[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 41 (Thursday, March 8, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1529-S1565]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    ECONOMIC GROWTH, REGULATORY RELIEF, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of S. 2155, which the clerk will 
report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 2155) to promote economic growth, provide 
     tailored regulatory relief, and enhance consumer protections, 
     and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       McConnell (for Crapo) amendment No. 2151, in the nature of 
     a substitute.
       Crapo amendment No. 2152 (to amendment No. 2151), of a 
     perfecting nature.


                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.


                        Tribute to Gary Endicott

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, first, this morning, I would like to 
recognize a remarkable Senate career that is drawing to a close.
  Gary Endicott has served in the Office of the Legislative Counsel for 
37 years. Since his appointment as the legislative counsel of the 
Senate in 2015, he has directed that office and has done so with 
distinction. Now he is embarking on a well-earned retirement. After 
nearly four decades of service to this body, tomorrow is Gary's last 
day.
  Much has changed during the time Gary has been with us. Over the 
years, Senators and staff have asked more and more of the legislative 
counsel's office, but thanks in large part to Gary's hard work and then 
to his leadership, we can always rely on his team for meticulous 
professionalism and expertise.
  I understand Gary is headed back to his native Midwest. He departs 
with our gratitude and our best wishes for him and for his family.
  Mr. President, on another matter, the Dodd-Frank law became effective 
in 2010. It ostensibly targeted banks that were deemed too big to fail, 
but 7\1/2\ years later, Dodd-Frank has proven to be far too blunt an 
instrument. For one thing, it has imposed a crushing regulatory burden 
on small community banks and credit unions. Rather than fixing too big 
to fail, Dodd-Frank has threatened to make many of these Main Street 
mainstays too small to succeed.
  This is especially problematic because of the central role local 
financial institutions play in each of their communities. Local lenders 
provide a majority of small business loans and nearly three-quarters of 
agricultural loans, and in low-income communities, when a local bank 
closes, research suggests that loans to nearby small businesses plummet 
by 40 percent.
  With farmers, ranchers, small businesses, and vulnerable communities, 
Americans need community banks, and they need credit unions, but Dodd-
Frank is making it harder for these institutions to survive. Millions 
of Americans, from rural areas to inner cities, now find themselves in 
what researchers call banking deserts. Fortunately, help is on the way.
  Thanks to the leadership of Senator Crapo, Democrats and Republicans

[[Page S1530]]

have joined together to cosponsor a modest but important bill that 
would streamline the obstacles that are tripping up these smaller 
institutions. It is a commonsense, compromise measure, and Senators do 
not need to resolve all of our differences on Dodd-Frank in order to 
unite behind it. I look forward to voting to pass these reforms very 
soon.


                               Tax Reform

  Mr. President, on a final matter, as I have discussed, a number of 
America's largest employers are already reinvesting their tax reform 
savings in bonuses, pay raises, and new benefits for their employees. 
Higher take-home pay and lower tax rates are helping families cover 
today's expenses and save for the future.
  In Nebraska, the Lincoln Journal Star reports that hometown companies 
Nelnet and Pinnacle Bank have awarded tax reform bonuses to thousands 
of workers. In Iowa, the Des Moines Register reports that utilities 
will pass along $147 million in tax reform savings to their customers. 
Acadia Healthcare, with operations in my home State of Kentucky, has 
announced that tax reform will enable it to build additional facilities 
on the frontlines of the opioid epidemic.
  This week, Vice President Pence has been on the road, hearing how tax 
reform is changing Americans' lives and livelihoods for the better. He 
visited all three of those States and listened to workers and small 
business owners.
  It is interesting, though. The huge number of early tax reform 
success stories is not getting the applause it deserves from over here 
on the other side of the aisle. Every one of my Democratic colleagues 
in the House and in the Senate made the political calculation to vote 
along party lines and try to sink tax reform--every single one of them 
in the House and the Senate. Fortunately, those efforts failed.
  Yet, even with tax reform now as the law of the land, it seems my 
Democratic friends are so unwilling to admit their mistake that they 
would rather try to sabotage the law that is already helping families 
and making American job creators more competitive. Just yesterday, for 
example, Senate Democrats announced they would like to spend $1 
trillion of taxpayer money and roll back Americans' brandnew tax cuts 
while they are at it.
  This popular, new tax bill has been in effect for a couple of months, 
and they want to roll it back already, take the money, and spend it. 
There they go again. They just can't help themselves. To tax more, 
spend more, take money away from American families, and give it to the 
Federal Government is a familiar refrain from our Democratic friends.
  Even amidst this tidal wave of good news from tax reform, even in the 
face of higher take-home pay, new jobs, new investments, raises, worker 
bonuses, and foreign competitors like China getting nervous, Democrats 
just can't help themselves. It must be in their DNA. They can't resist 
turning back to their old, top-down, tax-and-spend playbook.
  By lowering the tax burden on companies, large and small, America 
turned on a bright neon sign that is telling the world we are open for 
business. Democrats want to unplug it. By lowering middle-class rates 
and expanding deductions, we gave families all across the country more 
breathing room to save or pay their bills. Democrats want to claw that 
money back.
  Fortunately, for the American people, the Republicans in the House, 
the Senate, and the White House will not let them take back your tax 
relief, your lower utility rates, your bonuses, or your new 
opportunities. We are proud that we took money out of Washington's 
pocket and put it back in the pockets of hard-working Americans, and 
that is exactly where it is going to stay.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The Democratic leader is recognized.


