DC Update: Week of 10/19/09 Posted by AVCU on 11:23 AM

Both the U.S. House and Senate are in session this week. The Senate convenes today and the House convenes tomorrow to consider bills under suspension of the rules. There are several hearings and mark-ups of interest to credit unions this week.

On Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on the state of the nation’s housing markets. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan will testify.

Also on Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee will resume a mark-up of pending legislation: H.R.3126, the "Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009"; H.R.3763, to amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to provide for an exclusion from Red Flag Guidelines for certain businesses; and H.R.3639, the "Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009."

On Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Oversight will hold a hearing on the administration of the first-time homebuyers tax credit.

Consumer Financial Protection Agency Markup

During consideration of the CFPA bill last Thursday, the House Financial Services Committee took action on a number of amendments. Among them:

• approved by voice vote a manager's amendment offered by Chairman Frank which made several technical changes to the bill and added language regarding the treatment of remittances. CUNA sent a letter to Chairman Frank outlining concerns with the remittance language.
• Representative Biggert (R-IL) offered a substitute amendment, which failed the Committee on a recorded vote 27 yeas and 41 nays.
• Representative Brad Miller (D-NC) and Dennis Moore (D-KS) offered an amendment related to examination and enforcement of consumer protection regulation for small banks and small credit unions; the amendment would retain federal prudential regulatory authority for the enforcement and examination of consumer protection regulation for banks with less than $10 billion in total assets and credit unions with less than $1.5 billion in total assets. The amendment was approved by voice vote.
• Representative Perlmutter (D-CO) offered two second degree amendments to the Miller-Moore Amendment. The first would have retained these powers with the prudential regulator for all banks and credit unions while giving the CFPA authority to to exert examination and enforcement authority on an institutions-by-institution basis. The other amendment would exempt insured depository institutions and credit unions that control less than 1% of the total deposits of all insured depository institutions and credit unions. Credit unions have roughly $750 billion in deposits and banking institutions have $9.8 trillion ($7.7 trillion in domestic deposits). Therefore a 1% of deposit carve-out would put the cut-off at $98 billion of total deposits or $83 billion of domestic deposits. These amendments were withdrawn after Representative Perlmutter secured a commitment from Chairman Frank to work on these issues between mark-up and floor consideration.
• Representatives Hensarling (R-TX) and Garrett (R-NJ) offered an amendment to provide a full exemption for small banks and small credit unions from any regulation, examination or enforcement by the CFPA. This amendment also contained the $10 billion / $1.5 billion threshold discrepancy. The amendment failed the Committee on a recorded vote, 27 yeas to 41 nays.
• Representative Baca (D-CA) offered an amendment that would direct the CFPA director to include in the Agency's periodic report to Congress an appraisal of the regulatory and legal difficulties encountered by the Agency in carrying out the mission and duties of the Agency with respect to consumer protection. This amendment was approved by voice vote.

As of Wednesday evening, 37 amendments had been filed with the Committee; at the end of the day Thursday, the Committee had disposed of seven. As noted, the Committee will reconvene at 2:00 pm tomorrow to resume consideration of amendments. Recorded votes will be postponed until Wednesday morning. The Committee is expected to complete its consideration of the CFPA bill by the end of the day on Wednesday.