably a good involved that's why we're here today they've gotten together with their lobbyist their representatives and they've teamed up with the chamber and with the banks and they've that send child pornography over the internet violate the law it's a crime with illegal gambling the same thing we have determined we the people of the united states ha determined this congress in the fifty states we are not going are where we are going to try to stop child pornography and illegal gambling over the internet we've made that because we don't want that in our young people's bedrooms we don't want that in their dorm rooms we don't want that addicting them at an early age we've made a decision the banks have decided that this is a financial burden we have decided on the other hand that our children are worth protecting and that the cost of protecting them is worthy and wo get on the side hooking them up with pornography sites we want that foolishness cut out our children are worth protecting that's what this is about as roy bl his letter on the unlawful internet gambling enforcement act as one of the most important pieces of legislation passed in our last congress the majority must be to pornography we don't force the laws against child pornography by saying that the banks so they can force banks are not subject to penalties we don't say the banks would you please examine every check that comes in and see banks and actually we have two large banks have said we can do it we originally had one of the red card providers said we can do it the treasury is we give them two or three years it takes i might or nine years this is no different what we're doing is stopping and starting all over and that is a bad thing this needs to be enforced the attorney generals have ask us to move wrestling with some how we have treated the internet as a car so we tell people if they buy from a store they have to pay a sales tax but if they buy through the internet they don't have to so we have people pay taxes supporting their government and yet we have a car about i don't know why we have a car about i think what the ranking member is that data fide is right on target i think that to basically have a law but say we're not going to enforce it and porous it is the tom de lay strategy of having laws that we won't enforce and it seems to me we're going down that same track  me yeah it does but it never looks good to me i sincerely believe that if you have laws to enforce them if you don't like the law have the courage to repeal the law don't go and say we're not going to force it and that's what i'm wrestling with and i think that  this is a an attempt basically to just gut the process and not have the law work just repeal the law but don't repeal a way to make it work we'll take a break now we're going to be gone we have a fifteen minute six one fifteen and five five would like to for the record a letter from the national basketball association the national collegiate athletic association the national hockey league the major league baseball and the national football league  where they speak in opposition to this amendment so with as without objection the let it will be included thank you mr chairman one of the things that in this letter they say if this committee passes a bill interdicting the unlawful internet gambling regulations it will be taking a giant step towards bringing rampant illegal internet gambling back to america what they go on to say is the point that i wanted promptly and then report to congress on such implementation problems are exposed in either the regulatory or the statutory foundation congress or the federal government can then make adjustments based on real evidence not some self serving speculation by the internet gambling lobby i have a lot of respect for the gentleman from new york and parts of what he says in this piece of legislation that i agree with i do believe that the administration the secretary of the treasury and others should legislation that the federal reserve system cannot propose prescribe or implement any regulation i think that's a step backwards here we are two years after we passed this bill and now we  have the fed and the treasury coming in saying well we can't we can't figure out how to do this well maybe we need to get some new people trying to figure it out but what i do not think is appropriate for us to stop this process where we already have seen document after document presented that indicates that legislation is in fact to cut down on a lot of illegal activities the purpose here is not to and i agree we do not want for the federal government to shift their responsibility over to the banking industry and say you know we can't figure it out you figure it out what we do want is the federal government working with industry using now one of the things that i think interesting there's no there's no punitive action on the banks for that they're supposed to use their best effort and i think that they working with the federal government we can provide them of new ones has extremely been diminished but what i do know the green light here that we're going to do around here for another two years or four years until we figure out how to implement this legislation the green light is back on for a lot of these internet to come back on and so going to regrettably have to vote against this amendment because believe it or wrong signal i do believe that on this one there may or may not be an amendment on the item bill so we have four or five amendments and maybe two or three other votes that come from later so we will be able to do this starting at four o'clock i  we need to go home and put casinos in the children's bedrooms are now free to go and do that r seventeen forty six the holocaust insurance accountability  on foreign affairs passed a bill and i think it ought to be out in the open where we are there was a division within the community of holocaust survivors and of those who care most about the have been done it is clear that there were people killed in the holocaust as well as survivors who had bought insurance and were not getting the benefit of that insurance and that was outrageous and there was a behavior on the was as good as could be gotten more could be done we have had people tell us that if we would act at all we would jeopardize some of the gains that had been one but not yet fully realized survivors the community of survivors we took the bill had a hearing had a very balanced panel with survivors on both sides we received letters from a say that everybody who had a claim or to get at least one