stand by helplessly as the debtors and creditors clog and of quote your honor we're here this morning for precisely the same reason the consequence of the district court's decision is to let debtors continue to the original chapter nine was an actor hundred eighty eight municipalities struggle to issue new revenue bonds cleveland in particular had a problem where in the wake of the new bankruptcy code it was an able to issue new bonds and nine hundred seventy nine and congress responded to that concern will continue during the case to apply special revenues again during the bankruptcy case not after not to plan confirmation during the case that is the exact focus of ny twenty two b is only has the option they can do exactly what they're doing in this case which is not pass in fact they're taking three hundred fifty million dollars a year of our collateral and sending it up to the commonwealth where it's going who knows where it's certainly not going to us back your honor we guarantee the timely payment of interest and principal on these bonds as they become do we will be here for the next fifty years paying interest in principal on these bo have already paid millions of dollars in claims because of meis missed principal and interest payments and every time we do that we suffer gate to the rights of the bondholders moreover our contracts give us the rights to assert claims on behalf of the current bondholders in situations just like this there is never been any question raised below or in the briefing here about our ability to be here today arguing these points so judge howard again the whole point of section nine twenty two d and i twenty eight was continuity that payments had to continue twirly to the extent that the pledged revenues were adequate to fund the payments the basic the basic deal that revenue bond holders make is that they will accept the pledge and they will hope that the pledged revenues are adequate to support the payments that need to be made over the twenty thirty forty fifty year duration of the bonds they give up requires to the full faith and from the pledged revenues and so if that pledge and the flow of the pledge in accordance with state law which is a key point if the flow in accordance with state law is interrupted they have no other source  their source of payments on and that would make these bonds impossible to market and that's exactly what happened in cleveland in one thousand seventy nine and that's why congress amended the statute they were not interested in giving the debtor an option they were interested in creating amendments or congress's attempt to strike that balance and they struck it in favor of preserving the capital market access to the extent of section on twenty two b and nine twenty eight and it's noteworthy that section one of one of these actually echoes that same does are section one of one says the purpose of the oversight board is to provide a method for every territory to achieve fiscal responsibility and access to capital markets congress understood that you cannot have fiscal responsibility without access to the capital markets or vice versa and the decision below uses that are not consistent with the statutes and resolutions that govern these bonds they are violating not only nine twenty two d night twenty eight they are violating the l can only be used to pay these bonds to extend bonds need to be paid once the bonds are paid then the funds can drop down and be used by h g a for other purposes but by the law of puerto rico the use of these taxes the use of the toll revenues is expressively restricted they are violating the law every single day and it is ironic that they're using section three hundred five of the bankruptcy code to justify the breaking of the law of rico because the entire purpose of section three of five is to the contrary i think it's a basic misunderstanding of three of five  five does not serve the goals of chapter nine or the bankruptcy three o five was put in reluctantly by congress after the supreme court struck down the prior version of chapter nine and the amendment it was only to preserve the kind of good against attack under the tenth amendment the section three zero five was a hit and so the purpose of three o five is to defend the sovereignty of the son let's start with language your honor there is no interference in this case because the law of the commonwealth expressly limits the debtor's use of this property if what the district court did were to order that the commonwealth must up high pledged revenues in accordance with come of law there will be no interfere north of puerto rico and so when you say to the debtor you must follow the law of puerto rico and you are not interfering with anything you are telling them to do what the law  concerns you should do and that is exactly what section three of five thousand tended to accomplish and and to you saying you fired my plain language reading your honor inconsistent with yours i see just the legislative history is very much on my honor i'd also like to address the notion that section nine twenty two d was needed at all to permit the debtor to have to pay claims voluntarily quote unquote first of all there is nothing in the plain language of the statute that suggests itself limited indeed section twenty two d starts out by accepting the application of funds to the pledged revenues to pay municipal bonds from the entirety of section on twenty two and and the entirety of section three sixty two way first of all when you look at what the intent was to permit for example self help so that a a creditor who already had funds in its possession could could take them then all you would have to have done was reference section three sixty to eighty ever need to do that it's optional they only pay what they want to pay of course they could withhold expenses to the however much they want to why would that be necessary and by the way why doesn't  well they are stripping those liens off every day when they take our money and they send it up to the commonwealth they have stripped off the main because then they take it and they pay vendors are we supposed to go out and sue all those vendors you know they're spending the money like to make very clear they say we're trying to take all of h g s money is not remotely true and if the money was simply apply in accordance with state law and the bond resolutions at the end of the day they would have two hundred fifty million of collateral free and clear violins to spend however they want to have another two hundred twenty million of non pledged  year would have over four hundred seventy million dollars to spend however they want it to cost according to their own fiscal plan thirty five million dollars a year to maintain  if you look at one twenty two it's quite clear that it says nothing like what hell is needed to say for their claims to be successful all i'm twenty two d says is that when he gets in is filed under this chapter it doesn't operate as a stay of application in other words the automatic stay of section three sixty two doesn't apply in the one situation that the statute speaks about which is application applied special revenues it doesn't say anything about requiring payment doesn't say anything about a turnover doesn't say anything about the idea that the debtor has to pay the money it just says the automatic state is lifted in that one situation based on that plain language they can't succeed because their request injunction and the request for the card for relief is all premised on the idea that there must be some obligation to turn the money over but there