Committee Remark

Thank you, Chairman Garrett, for holding this hearing this morning.

Improving the regulation of brokers, investment advisors and other financial professionals was a central goal of Dodd-Frank, and is crucial to ensuring that families are protected as they save for retirement, their children's education, or to buy a home.

Chairwoman Capito and Chairwoman Biggert, thank you so much for holding this hearing this morning.

The recent near-collapse of our financial system taught us that capital is essential to fostering a more robust banking system – one that can both protect us from another crisis like the one we saw in 2008, and also ensure that lending to homeowners and small businesses continues even when we experience an economic downturn.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to thank our distinguished witnesses for agreeing to participate this afternoon.

Next week marks the one-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act becoming law. This legislation brought sweeping reforms to our financial regulatory system so that we can avoid another economic meltdown similar to that of 2008.

The following remarks were made by Congresswoman Waters during a joint subcommittee hearing on the implementation of the JOBS Act. The hearing included members of the House Financial Services Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Commitee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding a hearing this morning on the important issue of implementation of the JOBS Act.

Congresswoman Waters delivered the following opening statement during a hearing on Accounting and Auditing Oversight.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing this morning.

Investors in my district – including workers with investment in pension funds – have a strong interest in enhancing auditor independence. After all, it's the auditors that are supposed to reassure investors that they can trust the financial reports of the companies they've given their life savings to.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. While many observers still disagree about the central cause of the financial crisis, we know that among many other factors, proprietary trading did play a role in the 2008 economic collapse. Proprietary trading has indeed produced tremendous profits for some of our largest financial firms, but it also contributed to losses during the height of the financial crisis.

And ultimately, this is why Congress acted and directed our regulators to institute a ban on proprietary trading for those firms that have access to the taxpayer-backed federal safety net.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing this morning.

Under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Congress responded to one key cause of the 2008 financial crisis - the unregulated over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market. Through the Act, the Congress tasked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with bringing much-needed transparency to this market, which amplified the collapse of the housing bubble and cascaded losses across the global financial system.

Opening Statement & Amendment Statements

Opening

Mr. Chairman, I am deeply, deeply opposed to H.R. 1315, which would decrease the threshold needed for the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to override regulations issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from a 2/3 super-majority, to a simple majority, and would exclude the CFPB from voting.

Honestly, I have to ask if my Republican colleagues at all remember the utter failures of our banking regulators leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.