Also tomorrow, the senate is expected to vote on the 9 11 Victim Compensation fund. In the house, legislation on Retirement Savings plans and border security. Watch the house live on our companion network cspan2. Tomorrow, Christopher Wray will testify in a hearing. Live coverage will be on cspan 3, starting at 10 00 a. M. Coming up on wednesday, the former special Counsel Robert Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary Committee and the house intelligence committee. That will begin at 8 30 a. M. Eastern, live on cspan and on our companion network, cspan3. It will also be online at cspan. Org. Listen with the free radio app. In 1979, a Small Network with an unusual name rolled out a big idea. Let they make up their own minds. Cspan opened the doors to washington policymaking for all to see, bringing you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. A lot has changed in 40 years, but today that big idea is more relevant than ever. On television and online, cspan is your unfiltered view of government, so you can make up your own mind. Brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Announcer coming up next, a hearing from the House Financial Services committee on facebooks plan to create a Digital Currency called libra. David marcus, leading the effort, testified before the committee and it said facebook would address the concerns of regulators before launching the currency. Rep. Waters the committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. This hearing is entitled examining facebooks proposed cryptocurrency and its impact on consumers, investors, and the American Financial system. Facd crypto currency and its impact on consumers, i now recognize myself for five minutes to get an opening statement. Today, we are here for a hearing on facebooks proposed Digital Currency, libra, and digital wallet, and of their impacts on consumers, investors and the Financial System. Our first witness is david marcus, the libra ceo. Digital currency. Digital wallet. Their impacts on consumers investments in the Financial System. David marcus ceo. Following his testimony a faneuil of experts on facebook plans. Serious concerns with the plans. Expanding the reach like mastercard. Huber, lift and spot a five facebook is trying to have a new Global Financial system to rival the u. S. Dollar. This venture is slated to be based in switzerland which has a history of a monetary haven. Facebook plan serious privacy trading. The policy concerns. Not only for facebook over 2 billion users we will have immediate access to these products. Also for consumers, investors in the global economy. In addition, facebook has has proposed with government currencies and government guaranteed securities and holding them for the socalled libra reserve to be governed bys facebook and its partners. I want to shift our government assets on such a massive scale with our proper oversight threatening to concentrate government influence in the hands of a few elites. Ultimately, facebooks plans coming to fruition. The company and the partners will yield immense economic power that could destabilize currency. Currencies and government. Facebook propose entry into the Natural Services is all the more troubling because it has already harmed vast numbers of people on a scale similar to wells fargo and demonstrated the pattern of failing to keep consumer data on a scale similar to equifax. Facebook remains under a 2011 Consent Order from the federal trade commission for deceiving consumers and failing to keep consumer data private. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytic scandal in which facebook provided 50 million users to a political consultant firm, the company will reportedly pay a record fine to the ftc privacy failures. In addition, facebook has allegedly insecure or at least scored use of passwords dating back to 2012. Unsuspected teenagers downloading spyware. Experience the hack of nearly 50 million accounts and experienced a software bug that granted access. 6. 8 million 8 million users photos. Also sued by hud and civil Rights Groups for violations of the Fair Housing Act in what amounts to modern day redlining. Facebook also allowed malicious state actors to purchase and target ads in a campaign to influence the 2016 elections. Also concerned about the lack of diversity in facebooks upper ranks. Fears that if these plans go forward, women and minority and women minority owned businesses may be excluded from participating fully. In light of these and other concerns, my colleagues and i wrote to facebook earlier this month to call up and sees implementation of its plans until regulators and congress can examine the issues associated with the Large TechnologyCompanies Developing a Digital Currency and take action. The independent Community Bankers of america and others, other support this commonsense step. Facebooks plan to also raise larger concerns about big tax expansion into Financial Services as it appears to inappropriately mix commerce and baking act dividends, today we will discuss a draft bill to keep big tech out of finance act which would prevent large platform utilities like facebook from becoming Financial Institutions and block them from creating their own currencies. Todays hearing is only the first step in our oversight and legislative process. