October 22, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 167 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
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PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2513, CORPORATE TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2019; Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 167
(House of Representatives - October 22, 2019)
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[Pages H8307-H8315] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2513, CORPORATE TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2019 Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 646 and ask for its immediate consideration. The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 646 Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2513) to ensure that persons who form corporations or limited liability companies in the United States disclose the beneficial owners of those corporations or limited liability companies, in order to prevent wrongdoers from exploiting United States corporations and limited liability companies for criminal gain, to assist law enforcement in detecting, preventing, and punishing terrorism, money laundering, and other misconduct involving United States corporations and limited liability companies, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and amendments specified in this resolution and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Financial Services now printed in the bill, modified by the amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as the original bill for the purpose of further amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. No further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules. Each such further amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only 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 a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against such further amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill, as amended, to the House with such further amendments as may have been adopted. 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 motion to recommit with or without instructions. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized for 1 hour. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Colorado? There was no objection. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, the Rules Committee met last night and reported a structured rule, House Resolution 646, providing for consideration of H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act. The rule self-executes Chairwoman Waters' manager's amendment and makes in order five amendments. The rule provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services, and provides for one motion to recommit. [[Page H8308]] Madam Speaker, I am pleased we are here today to provide for consideration of this important, bipartisan legislation to help law enforcement do their job and protect our national security. The lack of transparency in parts of our financial system has created an environment in which criminals, who should be shut out of the financial system, can use anonymous shell companies to launder money, finance terrorism, and engage in other illicit activities. I want to applaud the work of Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney for her work over the last decade to understand these problems and develop the solution we have in front of us this week. The Corporate Transparency Act would require corporations and limited liability companies to disclose their true beneficial owners to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, at the time a company is formed and in annual corporate filings thereafter. This beneficial ownership information will be available to law enforcement so they can learn who controls or financially benefits from the company and end the current shell game used by bad actors. There are many examples of how individuals have used shell companies to hide their activities. For instance, there is one involving Viktor Bout, otherwise known as the Merchant of Death, who used shell companies to hide his illicit weapons trafficking. In another example, a former Russian citizen moved $1.4 billion from Russia into 236 different U.S. bank accounts through the use of anonymous shell companies. This bill will be a game changer for law enforcement investigating bad actors, and it will ensure criminals can no longer hide behind these shell companies. It would also bring the United States in line with other developed countries that already require beneficial ownership disclosure. {time} 1230 The rule will amend the bill to also include my friend, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver's H.R. 2514, known as the COUNTER Act, which would modernize and improve the Bank Secrecy Act. This bill passed the Financial Services Committee unanimously in May. Specifically, it would expand communication about anti-money laundering data within financial institutions and safeguard privacy by creating a civil liberties and privacy officer within each financial regulator. Additionally, this legislation increases penalties for bad actors and reduces barriers to innovation. For years, Congress has proposed reforms to the Bank Secrecy Act, but this is the first major legislation to receive broad bipartisan support. This bill strikes a careful balance between security and privacy and will be a big step forward to strengthen anti-money laundering tools. Together, this combined legislation will create a more secure and transparent financial system. I urge all my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank my friend from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter) for yielding me the time. I don't want to take up too much time, because I know we have the chairwoman here. And as the gentleman from Colorado pointed out, she is one of the most studied Members in this Chamber on this topic. We did meet in the Rules Committee last night. And for the second week in a row, Madam Speaker, we have brought rules out of the Rules Committee that gave the minority a voice that we have not seen throughout this Congress. Candidly, the record of open rules in the Chamber has been abysmal on both sides of the aisle. I don't believe while Paul Ryan was Speaker, Republicans on the Rules Committee made a single open rule in order, and that has certainly been the way that things have continued in the Pelosi majority. But I want to mention to my colleagues, as learned as the chairwoman is, I believe that Members in this Chamber have something to offer on these topics. And I just want to remind the Chamber that in 1970, when we passed the Bank Secrecy Act to begin with--that is the bill that this bill before us today amends, Madam Speaker, a very small portion of the Bank Secrecy Act that this bill amends--we brought the Bank Secrecy Act to the floor under an open rule, 2 hours of general debate, and then amended it under the 5-minute rule, ended up passing that bill unanimously out of this Chamber. As my friend from Colorado knows, Madam Speaker, we had witnesses in the Rules Committee last night who had ideas that they wanted to have considered on the floor of the House by all of their colleagues, ideas that I would tell you deserve consideration. