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. HUIZENGA. Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.J. Res. 90, which is an effort to overturn a long-overdue regulatory update of the Community Reinvestment Act.

Frankly, it is ludicrous to compare this modernization effort to bringing us back to 1930s banking policy. I don't understand how my colleagues on the other side can possibly equate that.

So we all agree the fundamental purpose of the Community Reinvestment Act is to combat unacceptable, discriminatory redlining, and demand that banks meet the credit needs of their communities. There is no disagreement on that. My friend from New York laid out that history very, very well. It is the reason why we support the CRA and modernizing it.

However, the regulations promulgated to implement the CRA haven't been meaningfully updated since 1995. Now, earlier we were talking about credit reporting, and the chair cited the fact that we had not addressed this in 17 years, as to why we needed to pass the bill that was on the floor. Well, we haven't addressed the CRA in any meaningful way for 25 years. We have 8 years on that on this particular issue.

So in May of this year, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a final rule that modernizes the Community Reinvestment Act regulations for the 21st century.

The final rule provides clarity to banks on what activities count for a Community Reinvestment Credit, updated the geographic definitions of a bank's community, as well as accounts for the technological transformation of banking services that we have seen. This will ensure that banks' reinvestment will be in those communities that need it most.

The final rule establishes new performance standards and metrics that will allow OCC bank examiners to measure performance objectively and produce more consistent, useful, and timely Community Reinvestment Act evaluations to provide more clarity to banks.

Now, I understand that some of my colleagues want to have this ``let's move the target to my pet project'' kind of a way of evaluating where a bank is going, but that is not what it is intended to do.

Lastly, this modernization introduces objective reporting measures that will allow comparison over time and between banks, which has never been possible in the history of the CRA. What is a good project in one neighborhood should be viewed as a good project in an adjacent neighborhood, and that isn't the case today.

As we work to ensure a strong economic recovery for all Americans-- all Americans--it is critical that we encourage financial institutions to continue to provide services to those most in need.

I have the poorest county in the State of Michigan. I have urban and suburban areas. These are issues that affect all of America.

The OCC's rule will play an important role in this recovery effort by encouraging more capital, investment, and lending services in the communities hardest hit by COVID-19.

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Mr. HUIZENGA. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the ranking member doing that. Let me just wrap up.

By using the Congressional Review Act to overturn this critical final rule, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will only delay progress and harm the very communities that I know they want to protect. Those are the same communities that I serve as well.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote against this partisan attempt to overturn much-needed reform and modernization of the Community Reinvestment Act, and I am hopeful that we are going to be able to come together and work on true, meaningful, actual reform in the long run.

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