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. The chair recognizes the Ranking Member of the committee, the gentleman from North Carolina for five minutes for an opening statement. We are here to go beyond the headlines. Sift through the speculation and the hearsay. Here is one of my favorite headlines which asks is facebook forming a crypto mafia as Libra Foundation members boost each others businesses. Washington must go beyond the hype and ensure that it is not the place where innovation goes to die. Just because we may not fully understand the new Technology Proposal does not mean we should immediately call for its prohibition. Especially when that proposal is just that. A proposal. Lets face it. Lets be honest. It is facebook. I am skeptical but we can either make you a political talking point or we can choose to conduct thoughtful governmental oversight. That is my hope for this day. Thoughtful government oversight. The reality is whether facebook is involved or not changes here. Digital currencies exist. Technology is real. Facebooks entry into this new world is confirmation. Albeit scale. The world the white paper envisioned and others are building is an unstoppable force. We should not attempt to deter this innovation. Governments cannot stop this innovation. Those that have tried have already failed. The question then becomes, what are american policymakers going to do to meet the challenges. And the opportunities of this new world of innovation. Some politicians want us to live in a permission based society where you need to come to government, ask for its blessing before you can even begin to think about innovating. Those are the politicians who would rather kill it before it grows. But, there are others that believe in the vibrance of american ingenuity. American innovation. Recognizing our economy filled off generations of entrepreneurs and innovators through competition. Through testing. Getting us here today. To be clear, it is not about advocating for a break it and figure it out later approach, but, when it comes to finances, we must ensure the consumers and investors are protected. Mr. Marcus, lets get to work. Lets have that conversation. Lets answer those questions. My republican colleagues and i want to first try and understand and in turn understand what our framework meets the demands of this new technology. That is why we are here today. I dont have a crystal ball. I have known idf itll lead to greater financial conclusion. Having the opportunity and would mean families could send money to each other more cheaply and easily than today or if it is just a ploy to shoot facebook through the roof. We will see. What i do know is this. Republicans stand ready to work with innovators to implement responsible technology here in the United States. Here domestically. I asked my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join together in supporting ingenuity in the spirit that this nation was founded upon. Im grateful for this hearing. This is a bipartisan approach to oversight. With that i would like to give the balance of my time to mr. Hill. I think the Ranking Member. Critical areas of jurisdiction within our committee. Oversight questions related to the use of an trading of crypto currency. In the intersections of Financial Services and big data. We therefore must ensure we are asking thoughtful questions as we learn about and analyze these rapidly emerging trends. I understand the importance with appropriate regulation and balance to benefit American Consumers. As lawmakers, we all need to ensure that the companies that operate here in america with American Consumers are in full compliance of those laws. America is evolving into a digital era and we need to make sure we are asking the right questions. The last two months and also identifies himself as working for facebook. Prior to this, mr. Marcus explored block chain and served as Vice President for messaging product for facebook. He has also served as president of paypal and other tech companies. Mr. Marcus, without objection, your written statement will be made part of the record. You will have five minutes to summarize your testimony. When you have one minute if remaining, a yellow light will appear. At that time i would ask you to wrap up your testimony so we can be respectful of both the Committee Members time and to others. Mr. Marcus, you are now recognized for five minutes to present your oral testimony. Thank you, chairwoman. Chairwoman waters, Ranking Member mchenry and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is david marcus, and im the head of libra at facebook where most of my life ive been a entrepreneur, or Building Products aimed at improving peoples lives. My focus has been in Financial Services. I became paypals president after it acquired my last startup, and i moved to facebook five years ago to run messenger and more recently to lead our block chain efforts. I describe the mechanics of libra. Today i want to explain why im optimistic about what libra can offer the world. Before i get there, i want to make clear we recognize we are only at the beginning of this journey. Fed chair powell has said we need to be patient and thorough. Secretary mnuchin reinforced those views at his recent press conference. We strongly agree with both of them. We will take the time to get this right. We expect a review of libra to be among the most extensive ever. We are fully committed to working with regulators here and around the world. Chairwoman waters, speaking