                                Tariffs

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, later this afternoon President Trump 
plans to announce sweeping steel and aluminum tariffs. Let me say once 
again, I believe the President's instincts on China are correct. All 
those who are trying to push him away from his instincts will allow 
China over the next decade to become the dominant economic power and 
greatly hurt American jobs and American prosperity as well. So I would 
say: Mr. President, stick to your instincts.
  But while the President's instincts are correct, the execution on 
these tariffs is poor. That is the difference here--not the instinct, 
not that we shouldn't go after China, and not that we have to do more 
to bolster American wealth and American workers against rapacious 
policies of China's. China will stop at nothing, nothing, nothing, to 
steal our intellectual property and to manipulate its currency to 
exclude American companies from being there.
  China has been rapacious about trade, and I have spoken about this 
problem for years. Early on--I think it was 2004 or 2005--Senator 
Graham and I discovered that China was manipulating its currency. I 
heard it from Crucible steel up in Syracuse, NY.
  The great thinkers said: They don't manipulate their currency. This 
is protectionist.
  In the same week--I was quite proud of this--the New York Times 
editorial board, which is liberal, and the Wall Street Journal 
editorial board, which is conservative, both said: There is no such 
thing as currency manipulation, and Schumer and Graham ought to back 
off.
  Of course, we proved to be right on that and other issues.
  China is rapacious. If we don't stop China, America will be a weaker 
place with fewer good-paying jobs, with less wealth, less strength, and 
we probably won't stay the greatest country in the world--although we 
deserve to because we play by the rules.
  President Trump has identified the right opponent--China--much better 
than both the Obama and Bush administrations did. Both Democrats and 
Republicans have been blind to this issue, and Trump isn't. Good. But I 
would say to the President: Don't swing blindly and wildly at our foe, 
China. Establish a well-placed jab at China. Set them back. Let them 
know we mean business.
  President Trump ought to rethink his plan so it actually achieves 
what he says he wants it to achieve.
  U.S. steel and aluminum workers have been battling heavily subsidized 
products from China for decades. I know. I have Nucor in my State, in 
Auburn and in Chemung County. On aluminum, I have Alcoa in my State, in 
Massena. Our steel and aluminum workers deserve a more level playing 
field against these countries like China that heavily subsidize their 
products or other countries that purchase Chinese steel at artificially 
low prices and ship it to the United States. A targeted trade action 
against China would be very helpful not only in providing relief for 
the steel and aluminum workers in New York and around the country, but 
it would send a strong shot across the bow to China for the first time 
in decades: We mean business. We are not going to let you prey on us 
any longer.
  Targeted trade against China and against countries that allow China 
to sell them steel at artificially low prices and then send it here, go 
after them, but instead of getting right at China, the President's 
across-the-board tariffs will cause more damage to key allies and other 
domestic industries. I not only have steelworkers in Upstate New York, 
I have a lot of autoworkers. For instance, we are so proud of the GM 
plant in Tonawanda near Buffalo and the Ford stamping plant also in 
Western New York. We are so proud of our agriculture.
  Incidentally, the President is right, Canada has put in certain 
restrictions on American dairy going to Canada that has hurt companies 
like the Cayuga cooperative in Central New York and O-AT-KA in Genesee 
County.
  We have to protect and help our workers in auto manufacturing and our 
farmers who do export and who do good things. China doesn't let our 
auto products in, in a fair way, but other countries do--Canada does.
  So the President's proposal does more harm to Europe and other allies

[[Page S1531]]

like Canada than it does to China. That is what is wrong with it. It is 
so typical of this White House. Even when they have a good idea, they 
mess it up because they don't think it through, and the President acts 
only by his instincts. You have to act by your instincts and put a 
thought process on top of it.
  The goal of the President to go after China was not really achieved 
very well in his proposal. The haphazard way these tariffs were put 
together has caused policy to miss the mark. It seems no one is at home 
in the White House right now. President Trump makes up his mind one 
day, changes it the next, and meanwhile trade policies, foreign 
policies, gun policies, immigration policies are all in chaos because 
he says one thing one day and another thing the next. So we need the 
President to follow his instincts but then allow the people who know 
this issue to craft something smart.
  The President and I may agree on trade. As I said, we are closer on 
this issue than I have been with either the Bush or Obama 
administrations, but the slapdash way these tariffs were constructed 
have few of us cheering, even those of us who really have wanted to go 
after China long before politics was a gleam in President Trump's eye. 
Well, maybe that is not true; it may have been a gleam in his eye but 
before he ran for anything.
  I strongly urge the President to rethink these tariffs and focus his 
policy more directly at China and countries that ship cheap Chinese 
steel to the United States. On the flip side, I am sure some of our 
business interests will tell the President do nothing on trade.
  The chamber of commerce--they are interested in the bottom-line 
profits of their big companies, and they don't care if they make those 
profits at the expense of American workers. They are not a barometer 
here, and President Trump is right to ignore them. We have to be smart 
about this--not just tough, but tough and smart. We need to get tough 
and smart on China, and the right approach is targeted action against 
China's most flagrant abuses.


                          Republican Tax Bill

  Mr. President, on tax, since the Republican tax bill passed last 
year, nearly every day there has been a new story about a corporation 
choosing to pass along the savings from the tax law to wealthy 
shareholders and corporate executives because they buy back their 
stocks. They use this new tax money not to help their workers but to 
buy back their stocks. In January, there was an initial flurry of all 
these bonuses. They have been totally overwhelmed with stock buybacks. 
What Democrats said is proving to be true. The vast majority of this 
tax break is for the wealthy, by the wealthy, used by the wealthy to 
help themselves, not help workers. That has been the history when you 
give these corporations lots of money, when they have so much money 
already, without pointing it in the direction of helping workers.
  Yesterday, Chevron joined the parade of those with stock buybacks. It 
was Chevron who announced that while it was making no changes to 
workers' compensation or benefits, it would be restarting its dormant 
stock repurchasing program. Do you know how much Chevron got from this 
tax bill? Mr. President, $2 billion. Do you know how much they are 
giving their workers--or benefits--out of that $2 billion? Nothing. 
Nothing as of now. Do you know what they are using it for? Stock 
buybacks. Let our Republican friends come to the floor and defend those 
stock buybacks. Let them do that.
  Today, another oil company, Hess, announced it would be purchasing 
back $1 billion of its stock by the end of the year. Since the start of 
2018, just in the last few months, the cumulative total of share 
buybacks has passed $200 billion. Let me repeat that, $200 billion has 
been used for stock buybacks. The month of February set the 1-month 
record for share buybacks, and analysts at JPMorgan--hardly a liberal 
think tank--says they ``expect total buybacks in 2018 to surpass $800 
billion, way up from the $530 billion last year and demolishing 2007's 
all-time high that came in a bit below $700 billion.'' That is not 
Chuck Schumer or CPAC or any of these liberal think tanks, that is 
JPMorgan Chase.
  So our poor Republican friends had hoped this tax bill would send 
them on a trajectory to win elections and, by February, the numbers are 
starting to turn against them again. Look at the Quinnipiac poll of 
yesterday. Why? Because, as this tax bill plays out, what Democrats 
said all along; that the vast majority of the benefits are going to the 
wealthy, it increases the deficit, and it increases the clarion call of 
many on the Republican side to cut Medicare and Social Security to pay 
for the deficit they created--it is not going over too well. We will 
match our argument against theirs now in October and November. We are 
confident we are going to win that argument, and that is why already 
the enthusiasm about this tax bill is fading.
  The massive deluge of corporate share buybacks is proving to be the 
principal legacy of the Republican tax bill--not benefits to workers, 
not bonuses, not wage increases, not even new equipment or investment 
in R&D. I would welcome that. Nope, corporations are spending the bulk 
of the savings from the tax bill on themselves, their corporate 
executives, and their wealthy shareholders.
  Guess how much of the capital companies have earned from the tax bill 
has been allocated to their employees, the workers who were going to 
get such huge benefits from this bill--6 percent. No, no, it is not 60; 
it is 6. Sixty is the percentage that has gone back to corporations in 
the form of stock buybacks--a 10-to-1 ratio. It doesn't make much 
sense. The American public is beginning to realize that. Those are the 
numbers according to Just Capital.
  As I said, the American people are starting to catch wind of the 
truth. Three separate polls yesterday--I mentioned Quinnipiac, and 
there are evidently two others. Three separate polls show the 
popularity of the Republican tax bill was significantly underwater and 
has lost ground since the last round of polling. I predict those 
numbers will continue to slip as more Americans learn that their hard-
earned taxpayer dollars were used to give a tax break to corporations 
who hoard the savings for themselves. It is no wonder their candidate 
in a hard-fought race in Southwest Pennsylvania has abandoned the tax 
argument. It is not going over well with his working-class constituents 
because they get a tiny, little bit, and everyone else gets so much 
more.
  Mr. President, Democrats have a plan to rein in these buybacks and 
put the middle class first. Yesterday, Senator Baldwin and I announced 
an amendment to the pending banking bill that would rein in corporate 
buybacks by giving the SEC the authority to reject buybacks that come 
at the expense of workers. Who will object to that? I hope not my 
colleagues. They say the buybacks will benefit workers, so they 
shouldn't be objecting to our bill. Senator Baldwin's bill and my bill 
would require company boards and their executives to put their money 
where their mouth is and certify that the buyback is in the best long-
term financial interest of the company.
  We are going to make this one of the top amendments to the banking 
bill, and I hope it gains Republican support. If Republicans mean what 
they say about their tax bill helping workers, they should join Senator 
Baldwin's amendment. The glut of corporate share buybacks highlights 
precisely how the corporate tax cut in the Republican bill is being put 
to ill use. Rather than stimulating the economy, creating jobs, or 
raising pay, corporations are spending the lion's share of the tax 
savings on goosing their stock.
  Let's not forget, these buybacks are relatively new. A ruling by the 
SEC in the early eighties said they could start doing these. Before 
that, the heyday, when corporate America dominated the world, profits 
were great, jobs were growing, and wages went up, the safe harbor 
provision wasn't there. Corporations had to go through a lot of proof 
before they could buy back their stock, and that made sense, but once 
our Republican colleagues got in power, they did what the corporate 
leaders want them to do and look what happened.
  The amendment to say no buybacks unless they can prove it is really 
going to benefit their workers and be in the long-term financial 
interest of their company, that amendment is going to be one of the top 
amendments to the upcoming bill. I hope it gains Republican support. I 
really do. If Republicans mean what they say, they should

