Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act--Motion
Floor Speech
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Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Idaho for his kind remarks, and I join my colleagues in expressing our gratitude for his efforts to make certain we are here today. What a long time it has been to get us to this point.
This is important legislation, and we ought not suggest that because there is such bipartisan support, that this is a minor accomplishment. We come together, it seems, on the small things around here, but on the big things, it seems awfully impossible for us to bridge the gap. Therefore, to suggest that what we are doing here today is nothing important would be a total mistake,would be a fabrication of the facts.
If we are successful in passing this legislation and the House accepting it in a form that is acceptable to the Senate and having it signed by the President, this legislation will make a significant and tremendous difference in America and especially on Main Street, in farms and small businesses across the country.
A significant component of what I am about in my work in the Senate is trying to make certain that my colleagues from places that are not rural understand the rural nature of much of America and understand how we do business and how things get done.
As has been indicated by many of my colleagues, in smalltown America, nothing gets done without the support of your local financial institution. We earn a living in much of Kansas by small businesses--by farms and ranches--and in the absence of access to credit, the ability for us to continue to earn a living in smalltown America disappears.
It was a sad day when the Banking Committee--now 3 years or so ago-- passed Dodd-Frank reform legislation but did so with only Republican votes. The sadness is that we were unable to find common ground and make a difference in a piece of legislation that was passed in years gone by. We were unable to make the improvements that were necessary, the changes, the alterations that could make Dodd-Frank work for rural America, that could limit its scope to Wall Street, not Main Street.
I think when Dodd-Frank was passed and many of us voted against it, Republicans were saying: We are going to repeal Dodd-Frank. That caused many Democrats to say: We are not going to let you touch Dodd-Frank. So we have been at an impasse when Republicans and Democrats alike know that this legislation, Dodd-Frank, is causing serious harm to places across the country. But we have gone to our corners. We have argued for full repeal, and you have argued that we are not going to touch it. This is a good day in which we have decided that it is neither one of those extremes. It is the idea that we can find the solutions to problems that exist as a result of legislation that Congress approved.
This legislation is important, and it matters. It is important because it demonstrates that the Senate can function in its proper form, that we can accomplish good, commonsense things. It is also important because it will alter the landscape in the future for communities across Kansas and around the country.
In rural America, we need access to credit. It is too often that access to credit is only available from that smalltown lender--that local bank, that credit union--and they know the community and know their borrowers.
Earlier, one of my colleagues talked about relationship banking. It is the banking system that many of us grew up with, and it is the banking system that still works for us in smalltown America. In the absence of the reforms included in this legislation, the ability of many of my banks in Kansas to make home loans will continue to be absent.
For the years that I have been on the Banking Committee, I have questioned the examiners, the FDIC, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the State banking commissioners: What are you doing to make certain that the regulations don't put out of business the smalltown lenders who are so important to the communities that I represent?
It seems that we have gotten lipservice: We have a committee. We have a commission. We study these things. When you ask ``What rule or regulation have you eliminated?'' there is never an answer that outlines that that has happened.
Today, we are altering the opportunity for the regulators to continue to overregulate financial institutions that are only important to the communities they serve, and if they have financial challenges, it does not create a threat to the rest of our banking system or to our country's economy and fiscal condition. Relationship banking matters.
Today we have a regulatory environment in which bankers are fearful of making a home loan to a citizen within their community. If somebody wants to buy a home or build a home, they are told by their local bank: We can't afford the cost associated with the regulations for making these loans. We can't afford the risk that if we make a technical error, the financial consequences to our bank will be so great, we will be out of the home loan business.
Who would ever expect to go to their hometown bank and discover they don't make home loans? And it is not because there is not the opportunity to make a loan that will be repaid--the bank will make money, and the borrower will get the benefit of the loan--it is because, upon a mistake, the regulations are so onerous and so expensive that the business decision is made not that this person is not creditworthy but that the risk associated with the regulations is so great that they can't make the loan.
We need more banks, more financial institutions making home loans in more communities so that more people in rural American can access the American dream. If we create a banking system in which the rules and regulations dictate that every ``t'' must be crossed and every ``i'' must be dotted, and it is like you have a computer program and plug in the numbers and make a decision whether that local banker can make a loan, rural America will no longer be here.
For much of the time I have served in Congress and tried to explain rural America to my colleagues, I have indicated that in communities that I represent, it is often true that economic development can be the difference between whether or not there is a grocery store in town. Most people in Washington, DC, don't understand the nature of that small town. Is there a hardware store? Can the newspaper continue to print newspapers and sell enough advertising and subscriptions to make ends meet? When you lose your grocery store, you begin to lose your home town.
What I have learned over time is that if only that local financial institution is making a loan, are we going to have a grocery store in our town? That local relationship lender knows their community, knows their borrowers, and knows whether they have the character to repay the loan.
I saw this happen recently, and we are experiencing this in Kansas again this month. Wildfires are consuming acres of land across rural Kansas. Our grasslands are burning. A year ago this month, nearly 80 percent of Clark County, KS, was consumed in a wildfire. It is a ranching community. Ashland, the county seat, has a population of 900. That is rural. That is the biggest town in the county. As a result of those fires, thousands of head of cattle were killed in the fire or had to be euthanized. As you would think, there was a terrible economic consequence to the community. You would wonder, how do we recover? One of the things you would think about is, well, I can go to my bank and borrow money to keep my farm or my cattle operation in business. But those cattlemen no longer had any collateral. There was no collateral. You could not tell your banker: I pledge my cattle to repay the loan. If I don't repay the loan, you get my cattle. The fire consumed their opportunity to rebuild.
The Presiding Officer is a member of the Agriculture Committee. He will be asked about the safety net that is in a farm bill, and that is important to us. But the safety net that many farmers and ranchers have in Kansas is the relationship they have with their banker, who makes a decision. It is not based upon a computer program or that every ``t'' is crossed and every ``i'' is dotted. That banker makes a decision based upon the character and the relationship and the history.
Many of our banks in Kansas are owned by families. They have been in the family for generations. The same is true of our farms and ranches. That relationship allows a banker to make a loan even when there is no cattle due to the result of a natural disaster. The collateral is gone, but the banker knows the family. He knows the history and knows whether this potential borrower has character. They know that if he or she makes a promise to repay, that he or she will.
All too often, those decisions have been taken away from those relationship lenders and reside here in Washington, DC, with a myriad of regulators who are telling our bankers through their examiners, through the examination process, this is a loan you can't make or this is a loan we will write for you.
Today, we make another step in the process toward returning the ability for smalltown America--its businesses, its farmers, and its ranchers--to have a future. This is important legislation that will make a significant difference in the future of communities and the people who live in rural America and in rural Kansas.
This is not about taking care of bankers. It is not about taking care of credit unions. It is about taking care of the people they serve, their borrowers, and that means a bright future for the rest of rural America, for the other people who live in the communities, because access to credit determines whether there is a grocery store in town or whether a farmer or a rancher can borrow money to keep their business going, to keep their farm or ranch going.
This is a good day, and I commend my colleagues. It is a good day for the Senate, to see us working together, Republicans and Democrats, to reach a result that will make a difference. It is a good day for America. It is a good day for rural America. It is an opportunity for us to correct when we went too far following the financial collapse of 2008.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I appreciate my colleagues, especially the chairman, the Senator from Idaho, for his tremendous efforts in bringing us together and getting us to this point.
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