chance to prove that to get one chance to prove it in court there was a press action we saw bill do not allow people to be  of all insurance policies or on current policies and that's one of the issues we will be debating it did seem to us as we got into the testimony that there was distinctive between some of the western european insurance companies and some of the eastern european countries to quote donald rumsfeld in this case old europe it done better than new york by his categorization and so part of what we have in here is something that we generated because we have this jurisdiction to acquire the u s representative to the european bank which still dispenses fine to some of these european countries to put pressure on them to adopt some of the procedures that it's a matter of conscience for people to me it is a difficult issue because i want to make sure that we do not under some of the progress that's been made at the same time there are people who are feeling that they have been unjustly treated and we should be clear we're not talking simply about money we're talking here about the deepest possible human feelings people who were witnesses to victims of one of the  the bill as it came out of foreign affairs as opposed to the substitute but as a practical matter a chair of a committee can start a markup with the base tax that that chair thinks is the best place to start the chair can do that either by introducing their own legislation here the chair offers an amendment nature of a substitute it either way either way what is brought before a committee discussion is a basic text that reflects the chairman's views i hope that in our effort to craft this legislation that we do not feel ourselves constrained because this or that administration official or talked to this or that european company the fact is that legislation is written in congress that executive branch officers cannot go to european companies and say here's the legislation we'll have it rubber stamped by that ministerial body the united states congress instead we should be trying to do our best here  i sit on not only on this committee but also on foreign affairs and judiciary so i look forward to debating this bill in three different settings the amendments that i will put forward will first and foremost try to improve the penalty provisions so that it can be enforced notwithstanding whatever corporate structure the insurance company uses  second to try to restore to this bill the registry system and my reason for this is that many families they know that the deceased ancestor may have had an insurance policy but they have no idea which company how much of a memory of financial activities is supposed to survive the whole of cost and so it should be within the possibility of a family to go to one place and say here is the name of our ancestor is there a life insurance policy that still now after sixty some years is not been paid it should not be incumbent upon families to try to guess which insurance company in europe they should contact to do so would require a knowledge as to what company the policy was purchased and then an understanding of all the mergers and acquisitions that have taken place in the european insurance industry over the last sixty some years however when i present the amendment to restore the registry provisions that were in the original base text of the bill and are not found in the manager's amendment i will do so in a much more tightly constrained and focused form so as to avoid virtually all of the disadvantage is that have been as scribed to the registry system so i look forward to working with the chairman to get a bill that doesn't just ratify some executive agreement but rather is the best this congress can do to balance the competing interests and to provide justice for  viber and their families and whole cause victims their families finally whatever this congress is able to do this year for those who are victimized by the accost i think will serve as a useful model for legislation that i hope to introduce next year dealing with insurance policies sold during and immediately before the armenian genocide because just as it is tragic to see insurance companies not policies on deceit died in the hole it cost magin those policies that were sold one hundred years ago and longer to those who died in the for the committee hearing on this issue from the witnesses only further persuaded me of the extraordinary complexity involved here there is no clear simple answer that will make all parties happy however i want to support your proposed a because it is a well thought out effort to balance competing considerations for example we heard at the hearing about the privacy logistical and financial obstacles to create a holocaust insurance registry i believe the critical goal is to make sure that insurance companies respond promptly to inquiries regarding holocaust era policies the proposed amendment puts timelines and penalties in place to make sure that happens and also take steps to encourage eastern european circumstances under which a claim can be mitigated i think these are sound improvements but i do want to express my concern that we may be raising the expectations of big teams and their families beyond what will actually be delivered by the u s courts given intention of trying to find a resolution to what many view as a problem in getting funds to people who were denied that respect and that contractual obligation because of the destruction of records and possibly the practices of some of the companies that made it very difficult to follow through as many of us witnessed in this room we had some holocaust survivors where recently they came forward and talked about their experiences and i've certainly had many in florida come to me and talk about their attempts to resolve some of the claims under the existing system and some of the problems they've had and getting proper resolution which of course is why this bill was presented in the others because of the fact that we have so many all across survivors our community we've heard different opinions about how to best create a system where they will get their proper do as well as also to deal with the fact that many of them are elderly most summerall elderly now and in need of health care and other services about a quarter of them live below the federal poverty level in the united states and of course many of us believe that a some type of restitution under a proper procedure would help create a little bit a little bit of dignity and respect in their final years for this reason i