[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 6, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1399-S1400]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    ECONOMIC GROWTH, REGULATORY RELIEF, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION BILL

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise tonight to talk about the 
bipartisan legislation that is before the body. It is an opportunity 
that provides significant needed regulatory relief, primarily to 
smaller financial institutions like community banks and credit unions.
  The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act 
will modernize the Federal Dodd-Frank regulations to ensure that small- 
and medium-sized banks, as well as credit unions, can lower their 
compliance costs, which will mean more loans to small businesses and 
better deals for their customers.
  For years, Dodd-Frank has hurt these smaller community banks and 
credit unions that have been caught up in this broader effort to rein 
in a select few larger financial institutions--primarily financial 
institutions on Wall Street. In effect, these smaller banks were caught 
in the web.
  Last week, I met with some of Ohio's community banks. I meet with 
them regularly, and they tell me these stories. Their view, of course, 
is these Dodd-Frank rules targeted at the big banks are actually 
hurting the little guys. Over the past several years, they have told me 
story after story about how their compliance costs have increased. A 
small bank will say they used to have one person doing compliance, but 
now they have three people doing compliance, and those costs get passed 
along to their consumers. They also say, with the redtape and 
regulations and rules they live under, it makes it harder for them to 
lend to small businesses, which is one of the problems we have today in 
our economy. As the economy is beginning to grow, we need to ensure 
that startups and people who are interested in taking a risk and may 
not have a lot of business experience are able to get that loan to get 
started.
  What has happened is, there has been a consolidation of these 
community banks because of these costs. In fact, they say one community 
bank is becoming insolvent every day in this country because of these 
big compliance costs, but others are consolidating into larger banks. 
That may be fine in some cases, but I like these community banks.
  I like the fact that these community banks are close to the people in 
the neighborhood, and they know the businesses that are coming to them 
for loans. Again, it is easier for small businesses to get loans when 
you actually have a banking relationship. They also are very involved 
in our communities.

[[Page S1400]]

  So these community banks, which are really the backbone of America's 
financial sector, are what this bill is primarily about. The bill on 
the floor this week makes it easier for them to extend credit, loans, 
mortgages, and provide other products and services to working families 
in Ohio and around the country.
  The legislation does more than that though. It also focuses on the 
regional banks in Ohio. These are banks that were not part of the 
financial crisis. They had nothing to do with it, but despite that, 
they have been required to live under the onerous systemically 
important financial institution rules and regulations or the SIFI 
designation. It has caused higher compliance costs for them. Again, it 
has hurt lending to Ohio businesses.
  In Ohio, we happened to have three very big employers in the State 
that are regional banks--Fifth Third Bank, Huntington Bank, and 
KeyBank. They are all examples of well-capitalized Ohio regional banks 
that will benefit from this legislation, and the benefit will go to 
their thousands of employees, but it will also go to their many 
thousands of customers.
  This legislation also increases important consumer protections for 
veterans, senior citizens, victims of fraud, and those who have fallen 
on tough financial times
  Another thing I like about the legislation that is particularly 
important to me is it includes a specific piece of legislation I 
authored to make it easier for a group called Habitat for Humanity to 
carry out their mission of providing safe and affordable housing to 
those in need. Habitat is a great organization. I volunteer at Habitat 
regularly. I see firsthand the great work they are doing back in my 
home State of Ohio.
  My legislation is called the Housing Opportunity Made Easier Act or 
HOME Act, and it simply ensures that Habitat affiliates and other 
organizations--nonprofits--can receive donated appraisals of the homes 
they build. This is a really important issue for Habitat because Dodd-
Frank disallows this donated appraisal, and the affiliates have 
traditionally accepted the donations. That has allowed them to have 
lower costs. When they have to pay the appraisal fees, it increases the 
cost of the homes to the families that are so badly in need of 
affordable housing. So getting rid of this redtape is something that 
should be bipartisan and even nonpartisan. It has been tough for us to 
get this legislation moving because people have wanted to block 
anything that has to with Dodd-Frank, but this obviously, I hope, was 
inadvertent. So in this legislation we have the ability for Habitat and 
other nonprofits to take advantage of these donated appraisals. Getting 
rid of that redtape is going to help create more affordable housing for 
families in need.
  I want to thank Chairman Crapo for including that legislation. I also 
want to congratulate him and his colleagues on the Banking Committee 
for their bipartisan work on this legislation, dealing with the very 
real problem we have, which is the burdens, the redtape, the compliance 
costs, and coming up with a balanced product that can be supported on 
both sides of the aisle, get through the House, get through the Senate, 
get to the President for signature, and begin to improve this economy 
even more.

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