Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1170, I call up the bill (H.R. 2543) to amend the Federal Reserve Act to add additional demographic reporting requirements, to modify the goals of the Federal Reserve System, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. 2543 and to insert extraneous material thereon.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2543, the Financial Services Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Economic Justice Act, landmark legislation focused on promoting racial and economic justice.

This bill was introduced by Financial Services Committee Chairwoman, the Honorable Maxine Waters, and it includes several provisions authored by members of the committee. Unfortunately, Chairwoman Waters couldn't be here today, but I would like the Record to reflect not only her authorship of this bill but also her unwavering commitment to achieving equity and inclusion on behalf of communities of color.

Today's House consideration of H.R. 2543 is historic in that for the first time in our Nation's history, the U.S. House of Representatives is voting on a comprehensive package of legislation to finally address inequity with equity and inclusion in terms of financial access, economic mobility, and fair treatment.

Today, I boldly and proudly say that this would not have been possible without the Honorable Chairwoman Waters' leadership. This bill is needed because racial disparities in lending, homeownership, and wealth creation are all too real.

For some, invidious discrimination, Mr. Speaker, is only a phrase. However, for too many others, it is a fact of life. According to the Brookings Institution, the racial wealth gap between White and Black households is more than $10 trillion. The onerous wealth gap is perpetuated by the toleration of ongoing discrimination, redlining, and systemic barriers to accessing financial credit and services.

Some of my colleagues across the aisle may say that the House shouldn't address this important issue. They may say that the House should ignore these very real, well-documented disparities and focus on getting inflation under control, to which I say, this bill deals with the very real inflationary pressures that people of color experience in their daily lives. Too often, Mr. Speaker, consumers and businesses from low-income communities and communities of color suffer invidious discrimination as they struggle to access capital and credit.

Chairwoman Waters said it best, and I was there to hear her say it, when she spoke before the Rules Committee this week. She noted that this type of discrimination is a form of inflation in communities of color. She indicated that when you add up inflated fees in tandem with inflated interest rates, simple loans cost more for people of color than others taking out the same loan in a different community.

This, of course, assumes that you are lucky enough to qualify for the loan in the first place. If you are not, then your options to build wealth are severely limited because you can't buy a home or start a small business. In fact, your only option for credit might be an inflated predatory payday loan that leaves you worse off, not better.

This is inflation that people of color experience each day, and we should be just as outraged and concerned about these needlessly inflated high costs as we are about the general inflation we are experiencing during the pandemic. And I would further argue that addressing this form of inflation will bring down costs for everyone because, as my colleagues across the aisle are fond of saying, a rising tide lifts all boats.

We also know that general inflation disproportionately hurts people of color, which is why this bill directs the Federal Reserve, as it carries out its duties to rein inflation in and promote full employment, to also consider racial disparities so that all people--all people--will benefit from the Fed's dual mandate.

Members of the LGBTQIA-plus community also face discrimination in lending. This is why it leads to higher costs for them as well. We shouldn't stand for this during any time of the year, but I am pleased to be among those fighting for LGBTQIA-plus justice during Pride Month. This is why H.R. 2543 includes my bill H.R. 166, the Fair Lending for All Act, which furthers fair lending by clarifying that lending discrimination is prohibited not only on the basis of race, Mr. Speaker, but also on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, and geography. This bill enhances supervision and establishes criminal penalties for fair lending violations.

Let's take a closer look at fair lending at this time. Every person who purchases a home should be able to read and understand their mortgage documents. This is why common sense should prevail. However, that is not the reality for many home buyers in our country today. This is why the bill includes robust language, robust language to access the requirements for a mortgage, and these mortgage conditions should be made clear in languages that people understand. It requires servicers to expand and preserve the dream of homeownership for borrowers with limited English proficiency. Chairwoman Waters' bill will also support the efforts of community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, and minority depository institutions, or MDIs, that fill a historic lending gap in underserved communities across this country. And it would mitigate banking deserts by allowing credit unions to serve areas that banks have ignored or abandoned.

Moreover, this legislation includes another bill of mine, H.R. 2516, the Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Banking Act, which would require Federal banking regulators to evaluate policies and procedures banks and credit unions have to promote diversity and inclusion.

