Providing for Congressional Disapproval of Rule Submitted By Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Relating to ``Community Reinvestment Act Regulations''

Floor Speech

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for the time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.J. Res. 90, but I rise in support of the Community Reinvestment Act. And I rise in support of the goal of CRA, for a fair and more equitable treatment of financial investment, particularly in low- and moderate-income areas of our communities.

This resolution overturns the updated Community Reinvestment Act regulation before it has even had a chance to take effect.

Speaking purely from a procedural standpoint, this resolution, in my view, Madam Speaker, is not necessary. We could be spending time on the House floor today in a much more productive way to advance the economy.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has gone through a rigorous Administrative Procedure Act process. I think our constituents should know they have conducted outreach since 2017, 3 years, and have taken all that into consideration, the Federal Reserve data, Treasury recommendations, and have conducted both advanced notice for proposed rulemaking and a notice of proposed rulemaking, and received 7,500 comments.

The final rule ended up incorporating much of this serious and constructive criticism received from all stakeholders, notably, our community groups.

Banks have been complying with the Community Reinvestment Act for years. This is not a new rule, Madam Speaker. This rule is simply being updated to reflect the current economic and banking conditions in our country. The last time that was updated was 1995.

Working for a publicly traded bank in Arkansas then, I was involved in the training and the implementation at that bank for those 1995 revisions.

Madam Speaker, as one of the few Members of Congress who has actually gone through multiple CRA examinations, I can assure my colleagues that this rule could benefit from a thoughtful update.

The final rule clarifies what counts for CRA credit. It updates what bank activity counts for CRA credit. It evaluates the CRA performance of our financial institutions in a much more fair, open manner. It makes CRA reporting more transparent and faster. It reflects the fintech community of digital banking in our country today. And it enhances CRA for rural areas and Tribal areas in our country.

In short, the bank branch issue that the ranking member mentioned is serious. We have had a shrinking number of banks since the original rule was proposed in 1977, and the CRA rule was connected to those bank branches. That is another reason for modernizing the rule.

Since we created this bank branch closure system by our economy contracting the number of banks, due to regulation and the like, it is a double whammy, so let's make sure that our banks can get credit for doing a good job on accessing of all of our communities, particularly our minority, low-to-moderate income, and rural areas served by those institutions.

Let's fix this problem by having the certainty that we have an effective CRA rule, that it is implemented properly, and that we can all see our constituencies benefited by that.

Let's let the Comptroller of the Currency do their job. They are the banking experts. They are the ones who have been managing this work. Congress should not be undermining it.

Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for the time, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the resolution but support the work of the Community Reinvestment Act.

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