[[Page S1532]]

join Baldwin's amendment, as I said before, but I want to repeat it for 
the benefit of all my good Republican friends.
  Now, the glut of corporate share buybacks highlights precisely how 
the corporate tax cut in the Republican bill is being put to ill use. 
Rather than stimulating the economy, creating jobs, raising pay, 
corporations spend the lion's share of the tax savings on goosing their 
stock. Americans are just scratching their heads, wondering why we put 
ourselves in deeper debt so corporations could further enrich 
themselves. Why do we tell our children and grandchildren they are 
going to pay for the pay raise of the CEO of Exxon or the increase in 
value because his stock is going up? That doesn't make any sense at 
all. There are much better uses for the money.
  Yesterday, Democrats announced our plan to help build a trillion 
dollars of desperately needed infrastructure in America. How do we pay 
for it? We unwind some of these tax cuts for the biggest corporations 
to pay for a massive infusion of Federal funds in infrastructure--job-
creating infrastructure, which is desperately needed. Just by putting 
the top rate on individuals where it was, reinstituting the AMT and the 
estate tax, which goes only to the very wealthy, and setting the 
corporate rate at 25 percent--you may recall it was the Business 
Roundtable that asked for 25 percent. Oh, no, for our Republican 
colleagues and Donald Trump, that wasn't good enough. Make it lower--
even though the 200 biggest businesses in America said 25 percent was 
certainly an adequate drop. Many on my side wouldn't even think that is 
good.
  In any case, the BMT asked for 25 percent. We go to 25 percent, along 
with these other changes, and guess what we do with $1 trillion. We 
create infrastructure jobs--millions. We create new roads and bridges, 
new water and sewer. We say that every rural home in America should get 
broadband just as Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s said every rural 
home should get electricity. We update our power grid so all this new 
energy coming from other places can go to the most populated centers. 
It would be a huge shot in the arm for jobs in America, for prosperity 
in America, far more than this slanted tax bill aimed so much at the 
few wealthy who are so tight with this new Republican Party.
  I daresay our proposal is a much more effective use of taxpayer 
dollars than a handout to the biggest corporations and will create far 
more good-paying jobs in the process.
  I hope our Republican colleagues will rethink things. Their path is a 
path to a cul-de-sac, to great losses in the election. Rethink that tax 
cut. Don't allow these buybacks. They are doing no good for anyone but 
a handful, and that is where 60 percent of the money is going on the 
corporate rate.
  Join us in taking some of that money to do what the Federal 
Government has done since Henry Clay proposed it in the 1820s: Put that 
money into infrastructure, jobs, good-paying jobs, efficiency. Let's 
not let China or another country become the leader in infrastructure. 
They invest. The Chinese Government, the Japanese Government, the 
European Government invest in infrastructure, and so did this 
government, until Donald Trump became President and the hard right 
gained a stranglehold over the Republican Party. Let's reverse course 
before it is too late.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott). The Senator from Texas.