I thank Chairwoman Waters for her continued leadership, her bold leadership, as well as my colleagues and members of the Financial Services Committee for their tireless work, including Representatives Meeks, Cleaver, Beatty, Garcia of Texas, Torres, and Auchincloss.

Mr. Speaker, the pandemic has exacerbated and exposed many truths about our Nation's inequitable housing and financial systems, as well as its outsized impact on low-income families and communities of color. It is incumbent on this Congress to finally address these disparities, and that is precisely what Chairwoman Waters' bill will do.

Hence, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 2543, the Financial Services Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Economic Justice Act.
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Mr. GREEN of Texas.

Mr. Speaker, we are witnessing now why we have the invidious discrimination that exists in this country. Not one word has been said about the invidious discrimination, the high cost in loans that people of color suffer. Not one word is being said about it. Rather, there is always an effort to deflect. This has been going on for centuries, but not today. It ends today.

I will read from an article entitled: ``Examining the Black-White wealth gap'' from the Brookings Institution dated February 27, 2020. ``A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical White family is nearly 10 times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016. Gaps in wealth between Black and White households reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this Nation's inception.''

And this is why it continues, because people on that side of the aisle are willing to tolerate invidious discrimination. They will talk about anything but invidious discrimination. They have no remedies.

Mr. Speaker, inflation does care about your race if you happen to be a person of color and you are applying for a loan.

Inflation does care about your race if you happen to have fees added on that you shouldn't have simply because you are a person of color.

People of color have to deal with general inflation and the specific inflation associated with invidious discrimination, and it is the intolerance by my colleagues across the aisle through the centuries that has perpetuated this level of inflation.

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Garcia).

People of color are constituents. People of color are Americans. People of color deserve the opportunity to have equality of opportunity.

Hundreds of years have gone by, and this is what we are getting as a result of those who would ignore the concerns of Americans of color.

Mr. Speaker, the Brookings Institution indicates that the Black and White wealth gap reflects a society that has not and does not afford equality of opportunity to all of its citizens. This is evidenced today by the responses that we are getting.

No effort to deal with the centuries of inequality. No desire to deal with invidious discrimination. Always a reason why we can't get to it right now. I have been in Congress for years--never addressing this problem.

Mr. Speaker, today is a day of reckoning for all of those who have been hiding behind other issues. Today they have to confront the truth. There is invidious discrimination in America, it impacts the LGBTQ- plus, it impacts people of color, and women as well, and today we have legislation because of the Honorable Maxine Waters' efforts that can deal with these issues.

Mr. Speaker, people of color are clobbered every day by higher interest rates. They are clobbered every day by loans that have fees that are higher than loans for people of a different hue. These are the things that are being perpetuated when they tolerate this kind of behavior. For centuries they tolerated it.

Now we have the opportunity to do something about it. Let's eliminate these costs for some people so that we can deal with the costs for everybody. Until that is done, we have to have this bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have just heard a great recitation on how to do nothing; how to maintain the status quo; how to be proud that you can stand up in the House of Representatives and defend the status quo for some 300 years.

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, it is painful to hear a Member of Congress talk about reckless spending when that spending is what was necessary during the pandemic.

Is it reckless spending to allow people to receive some sort of help when they couldn't go to work, Mr. Speaker?

My colleagues across the aisle would not have helped the American people who were out of work during a pandemic because it would be reckless spending.

Is it reckless spending to keep people in their homes and not allow them to be foreclosed on?

My colleagues across the aisle would have allowed people to be evicted and their things thrown in the streets because to them, helping people in a time of crisis is reckless spending.

Is it reckless spending to put food on the table of people who can't go to work?

Is it reckless spending to make sure babies and children who are going to school get proper schools that can protect them during a virus and a pandemic that was killing people worldwide?

We put money into schools. We put money into police departments and fire departments. But that is reckless spending to my colleagues across the aisle.

They are the best on the planet at doing nothing. Do-nothing politics is what that is all about. They find clever ways to find an opportunity to do nothing by saying things that mean nothing to the people who need help.

Reckless spending. How dare they call it reckless spending when people are suffering and need help.

Now, let me continue with the Brookings Institution with my final minutes.