know the chairman and others believe we must act quickly if we're going to do  something many of these people in their eighty's and ninety's many of them are very ill and it is a question of trying to do something because they do not have the luxury of time so i just want to say that certainly in today's discussion and as we move this bill forward i'm not certain that the what is proposed in this manner is amendment is exactly where we need to go but i do look forward to working with the chairman and others mr sherman  continues to move forward to have something that is pragmatic something that is fair and something that will bring some sense of finality in the form of receiving the restitution and the amount of resources provision of the bill whatever is required to be done by this bill will in whatever form we adopt it we intend those requirements to be adhered to that's why the bill contains a penalty provision for those insurance companies who do not comply the situation however is one in which the company that should comply is the company in europe and in many of those companies are doing business here in the united states some directly but some through us subsidiaries so what this amendment does is it says if the european company refuses to comply and the secretary  imposes a penalty and the european companies can't collect that penalty because we do business in the united states only through a subsidiary that subsidiary will be liable for the payment of that penalty in the absence of this amendment companies would be free to ignore this act and at the same time do business in the united states if they only took the additional step of doing business in the united you can go to any city where you know under corporate law these are separate and distinct entities and i'm not sure that as a practical matter that's legal i don't know his has a gentleman's request an opinion on that or is there anyone else on the committee that has a thought on whether that is even constitutional are permitted under if if the gentleman would yield i think there are plenty of circumstances where we piece the court pierce the corporate veil especially here where you have a subsidiary of a foreign based corporation if instead we wanted to say well if you don't pay the fine then we put all your u s subsidiaries out of business that would be another approach voiding the issue of whether the u s based subsidiary has to pay the fine instead it would just be prevented from doing business in the united states i think that would be even a more draconian penalty as a practical matter a wholly own subsidiary of a european insurance company doing business in the united states is an arm and a branch of that insurance company and if we create a circumstance where nothing in this bill can be enforced if the european company chooses to do business in the united states only through a u s incorporated subsidiary then the whole bill becomes almost in an inoffensive melody something that looks like it will you can pierce the corporate veil of collusive effort but without a finding of that legally you wouldn't be permitted to go to a subsidiary and here we're actually saying back to congress we're going to  thank you my concern with that strategy that was standing the points raised by the ranking member of the second is that it would be very easy to fall out of that exemption by two percent five percent of the company being in this subject so we talk about effective control but it does not be a hundred percent but it can't be twenty seven percent i think we could probably i think we have conceptual agreement that agreement we would have to be further done although we do have a legal expert here we ma operations united states through acquisition we were able to work with them because we as a matter of state law were able to say your license as relates to this type of business was at risk if you did not cooperate it wasn't the subsidiary that did the did the wrongdoing it was the parent or an affiliate in europe that had done the wrongdoing at least did leasure wrongdoing during the pre leading up to the war in the sale of the policies i think there's also a strong message i'd state so i think this is a way of putting teeth in the penalty if we don't have teeth it doesn't mean anything and for all practical purposes if there are ways around it then it will not accomplish anything i think will want to pass legislation if it will really create a  process and a an organization that we believe that they did something that needs to be backed up here and provide this type of support for the survivors or their families and that's why we need to do not join a strike the last word in order to get to a subsidiary impractical impracticality is going to have to revolve around some kind of avoidance or some of the kinds of things that would justify pearson the corporate veil and a showing to that effect so while i support what the objective i think the amendment needs some more to we just use the word impractical it could be tightened up in the way i would propose to tighten up is to say that this will apply when the insurer refuses to pay and the secretary determines he does not have jurisdiction over the corporate entity that is that insurer but that he does but that there is jurisdiction within the united states over a line one change the word penalty to penalty line and add the following after the word the secretary of treasury shall also assess a civil penalty of not less than five thousand dollars for each day that an insure fails to comply with the requirements of section dealing with the provision of information to archiv  untouched the chairman's approach to this which is an inquiry approach with the whole of cost claim processing office but adds back the idea of a registry the but it does so in a very limited form as i said in my earlier opening statement the registry is necessary because so many families know that there was a particular insured but they have no idea what company the policy was purchased from and do not know which is the successor entity the policies that would have to be registered almost any policy that was in force during the world war two era this approach does is it limits the list to those policies where the insured has not made a payment or corresponded with the insurance company since one thousand nine hundred seventy basically this is similar to the unclaimed property statutes that we all have in our own states if you put money in a financial institution in california and you don't contact that financial institution for even a dozen years