                               Tax Reform

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I guess I have to give my friend, the 
Senator from New York, credit. Once he made his bed, he decided he had 
better lie in it.
  Democrats made a risky gamble when they bet against the American 
people in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that we passed in December. No 
Democrat supported it--none--and now I think they are beginning to 
worry that it is actually working. Otherwise, I don't understand why 
the Democratic leader, the minority leader of the U.S. Senate, would 
say: We need to raise your taxes because we can spend your money better 
than you can. I guess he means that we also need to eliminate the 
doubling of the standard deduction, which makes sure that the first 
$24,000 earned by a married couple is tax-free--zero tax rate. I guess 
he thinks we ought to repeal the doubling of the child tax credit.
  As much as he rails about corporations, the fact is, what we did on 
the business side with taxes has made the United States more 
competitive globally. It is the same argument that he, President Obama 
in a State of the Union speech, and the ranking member of the Senate 
Finance Committee, Senator Wyden--it is the same argument they made 
that we embraced.
  We got a little more aggressive than they did in terms of the rate. 
We lowered it, not to 25 percent, as Senator Wyden had proposed, but to 
21 percent; thus, we made ourselves roughly average in the 
industrialized world, making America more competitive. We were seeing 
people going overseas and investing because they had better tax rates 
than we had here in America.
  Who owns the stock? You have heard the Democratic leader talk about 
stock buybacks. He said: Well, these corporations are using this money 
to buy their own stock back. Do you know who owns stock in America? I 
am not sure of the exact percentage, but a huge percentage of it is 
owned by retirement funds and pension funds of firefighters, teachers, 
and others who want to see that their retirement is not only safe but 
also grows. What they have seen since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was 
passed in December is the value of their retirement funds go through 
the roof. The stock market is at an all-time high--or thereabouts. It 
has set huge records.
  I know our friends on the other side of the aisle are worried because 
they made a dangerous gamble against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, but the 
fact is, all the polling is showing that as people are seeing the Tax 
Cuts and Jobs Act actually being implemented, they are seeing more 
money in their paychecks. Because the withholding tables were changed 
to reflect lower tax rates, people are seeing more take-home pay. And 
as the economy continues to grow, there is going to be more competition 
for workers.
  Unemployment claims are the lowest they have been since 1969. As 
there is more competition for workers, that is going to force employers 
to pay more wages, so everyone is going to benefit from a growing 
economy.
  Sometimes I think our colleagues across the aisle have settled for 
too little. They settled for a stagnant economy, frozen wages, and an 
America that could no longer compete in the world when it came to 
attracting business and investment. We changed that.
  Every single person on this side of the aisle--all 51 of us--voted 
for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Everyone on that side of the aisle voted 
against it. I think the Democratic leader now is getting pretty 
worried, especially leading up to the November elections, when a number 
of his colleagues on that side of the aisle are going to have to go to 
voters and say: I voted against your pay raise; I voted against take-
home pay; I voted against increasing the standard deduction; I voted 
against an increase in the child tax credit. I think they are pretty 
worried about it; otherwise, I couldn't imagine the Democratic leader 
coming out here and saying what he said today.
  He said: Well, we want to raise your taxes so we can spend it. I 
think the folks I represent--the 28 million Texans I represent--would 
say: No thank you. We want to spend our own hard-earned money the way 
we see fit, not send it to Washington to see it go into some black 
hole, and then we will not know what we actually benefited from.
  I didn't necessarily intend to come to the floor to talk about that, 
but I couldn't resist responding briefly to my friend's comments.
  Mr. President, I do want to congratulate the senior Senator from 
Idaho for a moment, Mr. Crapo, the chairman of the Banking Committee, 
on the bill that is pending on the floor. He has done stellar work to 
bring this Dodd-Frank reform bill to the floor, one that will release 
some of those shackles on small community banks and credit unions.
  They were the victims of overkill when it came to regulation under 
the name of Dodd-Frank, which was designed to address Wall Street and 
the excesses of Wall Street. But as I have told my friends who are 
community bankers and members of credit unions back home: You weren't 
the target, but

[[Page S1533]]

you were the collateral damage. We are going to remedy that on a 
bipartisan basis, thanks to the Banking Committee, its chairman, 
Senator Crapo, and our colleagues.


            Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act

  Mr. President, this morning, I want to mention another area where the 
Banking Committee and Senator Crapo are showing great leadership, and 
that is on a bill that will improve the CFIUS review process. Let me 
unpack that.
  CFIUS is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. 
That acronym stands for the interagency body led by the Treasury 
Department, in this case by Secretary Mnuchin. It polices foreign 
investment in the United States for national security risks.
  The Banking Committee has held two hearings on the bipartisan bill 
that I introduced with the senior Senator from California, Mrs. 
Feinstein, which is called the Foreign Investment Risk Review 
Modernization Act. I hope the committee will have a markup on that bill 
soon.
  The House Financial Services Committee has also been holding hearings 
on our bill, including one last week, and has more planned in the 
future.
  The time to act is now because this process is outdated, and the 
committee's jurisdiction remains too narrow. Let me explain why that is 
so important.
  This review process was not originally designed, and is now 
insufficient, to address today's rapidly evolving threats to our 
national security. Perhaps most alarmingly, many transactions that 
could pose a national security risk often go unreviewed altogether.
  In particular, China has proved adept at cheating the current CFIUS 
system. It exploits gaps and creatively structures investments in U.S. 
businesses to evade scrutiny. They literally have been vacuuming up 
startup technology firms that are going to produce the next cutting-
edge technology that would give America a competitive advantage against 
the rest of the world when it comes to our national security, and they 
are thinking strategically in the long term by showing up as investors 
in some of these businesses and flying beneath the radar screen. They 
are unreviewed under the current CFIUS process.
  To circumvent review, China will often pressure U.S. companies into 
arrangements like joint ventures and coerce them into handing over 
their technology and their know-how. This enables Chinese companies to 
acquire and then replicate U.S.-bred capabilities on their own soil, 
destroying jobs here in America in the process, as well as our 
industrial base. Many of these technologies have a direct military 
application, and my bill, cosponsored with Senator Feinstein, addresses 
this problem.
  As we speak, China is turning our own technology and know-how against 
us and seeking to erase our national security advantage little by 
little. They are doing it relentlessly and strategically. This massive 
technology transfer, which occurs out of the public eye and is achieved 
through China's deliberate campaign of evasion of our security 
safeguards, must end.
  We don't have to look very far to see how technology is increasingly 
the realm where U.S. national security interests and China's economic 
and military interests lie in tension with one another or, in the worst 
case, they actually collide. It is happening almost every day.
  Consider the widely reported news this week that CFIUS--the Committee 
on Foreign Investment in the United States--has ordered a full 
investigation into a foreign bid to take over a prominent American 
computer chip manufacturer. That company, Qualcomm, plays a leading 
role in supporting U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, especially 
by doing the research and investment of 5G technology, which is 
important for autonomous vehicles and the internet, increasing the use 
of cellular technology for what is transforming our lives. It supports 
our national security through classified work in the Federal 
Government.
  The cause for alarm is that the deal is a hostile takeover, and the 
consequences of the takeover could put China in the driver's seat for 
the next generation of mobile technology.
  Chinese companies, beholden as they are to the Chinese Communist 
Party, would fill any void that is left once the deal is complete, much 
to the detriment of our national security and our economy.
  We are still gathering information, and not all the facts are known 
yet, but I want to stress that we need to do our due diligence. We need 
to have a comprehensive review of this hostile takeover. In my view, 
CFIUS, with Secretary Mnuchin leading at the Treasury Department, is 
right to be extremely cautious and to investigate this matter further.
  Today there is a growing recognition that foreign investors are 
getting more sophisticated in accessing our technology. As this week's 
developments show, we can't be naive in thinking that this isn't 
happening or that it is not a clear and present danger or naive about 
State-owned enterprises in countries like China, where there is no such 
thing as the private and public sector. The government controls 
everything because that is the nature of their Communist system.
  The Chinese Government has plans to dominate mobile technology, 
quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and other industries; that 
much is clear. One tactic is to force American companies to transfer 
high-tech industrial capabilities to China's homegrown players in 
exchange for the U.S. firms gaining access to the Chinese market. That, 
too, is well documented. But the quid pro quos don't stop there. They 
aren't even confined to the technology space.
  Recently, there have been calls to investigate China's involvement in 
American college campuses through the so-called Confucius Institutes. 
These institutes are proxies for the Chinese Communist Party. They 
offer schools financial benefits in exchange to set up shop in close 
proximity to U.S. researchers and students whose views they attempt to 
influence for what are essentially manipulative propaganda campaigns--
ones that conveniently whitewash over the Communist regime's less 
flattering attributes and their troubling history of human rights 
abuses and belligerence in places like the South China Sea.
  I know our colleague, the junior Senator from Florida, Mr. Rubio, who 
cochairs the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, has called on 
schools that host Confucius Institutes to end those partnerships, and 
he is right to do so. Steady and stealthy forms of information warfare 
should be a perpetual concern, especially when none other than Gen. Joe 
Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that by 2025, 
China will pose the greatest threat to U.S. national security of any 
nation.
  The bipartisan bill Senator Feinstein and I have introduced is an 
important piece of our overall response to this threat. It has been 
endorsed by the administration and is supported by the current 
Secretaries of Defense and Treasury, as well as the Attorney General. 
Let's not hold this up any longer.
  I congratulate the chairman of the Banking Committee for the good 
work on the bill that is on the floor. I thank him for his leadership 
and willingness to work with us on this important CFIUS reform bill. I 
look forward to the upcoming markup of this bill in the committee soon.


