Sept. 18, 2012 – NAFCU President and CEO Fred Becker on Monday lodged the association’s strong support for S. 3468, a bill by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, that would authorize the president to require compliance by all independent agencies with executive orders to conduct cost-benefit analyses of proposed rules.
Becker said the cost-benefit analysis measure proposed by Portman, and cosponsored by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, would be “an important step” toward providing credit unions much-needed regulatory relief.
“Despite acknowledgement from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that credit unions did not contribute to the financial crisis, the regulatory landscape for credit unions has been in constant flux in recent years,” Becker wrote. “This includes subjecting the entire industry to rulemaking authority of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
Piling one rule on top of another without an impact study, Becker wrote, “can be devastating to credit unions that don’t have an army of compliance attorneys at their disposal.”
Portman’s bill would apply not only to the CFPB but to NCUA and other independent agencies. NAFCU strongly supports allowing the administration to require a cost-benefit analysis from independent agencies “before any new regulation is issued,” Becker wrote, and “ensuring that alternatives to a proposed rule are considered.”
NAFCU has also supported efforts by Warner to establish a “regulatory pay-go” system to help ensure balanced regulation.
S. 3468 awaits action of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.