Newsroom

July 29, 2015

House committee votes out reg relief bills

NAFCU Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler thanked the leaders of the House Financial Services Committee for their successful mark-up of several regulatory relief measures, which concluded Wednesday, and urged lawmakers' continued support of the NAFCU-backed bills.

"We appreciate the committee's dedication to furthering credit union regulatory relief and for advancing these important measures," Thaler said. "We were pleased to see that a number of these bills received strong bipartisan support. We urge lawmakers to continue to support these and other bills that will help credit unions and their members."

The committee marked up and approved the following NAFCU-backed measures:

  • H.R. 3192, the "Homebuyers Assistance Act," which would provide a temporary safe harbor from the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosure rule;
  • H.R. 1941, the "Financial Institutions Examination Fairness and Reform Act," aimed at improving the examination of depository institutions;
  • H.R. 1210, the "Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act," to provide a safe harbor from certain qualified mortgage requirements for residential mortgage loans held on a mortgage originator's portfolio; and
  • H.R. 766, the "Financial Institutions Customer Protection Act," which would require federal regulators to provide a material reason for ordering financial institutions to terminate account relationships rather than use the Justice Department's Operation Choke Point initiative.

In addition, Thaler noted other pending regulatory relief bills, including H.R. 2287, the "National Credit Union Administration Budget Transparency Act," H.R. 2769, the "Risk-Based Capital Study Act," and H.R. 2473, the "Preserving Capital Access and Mortgage Liquidity Act," which NAFCU hopes will see committee action after the August recess.

"We hope the committee will continue its efforts to address regulatory relief for credit unions, and in particular the issue of NCUA's second risk-based capital proposal," Thaler said. "The proposal is potentially harmful to an already well-capitalized industry that is dealing with enough overregulation, and we hope lawmakers will continue to push back and raise concerns on credit unions' behalf."