                             Fix NICS Bill

  Finally, Mr. President, let me say that every day that goes by since 
the shooting in Parkland, FL, on February 14--every day that goes by, 
we are distracted by other concerns, and our memories dim of the 
terrible mass tragedy that occurred at that school, the shootings that 
occurred there that day.
  I know the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, was at Stoneman 
Douglas High School yesterday for the students' first full, normal 
schoolday, 3 weeks after the shooting. She said it was a sobering 
moment--and I am sure it was--speaking to the students and teachers, 
who still flinch remembering the sounds of bullets in the hallways of 
their school. Fourteen students died, along with one teacher, the 
school's athletic director, and a coach who was shielding students with 
his body so they would not be hit.
  That is the thing about these events--these stories make us sad and 
angry and sometimes numb, all at the

[[Page S1534]]

same time, but from these stories, from these tragedies, heroes do 
emerge.
  We saw one of those heroes last fall at Sutherland Springs, TX, where 
people were gathered to worship at a small Baptist church just outside 
of San Antonio. A man who prefers not to be recognized grabbed his 
rifle and ran to the church that was under attack, and he saved lives 
in the process by preventing the gunman from continuing the carnage. 
That is a case of somebody taking an AR-15 out of his gun safe. He is a 
certified shooting instructor. He came to the aid of people who were 
defenseless and who were being slaughtered at that church, and he saved 
many lives.
  The person who was shooting at that church in Sutherland Springs was 
a convicted felon, and he was, under existing law, legally permitted to 
purchase or possess firearms. That is why, when I came back to 
Washington after visiting Sutherland Springs at the next Sunday 
service, I introduced a bill to fix the holes in the national instant 
background check system--to make sure that shooters like the one at 
Sutherland Springs could not legally purchase firearms.
  Part of the reason I did that was because after I talked to Pastor 
Frank Pomeroy, who lost his daughter Annabelle in the massacre, I 
promised myself I would do everything in my power to prevent similar 
events from occurring in the future. I did the same after I spoke with 
a man by the name of Andrew Pollack, who lost his daughter Meadow in 
Florida last month. I met Andrew last week, along with Senator Rubio, 
who I know has been similarly moved to take action.
  After having these difficult conversations, I can't tell my 
colleagues how disappointed I am that the Senate has done nothing--
nothing--to prevent them from happening in the future. We can't even 
tell fathers and mothers that we have taken the first step toward 
ending some of the violence that plagues our country, that puts bullet 
holes in our classrooms and spills blood inside some of our most sacred 
places.
  The bill that I introduced to fix the National Instant Criminal 
Background Check System is called Fix NICS. That is what it does. It 
fixes the holes in the background check system so that people like Mr. 
Kelley, the shooter at Sutherland Springs, could not legally purchase a 
firearm. I am grateful to my colleagues who have cosponsored that bill. 
It includes the majority leader and the minority leader, Senator 
Schumer, as well as Senator Murphy and Senator Blumenthal from 
Connecticut and all of our close to 60 bipartisan cosponsors. They 
believe that what the bill tries to do, which is to fix our broken 
background check system, is important and will save lives and will keep 
guns out of the hands of convicted felons.
  Recently, we saw that the bill could make a real difference in places 
like Ohio. There, it was reported that dozens of courts are failing to 
upload conviction records into the FBI National Instant Criminal 
Background Check System and that this failure could result in convicted 
felons purchasing guns. This bill would help alleviate that problem. A 
similar glitch is one that allowed the gunman in Sutherland Springs, of 
course, to purchase the firearm he used when the Air Force failed to 
upload his conviction records into the National Instant Criminal 
Background Check System, as they were obligated to do. The law requires 
that these convictions be uploaded, and now we need to make sure those 
laws are enforced.
  Sixty is how many votes we need to pass this legislation in the 
Senate, and I am confident, were that bill to be brought to the floor 
and we had a vote on it, it would actually get many, many more--close 
to unanimity--here in the Senate. Last week we tried to get an 
agreement to have a debate on the bill followed by an up-or-down vote. 
Sadly and inexplicably, the minority leader blocked that agreement. I 
don't think the minority leader opposes the bill--he is actually a 
cosponsor of it--but he is in a bind. He is being pressured by a 
handful of those in his conference who say that this is not sufficient.
  I know people on both sides of the aisle would like to do more, but I 
want to make sure we don't fail to do anything at all or that we don't 
end up doing nothing. Many of these Members have indicated that they 
want votes on other measures. Frankly, I would be fine with that, but 
let's make sure we don't leave here another day emptyhanded by failing 
to take action on the one consensus piece of legislation that would be 
supported by an overwhelming majority of the Senate.
  I would like to be able to report good news to Pastor Pomeroy and his 
wife Sherri. I am sure my colleagues from Florida would like to do the 
same for the shocked families who are still grieving in Parkland. We 
need to send a message to families that when they drop their children 
off at school and when they go to church to worship, they will be 
safe--or safer than they would be if we fail to act.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.


