Brad Sherman

“I want the House to pass this bill. It protects people who report waste and fraud at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, including those working under older contracts. We need these protections because the President fired the investigators who usually look into government wrongdoing. After we pass this, we also need to bring back independent investigators to watch over these agencies.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, preventing waste, fraud, and abuse is one thing we agree on. We have to do everything possible to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in government. The two best tools for dealing with waste, fraud, and abuse are inspectors general, full-time independent investigators there to stop waste, fraud, and abuse, and whistleblowers, ordinary government workers who come forward to tell us what is going on. This bill strengthens the whistleblower part of that equation, but we have to reflect on the fact that this President has gutted the first part, the inspectors general. The whistleblower part of oversight only works when people can speak up without fear of retaliation, and that is why whistleblower protections are so important. At HUD, the administration rolled back fair housing enforcement, stonewalled Congress from receiving critical information, and gutted tenant protections. Whistleblowers are now the last line of defense against these harmful decisions made behind closed doors, and Congress needs to send a clear message: If you expose wrongdoing, you will be protected. You will not be punished. Whistleblowers are how we catch waste, fraud, and abuse before they spiral. They are how we make sure that Federal housing programs actually do what Congress intended. For that reason, I support H.R. 4646. It strengthens whistleblower protections and makes them consistent across HUD contractors without gaps and without guesswork. Mr. Speaker, we perhaps need this bill more than ever because Republicans in the White House have fired inspectors general across Federal agencies, especially at HUD. Mr. Trump has fired the HUD inspector general and the FHFA inspector general, including right after they said that they planned to investigate how Trump’s administration was engaging in lawlessness. That is not oversight. That is obstruction of justice. You cannot claim to protect the effort to deal with waste, fraud, and abuse if you support gutting and firing inspectors general. Of course, when you fire inspectors general and either don’t have them or install people carefully selected to turn a blind eye, you increase the likelihood of waste, fraud, and abuse. This bill, at least, deals with that second part of the effort. We need inspectors general. We also need whistleblower protection. This bill will provide additional protection for whistleblowers. This bill is an important step, perhaps made more necessary by the President’s outrageous firing of inspectors general. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4646. Protecting whistleblowers is not a partisan issue. Doing all we can to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse is not a partisan issue. When employees can safely report waste, fraud, and abuse, government programs work better for everyone. H.R. 4646 strengthens those protections consistently across HUD and its contractors, and it deserves our support. We also need to turn our attention to the need for truly independent inspectors general. HUD may not have confirmed leadership in place, but that progress means little while this administration continues to sideline accountability elsewhere, leaving key agencies understaffed and underresourced. Let us pass this bill today, and let us then focus our efforts on the need for truly independent inspectors general, particularly at HUD and FHFA. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. It makes banking agencies report to Congress on gaps in their technology. This will help regulators keep up with new risks, like artificial intelligence and unfair computer bias in housing and finance.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 8278 is an important step to allowing Congress to better understand the technological vulnerabilities of our banking system and what is faced by our bank regulators. Requiring Federal banking agencies to assess and report to Congress on gaps and vulnerabilities in their supervisory tools and their procurement process would further efforts by our regulators to meet emerging risks. Additionally, this bill will allow Federal banking regulators to evaluate and report on the impact of the Trump administration’s executive orders, which, unfortunately, ignore well-documented harms from algorithmic bias in housing and financial services. Ultimately, Congress would use the reporting from this bill to ensure that our banking agencies are able to keep up with the challenges that they face, including rapidly developing AI capacities and the need to make sure that our bank regulators are appropriately using AI to enforce all of our banking laws, including those that prevent discrimination. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. Criminals use crypto to scam people, especially older adults and domestic violence survivors. This bill lets local, state, and tribal police use federal grant money to investigate these frauds without taking funds away from other programs.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the GUARD Act allows State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies to use certain Federal grant programs to investigate senior financial fraud, romance schemes, and general financial fraud. There are two points that I made in my earlier statement that I will reiterate. The first is that crypto has facilitated frauds and scams, and it is necessary that we give law enforcement the tools to react to that. The second is that while this is a very worthwhile bill, we do need to clarify that the GUARD Act overlaps and augments, doesn’t steal from, the funds mentioned in the bill. It can help victims and survivors of domestic violence, among others, as they are targeted by fraudsters and scammers. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. The government already stopped making pennies, but it did so without clear rules, which caused shortages and confusion. This bill sets clear rules for rounding cash payments to the nearest nickel. It also lets us make nickels out of cheaper metals, and it frees up space in cash registers for dollar coins.”