isn't any there congress knows very well how to require turn over when it wants to if you look at section three sixty debtor must pay what it says is that the lien remains in effect now what i heard mr berg say several times was that well these lanes are meaningless our collateral is being taken unless we're entitled to have the brought up at the beginning of his argument was a list a motion that's what it was that's why the court had the language referring to the idea that there needed to be creditors need to be able to  don't have a cause of action under those two provisions and they have a different remedy if they want to be able to show or try to show that they're collaterals apparently have a way to do that now he also mentioned  point of title three the point of trying to title three is to allow restructuring of the debt it can't be restructured if all that has to be paid over that that just doesn't make sense that's the whole framework and the whole posture of where we are right now mr  statute is quite clear on its face one for you and nine twenty eight but if you do turn to it it says nothing in the legislative history about guaranteeing a stream of revenue or guaranteeing continuity of payments it it doesn't say that the purpose of nine twenty two d is to allow the debtor where the debtor chooses and each to because of the realities of musical finance to continue to pay the creditor that's what the language says in the legislative history that we've cited if you look to page eighty five fifty three this is from the senate report it refers to the fact words there may be pressure practical pressure on a municipality to pay according to debt it has to creditors and that situation congress wanted to make sure that it was clear that those payments credit happen that's the purpose of nine nine twenty eight a it's to allow the getter to make those payments with a debtor wants to mr i wonder mentioned another argument that's in his briefs which is that it wouldn't make sense to require that because debtors can always pay it isn't always pay what they what they need to pay according to section three zero five why would congress have needed to new the spell that out the reason it needed to spell that out is that there are cases that have gone both ways which have suggested that sometimes a creditor may be able to accept voluntary payments by that or and sometimes that may not my adversaries cited the  statute and does that regularly in order to clarify the law and in order to remove all doubt about how the law should be interpreted in fact is more guarantee case just mention this quickly because i know it's  congress passed that added that section specifically in order to make clear something which was already the case which is that a creditor can make a presentment here to congress wanted to make it congress made the finding that there is a fiscal emergency going on right now that's the purpose of this it's not to strong arm the debtor into requiring of these payments be made that would be every contrary to three or five it was not and an add on already an exception it's addressing the very least the very serious constitutional concern over the fact that in the case of abuse policy or any other governmental entity they have the they have had have rights and other constitutional interests and not being forced by a court to overhaul the control their own their own finances repeat the arguments of the oversight board regarding nine twenty two nine when you did which we support and argument is really very simple which is either you're not convinced by those arguments and and the panel has a inclination to reverse which we we don't agree with that we believe that there is an alternative ground to affirm and it is the following one which we raised below although the court did not address it but it was it was it was argued below  before and the argument is this follows and it's very important to understand the facts here there are two doctors involved here there's the commonwealth and this h g a mr ellenburg always talks about taking away my collateral and all that there's no shas thing what we dealing with are excise taxes collected by the commonwealth always been collected by them but the kummel has agreed pursuit or statute to transfer that to each ga that statute has been modified through a new statute which is the more charming act in two thousand and fifteen that statute says we're keeping the money so when you saying that we're very violating the law of puerto rico that's not true there is a long part of it with a moratorium act that says we're keeping the money at the commonwealth and you might say well that's not fair these people relied on that and the point is they may have questions meaning h g a they have a claim against the commonwealth to say you'll meet excise tax you promise to give me that's fine but your honor that taxes that are being collected by the commonwealth never had there is only an agreement or it is statute that says we will pay over two h g v we collect from these excise taxes and that your honor we believe if you look at mine twenty it only applies in into the debtors case we're dealing with which is each ga so you have to look at where is the money there's no money except for the sixty nine million dollars but that's not that's a side issue but the be clearer on this the automatic stay of bankruptcy code three sixty two is overly broad in chapter nine requiring the delay and expense arising from a request for relief from the automatic stay too complex what many statutes mand the hope that in the face of that the payments would continue without interruption and if they didn't at a minimum if we couldn't get an order from this court we can go this to another court and  applied in accordance with state law we are not asking for a turnover we are not specifically asking for them to be paid to us we are asking for them to be swept to the fiscal agent who will then fill up certain sinking funds in accordance with state law it's very well might have the p r i you know actually the way the bonds were and and every every year some of that money will be used to pay us and some of it will annual basis to fill up the reserve funds that's what we're asking for or asking for the flow of funds we're asking of funds in the language of night twenty two d to be applied in accordance with state  adequate protection to leave holders everyone recognizes property it cannot just be confiscated by statute you cannot do it after the fact at and i know i'm out of time your honor but i would just refer you first walk church howard we didn't wave you she said we waive the second count only goes to the reserve fund and has property interest in the reserve fund our claims are much broader if i may finally your honor the the this is the excise tax statute one of the statutes applicable to h g a relating to motor vehicle revenues the total proceeds of the fifteen dollar increase in fees to be paid for public and private automobile licenses shall be covered into a special deposit in behalf of and for the benefit of the highways and transportation authority puerto rico the proceeds of said collection only be used for the payment of the principal and interest on pounds nine you are a section two to one that's not an agreement that's not a contract for which we have an unsecured claim that this is statutory when it even we have separately in rights that are consensual against h g a but but this is a statute really against the commonwealth itself which blows up mr depends entire argument and by the way his brief doesn't even talk about the excise