Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the bill before us, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. This bill is a product of a multiyear, bipartisan process. It is the result of stakeholder input, multiple legislative hearings, a committee markup, and a committee report.

There are a lot of great provisions in this bill, but what I would like to focus on today is what this bill will accomplish for smaller financial institutions--our community banks and our credit unions-- especially in the State of Nebraska. I also want to touch on the important regulatory relief included for small public housing agencies that are in Nebraska and all across this country.

Over the course of the past year, I received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from people and businesses across Nebraska about this bill, but the outpouring of support from community banks and credit unions has been particularly notable. These institutions are the pillars of our local communities. They sponsor local Little League sports teams. They provide scholarship funds. They award grants to students.

The prosperity of America's small financial institutions is directly tied to the success of the communities they serve. These institutions, from Eastern Nebraska to the Panhandle, have shared with me their support for this bill we have before us today. For example, Lee Potts from Security Bank in Laurel, NE, wrote:

The bill is a step in the right direction to remove ill- fitting regulations on community banks. As a lender in my community, I am not against regulations in general, as there is a need for certain regulations. However, the regulatory spectrum has become so burdensome that it often has affected otherwise creditworthy borrowers in my community.

Brandon Luetkenhause from the Nebraska Credit Union League cited the positive effect this legislation will have on seniors in America's communities. He wrote:

This bipartisan, commonsense reform legislation will protect seniors from elder abuse, make mortgage processing easier and quicker, increase affordable rental housing in our communities, and help my credit union provide better service to members.

Under this legislation, well-managed, well-capitalized community banks with less than $3 billion in total assets would qualify for an 18-month exam cycle that is currently only available for banks with less than $1 billion in total assets.

Furthermore, the legislation allows banks with less than $5 billion in total assets to use short form call reports in the first and the third quarters of the year. The quarterly call report community banks currently have to file comprises 80 pages of forms and 670 pages of instructions. Only a fraction of the information that is collected is actually useful to regulators in ensuring safety and soundness of these institutions. The minimal impact is far outweighed by the expense incurred and the staff hours dedicated to collecting it.

The legislation also increases the appraisal requirement exemption for rural mortgage portfolio loans from $250,000 to $400,000. This provision of the bill reflects that in rural markets, it can be hard to find an independent appraiser. They may live hours away, and it could take weeks for them to come and appraise a property. This slows down and adds cost to the transaction, where a bank has 100 percent of the risk associated with that loan.

Simply put, provisions like these in the bill help provide relief to Main Street lenders who did nothing to cause the financial crisis and have been unfairly burdened under Dodd-Frank.

For example, Alan Emshoff from Generations Bank in Exeter, NE, told me:

This bill is a solid step towards right-sizing regulations. As one of the smallest banks in Nebraska, reducing the regulatory burden will allow us to do what we do best, to serve our community through the making of loans to help start new businesses, finance agriculture, and put people in homes more efficiently and at a lower cost to the consumer. . . . Even with reduced regulation, we will continue to respect the safety of our customers and provide all of our customers a safe and sound banking environment, just as we have for the past 80 plus years.

Steve Edgerton from Centrist Federal Credit Union in Omaha wrote me:

The increasing trend of regulation ultimately reduces the availability of products and services to credit union members, as well as increases the cost.

Clearly, any claims that this bill only provides relief to big banks are not true.

In addition to the great regulatory relief provisions for community banks and credit unions, I was very pleased to see provisions from my bill with Senator Tester, the Small Public Housing Agency Opportunity Act, included in this legislation. Our bill would address the overwhelming administrative burden that has been placed on the roughly 3,800 small and rural housing authorities across the country, including the approximately 100 public housing agencies in the State of Nebraska. The provisions included from our bill will simplify the inspection and compliance requirements facing public housing agencies with fewer than 550 units.

Specifically, it would limit HUD inspections of housing and voucher units to once every 3 years unless a small PHA is classified as troubled. The less time Directors and employees of small public housing agencies are required to spend complying with unnecessary reporting and oversight demands, the more time they can spend improving the lives of their residents.

The bill we are considering today is good policy. It is a major step in the right direction, but there is more we can do.

Since 2013, I have called for Congress to consider changing the CFPB's leadership structure. For the past three Congresses, I have introduced legislation to change the leadership structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from a single Director to a multimember, bipartisan board or commission.

Although consumers and the industry have experienced some relief under Director Mulvaney, a problem remains--the Bureau's unaccountable leadership structure. A bipartisan board of directors would increase transparency, provide regulatory certainty, and guarantee input from multiple stakeholders with various points of view.

I do not view this as a partisan issue and neither do Americans. A poll in March of 2017 found that 58 percent of those surveyed support a bipartisan commission, including a majority of Republicans, a majority of Democrats, and a majority of Independents who were surveyed.

Given our success working together on this bill before us today, I hope some of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle will consider joining my bill so we can reform that structure of the CFPB.

I would like to close by thanking Chairman Crapo and the other cosponsors of the bill for their hard work on this legislation. I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in voting for the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. It is what our communities need to grow and to prosper.

Thank you.

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