Waters’ Opening Statement at Markup

As Prepared for Delivery

Good morning. Today this Committee will mark up eight bills, and I am pleased to say that several of the bills we will take up today have bipartisan support. I am also proud to say that so far this Congress we have passed 38 bills out of this Committee and passed 24 bills off the House floor. These bills benefit consumers, investors and small businesses, and protect vulnerable families.

Last week, this Committee passed four bills to fix problems with the nation’s deeply broken consumer credit reporting sector. Today we will consider two more bills to reform consumer credit reporting and protect consumers.

We will consider a bill introduced by Representative Pressley that helps private student loan borrowers remove adverse information for certain defaulted or delinquent loans when they demonstrate a history of timely repayment, shortens the time that adverse private student loan information can stay on the report and provides credit reporting relief for borrowers who were defrauded or misled by an educational institution. Additionally, we will consider Representative Lynch’s bill to establish clear federal oversight of the development of credit scoring models by directing the Consumer Bureau to set standards.

Today we will also mark up several capital markets and investor protection bills. We will consider a bill by Representative Sylvia Garcia to create a whistleblower program at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a bill by Representative Gonzalez to provide the SEC with a statute of limitation of ten years for civil monetary penalties, and a bill by Representative Porter to enhance the SEC’s ability to impose civil monetary penalties for violations of securities law.

We will also consider a bill by Representative Axne to require public companies to annually disclose the total number of employees they employ in each state and foreign country, as well as the percentage change from the previous year, and a bill by Representative Casten to require public companies to disclose information relating to the financial and business risks associated with climate change in their annual reports

Lastly, we will take up Representative Green’s bill to permanently authorize the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief (CDBG-DR) program and strengthen administration and oversight of the program.

I’d like to thank the Members for their good work on these bills and I am pleased to move them forward for consideration by the Committee today.

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