This is from the Brookings Institution: ``Efforts by Black Americans to build wealth can be traced back throughout American history. But these efforts have been impeded in a host of ways, beginning with 246 years of chattel slavery and followed by congressional mismanagement . . . `'

Let me repeat that: by congressional mismanagement.

`` . . . of the Freedmans Savings Bank, which left 61,144 depositors with losses of nearly $3 million in 1874, the violent massacre decimating Tulsa's Greenwood District in 1921, a population of 10,000 that thrived as the epicenter of African-American business and culture, commonly referred to as Black Wall Street, and discriminatory policies throughout the 20th century including the Jim Crow Eras `Black Codes' strictly limiting opportunity in many Southern States . . . . `'

Mr. Speaker, today has been the best evidence we need of why invidious discrimination exists in this country, because there are people across the aisle who will tolerate it and who will come to this floor and talk about Americans as though you have to be White to be an American, as though people of color don't count, as though the LGBTQ- plus community doesn't count, and that women don't count. To them, Mr. Speaker, if you are a White man, you are an American.

But what about the rest of the people in this country who suffer?

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day to hear my colleagues across the aisle speak of reckless spending when people were suffering.

I thank God that we have the courage to help people in a time of need. If I could do it again, I would do it because I saw the suffering. Perhaps they don't see the suffering that I see. But I saw it, and I was prepared to do something about it.

I believe that in the final analysis, those who refuse to tolerate the kind of invidious discrimination that we suffer each day in this country, they will be vindicated. They will be vindicated.

I am grateful for the time, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution 1170, I offer amendments en bloc No. 1.

Mr. Speaker, the 23 amendments offered in this en bloc are a terrific example of a working legislative process, a process through which well- considered legislation is further strengthened by the intellect, experience, and values of the House Democratic Caucus.

These amendments broaden this package's commitment to equity by ensuring that information is gathered regarding loans made to veterans, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ-plus community, which will help reveal unfair or discriminatory practices against these communities.

We also have amendments that will ensure economic data are disaggregated within racial and ethnic groups, in recognition of the lived experiences across different communities.

The package is further bolstered by timely and necessary reporting ensuring that communities of color and low-income communities have access to wealth-building opportunities, including purchasing their first home and accessing capital.

Furthermore, this package includes amendments that will help us to better understand and address the country's growing affordable housing and homelessness crises that have disproportionately affected people of color.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support these amendments being considered en bloc.

Mr. Speaker, this is not another mandate. This is simply a requirement that the Fed fulfill its two mandates, the dual mandates to all of its people, to make sure that all people have price stability. This is what it is about.

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have remaining?

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Tlaib).

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Pressley).

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Brown).

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Jackson Lee).

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2543 represents a seismic and powerful response to racial discrimination in financial products. Thank you to Chairwoman Waters, and to my colleague who is managing, for the leadership given.

My amendment is very important. I am pleased that my amendment is included in the en bloc amendment that the Financial Services Committee has today.

It requires the Federal Reserve Board to submit a report to Congress about the prevalence of racial discrimination in lending to victims of a Federally declared disaster. I know it well.

This amendment merits the support of all of my colleagues because no district is exempt from natural disasters. I am reminded of 2017, among others, in my district where it was devastated by Hurricane Harvey over an area of 41,500 square miles, 21 trillion gallons of rainfall, and one-third of Houston underwater.

There was major discrimination against Black and Brown Houstonians who sought loans or home loans or financing to pay for repairs. They faced obstacles, delays, and outcomes that were different than their neighbors.

Mr. Speaker, this endemic discrimination was seen in efforts to gain assistance from the Small Business Administration.

Mr. Speaker, as an outspoken advocate for equity in this country's economy, I rise in support of the Financial Services Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Economic Justice Act.

This bill requires that financial services regulators and companies establish procedures to ensure racial equity and eliminate racial disparities in all aspects of their operations including employment, income, wealth, and access to affordable credit.

In addition to the reforms in H.R. 2543, the bill requires regulators to provide reports to Congress about economic inequality, especially within the labor force, and enact plans to minimize said inequalities.

America's economy has only rarely worked to the advantage of working- class people. Worse still, there has been an endemic and vile trend of implicit and perhaps explicit discrimination against people of color within policies and overall economic policy.

