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NAFCU's Brad Thaler yesterday urged House leaders to retain a handful of NAFCU-sought provisions – some relating to the CFPB and the Federal Communications Commission's Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules – in the text and accompanying report language for a fiscal 2017 spending bill slated for House action this week.

Thaler, NAFCU's vice president of legislative affairs, urged House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and all members of the House, to also retain the bill's inclusion of $250 million for the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund and $2 million for NCUA's Community Development Revolving Loan Fund. NAFCU also supports funding for the Small Business Administration, including its 7(a) and 504 loan programs, Thaler noted. "These programs help promote access to capital and local economic growth in low-income communities," Thaler wrote.

Included in the appropriation bill are NAFCU-sought provisions subjecting CFPB funding to congressional oversight and moving the bureau from a sole director to a five-person commission. Thaler urged approval of these provisions in his letter.

NAFCU, the only credit union trade association to oppose subjecting credit unions to CFPB authority under Dodd-Frank, also maintains that CFPB should be using its current Dodd-Frank Act authority to exempt credit unions from regulations aimed at bad actors.

Thaler reiterated the association's support for the language in the committee report that calls for CFPB to do more to provide exemptions for credit unions under its authority in Section 1022 of the Dodd-Frank Act and report back to Congress on action taken, any review of previous exemptions and plans for this authority in the future.

Regarding the TCPA, Thaler urged the House leaders to retain report language that "strongly encourages" the FCC to revisit its recent TCPA order to address questions and issues raised by financial institutions. The language also calls for the FCC to "provide more flexibility to the prescriptive requirements for financial institutions" using the exemption for "free end user calls."