they publish your name and this is just a small portion of the list that is on the website of the california state controller every other state does something similar and they say hey here's a here's an account that seems to have been abandoned well the people we're dealing with here today are not people who deposited four hundred bucks in the bank of america didn't contact the bank of america for a dozen deers these are people who have not contacted the insurance company since one nine hundred forty seven the question before us is does the company get to keep the money in the hopes that nobody in the family knows which company the power the ancestor bought an insurance policy from now i know that there is this concern about privacy but we're talking about people who have been dead for sixty years and longer now when you buy an insurance policy what is your overwhelming concern that no one will ever learn that you bought the insurance policy even sixty years after your death  overwhelming concern when you buy it into life insurance policies that your family will get the money when you die will these people have been dead since world war two and there is no reason not to create a list of those people who had insurance policies and they haven't contacted the insurance company since one thousand nine hundred eighty seven if that's an invasion of their privacy then what about this whole list published in california not of people who have been dead for sixty years but just people who forgot about a bank account half a dozen years or a dozen years ago so if we had to define those  which the whole the reason the consumer protection reason for listing policy was overwhelming people want policies they paid for policies they died in the whole cause they always intended that when they died their families would get the money versus the privacy interests of people who have been deceased for sixty years people whose personal effects may be at the whole a cost museum their diaries are being reviewed by scholars now but for some reason the only privacy interest they have is that the insurance company never tell anybody that they had a policy and that the insurance company rather than their family benefit from the money  this is a truly overwhelming circumstance where the interest in consumer protection the interest in the insured desire to see his or her family get money upon their death is overwhelming and the be at the museum that somehow there are overwhelming privacy interests that nobody except the insurance company every know that they bought a policy with we get a list of the policies where the person bought the policy before the end of world war two the policy was in force and that policy has not been paid these are policies on people who are in their eighty's ninety's or well into their hundreds hundred ten one hundred twenty the company has not paid the policy let's get a list of those policies that haven't been paid and give the survivors a chance to go to one list and see if one of their ancestors is listed there rather than tale of the survivors of whole accost victims that they have to somehow remember in their family tradition which company their ancestor bought the life insurance policy from so that's what amendment two way does i think the most significant change from the base text is found in the definition on page three line sixteen where we define disclosable covered policy those are the only ones that have to be listed in the registry and then this is joined with amendment to be which simply takes the penalty provisions that  otherwise in the bill and applies them to those who don't cooperate with the registry i thank them and i thank him for his thoughtful approach i do have to strongly oppose this point this really gets to the crux where there are a couple of arguments one is that there was a serious negotiation broadly supported by all the international organizations and for that reason we have a letter just posing the bill that came out in front of press committee and while the gentleman has perfected it goes further in that germany a part of the argument and the gentleman is refined it's probably i mean there was a major deal made here by well intentioned people who had the interests of the holocaust survivors in mind the gentleman's amendment would the bill that came from the committee would impose on one of the parties in the deal significant two birds producing all these names would be a significant administrative burden and it is the feeling of the people there that having made the agreement they do not want to see it broken is another problem when we talk about covered policies another gentleman does say that the only policies that have to be produced are those that are covered and cut refers to people who were  in the holocaust part of the bill we put forward here there was no requirement of production on a part of the company's covered policy is determined by what they submit i don't see any way for the insurance companies when they go to this to know what's a covered policy and what did in fact that they knew that we wouldn't have this problem that is how do they know that this is a policy that was covered covered meaning someone who  s injured in the holocaust the definition starts with the chairman's own definition of covered policy and then further restricts it by saying that if by defining victims under the bill that we have the initiation there was with the victims who were the heirs who submit this but how would a company know whether it was covered or not they have a list of all those where they had been filing for and they hadn't heard from people they have no way of telling whether this is a covered policy or not under this definition well ok first you would hope that the company would err on the side of consumer protection if they issued a policy to someone who happened to have a jewish name but may not have been jewish although the nazi rules they probably would have been classified as such and the person paid for the policy in the thirty's and they haven't heard from him since world war two you would think that the company would like to make it more likely that they that the owner of that policy or their heirs becomes aware of the so facilitating and i'll take back my time is done was answer my question but i think in effect when he says covered policy doesn't mean anything because of the generals basically said was they should err on the side of basically every policy i mean what the gentleman essentially said is and this is a problem that they would court steps would actually be