However, unfair monetary policy is not just an anachronism from long ago or a relic from a different era. It is happening now.

Recent analyses have found that algorithms used by lenders often are designed in such a way that they result in black and brown Americans being charged higher interest rates.

This legislation takes a major step toward fixing long-overdue-- disparities and fundamentally changing the financial services industry to make it proactive in fighting economic discrimination.

I am also very pleased that my amendment is included in the En Bloc Amendment that the Financial Services committee is bringing before the House today.

My amendment requires the Federal Reserve Board to submit a report to Congress about the prevalence of racial discrimination in lending to victims of a federally declared disaster.

This amendment merits the support of all of my colleagues because no district is exempt from natural disasters, and with the acceleration of climate change, it is increasingly likely that these events will occur even in areas of the country that previously felt insulated from them.

When disasters occur, our Nation has a moral and legal duty to facilitate their recovery and rebuilding. It is totally unacceptable and abhorrent for racial or ethnic discrimination to be injected into decisions on financial factors impacting remedial action.

However, in some instances, discrimination--whether by intent or effect--has occurred during these moments of greatest need.

For example, in 2017, my district in Houston was one of the many in Texas devastated by Hurricane Harvey. Over an area of 41,500 square miles spanning Texas and Louisiana, the storm dropped nearly 21 trillion gallons of rainfall and damaged 203,000 homes, of which 12,700 were destroyed.

At its peak on September 1, 2017, one third of Houston was underwater, and over 300,000 structures of all types were flooded in southeastern Texas, where extreme rainfall hit many areas that are densely populated.

Hurricane Harvey was the largest housing disaster to strike the U.S. in our Nation's history. When the cleanup began, thousands of Houstonians needed loans to help rebuild their homes and their lives.

But black and brown Houstonians who sought loans or home loan refinancing to pay for repairs faced obstacles, delays, and outcomes that were different from their other neighbors. This endemic discrimination was seen in efforts to gain assistance from the Small Business Administration.

If there was ever a moment when our financial systems need to fully support minority communities, it is after they have been decimated by a natural disaster.

For majority Houstonians who applied and received a $200,000 loan from the Small Business Administration or $25,000 by virtue of a government declaration, the process was streamlined. They could also apply for and receive $40,000 from the SBA to replace or repair personal property--such as clothing, furniture, cars, and appliances-- that was damaged or destroyed in the disaster.

The SBA asks applicants for collateral, such as a first or second mortgage on the damaged real estate, which are common forms of collateral for an SBA disaster loan.

In the case of majority applicants, it was found that the SBA usually would not decline a loan for lack of collateral.

However, for black and brown families, the system worked differently. Financing was difficult to access. Applications for loans from black and brown residents were less likely to be approved than applications from their white counterparts.

My amendment protects black and brown Americans who face the consequences of a debilitating natural disaster. It would guarantee their protection from unfair policies in their most vulnerable moments.

Fighting economic discrimination should be a bipartisan issue. No American deserves to be left behind because of antiquated monetary policy or a federal government that refuses to fight on their behalf.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to recognize the discrimination and to fix it by adding the Jackson Lee amendment.

I include in the Record an article titled: ``Black Communities are Last in Line for Disaster Planning in Texas.'' [From the Washington Post, May 12, 2022] Black Communities Are Last in Line for Disaster Planning in Texas

Houston.--Lawrence Hester worries every time it rains. During heavy storms, water overflows the dirt drainage ditch fronting his yard and the bayou at the end of his block-- flooding the street, creeping up his front steps, pooling beneath the house, and trapping his family inside. ``We are always underwater here,'' said Hester, 61. And yet, the state of Texas allocated none of the $1 billion in federal funds it received to protect communities from future disasters to neighborhoods in Houston that flood regularly, according to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD has now found the exclusion of those majority Black and Hispanic urban communities to be discriminatory. The state ``shifted money away from the areas and people that needed it the most,'' disproportionately benefiting White residents living in smaller towns, the agency concluded. Houston has faced seven federally declared disasters in the last seven years and suffered an estimated $2 billion in damage from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. That storm devastated Kashmere Gardens, where Hester has lived his entire life. The floodwaters from Harvey deposited black mold throughout Hester's home and left his daughter chronically short of breath.