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson), my friend, brought an amendment that said, Listen--as you heard the gentleman from Colorado discuss earlier--this is the creation of a new government database for the purpose of law enforcement querying it for its enforcement activities. What my friend from Ohio said is, If this is going to be a law enforcement database, if we are creating new government databases, if we are creating them for the sole purpose of law enforcement to query them for the sole purpose of engaging in criminal prosecutions, shouldn't we ask for a warrant to query that database, just like we would ask law enforcement for a warrant in any other investigation? These are, after all, American citizens. Perhaps, because I don't serve on the Financial Services Committee, Madam Speaker, I don't fully understand the ramifications of that, but I am not afraid of this body considering it in its collective wisdom. And I am disappointed that even as broad as the rule was, even the amendments that were made in order, Mr. Davidson is not going to have a chance to talk about this question of fundamental civil liberties, which, again, I know is important, from the most liberal Democrat in this Chamber to the most conservative Republican. There was a time in this Chamber where we thought enough of ourselves as a body and had enough respect for one another as individuals that we were not afraid of the open rule process. There is enough blame to go around on both sides of that. I am not proud of the Republican record of the last several years, but I do believe, and I would say to my friend from Colorado, because he has outsized influence on the committee, this would be the kind of bill where we could begin that open-rule process, a very narrowly tailored bill designed to do very specific things. I will go one more: I offered an amendment last night, Madam Speaker, to allow consideration of an amendment from another Member of this body who thought that we should have a cost-benefit analysis done of this bill. I mean, undeniably, there is a paperwork burden associated with it. That is uncontested. So the idea was, because we are doing this on behalf of the American people, do the costs outweigh the benefits or do the benefits outweigh the cost. Candidly, my constituency back home would imagine that we have that conversation about every piece of legislation that we pass every day. Of course, the Members of this Chamber know that we don't. That amendment was offered for consideration. It was defeated on a party-line vote, not the nature of the amendment itself, Madam Speaker, but even the ability to discuss it. I don't think any of my colleagues would say that the legislative calendar of the last week has been so aggressive that they have no bandwidth to consider either civil liberties on the one hand or cost-benefit analysis on the other. I think we do have that bandwidth. And I recognize that in this culture of outrage that we are in, Madam Speaker, this culture of offense that we have gotten ourselves into, it is oftentimes true that in political discussions, folks will believe that they can never do good enough. However good a rule the gentleman from Colorado crafts, the other side is always going to say, Well, you could have done better. I recognize that. In fact, that was confessed from the witness table last night. The gentleman from Ohio said, Listen, I have been trying to defeat this bill because I disagree with it on its merits. [[Page H8309]] Now, if we are going to pass this bill, I think we should protect civil liberties. And I am afraid my civil liberties concerns are being dismissed because I have developed a reputation for wanting to kill the bill altogether. We recognize that is a very real circumstance that we have before us. But when we pass the underlying legislation, the Bank Secrecy Act, I will remind my colleagues, again, we came together and did it unanimously, because it is important. The chairwoman of the subcommittee put together a big bipartisan majority to move this legislation out of her committee. She recognizes how important that is. There are so many opportunities for us to divide ourselves in this Chamber, in this day. It is my regret that we have not taken this opportunity where the bill was so narrow, where the topic was so tailored, and where the expertise that is so obvious, to those of us in the Chamber who don't have it as to which Members do have it, that we did not allow a more full-throated debate on this issue. For that reason, Madam Speaker, I will be opposing the rule, but I very much would like to get to consideration of the underlying bill. We offered an amendment last night to do this in an open rule. That amendment was rejected. Our ranking member offered it. It was rejected on a party-line vote. Let us recognize that we are including more voices today than this Congress has historically included. This is, again, for only the second time this year that I remember, there being as many voices included as there are. But that is a step in the right direction. It is not the goal. The goal is to allow every Member, each one of us representing 700,000 American citizens whose voice needs to be heard, to come to the floor and have that debate. Part of the reason you see the floor is empty, as you do today, Madam Speaker, is because folks know the word has already gone out. Folks have already seen the literature. They know their voices have already been shut out. Those Members who have offered improvements, they know they have already been rejected. They know there will not be a chance for their voice to be heard, and, thus, they are not on the floor today to pursue it. So, again, to my friend from Colorado, I would ask him to use his influence. I know we can do it. I know we can be better. And this, again, because of the chairwoman's expertise, because of the bipartisan way it moved through committee, this would have been the way, this would have been the time for us to begin trying to expect more of ourselves. And we have not taken advantage of that this time. I hope that we will not miss that opportunity next time. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to remind my friend that we are dealing with a serious law enforcement issue here, something that the chairwoman, who will speak, has been dealing with for years, working with law enforcement across the country and has full-throated support from virtually every law enforcement agency in this country to deal with these phony companies. These are phony companies similar to the company that was created by Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were friends of Rudy Giuliani, created to upset elections and elsewhere, who were arrested as they were leaving the country 2 weeks ago. That is the purpose, it is to get bad actors who are using shell companies to really contort U.S. law, to park money in buildings where they have gotten bribes and they have taken them from their country and parked them in, you know, big townhouses in New York City or L.A. or Denver, Colorado. This is serious stuff that we are dealing with. And I would remind my friend, as he spoke about the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson), he is going to get to debate an amendment he proposed. We have five amendments that are going to be considered by the full House. That is after any amendment was allowed in committee to be, you know, voted up or down. And we have a big committee with a lot of Democrats and a lot of Republicans. And there are many Republicans supporting this bill, because they understand how important this is to, you know, get dirty money out of these shell companies. David Petraeus, a former general, former head of the CIA, and Sheldon Whitehouse wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post dated March 8, 2019, where they said, ``Russian President Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian rulers have worked assiduously to weaponize corruption as an instrument of foreign policy, using money in opaque and illicit ways to gain influence over other countries, subvert the rule of law and otherwise remake foreign governments in their own kleptocratic image.'' And I want to thank the chairwoman for working so hard on this bill and gaining so much support from Democrats, Republicans, law enforcement, and different organizations all across the country to stop this kind of stuff that could really undermine our democracy. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney). Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, first, I would like to thank the gentleman from the great State of Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), my good friend, for his extraordinary leadership, not only on the Rules Committee, but on the Financial Services Committee, and his work and support on this bill over a decade. So I thank him very much. Madam Speaker, I rise in very strong support of this rule which would make a number of amendments in order, and I think would improve the underlying bill. Most importantly, the rule would make in order the Waters manager's amendment, which contains the text of Mr. Cleaver's bill, called the COUNTER Act. Mr. Cleaver is the chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security and has been an exceptional leader on anti-money laundering issues. His bill would make a number of improvements to the Bank Secrecy Act that would protect our national security, make our anti-money laundering regime more effective, and would reduce burdens on financial institutions. For example, the bill would close loopholes for high-risk commercial real estate transactions and the transfer of arts and antiquities, which we have heard testimony about in our committee. It would also make modest increases to the threshold for currency transaction reports, which was a compromise that Mr. Cleaver reached with Mr. Loudermilk on the other side of the aisle. This would provide financial institutions with regulatory relief, while also ensuring that law enforcement has the information they need to catch bad actors who are using our financial system to hide their illicit money. Finally, the bill protects privacy by mandating a privacy and civil liberties officer, as well as an innovation officer in each of the Federal financial regulators. These officials are required to meet regularly, to consult on Bank Secrecy Act policy and regulation. Madam Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Cleaver and Chairwoman Waters for this amendment, which I strongly believe will make my bill better and will improve the chances that it gets passed by the Senate and signed into law. This bill before us today, the underlying bill, H.R. 2513, would crack down on illicit use of anonymous shell companies. This is one of the most pressing national security problems we face in this country, because anonymous shell companies are the vehicle of choice for money launderers, criminals, and terrorists. Coming from New York, I am particularly concerned about cracking down on terrorism financing. Because of the importance of this bill, it has been endorsed by every single law enforcement agency in our country. They say that passing this bill will help them protect American citizens, Americans, visitors, anyone in our country. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a listing of all of the law enforcement agencies that support this bill, and it also has wide support from stakeholders, major stakeholders in our country from the business community, the NGOs, and the not-for-profit community. [[Page H8310]] [From FACTCOALITION, Updated: October 15, 2019] Endorsements for Beneficial Ownership Transparency Endorsed Legislation Anti-Corruption/Transparency: Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW), Coalition for Integrity, Corruption Watch UK, Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition, Financial Transparency Coalition, Global Financial Integrity, Global Integrity, Global Witness, Government Accountability Project (GAP), Natural Resource Governance Institute, Open Contracting Partnership, Open Ownership, Open the Government, Project on Government Oversight (POGO), Publish What You Pay--U.S. Repatriation Group International, RepresentUs, Sunlight Foundation, Transparency International. Anti-Human Trafficking: Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), Humanity United Action, Liberty Shared, Polaris, Street Grace, Verite. Business (Large): Allianz, The B Team, Celtel International, Chobani, Danone, Dow Chemical, Engie, The Kering Group, National Foreign Trade Council, Natura & Co., Safaricom, Salesforce, Thrive Global, Unilever, The Virgin Group. Business (Small): American Sustainable Business Council, Harpy IT Solutions, LLC (St. Louis, MO), Luna Global Networks & Convergence Strategies, LLC (Washington, DC), Maine Small Business Coalition, Main Street Alliance, Pax Advisory, Inc (Vienna, VA), Small Business Majority, South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. Business (Financial Institutions): Alabama Bankers Association, Alaska Bankers Association, American Bankers Association, Arizona Bankers Association, Arkansas Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute, Bankers Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT), The Clearing House Association, Colorado Bankers Association, Connecticut Bankers Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Credit Union National Association (CUNA), Delaware Bankers Association, Financial Services Roundtable, Florida Bankers Association, Georgia Bankers Association, Hawaii Bankers Association, Idaho Bankers Association, Illinois Bankers Association, Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA). Indiana Bankers Association, Institute of International Bankers (IIB), Institute of International Finance (IIF), Iowa Bankers Association, Kansas Bankers Association, Kentucky Bankers Association, Louisiana Bankers Association, Maine Bankers Association, Maryland Bankers Association, Massachusetts Bankers Association, Michigan Bankers Association, Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America, Minnesota Bankers Association, Mississippi Bankers Association, Missouri Bankers Association, Montana Bankers Association, National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU), Nebraska Bankers Association, Nevada Bankers Association, New Hampshire Bankers Association, New Jersey Bankers Association. New Mexico Bankers Association, New York Bankers Association, North Carolina Bankers Association, North Dakota Bankers Association, Ohio Bankers League, Oklahoma Bankers Association, Oregon Bankers Association, Pennsylvania Bankers Association, Puerto Rico Bankers Association, Regional Bank Coalition, Rhode Island Bankers Association, Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), South Carolina Bankers Association, South Dakota Bankers Association, Tennessee Bankers Association, Texas Bankers Association, Utah Bankers Association, Vermont Bankers Association, Virginia Bankers Association, Washington Bankers Association, Western Bankers Association, West Virginia Bankers Association, Wisconsin Bankers Association, Wyoming Bankers Association. Business (Insurance): Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. Business (Real Estate): American Escrow Association, American Land Title Association (ALTA), National Association of REALTORS, Real Estate Services Providers Council, Inc. (RESPRO). Faith: Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), Interfaith Worker Justice, Jubilee USA Network, Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Missionary Oblates, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Society of African Missions (SMA Fathers), United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries, The United Methodist Church--General Board of Church and Society. Human Rights: Accountability Counsel, African Coalition for Corporate Accountability (ACCA), Amnesty International USA, Business and Human Rights (BHR), Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Center for Constitutional Rights, EarthRights International. EG Justice, Enough Project, Freedom House, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), International Labor Rights Forum, International Rights Advocates, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Responsible Sourcing Network, Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID), Rights CoLab, The Sentry. International Development: ActionAid USA, Bread for the World, ONE Campaign, Oxfam America. Law Enforcement: ATF Association, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA), Dennis Lormel, former Chief of the FBI Financial Crimes and Terrorist Financing Operations Sections, Donald C. Semesky Jr., Former Chief of Financial Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, John Cassara, former U.S. Treasury Special Agent, National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys (NAAUSA), National District Attorneys Association (NDAA), National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI; U.S. Marshals Service Association. Lawyers: Group of 11 business and human rights lawyers. NGOs (Misc.): Africa Faith & Justice Network; Amazon Watch; American Family Voices; Americans for Democratic Action (ADA); Americans for Financial Reform; Americans for Tax Fairness; Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS); Campaign for America's Future; Center for International Policy; Center for Popular Democracy Action; Coalition on Human Needs; Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach; Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment; Consumer Action; Consumer Federation of America; Corporate Accountability Lab; CREDO Action; Demand Progress; Economic Policy Institute. Environmental Investigation Agency; Fair Share; First Amendment Media Group; Foundation Earth; Friends of the Earth; Fund for Constitutional Government; Greenpeace USA; Health Care for America Now; Heartland Initiative; Institute for Policy Studies--Program on Inequality and the Common Good; Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy; International Campaign for Responsible Technology; iSolon.org; MomsRising; National Employment Law Project; National Organization for Women (NOW); New Rules for Global Finance; Patriotic Millionaires; People Demanding Action; Project Expedite Justice. Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research (PODER); Public Citizen; Responsible Sourcing Network; Responsible Wealth; Responsive to Our Community II, LLC; RootsAction.org; Stand Up America; Sustentia; Take On Wall Street; Tax Justice Network; Tax Justice Network USA; Tax March; Trailblazers PAC; United for a Fair Economy; U.S.- Africa Network; U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG); Voices for Progress; Win Without War; Working America. Shareholders: Avaron Asset Management; Batirente; Boston Common Asset Management; Candriam Investors Group; Capricorn Investment Group; Clean Yield Asset Management; CtW Investment Group; Domini Social Investment LLC; Dominican Sisters of Hope; Hermes Equity Ownership Services; Hexavest; Inflection Point Capital Management; Local Authority Pension Fund Forum; Magni Global Asset Management LLC; Maryknoll Sisters; Mercy Investment Services, Inc.; NorthStar Asset Management, Inc.; Oblate International Pastoral Investment Trust; Sisters of Charity, BVM; Sisters of Saint Joseph of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA. Sisters of St. Dominic of Blauvelt, New York; Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia; Trillium Asset Management; Triodos Investment Advisory & Services BV; Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, U.S. Province; Verka VK Kirchliche Vorsorge VVaG; Zevin Asset Management. State Secretaries of State: Delaware Unions: Alliance for Retired Americans; American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFCSME); American Federation of Teachers; Communications Workers of America (CWA); International Brotherhood of Teamsters; International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, UAW; National Education Association; National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association; Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Endorsed Concept Anti-Human Trafficking: 3 Strands Global Foundation; Agape International Missions; Amirah, Inc.; Baptist Resource Network; Candle of Hope Foundation; Freedom Network USA; Shared Hope International; Youth Underground. Business (Large): BHP; Deloitte; International Chamber of Commerce; Philip Morris International; Rio Tinto; Siemens AG; Thomson Reuters. Business (Financial Institutions): BMO Capital Markets. Business (Small): 77% of U.S. small business owners; O'Neill Electric (Portland; OR); Paperjam Press (Portland; OR); Popcorn Heaven (Waterloo; IA); Rivanna Natural Designs; Inc. (Charlottesville; VA). Human Rights: Better World Campaign; Center for Justice and Accountability; Center for Victims of Torture; Futures without Violence; Global Rights; Global Solutions; Physicians for Human Rights; Project on Middle East Democracy; United to End Genocide. Law Enforcement: National Sheriffs' Association. National Security Officials: 2019 letter from bipartisan group of 61 national security experts; 2018 letter from bipartisan group of 3 dozen former national security leaders (military and civilian); David [[Page H8311]] Petraeus, GEN (Ret.) USA, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama. Scholars (Think Tanks): Anders Aslund, Atlantic Council; David Mortlock, Atlantic Council; Josh Rudolph, Atlantic Council; William F. Wechsler, Atlantic Council; Clay Fuller, American Enterprise Institute; Michael Rubin, American Enterprise Institute; Norm Eisen, Brookings Institution; Aaron Klein, Brookings Institution; Jeff Hauser, Center for Economic and Policy Research; Jarrett Blanc, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Sarah Chayes, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Jake Sullivan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Jodi Vittori, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Andrew Weiss, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Molly Elgin-Cossart, Center for American Progress; Diana Pilipenko, Center for American Progress; Trevor Sutton, Center for American Progress; Neil Bhatiya, Center for a New American Security; Ashley Feng, Center for a New American Security; Elizabeth Rosenberg, Center for a New American Security, Daleep Singh, Center for a New American Security; Heather Conley, Center for Strategic and International Studies. Matthew M. Taylor, Council on Foreign Relations; David Hamon, Economic Warfare Institute; David Asher, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Yaya J. Fanusie, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Eric Lorber, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Emanuele Ottolenghi, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Chip Poncy, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Jonathan Schanzer, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Juan C. Zarate, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Jamie Fly, German Marshall Fund of the United States; Joshua Kirschenbaum, German Marshall Fund of the United States; Laura Rosenberger, German Marshall Fund of the United States; David Salvo, German Marshall Fund of the United States; Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution; Michael McFaul, Amb. (Ret.), Hoover Institution; Ben Judah, Hudson Institute; Nate Sibley, Hudson Institute; Richard Phillips, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy; Michael Camilleri, Inter-American Dialogue; David J. Kramer, McCain Institute; Paul D. Hughes, COL (Ret.), USA, U.S. Institute of Peace. Scholars (Universities): Smriti Rao, Assumption College (MA); Daniel Nielson, Brigham Young University; Branko Milanovic, City University of New York; Martin Guzman, Columbia University; Matthew Murray, Columbia University; Jose Antonio Ocampo, Columbia University; Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University; Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University; Spencer J. Pack, Connecticut College; Lourdes Beneria, Cornell University; John Hoddinott, Cornell University; Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University; David Blanchflower, Dartmouth College; Mark Paul, Duke University; Michael J. Dziedzic, Col. (Ret.), USA, George Mason University; David M. Luna, George Mason University; Louise Shelley, George Mason University; Laurie Nisonoff, Hampshire College. Matthew Stephenson, Harvard Law School; Dani Rodrik, Harvard University; June Zaccone, Hofstra University; Matteo M. Galizzi, London School of Economics (UK); John Hills, London School of Economics (UK); Simona Iammarino, London School of Economics (UK); Stephen Machin, London School of Economics (UK); Vassilis Monastiriotis, London School of Economics (UK); Cecilia Ann Winters, Manhattanville College (NY); Richard D. Wolff, New School University; Bilge Erten, Northeastern University; Mary C. King, Portland State University (OR); Angus Deaton, Princeton University; Kimberly A. Clausing, Reed College; Charles P. Rock, Rollins College (FL); Radhika Balakrishnan, Rutgers University; Aaron Pacitti, Siena College (NY); Smita Ramnarain, Siena College (NY). Vanessa Bouche, Texas Christian University; Nora Lustig, Tulane University; Karen J. Finkenbinder, U.S. Army War College; Max G. Manwaring, COL (Ret.), USA, U.S. Army War College; Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley; Ha-Joon Chang, University of Cambridge (UK); Ilene Grabel, University of Denver; Tracy Mott, University of Denver; Arthur MacEwan, University of Massachusetts, Boston; Valpy Fitzgerald, University of Oxford (UK); Frances Stewart, University of Oxford (UK); Michael Carpenter, University of Pennsylvania; Dorene Isenberg, University of Redlands (CA); Mike Findley, University of Texas; Gunseli Berik, University of Utah; Al Campbell, University of Utah; Elaine McCrate, University of Vermont; Stephanie Seguino, University of Vermont; Thomas Pogge, Yale University. State Attorneys General: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington. U.S. Administration Officials: Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, this is a win-win for protecting our citizens, and like every national security issue, it