detrimental the concerns of holocaust survivors and there is no these come from supporters of the agreement but there is no way they would have to publish all the names there is no way you could tell whether or not they're addition to the concerns of the chairman you're requiring the foreign ensure to publish the private records of millions of individuals if  gentleman will yield how many individuals who are still alive well an insurance policy in the thirty's haven't contacted the company since and under the laws of almost any state they would be listed as the owners of abandoned property how about beneficiaries the wired to be listed here is chiefly the name of the of the insured if i could gain your support by saying that they don't have to disclose the names of the beneficiaries just of the insured i'd be happy to make that a deal looking at this over the last two or three years some of the european countries actually prohibit the publication of record where requiring europe if you're doing business in the united states and selling policies in my district and it is your overall corporate policy that with regard to the insurance you have a don't ask don't tell that is a life insurance policy from us and we hope that when you die nobody in your family tells us that is our overall corporate philosophy that we want to benefit as a company this and having had a lot of conversations over the years with different families that it struggles in dealing with getting information about whether their family member had a policy or not and certainly from a common sense point of view it's obviously very easy to figure out that if your entire family is wiped out most of my family or my grandparents side was wiped out i won't know and my dad one no and my grandmother who was one of the few survivors of famine one necessarily know when she left europe at sixteen whether her father bought a policy or didn't have a policy my kids know what insurance companies i buy policies with right now so i mean if we start to sort of say let's look at a common sense of this thing and how are people going to really know whether there were policies issued who issued the policies how much they were who the beneficiaries were whether they were poor and all that kind of information that's where i certainly start out from a common sense point of view the next common sense question i raise is even in the united states how many policies that were bought in the thirty's today have never been called upon the system and they have an idea what the number is in a country you know our size because i mean we're talking about this thing is an administrator's nightmare beyond anybody's ability to follow up on this and i just can't understand that i mean if we're we're saying that this the holocaust and the persons that were killed in the holocaust that there's an issue here about insurance policies if we as a world certainly the united states congress believe that this is important enough for us to do something about we're soon similar we're getting caught up on a lot of technicalities whether it's administrative leave be done either there are records or there are no records if there are records let's put them on the table i agree with mr berman the point is very simple if people if people had a policy the family needs to know about it sixty years later six years later we release our private records in their super secret the united states less than sixty years in many insurance would be you can't run an insurance company without having a list of the lives you've insured and the age of that person so we're not talking about administrate of burden that they're trying to avoid because they've got the list they know which hundred ten year olds they haven't paid insurance on the burden they want to avoid is not the administrative burden of disclosing that list that they already have it is the financial burden of having to pay on life insurance policies today for people who died in the world war two or reclaiming my time is mr sure exactly right but what i'm hearing this discussion is that there's this administrative nightmare that will overwhelm these companies and therefore they can't follow up on it know exactly this is a financial issue it's dollars and cents and again if we believe as a country and we believe the congress and hopefully the rest the world agrees with this that a contract was in place it's very difficult to figure out what contracts were in place in terms of insurance policies and at this point we're just trying to find some way of finishing this job if you will of figure out of their family members left and they were insurance policies in place and somebody had the benefit of these policies all these years that have accrued been accruing interest and someone had the benefit and it certainly wasn't the family as was correctly said before insurance policies were set up so that the family members the beneficiaries would get the benefit when the person is deceased about the policy but that person has been deceased for sixty years so again administratively i think we all agree the records are there it's a question of producing them as far as privacy goes again i would agree it's sixty years asked about the names of the owners of the policy or the names of the beneficiaries i think this is information that is reasonable it's common sense we want to bring some closure to this one way or another either there is a policy but there isn't a policy my family there were some people in my family that bought the policies or didn't buy the policies ok i think everybody wants closure the insurance companies want closure the family members want closure this is a way to do it the right way to do it well gentlem s complicating now are they technicalities could they tie this legislation up in court for twenty years so by adding complexity by adding provisions that can be interpreted in four or five different way you're going to postpone this legislation i think every one of these  without objection the previous question is ordered the question is on the adoption of the mid in the nature of a substitute as amended those in favor will say  i'm sure a vote one way or the other on the bill so that is the order and the kirk will call the ball we are beginning with the vote on the castle dollar bill hold it's not easy for the court to hear so we really need people to be quiet as watters mrs those opposed no and the bill is passed we now come members who have the appropriate number of days to do the appropriate number of things and the staff will clean up after us mr shays mr miller