Newsroom

NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt and other NAFCU lobbyists visited Capitol Hill for the first day of the 114th Congress to welcome new and returning credit union supporters and tout the industry's priorities for the year.

Despite snowy weather, NAFCU lobbyists had a successful day of visits with legislators on both sides of the aisle, and also attended several swearing-in receptions.

"Today's visits were a great start in pushing for issues important to NAFCU members and the credit union industry," Berger said. "There are a lot of credit union supporters in Congress, and we'll be working to help them pass meaningful legislation to reduce the regulatory burden on credit unions and to help them thrive."

Hunt said, "We look forward to working with credit union friends both old and new as we pursue NAFCU's priorities for 2015. We appreciate the strong support credit union issues have been given thus far, and are confident about our plans to advance those issues in the coming session."

NAFCU representatives will return to the Hill today for a second day of activities marking the beginning of the new congressional session.

Shown, from left: Berger with Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill.; new Senate President Pro Tem Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, with NAFCU lobbyist Chad Adams.

One of the items on NAFCU's "must-pass" list for the coming Congress is legislation establishing national data security standards for retailers, similar to the requirements already followed by credit unions and other financial institutions under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Also a key focus will be passage of legislation to eliminate the redundant, burdensome requirement in federal law for financial institutions to send their privacy policies to account holders each year, even if the policies do not change in a given year. Such legislation was passed by the House in 2013, and a similar bill was offered in the Senate.

Overall, regulatory relief figures large in NAFCU's 2015 advocacy plan, along with preservation of credit unions' tax exempt status and field of membership improvements (see all of NAFCU's 2015 top priorities).