should have strong bipartisan support. If you care about protecting American citizens, you should be supporting this bill. {time} 1245 Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I am willing to stipulate that almost everything my two friends have just said is absolutely true. Law enforcement absolutely supports this provision. Law enforcement absolutely believes pursuing criminals will be easier under this provision. Now, it would also be easier if we allowed folks to kick in everybody's door, but we don't. Protecting civil liberties is about protecting American citizens. I am not even here today arguing that we have to include the amendment for the bill to go to the President's desk. I am here arguing that civil liberties deserve a conversation. Madam Speaker, we did not come in until noon today. We are not going to burn the midnight oil tonight. We did two small bills last week, in its entirety, coming out of the Rules Committee. We have the bandwidth to talk about civil liberties. It does not advantage us to pretend that folks who care about civil liberties are somehow a threat to democracy. People who care about civil liberties are the ones who have always protected democracy. Whenever bad things happen in this country, the pendulum automatically swings in favor of protection of the group against the protection of the civil liberties of the individual. It happened after 9/11. It happened after Pearl Harbor. It happens time and time again in this country. What was asked in the Rules Committee is that we take 5 minutes. That is not a figure of speech, Madam Speaker. It is actually 5 minutes that was requested to make the case on the floor that civil liberties were not being appropriately protected in this bill and that we could do better. The answer from the majority was, no, it is not worth 5 minutes. I stipulate that what my friends have said about the value of this legislation is absolutely true. So, when I offered the amendment that said let's do a cost-benefit analysis to document the truth of that, I expected the answer to be yes. The answer wasn't just no. The answer was, no, we don't even have the ability to do a cost-benefit analysis of this legislation. Madam Speaker, that is just nonsense. It is nonsense. I was asking for 5 minutes--literally, 300 seconds--to talk about whether or not American citizens were going to get the value out of this bill that was being suggested. The answer was, no, we don't have 300 seconds to spend talking about it. I would argue 300 seconds isn't enough. Three hundred seconds isn't enough to talk about civil liberties. Three hundred seconds isn't enough to talk about taxpayer responsibilities. But that was the ask, and that ask was declined. I can't come to the House floor with many of the rules that I am assigned to carry, Madam Speaker, and make this request because I don't have partners like the two partners that I have today. You may not have noticed it, Madam Speaker, and you are kind if you tell me that you didn't, but I am the least educated person on this House floor when it comes to this bill. I am the only one who doesn't sit on the committee. I am, today, down here discussing this with two Members who have dedicated their careers to the improvement of the financial services system in America, and I respect the time and effort they have committed to it. I respect their counsel. I don't believe these two individuals are threatened by 300 more seconds of debate on any issue. They know what they believe. They know why they believe it. They know why they believe what they believe is good for America, as do Members with opposing opinions. I can't ask, if we are down here talking about a tax bill, to have an open rule on a Ways and Means bill because that gets more complicated. I can't [[Page H8312]] ask, if we are down here on a Judiciary bill, to have an open rule on a Judiciary bill because that gets more complicated. What I have today, Madam Speaker, are two Members who have worked in a collaborative, bipartisan way to produce the very best bill they could out of their committee. I am asking for an opportunity for the other several hundred Members of this institution to have a voice in the debate. Just so that we are clear on what my ask is, Madam Speaker, to make all the amendments in order--all the amendments--to allow for the free and open debate that I am asking for, it would have taken 1,200 more seconds, 20 minutes. If the majority could have found, in its wisdom, 20 more minutes, every Member of this body could have been heard on an issue that you have heard the subject matter experts testify to how important it is. We have gotten out of the habit of listening to one another. We have gotten out of the habit of trusting one another. I don't argue that either one of those things has happened without cause and effect. There is a reason we are in the box that we are in. We have to find narrowly tailored pieces of legislation to begin to reverse that cycle. This is one of those narrowly tailored provisions. It modifies one part--one part--of what the Bank Secrecy Act tried to achieve. The Bank Secrecy Act was brought to the floor under a completely open rule with all voices to be heard. Now, we can't find 20 minutes to have a full-throated debate on this. If we defeat the previous question, I am going to amend the rule. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include the text of my amendment in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous question. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Georgia? There was no objection. Mr. WOODALL. It says: Upon adoption of this resolution, the Committees on the Judiciary, Ways and Means, Financial Services, Oversight and Reform, Foreign Affairs, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence shall suspend pursuing matters referred to by the Speaker in her announcement of September 24, 2019, until such a time as a bill implementing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement becomes law. That is a lot of text, Madam Speaker, and I am going to yield to one of my colleagues on the Rules Committee and a learned member of the Judiciary Committee to talk about it. But what it says, in effect, is that we have real legislative priorities that are not being met. We didn't find the 20 minutes for a full-throated debate here. We are not finding the bandwidth to work on a trade deal, the single best trade deal done in my lifetime, a trade deal supported by the leadership in this House, the leadership in the Senate, and by the White House, a trade deal that is going to make real differences to men and women across this country, in your district and in mine. It says let's stop the nonsense, let's stop the partisanship, and let's focus on some things that every single citizen in this country cares about. Let's prioritize that, and perhaps, in doing so, we will build some trust. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko), my friend from the Rules Committee, to discuss this amendment in detail. Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from Georgia for yielding me the time to speak on this critical issue for my district, for the State of Arizona, and for the country. First, before I get into the previous question amendment, I would like to note that, on the underlying bill, the ACLU, the Due Process Institute, and FreedomWorks all oppose the underlying bill because of civil rights protections they are worried about being lost. I represent Arizona's Eighth Congressional District, and I regularly speak to my constituents. My district overwhelmingly opposes impeachment. They believe it is a waste of time. They believe that Congress should be tackling real issues, and I believe many Americans across the country feel the same way. They are like, what is Congress doing? Why don't you get anything done? But Democrats have chosen to ignore the people they came to Congress to represent. They chose, instead, to prioritize impeachment. Instead of advancing legislation to make our Nation safer or to better the lives of our families, my Democratic colleagues have perpetuated a witch hunt to undo the 2016 election and to influence the 2020 election. One of the key legislative items that my Democratic colleagues have sacrificed is the USMCA, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. I have met with numerous Arizona businesses that have told me, over and over and over again, the