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 10167, the Common Cents Act, sponsored by Representative McClain. Last year, the President announced on Truth Social--not the best way to make a government announcement--that Treasury would stop minting pennies. Frankly, I disagree with almost everything the President does, but this one makes sense. I have been advocating for the abolition of the penny for over 20 years in our committee, and it is time that we move forward on this. Following this announcement, the Treasury moved forward, and the Mint has stopped producing pennies. Unfortunately, the decision to stop minting pennies ignored the authority of Congress in regulating currency and overseeing a major transition away from producing pennies. We saw that this abrupt decision resulted in major consequences across the country that led to penny shortages for banks, retailers, and consumers and created confusion in the economy. It is not enough to stop minting pennies. We need a bill that tells retailers and customers how much they are supposed to pay in nickels, dimes, and dollars. However, as written, this legislation addresses many of these issues and establishes much-needed standards and guidelines going forward. Since we marked up the Common Cents Act in our committee, this bill has continued to be meaningfully improved, thanks to the work of our ranking member, Maxine Waters, and other Financial Services Committee Democrats, including Representative Garcia. The Common Cents Act formally directs the Secretary of the Treasury to stop minting pennies. It also allows the Mint to test a lower-cost composition for the nickel, which chiefly would be zinc, and to make use of the zinc that is now going into pennies. Moreover, by using zinc for the nickel, not only will we save money, but it will be lighter, and that will be important for the cost of those who are transporting large quantities of coins, and it will be a little lighter in your pocket. This bill not only deals with the penny, but it also improves the nickel. The bill provides clarity on rounding cash transactions. When I proposed in committee 20 years ago, and I proposed it at townhalls, people were concerned that somehow this would lead to higher prices and that somehow retailers would benefit. The fact is, it is the consumer, not the retailer, who determines whether you buy two nail files at the same time and that happens to round down, and then buy another two nail files at the same time, and that transaction is rounded down. I can’t imagine anybody doing that to save a nickel, but it is the consumer, not the retailer, that decides what goes into the basket. I can’t imagine anybody looking at this. If somebody does care, it is the retailer in control. We have formal rules here on rounding down when it is 2 cents or 1 cent. That is important for commerce to go forward. Under this bill, the Federal Reserve would be required to issue a strategic plan for managing and limiting disruptions in the penny supply. Recently, in August, the Senate added a new section that requires the Treasury to submit notification to the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee regarding potential plans to discontinue any coin, among other requirements. This is important because Congress plays a key role in these processes. There has been some disruption, and we need to be in a position to manage it. My focus on the fact that we didn’t need pennies arises from the fact that I used to head the second largest sales tax agency. What consumers may not know is that every time you do a transaction--last year, last decade, 20 years ago--the amount you pay the retailer is subject to rounding. There is a tax of 5 percent or 8 percent, and the amount you actually owe is $1.125, which is rounded down. We have been rounding transactions for a long time in this country. Now, we will be rounding to the nearest nickel instead of rounding to the nearest penny. Further, by eliminating the penny, we create extra room in the cash register where the penny used to go. That room could be used for a dollar coin. We all know that it costs more than a dollar to print a dollar and that a paper dollar wears out. I look forward to popularizing the dollar coin. This will be a boon to our transit agencies, vending machines, and others when people use a dollar coin. Growing up, we had a dollar coin. We just called it a quarter. We had a quarter. We used it. It was worth about what a dollar is worth today. Mr. Speaker, while I am not a big fan of the inflation that has taken place in my lifetime, I do think it is time to popularize the dollar coin. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.”

