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April 1, 2014 – NAFCU Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler and Director of Legislative Affairs Jillian Pevo attended another meeting with White House and Obama administration officials on Monday on housing finance reform.

The meeting came days after Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, announced that the committee would hold a markup of their bipartisan housing finance reform proposal on April 29.

The meeting with the administration was the third in three weeks attended by NAFCU, as White House officials continue to hear from stakeholders on the impact of the Johnson-Crapo discussion draft. The meetings are a part of a series which NAFCU has been invite to participate in with White House and Obama administration officials. Senior NAFCU staff also briefed senior HUD staff on the credit union industry's top concerns related to GSE reform last week.

The Johnson-Crapo reforms would provide for a wind-down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and create a new mortgage insurance entity that could establish one or more mutual companies to facilitate secondary mortgage market access for lenders, including small lenders such as credit unions. Funds would be transferred from Fannie and Freddie to help capitalize the new small lender mutual, and mutual participants would be assessed over a certain number of years until those start-up funds are replenished.

NAFCU is evaluating the 442-page bill for its impact on credit unions, including potential costs to credit unions stemming from a new system, and will remain active on this issue running up to the April 29 mark-up in the Banking Committee and beyond. The association is urging lawmakers to ensure credit unions guaranteed access to the secondary mortgage market, a continuation of the government guarantee and fair pricing that is based on loan quality in any housing finance reform package.