importance of the USMCA. I have told them that I support it. I have told them I want this to pass in Congress. But as we all know, it hasn't moved. It hasn't been heard. My State of Arizona depends on trade with Canada and Mexico. Over 228,000 Arizona jobs are supported by U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico, and Arizona exports over $9 billion in goods and services to Canada and Mexico. We supply them with agricultural products, engines and turbines, and over $1 billion a year in metal ores. The USMCA would support this trade through numerous key provisions. For example, new customs and trade rules will cut red tape and make it easier for small businesses to participate in trade. It also protects American innovation by modernizing rules related to intellectual property. It also encourages greater market access for America's farmers. America and Arizona stand to benefit from passage of the USMCA, but we are not doing the USMCA because our Speaker will not put it on the floor for a vote. I ask the Democrats to put their constituents ahead of partisan politics and consider the USMCA immediately. I join my friend and Rules Committee colleague in urging Members to vote ``no'' on the rule and ``no'' on the previous question so that we can prioritize what is really important to America. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. To my friends Mrs. Lesko and Mr. Woodall from the Rules Committee, first, I remind my friend from Arizona that we are actually working on legislation that is bipartisan in nature and something that is tremendously serious that has to be addressed. Again, I would quote from the CNBC article of October 17, where it talked about these two cronies of Rudy Giuliani: ``Parnas and Fruman face other charges in the indictment, which alleges they created a shell company and then used it to donate to political committees, including a pro-Trump super-PAC, while concealing that they were the ones making the donations.'' So here we have, on the political side, the reason for this particular bill. There is a 36-story skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan at 650 Fifth Avenue, and I am reciting from an op-ed in The Washington Post, dated September 20, 2019: ``It is home to a Nike flagship store and previously housed the corporate offices of Starwood Hotels & Resorts. It was also secretly owned by the Iranian Government for almost 20 years. By running its ownership stake in the building through an anonymous front company, the Iranian regime took advantage of the fact that firms in the United States are not legally required to disclose who ultimately profits from and controls them.'' It goes on to say: ``The story of 650 Fifth Avenue is not anomalous. The United States has become one of the world's leading destinations for hiding and legitimizing stolen wealth.'' The purpose of this legislation, bipartisan in nature, is something that is very serious, and I appreciate the gentlewoman for having been so persevering to get this done, working with law enforcement, working with Republicans throughout. In fact, one of the major cosponsors, or somebody with whom Mrs. Maloney worked, was Mr. Luetkemeyer, a senior member of the Republican Party on the Financial Services Committee, to come up with language that was acceptable not only to him but 11 or 10 other Republicans on the committee. I would remind my friend Mr. Woodall that, in connection with civil [[Page H8313]] liberties that he was just talking about, Mr. Davidson raised his concern. He has on a number of occasions, and I have been there working with him on that subject. But he was defeated. This bill contains many civil rights and privacy components. It protects the privacy of any beneficial ownership. It ensures that law enforcement agencies requesting beneficial ownership information from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network have an existing investigatory basis for its requests so that there is already something going on. {time} 1300 There is an audit trail to make sure that that information is not being disclosed improperly, and there are penalties against the agencies if, in fact, there are improper disclosures. Now, I would also say--and I would remind my friend, and we talked about this last night at Rules--that when people get together and they operate under a corporation or a limited liability company, they are drawing on law to say: We want to operate this group, and we want to have protection from liability. We are going to operate as a corporation. We want the State to protect us--State of Colorado, State of Arizona--to protect us against us being personally liable, individually liable. All we are asking is stuff that you would put down on a normal bank account, which is the names of the individuals, their date of birth, their address, and identifying numbers; and, if they are from another country, we demand their passport numbers. This is not terribly intrusive. This is just basic information to make sure that we don't have bad actors and scoundrels and people who would like to undermine our Nation having phony bank accounts or shell companies owning skyscrapers in New York. So this is serious stuff. I have shared with the chairwoman concerns over time, and she has actually worked--not actually. She has worked with me to address concerns that I particularly have in saying that, before anybody is penalized for not disclosing information, they had to do it willfully or knowingly, and that negligence is not a basis for any kind of an action and that there are waivers if somebody had just made a mistake. So I just want to, again, thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney) for working with Democrats and Republicans and all sorts of groups across the country to come up with something that balances the need for real national security and law enforcement measures with privacy. We have allowed five amendments. Mr. Davidson, who, I am sure, will address some of his concerns when he brings up one of his amendments, is going to be entitled to speak. And if people don't like the bill, they can vote against it. My guess is it is going to get a strong bipartisan vote. I hope it does so that we can send it. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, you and I don't get to be down here on the rule together very often, and so I feel like I have got a fresh ear in you. My friend from Colorado, he and I discuss these matters all the time, so I understand his tone. It is as if I am saying this bill has no merit because, very often, we are down here and I am saying exactly that. This is a very different day that we are down here, and I want to say it again if I haven't said it loud enough. The chairwoman has worked incredibly hard to build a partnership on this issue. This bill came out of committee with broad bipartisan support. Madam Speaker, I don't believe I have handled a rule this year that has had the partisan divide erased and had folks collaborate to make a bill better. All I am asking for is, because we have such a wonderful work product, that we go ahead and let every voice be heard. In the same way that the gentleman from Colorado is used to me saying a bill has no merit whatsoever, he is used to defending silencing voices. It rolled off his tongue very easily: Oh, Mr. Davidson, he gets to offer another amendment. We don't need his other ideas. Well, for Pete's sake, he is a gentleman who serves on the Financial Services Committee. He has expertise that you and I do not have. He has a voice that needs to be heard on this floor. It was going to take 300 seconds for him to share it, and the answer was: No, no time for you. We are better than that. We don't always have the bills to demonstrate it; and what I am saying today is that we have a good, solid work product that addresses a concern that we all agree on. Why can't we make the time to make it better? They took that time in the Financial Services Committee, both in the two amendments they considered during the markup and in all the off- the-record discussions that have gone on behind closed doors, which are what really make bills better. I am just asking for the opportunity to get out of the habit of making excuses for why we don't want to hear from our friends and colleagues in this Chamber and getting back into the habit of recognizing not just the merit of their voice, but the responsibility we have to hear their