                               Gun Safety

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Texas. I 
listened carefully to his words about gun safety, and I agree with so 
much of what he said. He talked about bringing his bill to the floor. I 
think his bill is a good bill. His bill tries to provide more 
information into the NICS system. We definitely need to do that. He 
also said he was open to amendments on the floor. I am as well. I think 
there are other aspects of gun safety that we may even find common 
ground on as well. But I might remind him that the decision about the 
business on the floor of the Senate is in the hands of his side of the 
aisle.
  It is your decision to decide, through your majority leader, what we 
consider on the floor of the Senate. An effort to do this by unanimous 
consent is certainly understandable in light of the events of the last 
few weeks, but if Senator McConnell were to announce that as soon as we 
finish this banking bill, we are going to move to the Fix NICS bill and 
have it open to amendment, I think he would find support from both 
sides of the aisle to do that. I hope he will, because things are 
changing in America, as they should. Gun violence and the terrible 
tragedies that occurred in Texas and in Florida and in so many States 
have really raised consciousness of this issue.
  I am a grandfather and proud to be. I have two 6-year-old twins who 
are first graders in Brooklyn, NY. They are the cutest kids in the 
world, and I am very objective about that.
  About 2 weeks ago, my little granddaughter came home from the first 
grade and said to her mom: Mom, they told us at school that if there is 
a shooter outside the school, stay away from the windows, and if a 
shooter comes in the classroom, get on the floor.
  First grade. Is there any sane person in America who thinks that 
should be a normal talk in the first grade classroom? Is there any 
person, constitutional scholar or not, who believes the Second 
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was designed to 
allow this to happen? I can't imagine.
  Ninety-seven percent of the American people believe in universal, 
comprehensive background checks to keep guns out of the hands of those 
who would misuse them, including convicted felons and mentally unstable 
people--97 percent. The overwhelming majority of gun owners feel 
exactly the same way. So why in God's Name have we not taken that up 
since the tragedy in Florida and the tragedy in Texas? There is no 
explanation for it other than fear--fear of the National Rifle 
Association and the gun lobby. That is the only explanation.
  I salute the legislators in the State of Florida who this last week 
defied the NRA and defied the gun lobby and passed their own measure 
for gun safety. I don't agree with parts of it. Giving cafeteria 
workers in schools the right to carry arms around the school--I don't 
think that is a wise thing at all. I understand that there is 
opposition to that from teachers' organizations and even Republican 
leaders in Florida. But they did stand up when it came to questions 
about how old you have to be to buy a firearm, a long gun, and other 
questions that I think are just common sense.
  So I would say to my friend from Texas, the majority whip, what you 
said is something I can support. Bring your bill to the floor, open to 
amendment. Let us have our day in the Senate where we actually act as 
legislators, where people will come to the

[[Page S1535]]

Galleries and not see an empty Chamber but instead will find Members of 
the Senate, 100 strong, Democrats and Republicans, at their desks, 
debating measures that make a difference in the life of America. That 
is why we are sent here.
  I had a friend of mine years ago when I served in the House--he was a 
Congressman from Muskogee, OK. His name was Mike Synar. He was a dear, 
close friend of mine. Mike lost his primary in Oklahoma because he was 
fearless. He used to come to the floor when we had votes, and he would 
see Members of his own caucus kind of wincing, afraid to vote for 
something they knew was right for fear of the political consequences. 
He used to get right in their faces. Mike would say: If you don't want 
to fight fires, don't be a firefighter. If you don't want to stand here 
and debate controversial issues and vote on them, don't run for 
Congress.
  Mike was right. He was right then, and he is right now.
  Let's bring gun safety to the floor of the Senate. Let's open it to 
amendments. Let's have a fulsome, bipartisan debate. We understand that 
nothing is going to pass without bipartisan support. We should do 
everything in our power to exercise the power and the right we are 
given as U.S. Senators to fix the problems facing American families. 
This is a problem. It is a problem when a first grader in Brooklyn, NY, 
has to be warned that if somebody walks into the classroom with a gun, 
she is supposed to get down on the floor.


                                  DACA

  This is the week, of course, of President Trump's deadline on DACA 
students--Dreamers--those young people who came to the United States as 
infants and toddlers and young people, grew up in this country, pledged 
allegiance to that flag just as we did this morning, and believed that 
they were part of America until, at some point in their teenage years, 
their parents pulled them aside and said: I have to tell you something. 
You are not legal here. You are undocumented here. You can be deported 
tomorrow, and we would be deported with you.
  They continued their lives with the resilience that a lot of young 
people show. Some of them did amazing things, even with the knowledge 
that they weren't ``legal in America.'' They achieved extraordinary 
things in education and in serving their communities. They did it 
against great odds because they don't qualify for Federal assistance 
for higher education. If you go to college and you are one of these 
undocumented Dreamers, you don't get Federal student loans. You don't 
get Pell grants. You have to go out and work. You have to save up 
enough money to go to school. That is the only way. They did it, and 
all they have asked for in return, all they have ever asked for, is a 
chance to earn their way into legal status in America. Brought here as 
kids, they want a chance to prove to America that they love this 
country and they can make it a better country. That is all they have 
asked for.

  For 17 years, I have come to the floor of this Senate--I know you 
have to be patient as a Senator, but this is getting a little crazy--
for 17 years, I have come to the floor of the Senate and asked my 
colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, will you give them a chance? 
Will you just give them a chance? Let them show you that they can bring 
something of value to this country. Let them prove to you that they are 
no danger to this country in any way whatsoever and, in fact--just the 
opposite--will make us stronger. Give them a chance.
  We haven't been able to do it, and President Trump has made it worse. 
On September 5, he eliminated the DACA protection program. He said that 
as of March 5, which was Monday of this week, they will lose their 
protection. The only thing that protects them at this moment is court 
decisions, which could change in a week or a month. But if those court 
decisions don't come their way, those young people who have lived here 
their entire lives, who believe they are Americans and want to be part 
of America, will be subject to deportation. That is the reality.
  The Senate took up this measure a few weeks ago. We gave to the 
President six different bipartisan solutions to this problem--Democrats 
and Republicans agreed on six different ways to solve it--and the 
President rejected every one. He rejected the bill that came before the 
Senate. Only 8 Republicans--only 8 out of the 51 Republicans--would 
stand up and vote with Democrats to solve this problem. I wish it were 
more. We only needed a few more.
  Now we are in a position where this Senate again, like the issue of 
gun safety, is not taking up the issue of DACA and the Dreamers. It 
isn't as though we are too busy around here, is it, when you look at 
this empty Chamber and these empty desks? We could do a lot of things 
here if we were determined to use the power and opportunity that have 
been given to us by the American voters.
  Mr. President, the one pending issue that is before us, I would like 
to discuss this morning.
  Next week, it will be the 10th anniversary of the collapse of the 
company known as Bear Stearns. As we approach that anniversary, it is 
remarkable to me that Congress is now debating, 10 years later, an 
effort to undo the financial reforms we put in place after what was 
tantamount to a recession or depression hit America. That was the worst 
financial crisis of our lifetime 10 years ago. Many of us never want to 
see it repeated.
  I am supportive of meaningful regulatory relief for smaller banks, 
community banks, and credit unions, but I cannot support legislation 
that rolls back key Wall Street reforms at the request of the same 
banks that started the crisis.
  We know what happened the last time financial regulations were eased: 
an economic collapse that rippled not just through the United States 
but around the world. That financial crisis of 10 years ago left our 
country spiraling into deep recession. It left almost 9 million 
Americans out of work and our unemployment rate above 10 percent. 
Families across America lost $19 trillion in household wealth, 
retirement, and savings. Hard-fought savings that they put aside for 
their kids' education and their retirement evaporated on a daily basis 
in the midst of that recession.
  In my home State of Illinois, we weren't spared. During the height of 
the financial crisis, almost 800,000 people in my State experienced 
mortgage delinquencies and 70,000 more went through personal 
bankruptcy. I remember going to these meetings where gymnasiums would 
be filled with people trying to find some way to save their homes 
because the mortgages they had signed up for had blown up in their 
faces. This was evident in my hometown of East St. Louis, in the city 
of Chicago, in Aurora, and many other communities. Of course, the cost 
of this financial crisis fell, as it always does, on the shoulders of 
everyday families.
  In the wake of those terrible losses and the sacrifices that had to 
be made, we in Congress said: We are not going to let this happen 
again. We won't let these banks take control again. We won't let greed 
overcome common sense when it comes to banking policy.
  President Obama signed into law commonsense financial reforms and put 
an end to some of the worst, inexcusable practices by banks that 
brought our economy to its knees. These new Wall Street reforms were 
intended to address the dangerous problem of too big to fail so that 
American taxpayers would never again be on the hook for the 
consequences of recklessness and greed on Wall Street.
  Systemically important banks whose demise would pose serious risk to 
our financial system were subjected to higher capital buffers and 
increased leverage requirements. In other words, if the Federal 
Government was going to put an insurance program in place to guarantee 
that it would protect the savers at the bank, we were going to require 
the banks to do responsible things--don't put taxpayers on the hook for 
your stupidity and your greed.
  Banks were required to report their lending data to ensure that 
borrowers had the ability to repay the loans they took out and to avoid 
abusive mortgage practices. Do you remember what happened? People would 
walk into a bank, and they would be lured into a mortgage they could 
barely afford to pay, some of them unaware of the fact that there was a 
balloon provision in that mortgage where the interest rate in a few 
years was going to dramatically increase and make their monthly