The state, which is appealing HUD's findings, denied discriminating, saying the Texas General Land Office administered the federal grant program based on HUD approval. The situation in Texas illustrates the challenge facing the Eiden administration, which has pledged to focus on racial equity but is struggling to protect low-income communities of color from the growing threat of climate change. Even after HUD's finding of discrimination, the agency said it does not have the power at this time to suspend the rest of the $4.3 billion in disaster mitigation money awarded to the state under criteria approved by the Trump administration. ``What is happening here with these federal dollars going through the state and not one dime coming to the City of Houston post-Hurricane Harvey is absolutely crazy, and it cannot be justified,'' said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. ``What do I say to the people in Kashmere Gardens when these storms keep coming, and we are not putting in the infrastructure that they desperately need to mitigate the risk of future flooding?''

Black and Hispanic communities in northeast Houston, including Kashmere Gardens, are especially vulnerable to the more frequent storms and catastrophic flooding expected due to climate change, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Many of the residential streets lack curbs and gutters--common storm drainage infrastructure in predominantly White neighborhoods in Houston--and rely instead on open ditches dating back to the 1930s.

``Sometimes we can't get out because the water is so high,'' said Jackie Spradley, Hester's wife. ``You're literally trapped until the water starts to subside.'' She can't get to work. Their 12-year-old daughter can't get to school. The whoosh of traffic and trains permeates the triangular neighborhood of modest single-family homes penned between two highways and two sets of railroad tracks. During large storms, runoff from impervious highway surfaces flows onto residential streets.

Piles of trash--old tires, mattresses, furniture, home insulation--accumulate for weeks in the drainage ditches along many streets, blocking water from flowing through the ditches to the bayou. Silt and other debris clog many of the culverts beneath narrow driveways and footpaths spanning the ditches. In the summers, standing water breeds mosquitoes. The city of Houston had hoped to use $95 million in federal grants to upgrade Kashmere Gardens' storm drainage infrastructure. The proposed improvements, including converting some of the ditches to a curb and gutter system, would have removed the flood risk to nearly 1,400 properties. But without the money, the city shelved those plans.

Hester's daughter Ashlei was 7 years old in 2017 when Harvey floodwaters breached their family room, lapping at the legs of the card table on which the family played dominoes. Her cough worsened, and doctors prescribed four different medications for asthma. She was hospitalized in 2018 for more than a week. But doctors still did not know what was causing her illness. It wasn't until December 2019, more than two years after Harvey, when Hester and his wife discovered the black mold that was making their daughter so sick. A city inspector recommended that the house be condemned.

``I was so ashamed,'' Hester said. ``We didn't have nowhere else to go.''

His mother had purchased the home in 1960, paying the mortgage with wages from her job flipping burgers 16 hours a day. Hester was born in the house months later. He had stayed in the house after Hurricane Alicia flooded the home in 1983. And after Ike in 2008. Even after Harvey, Hester stayed, hoping to someday pass the three-bedroom ranch-style home onto his daughter. But Hester, who is on disability for herniated disks in his back and neck from his years as a long-haul truck driver, and his wife, who sells insurance, never had the money to adequately repair the storm-ravaged roof and mold-covered walls. Hester said the city informed him after Harvey that he was ineligible for funding to fix the home because of unpaid property taxes ``It's not just about the storm drainage,'' Hester said. ``It's about everything.''

Hester said that the rainbow-hued oily waters he had splashed in while playing in the drainage ditches as a child had been polluted with cancer-causing creosote used to treat wooden railroad ties and utility poles. A 2019 state health department investigation confirmed elevated cancer rates among residents in the southern end of Kashmere Gardens, located near two Superfund sites. Residents fear that flooding will carry toxic deposits into their yards. Hester's mother had died of cancer. So had his father. And one of his brothers. ``Cancer is killing the whole neighborhood,'' said Hester, who is too afraid to visit the doctor about his own health problems.