voice. My friend from Colorado says, if you don't like this bill, just vote ``no.'' Well, there is some good stuff in this bill. My response would be: If you don't like the amendments I am going to offer, just vote ``no.'' But he used the power of the Rules Committee to silence those voices. We won't even have votes on those amendments. We have developed bad habits here as legislators. We don't always have the right leaders to lead us out of the corner in which we have strapped ourselves. We have the right leaders today on that side of the aisle, Madam Speaker, and that is why I am asking my colleagues--they wouldn't do it ordinarily, but I am asking my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that we can amend the rule. And, even better, defeat the rule so we can go back up, have every voice heard, come back to this Chamber, take a few extra minutes, perfect this bill, and then do exactly what the chairwoman wants done and exactly what my friend from Colorado wants done, and that is to send this bill out of this Chamber not with a perfunctory party-line bipartisan vote, but with a full-throated, hearty bipartisan endorsement that says we are speaking with one voice on an issue that is important from corner to corner of this institution. Madam Speaker, I had hoped that other learned voices would join me today. I find myself alone, and I would say to my friend from Colorado, I am prepared to close if he is. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I was going to say to my friend: That sounded like that was your closing. Should we just take it as that? Mr. WOODALL. Given that I did not hear either an ``amen'' or ``attaboy,'' I am thinking of saying it one more time in hopes that the response is different. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I don't have any other speakers. Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to say this as sincerely as I can. I know my colleagues believe me to be sincere. We bring a lot of bills to this floor where no effort was made whatsoever to include disparate voices, where the party line, and the party line alone, was the primary consideration. Madam Speaker, that has been a flawed habit when both Republican leaders have sat in that chair and when Democratic leaders have sat in that chair. That is not the bill we have before us today. The bill we have before us today, I have got a Republican from Georgia serving on the Financial Services Committee; I have got a Democrat from Georgia serving on the Financial Services Committee; and, truth be told, as often as not, they vote the same way on the Financial Services Committee. I can always tell when good legislation is coming out, because they are not voting with a Republican or Democratic agenda in mind; they are voting with the service of their constituents in Georgia in the forefront of their mind, and they vote side by side and move arm in arm. We don't always get that opportunity. And so, when we have it today, what a shame it is to waste it and not try to get back in the habit of doing a better job of hearing voices, defeating [[Page H8314]] those that need to be defeated, supporting those that need to be supported, and letting the Chamber work its will. The National Federation of Independent Business, NFIB, as we all know it, represents mom-and-pop shops across this country. They don't represent mom-and-pop businesses because they think that big businesses are bad. They represent mom-and-pop businesses because they think mom- and-pop businesses are good. This bill creates a new burden on those small businesses. That is undisputed. The question is: Is the burden worth it or not? We won't get to hear amendments on civil liberties to decide if it is worth it or not; we won't get to hear amendments on cost-benefit analysis to decide if it is worth it or not. And that is a shame. That is a shame. But when we have respected Members in this institution, respected policy shops outside of this institution saying, ``Hey, I just want to have my concerns heard by the full House,'' I think it is incumbent upon us to try to find some time to get that done. I am not encouraging folks to defeat the underlying bill. I am encouraging folks to work with me to perfect the underlying bill so that we can move it forward collaboratively. Defeat the previous question. Defeat the rule. Take this opportunity to do what all good institutions do. Madam Speaker, we need good leaders, and we need good followers. We have got the good leaders on the other side of the aisle today to get back in the habit of making every voice heard. What we need are some good followers to defeat this rule and give them a chance to do exactly that. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Colorado for yielding. I thank the chairwoman for her leadership on the issue. I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close. I always enjoy debating with my friend from Georgia on these rules matters, and, quite frankly, he has heaped a lot of praise on this particular piece of legislation, which it deserves. It has gone through the crucible of a lot of meetings and compromise and work with a lot of different groups. So I want to thank my colleagues for joining me here today to speak on the rule and the Corporate Transparency Act of 2019. Law enforcement needs to have the tools necessary to shed light on the true beneficial owners of shell companies in order to do their jobs and root out illicit financial activity. They need to be able to find out if Russians, Iranians, North Koreans, ISIS, al-Qaida, or criminal cartels may be engaging in questionable activity, and this legislation will help law enforcement do exactly that. It will also make the first major reforms to the Bank Secrecy Act and our anti-money laundering laws since 2001. These issues enjoy broad support from the law enforcement community, like the Fraternal Order of Police and the National District Attorneys Association, as well as human rights groups, anti-human trafficking organizations, banks and credit unions of all sizes, and many more. These are bipartisan issues we have been working on in the Financial Services Committee, and I urge all my colleagues to vote for the bill. I encourage a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the previous question. The material previously referred to by Mr. Woodall is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 646 At the end of the resolution, add the following: Sec. 2 Upon adoption of this resolution, the Committees on the Judiciary, Way and Means, Financial Services, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence shall suspend pursuing matters referred to by the Speaker in her announcement of September 24, 2019, until such time as a bill implementing the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement becomes law. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous question. The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it. Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair will reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on the question of adoption of the resolution. The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 228, nays 194, not voting 9, as follows: [Roll No. 571] YEAS--228 Adams Aguilar Axne Barragan Bass Beatty Bera Beyer Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Blunt Rochester Bonamici Boyle, Brendan F. Brindisi Brown (MD) Brownley (CA) Bustos Butterfield Carbajal Cardenas Carson (IN) Cartwright Case Casten (IL) Castor (FL) Castro (TX) Chu, Judy Cicilline Cisneros Clark (MA) Clarke (NY) Clay Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly Cooper Correa Costa Courtney Cox (CA) Craig Crist Crow Cuellar Cunningham Davids (KS) Davis (CA) Davis, Danny K. Dean DeFazio DeGette DeLauro DelBene Delgado Demings DeSaulnier Deutch Dingell Doggett Doyle, Michael F. Engel Escobar Eshoo Espaillat Evans Finkenauer Fletcher Foster Frankel Fudge Gallego Garamendi Garcia (IL) Garcia (TX) Golden Gomez Gonzalez (TX) Gottheimer Green, Al (TX) Grijalva Haaland Harder (CA) Hastings Hayes Heck Higgins (NY) Hill (CA) Himes Horn, Kendra S. Horsford Houlahan Hoyer Huffman Jackson Lee Jayapal Jeffries Johnson (GA) Johnson (TX) Kaptur Keating Kelly (IL) Kennedy Khanna Kildee Kilmer Kim Kind Kirkpatrick Krishnamoorthi Kuster (NH) Lamb Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lawrence Lawson (FL) Lee (CA) Lee (NV) Levin (CA) Levin (MI) Lewis Lieu, Ted