on behalf of facebook, i pledged to you i pledge to you that facebook will not offer the libra Digital Currency until we have fully addressed regulators concerns and received appropriate approvals. Id like to start by sharing the vision for libra. Libra is intended to address an important problem. Imagine a daughter who wants to send money home to her mom in another country. Of the 200 she sends, 14 on average will be lost because of fees. It can also take several dayses or even a week for the mother to receive the money, a delay that can prove disastrous in an emergency. Not to mention lines may be long, and collection points may be in highcrime areas. But it doesnt have to be that way. Wouldnt it be easier and safer if people could securely and inexpensively receive money transfers through their smartphones just like they do for so many other things today . Thats what libra is about, developing a safe, secure and low cost way for people to efficiently move money around the world. To realize libras promise, facebook and 27 other organizations have founded the independent Libra Association. These include companies in the payments, technology, telecommunications, block chain and Venture Capital industries and nonprofits like womens world banking who is here today along with staff from the Libra Association. The Libra Association will govern the libra block Chain Network and administer the libra reserve. It will establish the rules of the road and will prioritize privacy and consumer protection, and it will implement safeguards that require Service Providers in the Libra Network to fight Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing and other financial crimes. We expect these safeguards will at least meet, if not exceed, existing standards and improve the integrity of the Global Financial system. When fully formed, we expect the Libra Association to include 100 diverse members. Facebook will only have one vote and will not be in a position to control the association. Nor will facebook or the Libra Association position themselves to interfere with monetary policy. In fact, the association will work with the Federal Reserve and other Central Banks to minimize the risk of any competition with their currencies or interference with their monetary policy. These are areas properly the province of Central Banks. Finally, i would like to turn to facebooks role in razeeing the potential realizing the potential of libra. To facilitate use, facebook has established a subsidiary that will offer one of many ding wallets. Consumers will be able to save, spend and send libra right from their smartphones. If this is successful, facebook will benefit from more commerce across the family that it operates. Calibra will be affordable, accessibling and also safe and secure with strong safeguards to protect users accounts and information. We expect that the calibra wallet will be governed by rules administered or enforced by the ftc, also regulated by state financial regulators. Calibra is committed to protecting the privacy of its customers, will not share individual customer day data wih the Libra Association or even with facebook except in limited circumstances such as complying with the law. Im excited about the potential that libra and calibra hold, and i am proud that we have initiated this effort here in the United States. I believe that if america doesnt lead i novation in Digital Currency and payments, others will. If our country fails to act, we could soon see a Digital Currency controlled by others whose values are dramatically are different from ours. I believe that libra can direct positive change for many people and provide an opportunity for leadership consistent with our shared values. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. I recognize myself for five minutes for questions. Mr. Marcus, facebooks 2. 7 billion users entrust you with their most intimate thoughts, pictures, feelings, ideas and sensitive information. Yet at every opportunity to demonstrate growth, competence and and responsibility, facebook has let are us down. Let us down. As i already noted, facebook has a long list of scandals including its repeated failures to safeguard its users data. You said that we dont need to trust facebook because it will only be one of 100 members in the Libra Association that will manage this product. This project. But thats not entirely true, is it . The project was facebooks idea. Facebook is spearheading it and recruiting partners. Facebook subsidiary, calibra, will provide consumers with a digital wallet to store libra tokens. As i understand it, no member of the association has paid anything towards the project. So my question is, why should we trust facebook to do these activities . Thank you, chairwoman. I think trust is really essential, and its clear weve made mistakes. I believe were owning these mistakes and working hard in remedying them and working hard at improving on all fronts. But as far as the Libra Association is concerned and the way that this project has been developed, we have invested everything that has been invested so far in libra, youre absolutely right, and we have built all of the code base of technology up to this point. But we have also given, donated if you will, the technology, because its now open source for the whole world to be able to use and leverage. As a result, we are not controlling the code base. And by the time we la