[[Page S1536]]

payments financially impossible for them.
  Many of them said: Well, if the value of my real estate goes up 
dramatically, then I will just refinance the mortgage. It did not go up 
dramatically, it went down, and that is when people faced mortgage 
foreclosure.
  So we said: Let's rewrite the rules. Let's not let the banks lead 
people into a financial obligation that is so risky and so dangerous 
that we never want to see it again.
  The new rules and regulations provided certainty to banks and 
consumers. And what happened next? Our economy did very well. With this 
new generation of regulation on banks--it didn't stifle economic growth 
at all. In part due to these sensible reforms enacted in Dodd-Frank 
under the Obama administration, our economy now has an unemployment 
rate of 4.1 percent, not 10 percent. Banks are lending, and bank 
profits are at record peaks. They are making money hand over fist. In 
2016, banks in America made their highest profits ever. This was after 
the regulations we enacted--the ones they have been complaining about 
ever since.
  How about American businesses? They are thriving. Our gross domestic 
product grew by 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017. In fact, 
since the passage of this Wall Street reform, our economy has grown at 
twice the rate of other advanced economies, while our stock market 
has--until just a few weeks ago--hit record after record. You can't 
argue that we are regulating banks so much that it is hurting the 
economy when you read these numbers. Nearly all measures in the labor 
market have fallen below their prerecession averages. This is the 
result of a sensible, forceful response by Congress to illegitimate and 
dangerous practices by the banking industry.

  We simply cannot afford to return to that thrilling time of 
yesteryear when banks were not carefully regulated and carefully 
watched so they didn't go overboard. Instead, as we approach the 10th 
anniversary of the worst financial crisis since 1929, we should be 
working to strengthen our financial system, protect families and 
businesses and the hard-earned money they have saved, and continue to 
grow our economy.
  There is a room just a few steps away from this Senate Chamber on 
this floor of the Senate where I have been present twice at a historic 
moment.
  The first one, with great sadness, was 9/11. I was meeting in that 
room as we finally tried to understand what was happening to America 
with the attacks on the World Trade Center, the plane crashing in 
Pennsylvania, and the plane crashing into the Pentagon, with black 
smoke billowing across the Mall. It was that room.
  It was that same room where we were called together by the head of 
the Federal Reserve, Mr. Bernanke, and the head of the Treasury 
Department, Mr. Paulson. There were probably 20 or 30 Members of the 
Senate and House in that room when they announced to us that we were 
within 24 hours of seeing the economy of the United States start to 
collapse. You never forget those moments. They told us that the banking 
issues that we have discussed here this morning had led us to the point 
where we had to step in as a government to save the banking industry in 
America in order to save the economy of America and perhaps the world.
  Those are sobering words, and I remember them well. They inspired us. 
They drove us to the point where we came up with new financial reform, 
serious reform, so that there would never be another repeat of that 
terrible day. We are on the floor of the Senate now arguing about 
changing those standards of reform.
  If we are going into this issue to debate it, there is one part of it 
that I want to raise. It is one of the seven amendments that have been 
put forward by the Democratic side of the aisle. I think it is 
critically important. It deals with an issue that every single Member 
of the Senate understands if they have spent 15 minutes back home. It 
is the issue of America's student loan crisis.
  For many Americans today, there is no bigger drag on their families 
than student loan debt. More than 44 million Americans cumulatively owe 
more than $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. That is greater than the 
total amount of credit card debt in America.
  Unlike most of us who could borrow a reasonable amount to finance our 
college education, this generation of college graduates starts off with 
an average debt of $27,000 on day one after graduation. Many have much, 
much more, especially if they were duped by the notorious for-profit 
college industry in America.
  I hear from young people who have had to forgo home ownership, 
starting a family, and buying a car because of student debt. I also 
hear from those who have gone back to school and stay in school because 
they can't imagine starting to pay back their debt. They dig the hole 
deeper every semester.
  Too often, this debt involves their parents and grandparents. It was 
reported a couple years ago that a grandmother--who was kind and signed 
on as a cosigner of her granddaughter's student loan debt--after the 
granddaughter defaulted, was being chased by the Federal Government, 
which threatened to attach her Social Security benefits so they could 
recoup the student loan that her granddaughter signed up for with her 
cosignature. That is why we are bringing an amendment to the floor, and 
it should be part of this debate on this bill.
  If we are going to talk about reform for banks, let's talk about a 
reform American families really care about--student loan reform.
  One of the things included in this amendment is a borrower bill of 
rights. Once a student graduates, their loans go into repayment with 
private financial institutions or, in the case of Federal student 
loans, servicers contracted by the Department of Education. These 
servicers are supposed to help the borrowers navigate the repayment 
process by making sure they are on the right repayment plan, processing 
payments correctly, and keeping borrowers informed. Well, how are they 
doing? Between July 2011 and August 2017, the Consumer Financial 
Protection Bureau handled almost 51,000 complaints related to private 
and Federal student loans. The majority of the complaints, both private 
and Federal, addressed difficulties in interacting with lenders or 
servicers. This is unacceptable. Lenders and servicers should be making 
repayment easier, not more difficult.
  To improve Federal and private student loan servicing, our amendment 
includes the Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights. It requires 
notifications and protections for borrowers when a loan is sold or 
transferred to another company or when the interest rate or other key 
terms of the loan change. It establishes a standard for applying 
payments so that payments are applied in a way that most benefits the 
borrower. It protects borrowers from unreasonable late fees. It 
requires servicers to provide borrowers online access to information 
about their loans, such as payment history and loan terms, and requires 
key information to be disclosed to borrowers by servicers.
  The student loan borrowers' bill of rights also prevents servicers 
from using predispute mandatory arbitration clauses to prevent 
borrowers from holding them accountable in court.
  While Federal student loan borrowers often face challenges, the 
situation is worse for borrowers who have private student loans, not 
government loans. There is now an estimated $165 billion in outstanding 
private student loans. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 
reported that in 2012 at least 850,000 private student loans, worth $8 
billion, were in default.
  Private student loans often have uncapped variable interest rates, 
which can spike to 20 percent and more, and hefty fees, and these loans 
often lack the protections that come with Federal student loans. 
Unfortunately, many student borrowers, and even their family members, 
don't understand the difference between a Federal loan and a private 
loan, and they end up taking out costly private loans when they are 
still eligible for Federal loans that are much more reasonable with 
lower interest rates.
  Almost half of private loan borrowers in 2011 and 2012 did not max 
out on their more reasonable Federal loans and ended up taking out 
private loans that were worse. That is why I introduced the Know Before 
You Owe Private Education Loan Act, included in this amendment, 
requiring borrowers to be notified of the difference and their 
eligibility.
  Finally, the amendment requires private student lenders to offer 
student

