Will be conducted as fiveminute votes. The Unfinished Business is ordering the previous question on House Resolution 658. The clerk house calendar number 410, House Resolution 658, resolution providing for consideration of the bill h. R. 1638 to require the secretary of the freshy to submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees on the estimated total assets under direct or indirect controls by iranian leaders and providing for consideration of the bill h. R. 4324 to require the secretary of the treasury to make certifications with respect to United States and foreign Financial Institutions aircraftrelated transactions involving iran and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore the question is on ordering the previous question. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a 15minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 229 and the nays are 189. The previous question is ordered. Question is on adoption of the resolution. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. Mr. Speaker, i ask for a recorded vote. The speaker pro tempore a recorded vote is requested. Those favoring a recorded vote will rise. A sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of epresentatives. ] the speaker pro tempore on this vote, the yeas are 238 and the nays are 182. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. For what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition . Mr. Woodall mr. Speaker, by the direction of the committee on rules, i call up House Resolution 657 and ask for its immediate consideration. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. Members will clear the aisles, take your conversations from the floor. The clerk will report the resolution. The clerk house calendar number 109, House Resolution 657. Resolved, that upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the house the bill h. R. 2396, to amend the grammleachbliley act to update the exception for certain annual notices provided by Financial Institutions. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the committee on Financial Services now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. 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, one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on Financial Services, two, the further amendment printed in the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution, if offered by the member designated in the report, which shall be in order without intervention of any point of order, shall be considered as read, shall be separately debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question, and three, one motion to recommit with or without instructions. Section 2, upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the house the bill h. R. 4015, to improve the quality of proxy Advisory Firms for the protection of investors and the u. S. Economy, and in the public interest, by fostering accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and competition in the proxy Advisory Firm industry. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. An amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of rules Committee Print 11546 shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any urther amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except, one, one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on Financial Services, and two, one motion to recommit with or ithout instructions. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from georgia is recognized for one hour. Mr. Woodall thank you very much, mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during consideration of this resolution, all time is yielded for the purpose of debate only, but i would like to yield half of my time, 30 minutes, to my friend from colorado, mr. Polis, pending which i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Woodall mr. Speaker, id also like to ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to evise and extend their remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Woodall mr. Speaker, ive had the opportunity over the last couple of weeks to bring a number of bills from the Financial Services committee to the floor. We talk so much about regular order and having a process where the committees are doing their work, where the authorizers are deep into the details and then were bringing those bills to the floor for the entire house to vote on. We have that opportunity again today. Mr. Speaker, the rule today brings two bills to the floor. H. R. 2396, which is the privacy notification technical clarification act. Brings that under a structured rulemaking in order the only amendment that was offered, a bipartisan amendment offered by mr. Clay and mr. Trott, and it also brings h. R. 4015 to the floor, mr. Speaker. Thats the Corporate Governance reform and Transparency Act of 2017. We do not have any germane amendments offered so we bring that under a closed rule today. Mr. Speaker, id remind my colleagues, as is the way of my chairman on the rules committee, a notice was sent out to all members and will to be sent out to all members for each set of bills that we consider in the rules committee soliciting any amendments or ideas that folks may have. We sent out that notification, but for these two bills, we received only one germane amendment. Mr. Speaker, i wont go into great detail about these individual bills because were fortunate to have the sponsors here on the floor for the rule today. But what i do want to say is that this is another series in a line of commonsense authorizing pieces of legislation, things that moved through committee in a bipartisan way. Theyre going to make life just a little bit easier for the American People. We have a chance today if we support this noncontroversial rule to bring these two noncontroversial bills to the floor and make that difference together, a difference we all came to washington to make. With that, mr. Speaker, id ask all my colleagues to consider supporting this rule as well as supporting the two underlying pieces of legislation, and i would reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from colorado is recognized. Mr. Polis i thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Polis mr. Speaker, i rise in opposition to this rule. Looking that we are at today has two bills under it. This is the 56th closed rule, allowing no amendments that were bringing to the floor this year. Over the past year we have not considered any legislation under an open rule that would allow republicans or democrats to bring forward amendments here on the floor. When the 115th congress opened, speaker ryan promised regular order bills would make their way to the floor after hearings and markups. Instead, we have seen bill after bill rushed to the floor, many bills havent gone through committee or skipped hearings. Thats true for the failed health care bill. Its also true for the tax bill currently in conference, the major bill this congress. This tax bill that somehow we understand there is a, quoteunquote, deal on before the Conference Committee even met, was crafted behind closed doors and no member was able to offer their ideas on the house floor. I offered several bipartisan amendments in the rules committee, but they were locked out as were amendments from every other democrat and republican that chose to offer amendments. The tax legislation would explode our debt. Its a giveaway to wealthy corporations, and does nothing to help the middle class. Now, the benefit of having an open process is creating better ideas, having democrats and republicans bring forward their ideas, see who can muster a majority of votes here on the floor of the house, and include that in the tax bill. Were a legislature. Thats how were supposed to work. Instead, a bill is crafted behind closed doors, to raise taxes on 78 million americans and add 1. 