[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 93 (Thursday, June 11, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S4109]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. REED (for himself, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Warner, 
        Mr. Merkley, Ms. Warren, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Franken, Mr. 
        Durbin, Mr. Kaine, and Ms. Hirono):
  S. 1565. A bill to allow the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection 
to provide greater protection to servicemembers; to the Committee on 
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, today, along with Senators Schumer, 
Menendez, Warner, Merkley, Warren, Blumenthal, Franken, Durbin, Kaine, 
and Hirono, I am introducing the Military Consumer Protection Act, 
which reinforces our commitment to consumer protections for 
servicemembers.
  Our country has a strong tradition of ensuring that our 
servicemembers are protected while they sacrifice to keep our Nation 
safe. Building on such efforts, Congress passed the Soldiers' and 
Sailor's Civil Relief Act as World War II escalated to provide crucial 
financial protections for servicemembers to ``enable such persons to 
devote their entire energy to the defense needs of the Nation.'' Now 
called the Servicemember Civil Relief Act, SCRA, this law includes such 
protections as prohibiting the eviction of servicemembers and their 
dependents from rental or mortgaged properties and capping the interest 
at 6 percent on debts incurred prior to an individual entering active 
duty military service.
  Despite the SCRA's importance, enforcement of this critical law has 
been found to be inconsistent and subject to the discretion of our 
financial regulators. Indeed, misinformation, lapses, and mistakes that 
the SCRA was intended to fix continue to persist. Moreover, according 
to a July 2012 report from the Government Accountability Office, ``in 
2010, examinations for SCRA compliance occurred in an estimated 26 
percent of all [financial] institutions, compared with 2007 when about 
4 percent of all institutions were reviewed for SCRA.''
  Without a change in the law, SCRA enforcement will continue to be 
subject to the changing priorities of the financial regulators. Simply 
put, prioritizing the consumer protection of our servicemembers should 
not be discretionary. It should be mandatory, and my legislation 
ensures that SCRA enforcement will be a permanent priority for the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB, which Congress created to 
enforce Federal consumer financial protection laws.
  In 2010, as we were debating the creation of the CFPB, I led the 
bipartisan effort to ensure it would contain a key role in protecting 
servicemembers through the establishment of an Office of Servicemember 
Affairs. Since that time, the CFPB has coordinated with other 
enforcement agencies and regulators to help servicemembers recover 
millions in relief from unscrupulous actors in the financial 
marketplace. With this demonstrated record of success in protecting our 
servicemembers, the CFPB is an ideal focal point for enforcement of 
certain key SCRA provisions, such as the protections against default 
judgments and the maximum rate of interest on debts incurred before 
military service.
  As we take steps to protect our servicemembers, we should do all we 
can to make sure there is a strong watchdog on the beat that can 
enforce the protections we have put in place. Our legislation is 
supported by the National Guard Association of the United States, the 
National Military Family Association, the Military Officers Association 
of America, Americans for Financial Reform, the Consumer Federation of 
America, Consumer Action, the National Consumer Law Center, and the 
U.S. Public Interest Research Group. I urge our colleagues to help 
honor our commitment to our Nation's servicemembers by joining us in 
this effort to improve the supervision and enforcement of the SCRA.

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