Federal disaster mitigation grants are supposed to improve the inferior flood infrastructure in lower income communities. But the HUD investigation found that competition rules set by the Texas General Land Office unfairly favored smaller towns with less urgent needs and where residents are more likely to be White and less likely to be lower income. The state knowingly adopted scoring criteria that prioritized lower-density areas and excluded communities that HUD designated as the most impacted by disasters from half the grants, HUD said. ``Because the criteria had these unjustified discriminatory effects, their use failed to comply with HUD's regulations,'' the agency found.

No other state adopted Texas' method of distributing the funds, according to HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. The agency concluded that without Texas's discriminatory criteria, nearly four times as many Black residents and more than twice as many Hispanic residents would have benefited from the grants. The General Land Office said in its April 1 appeal that the state ``does not discriminate, and the projects it has funded help minority beneficiaries across Texas.'' The state said more than two- thirds of residents in communities that received awards are Black, Hispanic or Asian. The state pointed out that its plan was approved two years ago and characterized HUD's new objections as ``politically motivated.''

In addition to Houston and surrounding Harris County, the General Land Office denied grants to the predominantly Black and Hispanic cities of Port Arthur, Beaumont and Corpus Christi as well as Jefferson and Nueces counties--all of which experienced significant flooding from Harvey, according to the civil rights complaint. Texas Housers, a nonprofit focused on housing in low-income communities, and Northeast Action Collective, a grassroots advocacy group of Houston residents, filed the complaint with HUD last year. Instead, funds were steered toward inland, Whiter communities that were far less severely impacted by hurricanes and used to fund routine infrastructure, the complaint said. That includes $17.5 million for a new community center in Caldwell County that is supposed to double as an evacuation center; $10.8 million to install a sewage system in the 379-person town of Iola; $6 million for a new sheriffs department radio tower and radios for Gonzales County; and $4.2 million for a 2,000- foot-long road in Bastrop County to connect a Walmart parking lot and a Home Depot, justified as an alternate path for emergency vehicles in case the adjacent freeway is clogged with hurricane evacuees from the Gulf Coast 161 miles away.

``These mitigation funds are a strategy to undo the systemic racism of the past, but that's not what we're seeing Texas interested in at all,'' said John Henneberger, co- director of Texas Housers. ``This is a test of how serious HUD and the Biden administration are in enforcing civil rights.'' HUD's Office of Community Planning and Development, which oversees disaster mitigation aid, wrote to the Texas General Land Office in March expressing ``grave concerns'' over the distribution of the first round of grants. ``The State has not identified a plan to protect communities while guarding against competition criteria that could disadvantage minority residents,'' HUD wrote. If a voluntary resolution cannot be reached, HUD said it could refer the matter to the Department of Justice for enforcement. But advocates worry that could come too late for communities like Kashmere Gardens. While HUD said it cannot stop the state from awarding the rest of the grants ``due to prior decisions,'' it would begin monitoring how the money is distributed and warned it could claw back the funds if necessary.

``Texas has a history of sending money to those who are politically connected,'' said Shannon Van Zandt, a professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University whose research focuses on hazard reduction and housing. She noted that racial disparities occurred with the distribution of disaster funds after Hurricane Ike in 2008. Civil rights advocates say HUD has the authority to suspend Texas's ability to spend federal grant money; it has done so under previous administrations. But Sara Pratt, former deputy assistant secretary in HUD's fair housing office who is now representing Texas Housers as an attorney, said there is long-standing division among HUD staff over enforcing civil rights violations when making funding decisions.

``There is deep disagreement internally,'' Pratt said. ``The secretary's job is to resolve disputes like this.'' HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge declined to comment because the Texas investigation remains open, HUD spokesman Michael Burns said. ``Her commitment to civil rights and fair housing is well documented and unwavering, and she is committed to ensuring that all HUD funds are used in compliance with all relevant laws and program requirements,'' Burns said. In response to widespread criticism over how the first $1 billion in Harvey disaster grants was distributed, Texas now plans to allocate $750 million to Harris County. Houston is due to receive an additional $9 million out of $488 million that the state plans to send to the Houston-Galveston region. City officials point out that the $9 million amounts to less than one tenth of the cost of its proposed improvements to Kashmere Gardens.