7 trillion to the debt. When you add to the debt, that is a tax on future americans. Instead of taxes them today youre taxing them tomorrow, and the tax and spend Republican Party continues to add to the deficit and add to the debt day after day after day. Look, we only have a few legislative days left before the end of the year, and we have very important work to do like reauthorizing the Childrens HealthInsurance Program and funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. Theres millions of americans have that have been devastated by hurricanes in texas, louisiana, puerto rico, florida, the Virgin Islands and congress has not stepped up to the plate. Theres over 800,000 aspiring americans that are at risk of being deported from the only country they have ever known as home because of the reckless inactions of President Trump. Congress needs to act to find a real solution so dreamers can continue to work legally in the communities that they live in and they continue to thrive and give back to make our country even greater. So we have a lot of critical tasks ahead, which is why im really surprised with all of this work to do and only seven or eight days to do it that here we are considering two bills where well have our debate but theyre not theyre not bills of great importance. Were using our floor time very limited, seven days before the end of the year, when we could be debating tax reform and offering amendments, when we could be addressing the needs of the dreamers, when we could actually be doing something about the deficit, reining in outofcontrol wasteful government spending. Were not doing any of that. Were doing two minor bills that are, you know, favors for Public Companies or whoever they are, happy to talk about them. Will do my role in debating. One i am even supportive of, but theyre completely separated from the actual concerns of the American People. No wonder the Approval Rating of this institution is under 15 . Because we continue to debate these minor bills under a closed process when with this very week we could have had an open process for tax reform. We could be voting on 10, 20 amendments a day, passing some and rejecting some. I have no problem if i bring forward some democratic amendment and it fails. Thats the process. Thats fair. But we have bipartisan, commonsense amendments that should be part of tax reform. Representative schweikert and i have a bill to provide a de minimis exemption on taxation for use of krypto currencies, for amounts to be used in everyday purchases 600. Lets put a vote on it. I hope a majority of congress agrees. If not, im a big boy. I can go home. They wont be able to fight for the issues that my constituents have hired me to fight for. Its not only the frustration i have, not only the frustration many republicans have but its the frustration of the american that the American People have with this institution. Now, lets get to these bills. Look, again, typically the Financial Services committee did not hold a hearing on either of these bills. Its a closed bill. H. R. 2396, the privacy notification technical , sharing on act information with third parties and, look, were all for reducing unnecessary regulations. When i get to the next bill, the republicans are actually trying to add paperwork and regulations, but this one does. But it picks a very to get rid of one. It gets rid of privacy notices from Financial Institutions that tell consumers that they can share or sell your personal information. Of all the places to cut paperwork, why would you want to cut the one piece that consumers and retailers actually care about . Back in september, 143 million americans had their personal and Sensitive Information shared widely as a result of a data breach at equifax. Congress should be looking at ways to better secure our Sensitive Information, a cybersecurity bill, better information sharing. Instead, of actually making it easier for our personal information to be shared more widely and giving you as a consumer less ability to find out where its being shared. A hearing would be helpful to understand the full effects of this legislation to see what the unintended consequences are , and we do know that it would eliminate clear disclosure to consumers about their privacy rights. Never a good thing, especially in these times, including consumers ability of opting out having their information sold to third parties. We can do better. He other bill, h. R. 4015 makes a change to how proxy Advisory Firms provide information to shareholders and would require they make their recommendations available to companies. This bill is problematic from a number of perspectives, so heres what it does. Proxy Advisory Firms provide independent Advisory Services for investors and have fiduciary responsibility to their investors. Under this legislation, they would actually have to open themselves up to lobbying for companies and add additional paperwork, theyd have to register with the s. E. C. Whereas they now dont before trying to issue vote recommendations or trying to change the corporate board. So heres who the players are in this fight. On the one hand you have Public Companies. On the other you have investors, which means your pension fund and mine, mr. Speaker. It means university endowments. I know you all dont like those and youll tax them soon. It means perhaps you as an individual investor through a mutual fund or other vehicles. So investors on one side, public corporations on the other. But the problem is its not the shareholders of the Public Companies. Its the insular governance and management structures of those organizations, and many of them do need to be shaken up in the name of efficiency. There are many examples of investor pressure thats been applied to good effect, to meaningful reforms in Corporate Governance, preventing conflicts of interest, making sure the board that oversees the c. E. O. Are not just his golfing buddies and hes only the board or shes on the board of their companies too. So ive generally been on the side of investor empowerment on that. You know, not to the extreme, not to make it impossible to be c. E. O. On a publicly traded company, to run a publicly traded company but if anything we should make sure that the actual owners of the company are empowered to make the changes they need to increase efficiency. This bill goes the wrong way. It adds red tape, adds paperwork and adds regulations to investors, and prevents them from being able to exert influence in the same way they do today, adding one degree of additional regulation and paperwork to allow them to do the kinds of Good Governance activities in terms of running competitive fights for boards of directors. I get theres another side. There could be a steaming underbelly to investor engagement as well. There are some that care only about shortterm gains, that try to institute practices or bully management in a way thats not conducive for longterm value, rather bump, pump and dump schemes that they try to make money off of and i totally get that, but in general it is the owners of the company to whom the fiduciary responsibilities of the directors and c. E. O. Lie and we should empower them for better or for worse to make the changes to increase the overall productivity of the company. We should not burden investors with additional red tape, as republicans are doing, by creating more bureaucracy and paperwork and Compliance Costs with this bill. Frankly, i was surprised to see this bill come out of Financial Services because republicans have been fairly consistent in trying to remove regulations from doddfrank. Thats generally been the approach. I supported the removal of some of those unnecessary regulations. Others are important regulations, like this