Lipinski Loebsack Lofgren Lowenthal Lowey Lujan Luria Lynch Malinowski Maloney, Carolyn B. Maloney, Sean Matsui McAdams McBath McCollum McGovern McNerney Meeks Meng Moore Morelle Moulton Mucarsel-Powell Murphy (FL) Nadler Napolitano Neal Neguse Norcross O'Halleran Ocasio-Cortez Omar Pallone Panetta Pappas Pascrell Payne Perlmutter Peterson Phillips Pingree Pocan Porter Pressley Price (NC) Quigley Raskin Rice (NY) Richmond Rose (NY) Rouda Roybal-Allard Ruiz Ruppersberger Rush Ryan Sanchez Sarbanes Scanlon Schakowsky Schiff Schneider Schrader Schrier Scott (VA) Scott, David Serrano Sewell (AL) Shalala Sherman Sherrill Sires Slotkin Smith (WA) Soto Spanberger Speier Stanton Stevens Suozzi Swalwell (CA) Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Titus Tlaib Tonko Torres (CA) Torres Small (NM) Trahan Trone Underwood Van Drew Vargas Veasey Vela Velazquez Visclosky Wasserman Schultz Waters Watson Coleman Welch Wexton Wild Wilson (FL) Yarmuth NAYS--194 Abraham Aderholt Allen Amash Amodei Armstrong Arrington Babin Bacon Baird Balderson Banks Barr Bergman Biggs Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Bost Brady Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Buchanan Buck Bucshon Budd Burchett Burgess Byrne Calvert Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Chabot Cheney Cline Cloud Comer Conaway Cook Crawford Crenshaw Curtis Davidson (OH) Davis, Rodney DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Duncan Dunn Emmer Estes Ferguson Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Flores Fortenberry Foxx (NC) Fulcher Gaetz Gallagher Gianforte Gibbs Gohmert Gonzalez (OH) Gooden Gosar Granger Graves (GA) Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Green (TN) Griffith Grothman Guest Guthrie Hagedorn Harris Hartzler Hern, Kevin Herrera Beutler Hice (GA) Higgins (LA) Hill (AR) Holding Hollingsworth Hudson Huizenga Hunter Hurd (TX) Johnson (LA) Johnson (OH) Johnson (SD) Jordan Joyce (OH) Joyce (PA) Katko Keller Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger Kustoff (TN) LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Latta Lesko Long Loudermilk Lucas Luetkemeyer Marchant Marshall Massie Mast McCarthy McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley Meadows Meuser Miller Mitchell Moolenaar Mooney (WV) Mullin Murphy (NC) Newhouse Norman Nunes Olson Palazzo Palmer Pence Perry Posey Ratcliffe Reed Reschenthaler Rice (SC) Riggleman Roby Rodgers (WA) Roe, David P. Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rooney (FL) [[Page H8315]] Rose, John W. Rouzer Roy Rutherford Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Shimkus Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smucker Spano Stauber Stefanik Steil Steube Stewart Stivers Taylor Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tipton Turner Upton Wagner Walberg Walden Walker Walorski Waltz Watkins Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Woodall Wright Yoho Young Zeldin NOT VOTING--9 Allred Bishop (NC) Cole Collins (GA) Gabbard McEachin Peters Takano Timmons {time} 1342 Messrs. BABIN and RICE of South Carolina changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.'' Mr. VAN DREW and Mrs. HAYES changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.'' So the previous question was ordered. The result of the vote was announced as above recorded. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Underwood). The question is on the resolution. The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it. Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered. The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote. The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 227, nays 195, not voting 9, as follows: [Roll No. 572] YEAS--227 Adams Aguilar Axne Barragan Bass Beatty Bera Beyer Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Blunt Rochester Bonamici Boyle, Brendan F. Brindisi Brown (MD) Brownley (CA) Bustos Butterfield Carbajal Cardenas Carson (IN) Cartwright Case Casten (IL) Castor (FL) Castro (TX) Chu, Judy Cicilline Cisneros Clark (MA) Clarke (NY) Clay Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly Cooper Correa Costa Courtney Cox (CA) Craig Crist Crow Cuellar Cunningham Davids (KS) Davis (CA) Davis, Danny K. Dean DeFazio DeGette DeLauro DelBene Delgado Demings DeSaulnier Deutch Dingell Doggett Doyle, Michael F. Engel Escobar Eshoo Espaillat Evans Finkenauer Fletcher Foster Frankel Fudge Gallego Garamendi Garcia (IL) Garcia (TX) Golden Gomez Gonzalez (TX) Gottheimer Green, Al (TX) Grijalva Haaland Harder (CA) Hastings Hayes Heck Higgins (NY) Hill (CA) Himes Horn, Kendra S. Horsford Houlahan Hoyer Huffman Jackson Lee Jayapal Jeffries Johnson (GA) Johnson (TX) Kaptur Keating Kelly (IL) Kennedy Khanna Kildee Kilmer Kim Kind Kirkpatrick Krishnamoorthi Kuster (NH) Lamb Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lawrence Lawson (FL) Lee (CA) Lee (NV) Levin (CA) Levin (MI) Lewis Lieu, Ted Lipinski Loebsack Lofgren Lowenthal Lowey Lujan Luria Lynch Malinowski Maloney, Carolyn B. Maloney, Sean Matsui McAdams McBath McCollum McGovern McNerney Meeks Meng Moore Morelle Moulton Mucarsel-Powell Murphy (FL) Nadler Napolitano Neal Neguse Norcross O'Halleran Ocasio-Cortez Omar Pallone Panetta Pappas Pascrell Payne Perlmutter Peterson Phillips Pingree Pocan Porter Pressley Price (NC) Quigley Raskin Rice (NY) Richmond Rose (NY) Rouda Roybal-Allard Ruiz Ruppersberger Rush Ryan Sanchez Sarbanes Scanlon Schakowsky Schiff Schneider Schrader Schrier Scott (VA) Scott, David Sewell (AL) Shalala Sherman Sherrill Sires Slotkin Smith (WA) Soto Spanberger Speier Stanton Stevens Suozzi Swalwell (CA) Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Titus Tlaib Tonko Torres (CA) Torres Small (NM) Trahan Trone Underwood Van Drew Vargas Veasey Vela Velazquez Visclosky Wasserman Schultz Waters Watson Coleman Welch Wexton Wild Wilson (FL) Yarmuth NAYS--195 Abraham Aderholt Allen Amash Amodei Armstrong Arrington Babin Bacon Baird Balderson Banks Barr Bergman Biggs Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Bost Brady Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Buchanan Buck Bucshon Budd Burchett Burgess Byrne Calvert Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Chabot Cheney Cline Cloud Cole Comer Conaway Cook Crawford Crenshaw Curtis Davidson (OH) Davis, Rodney DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Duncan Dunn Emmer Estes Ferguson Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Flores Fortenberry Foxx (NC) Fulcher Gaetz Gallagher Gianforte Gibbs Gohmert Gonzalez (OH) Gooden Gosar Granger Graves (GA) Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Green (TN) Griffith Grothman Guest Guthrie Hagedorn Harris Hartzler Hern, Kevin Herrera Beutler Hice (GA) Higgins (LA) Hill (AR) Holding Hollingsworth Hudson Huizenga Hunter Hurd (TX) Johnson (LA) Johnson (OH) Johnson (SD) Jordan Joyce (OH) Joyce (PA) Katko Keller Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger Kustoff (TN) LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Latta Lesko Long Loudermilk Lucas Luetkemeyer Marchant Marshall Massie Mast McCarthy McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley Meadows Meuser Miller Mitchell Moolenaar Mooney (WV) Mullin Murphy (NC) Newhouse Norman Nunes Olson Palazzo Palmer Pence Perry Posey Ratcliffe Reed Reschenthaler Rice (SC) Riggleman Roby Rodgers (WA) Roe, David P. Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rooney (FL) Rose, John W. Rouzer Roy Rutherford Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Shimkus Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smucker Spano Stauber Stefanik Steil Steube Stewart Stivers Taylor Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tipton Turner Upton Wagner Walberg Walden Walker Walorski Waltz Watkins Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Woodall Wright Yoho Young Zeldin NOT VOTING--9 Allred Bishop (NC) Collins (GA) Gabbard McEachin Peters Serrano Takano Timmons {time} 1350 So the resolution was agreed to. The result of the vote was announced as above recorded. A motion to reconsider was laid on the table. Personal Explanation Mr. ALLRED. Madam Speaker, as I was back home in Dallas, Texas in light of the tornado and storm, I submit the following vote explanation. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 571, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 572. ____________________
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