In Kashmere Gardens on a recent morning after a thunderstorm inundated streetside drainage ditches, bulldozers and dump trucks worked to widen and deepen Hunting Bayou to absorb runoff from future storms. The work is a small portion of a $2.5 billion flood protection bond that Harris County passed in 2018. The bulk of the bond money was directed to wealthier neighborhoods because the county expected to receive federal disaster funds for poorer ones, according to county commissioner Rodney Ellis. But without money to upgrade the ditch system to drain storm water from neighborhood streets, it's unclear if the bayou expansion will be effective.

``This is the Texas two-step in Houston. You have to get the water from the neighborhoods to the bayous. And then you have to get the water from the bayous to the Gulf of Mexico,'' said Ellis, who represents the area. Residents, too, remain skeptical. ``It's a wait and see situation,'' said Dorothy Wanza, another Kashmere Gardens resident whose street turned into a river during Harvey and flooded her home with more than a foot of water. The experience left the So- year-old so traumatized that ``every time it rains, I get the hell out of dodge.''

She spent the previous night fully dressed, prepared to evacuate to one of her children's homes. ``The ditches overflow, and once they are full, the water comes back on you,'' Wanza said. On the other side of the bayou, Hester said the city had recently cleaned out part of a ditch lining his street for the first time he could recall in more than a decade. Dirt and bricks still block some of the culverts.

``Right up under there, look,'' he said, pointing beneath the concrete walkway leading from the street to his front yard. ``It's stopped up on both sides.'' He nodded farther down the street to another culvert: ``That whole drain hole was flooded.'' He and his next door neighbor had removed as many bricks as they could to move the water through. ``If we don't do things around here, ain't nothing going to get done. I have to go around here and try to help, and I'm in bad shape myself.'' Hester limped around the perimeter of his home and pointed two feet up the siding where Harvey floodwaters had reached--a reminder of the catastrophe he says he failed to protect his daughter from.

A nonprofit had removed the mold inside when it fixed up the house in 2020, installing new cabinets, a new roof and laminate flooring. But the entryway still slopes. The floor joists need to be repaired. The porch is lopsided, its wood rotted. Hester is stooped from years of pain. Yet he remains intent on doing what he can to make things right. ``It's not my life I'm worried about. It's my daughter's,'' Hester said. ``I'm half dead.''

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Houlahan).

Mr. Speaker, according to a recent National Bureau of Economic Research report, the racial wealth gap is on track to grow wider in the coming decades. It is estimated that the White-to-Black wealth ratio will increase from 5.6 to 1 in 2019 to 8.4 to 1 by 2200.

The time to act is now. These amendments will help ensure that everyone will have a fair chance, and in too many instances, a first chance at economic opportunity.

I thank our colleagues for offering their amendments, and I urge my colleagues to vote in support of these amendments because these amendments are principally about transparency.

If you have nothing to hide, you celebrate transparency. If you have something to hide, you want to eschew transparency.

These amendments seek to provide transparency so that we can get a better understanding of how we can better cure the invidious discrimination that has plagued our country for centuries.

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution 1170, I offer amendments en bloc No. 2.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican amendments presented here today stand as a testament to Republican values; namely, a tolerance for wealth inequality and racial discrimination.

Let's be clear. The amendment from Mr. Timmons will strike large portions of the bill and make no attempt to improve it.

As for the amendment from Mr. Davis, it will strike provisions requiring the reporting of small business lending data, effectively allowing banks to continue to hide the extent to which they are denying small business owners of color access to affordable credit.

According to a Fed survey, 46 percent of Black-owned firms that applied for financing received none of the financing they sought compared to just 22 percent of White-owned firms. We need more granular data on these trends to root out discrimination in lending once and for all.

Mr. Speaker, what we have been witnessing today is the behavior of persons who chose not to help the American people in a time of need.

When the American people were being evicted from their homes, they chose not to help. When schools were plagued by a virus and needed funding so that they could secure our children from the virus, they chose not to help. When people were out of work and needed help to put food on the table, fuel in their cars, they chose not to help.

Because they chose not to help, they have to call any help that was given reckless, and they have to call it bad policy.

But the truth is, if you do nothing, you put yourself in a position such that you cannot appreciate the suffering of people who are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. They chose not to help. We choose to help, and we continue to help.

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day when people will call saving homes and keeping children safe from a virus reckless policy.

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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