Dodd-Frank News Center

Congress members express opposing views on Financial CHOICE Act

This story appeared in Bank Digest.                                  

Several Congress members have made statements related to the Financial CHOICE Act (H.R. 10), a Republican alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act that the House of Representatives will vote on this week. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said, "This partisan, dangerous legislation would once again leave families, seniors, and servicemembers at the mercy of predatory lenders, and put taxpayers back on the hook to pay for Wall Street's greed and recklessness."                                  

In contrast, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said the bill "imposes the toughest penalties in history for those who commit financial fraud. It re-establishes the CFPB as a civil enforcement agency so it is fully focused on enforcing the consumer financial protection laws written by Congress, especially those designed to protect our veterans, service members, their family members and dependents, and other consumers." But Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif) said the bill "is a vehicle for Donald Trump's agenda to get rid of financial regulation and help out Wall Street."

Kildee speaks against Financial CHOICE Act

This story appeared in Bank Digest.                                  

House Financial Services Committee Vice Ranking Member Dan Kildee (D-Mich) delivered opening remarks at the Rules Committee on June 6, 2017, as the House of Representatives began consideration of the Financial CHOICE Act (H.R. 10), a Republican alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act. In his prepared remarks, Kildee said the Financial CHOICE Act "would eliminate the most important consumer protections and safeguards Congress put in place after the 2008 financial crisis."                                  

He said the bill "takes us back to the days of Wall Street predatory lending and profiting on the backs of consumers" and added that "Wall Street reform and other Democratic policies have provided our country the strongest consumer protections in our history."

Ryan issues list of reasons to support Financial CHOICE Act

This story appeared in Bank Digest.                                  

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis) has issued a release listing five reasons to support the Financial CHOICE Act, a Republican alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act that the House of Representatives will vote on during the week of June 5, 2017. According to Ryan's release, the Financial CHOICE Act: (1) reins in the Dodd-Frank Act, which "in practice hurt Main Street and consumers while providing more protections for Wall Street"; (2) delivers relief to main street by helping small community banks; (3) ends taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street firms; (4) cuts the deficit by $24 billion over the next 10 years, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate; and (5) reins in unchecked Washington bureaucrats at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which "is a rogue agency that is unchecked, unconstitutional, and unaccountable."

 

House to vote on Financial CHOICE Act

This story appeared in Bank Digest.                         

During the week of June 5, 2017, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Financial CHOICE Act (H.R. 10), a Republican alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act sponsored by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas). Hensarling said that with passage of the Financial CHOICE Act, "The era of 'too big to fail' will end and we will replace Dodd-Frank's growth-strangling regulations on community banks and credit unions with reforms that expand access to capital so small businesses can create jobs and consumers have more choices and options when it comes to credit."

                                    Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis) called the legislation "a jobs bill for Main Street" that "will rein in the overreach of Dodd-Frank that has allowed the big banks to get bigger while small businesses have been unable to get the loans they need to succeed." House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) said the Financial CHOICE Act was "a good bill that will revive our community banks by removing burdens that prevent lending, decreasing compliance costs, and improving their access to credit and capital."                            

CBO issues Financial CHOICE Act cost estimate

This story appeared in Bank Digest.

 The Congressional Budget Office has published a cost estimate of the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017 (H.R. 10), and a Financial Services Committee press release quotes a Washington Examiner article on the report saying that “the biggest U.S. banks likely would not get relief from the new banking rules in the legislation.” As described in the article, the Financial CHOICE Act “would offer banks the option to get out of many of the new rules implemented in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis on the condition that they maintained a much higher level of capital.” But for the eight largest U.S. banks, complying with this option “would require them to raise too much capital and wouldn’t get them out of international rules.”

According to the article, the CBO estimated that “most of the banks that would opt for the higher capital requirement would be small community banks.” The Financial Services Committee’s press release also included quotes from, and links to, other articles on the CBO report.

Hensarling criticizes Cordray's attendance at House Democrats' caucus meeting

This story appeared in Bank Digest.                      

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) has issued a statement regarding Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray's decision to attend House Democrats' weekly caucus meeting. Hensarling said that Cordray's "attendance at what amounts to nothing more than a Democrat pep rally shows just how partisan and politicized he and his supposed 'independent' agency truly are." He added, "Liberal elites in Washington want to keep the Bureau unaccountable to hardworking taxpayers so they can continue to wield it as a political war machine."                                   

According to Hensarling, "The Financial CHOICE Act holds financial regulators and the CFPB accountable so it can be the consumer protection 'cop on the beat' that Americans need."

Committee ranking members urge chairmen not to waive jurisdiction over Financial CHOICE Act

This story appeared in Bank Digest.                                   

Three House committee ranking members have submitted letters to their respective chairmen requesting that their committees not waive jurisdiction over the Financial CHOICE Act (H.R. 10), a Republican alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act that was recently approved by the House Financial Services Committee and that a committee minority press release said "makes financial markets less safe, puts consumers at risk, and undermines critical safeguards" provided by the Dodd-Frank Act.                                   

In the letters, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md), House Education and the Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-Va), and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich) urged the chairmen to allow their respective committees to debate and vote on the legislation given its wide ranging effects on the American economy. They also stressed the damaging effects they believed the bill would have.

Brown, Perdue offer opposing views of CFPB

This story appeared in Bank Digest.                      

Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has issued a statement in the wake of the House Financial Services Committee's vote to approve the Financial CHOICE Act, a Republican alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act that Brown said "is a massive giveaway to megabanks and payday lenders, and would dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau." Brown said Congress should improve the Dodd-Frank Act, "not turn the clock back to the days when Wall Street was free to prey on Ohioans, wreck the economy, and hand taxpayers the bill."                                  

Brown's release described his efforts to protect the CFPB, which "has returned almost $12 billion to 29 million Americans who have been cheated by shadowy debt collectors, for-profit schools, and payday lenders."                                 

Taking a different view, Senate Banking Committee member David Perdue (R-Ga) issued a statement on efforts to stop implementation of the CFPB's prepaid accounts rule, which he said originally "was entirely too broad and would negatively impact financial products millions of consumers use every day." Referring to the bureau as a "rogue agency," Perdue said "the CFPB should have scrapped this rule altogether but we were able to extract significant concessions to narrow its scope." Perdue's release went on to describe his efforts "to hold the CFPB accountable and shine light on this overreaching agency."

Financial Services Committee passes Financial CHOICE Act

This story appeared in Bank Digest.

The House Financial Services Committee has passed the Financial CHOICE Act, a Republican alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act, on a party-line vote of 34-26. A number of representatives issued statements either supporting or opposing the committee's action. In addition, several banking or financial services groups issued statements generally approving of the bill, while some nonprofit organizations issued statements opposing it.

• Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo) statement
• Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) statement
• Statement by Rob Nichols, President and CEO, American Bankers Association
• Financial Services Roundtable press release

 

Cummings urges Oversight and Government Reform Committee to retain jurisdiction over Financial CHOICE Act

This story appeared in Bank Digest.

Representative Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md), Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has written to Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) urging him not to agree to any requests to waive the committee's jurisdiction over the Financial CHOICE Act (H.R 10), a Republican alternative to the Dodd-Frank Act. Cummings said the Financial CHOICE Act was "a sprawling and misguided bill that would destroy key financial regulations and consumer protections" established by the Dodd-Frank Act and that it "includes numerous provisions that clearly fall within the legislative jurisdiction of the Committee.

He went on to say that the bill "would gut the progress we have made and place our economy at greater risk of another crisis" and that it was "imperative that our Committee consider and vote on legislation that could impose so many harms on our constituents and our economy."