“I want Congress to fully fund foreign aid. We spend less than one percent of our budget on it. This aid helps stop deadly diseases like malaria and HIV in other countries before they mutate and spread to the United States. Cutting this aid has already cost many lives, and it puts Americans in danger.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Beyer for bringing us together. Mr. Speaker, foreign aid has been a political whipping boy in this country for decades. The American people believe, if you poll them, that we spend 25 percent of our Nation’s budget on foreign aid and they want it reduced to 10 percent. It is already less than 1 percent, less than a quarter percent of our GDP. Obviously, if you are moral, if you care about the world, these programs should be fully funded and that should increase. But what if you are only focused on America? What about our soft power that is dependent upon our image in the world? What about preventing enormous migration caused by desperation? But let’s focus on public health because what USAID does more than anything else is fight malaria, Ebola, tuberculosis, and HIV-AIDS. If we don’t fight those diseases over there, they replicate, mutate, and migrate. Every one of these diseases replicates in every body that it infects. Then one out of a thousand times or one out of a million times it mutates into a new strain that is either more drug resistant or more communicable, and then those diseases migrate back to the United States. Every one of those diseases is found here and none of them started here. Mr. Speaker, I thank 120 Members of the House who joined with my letter urging the Appropriations Committee to fully fund foreign aid. I thank every member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Democratic side for cosponsoring my Evan Anzoo Memorial Act. Who is Evan Anzoo? This was the first child killed by Elon Musk who took away his HIV-AIDS medicine in the first month of the Trump administration. This bill requires us to ask the GAO to calculate for us how many have died in the last year and a half. A Harvard professor says hundreds of thousands of deaths have already occurred. Boston University calculates that we have lost 781,000 people in the world, most of them children. A peer-reviewed study led by UCLA says that we are looking at over 14 million who will die if we continue these policies through the end of this decade. Hundreds of thousands have died already, millions will die in this decade if we don’t change course, and untold hundreds of thousands of Americans will die if we don’t fight the disease over there and instead give that disease a chance to replicate, mutate, and migrate back here.”

“Vote no on this amendment. It breaks our agreement to give Israel defense funding. That money buys systems to shoot down missiles aimed at Israeli homes and civilians. Republicans are only pushing this amendment to divide Democrats and use it in political ads.”

“Madam Chair, President Obama signed a 10-year memorandum of understanding. We are now in the ninth year of that memorandum. Mr. Massie would have us repudiate that signature. That is as bad an idea as Donald Trump’s repudiation of the JCPOA, the deal with Iran that limited its nuclear program. We are told that this is about offensive weapons. This $3.3 billion provides the AMRAAM system that defends Israeli apartment buildings and houses from incoming missiles that have as one purpose: to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible. How are we going to influence the people of Israel and the government of Israel? They need our influence. They need to change their policies. How are we going to influence them? As the missiles are coming in for the sole purpose of killing as many civilians as possible, we say we will not help shoot them down. We will not fund the AMRAAM system that is provided for in a memorandum of understanding signed by President Obama. This amendment is a political stunt. Republican leadership has brought it to the floor--not for the purpose of having it become law, but for the purpose of driving a wedge through the middle of the Democratic Party, for the purpose of facilitating Republican advertisements that will put our party on the side of those who are screaming death to America and death to Israel, and to put our party on the side of those who say that Israel has no right to exist. If you care about not only our Middle East policy but you care about the Democratic Party’s position, with the American people, then you must vote ``no’’ on this amendment. Now that does not mean that there will not be future reductions in our aid to Israel. That does not mean that we will not try to change Israeli policy, but this amendment goes as far as it possibly can to put us on the side not of those who would shoot down the missiles that are aimed at civilian neighborhoods in Israel but on those who are cheering those missiles. Then we are told that the amount of money involved is the focus. It says $3.3 billion, but that is about an 80th of the aid that we have provided Ukraine and that we should have provided Ukraine. This is not an attempt to divert a large portion of our money from Israel. This is an attack on the Israeli people.”