[[Page S1537]]

loan rehabilitation consistent with Federal student loans. It gives 
private student loan borrowers who default a fresh start.
  My amendment also addresses the key issue of bankruptcy. Did you know 
that if you borrowed money to buy a second home, buy a car, or buy a 
boat and then lost your job and couldn't pay off those loans and went 
into bankruptcy court saying: I don't have any money left, and I can't 
pay off these loans, the court could discharge those loans for your 
vacation home, your car, your boat, in bankruptcy, and say: We wipe the 
slate clean; you filed for bankruptcy, you qualify, and the slate is 
wiped clean. However, if one of your loans is not for a second home, a 
car, or a boat but is a student loan, then, the student loan is not 
dischargeable from bankruptcy. Originally, this was done in the 1970s 
because there were some students exploiting the system--borrowing money 
and then declaring bankruptcy after graduation. Then, in 2005 Congress 
extended nondischargeability not just to Federal Government loans but 
to private loans, which even extended it to those loans that were given 
by these notorious for-profit colleges and universities.
  So before 2005, private student loans were treated in bankruptcy 
proceedings like credit card debt and other types of private unsecured 
debt. They could be discharged as part of a bankruptcy plan to help a 
student debtor get back on his or her feet. But in 2005, when Congress 
passed a sweeping bankruptcy reform bill, a provision was slipped in 
that gave private student lenders a uniquely privileged status. Only a 
few types of private unsecured debt are nondischargeable in bankruptcy: 
child support, back taxes, alimony, criminal fines. Now private student 
loans are part of that list.
  Since 2005, lenders have been incentivized to push expensive private 
student loans on students, many of whom will not be able to repay the 
loans. This is an enormous problem.
  I cannot explain why private student loans are given special 
treatment in the bankruptcy code. Neither can the Chairman of the 
Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, who told the Senate recently that he 
was ``at a loss'' to explain why we don't allow student debt to be 
discharged in bankruptcy. He said that the growing amount of 
nondischargeable student debt ``absolutely could hold back growth.''
  We need to address this looming student debt crisis. My amendment 
would help by restoring dischargeability for private student loans in 
bankruptcy.
  The amendment also clarifies the undue hardship exception that 
Congress wrote into the bankruptcy code. We said: There is one 
provision. If you are facing undue hardship, then, perhaps you can 
discharge even a student loan.
  Almost never does a court find undue hardship. Congress did not 
define the term, and most courts have interpreted the term to have such 
a high bar that most students don't even try to pursue the exception 
because of the difficulty and expense of proving undue hardship in 
court.
  We tried to address that. This amendment would provide clarity around 
undue hardship by identifying situations where there should be a 
rebuttable presumption that a student loan debtor has an undue 
hardship. We tried to address it in terms of those who clearly are 
facing undue hardship and need a helping hand. What are the categories 
of those facing bankruptcy who cannot discharge current student loans 
who would be able to discharge them under our amendment? It will be 
those who have been determined by the Veterans' Administration to have 
a service-connected disability. Should we give disabled veterans in 
America a helping hand like this? I think so. How about the family 
caregiver of elderly or disabled family members or veterans? How about 
those receiving Social Security disability whose only income is Social 
Security? How about those who spent years at a low income? Do you think 
they might be facing an undue hardship and can't pay back a student 
loan? I think so, and this amendment would give them the opportunity to 
make their case.
  There are other provisions, as well, but I see colleagues on the 
floor who want to speak as well. I have spoken for a while. I am going 
to stand down in just a moment.
  If we can take up the issue of making it easier for banks to do 
business in America, can we spare a few minutes to debate whether we 
can make it easier for student borrowers to survive when the student 
debts they face are stopping them from moving forward in their lives? 
These are massive debts that stop them from getting married, buying a 
home or a car, or starting a family? That is the reality for many 
families across America.
  I hope my colleagues will join me. A lot of us give some great 
speeches about student loans. It would be terrific if we could allow on 
the floor of the Senate those speeches and a vote on that critical 
issue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan).
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, let me tell you about Farmers State Bank 
of Allen, OK. I know exactly where Allen, OK, is. I bet a bunch of 
folks in this room do not. It is a small town, and this a small bank. 
There is $43 million in total assets in that bank. That is a pretty 
small bank, as banks go. It is located in a town of about 900 
Oklahomans in total. The town has a number of small business owners, 
farmers, and ranchers--folks that some people in this room fly over. 
There are good families who live in that great town. Many of them have 
great credit scores and have a good family history of repayment back to 
the bank when they have taken loans, because that is the bank in town. 
They have been longtime customers of this bank. In many instances, the 
bank employees and the people in the bank have grown up together. They 
know each other, but they also understand seasonal income.
  When you are a farmer and rancher who doesn't come in with a W-2 
every single week or every month--it comes in seasonally--they 
understand the credit restrictions there.
  A banker, named Debbie, at the Farmer State Bank of Allen wrote me 
this and said:

       Between the Ability to Repay and Global Cash Flow analysis, 
     particularly for a bank of this size, these new rules take 
     our time away from doing what needs to be done--caring for 
     our customers.
       We have 12 employees and we're treated the same as JPMorgan 
     Chase, or Goldman Sachs--both of which have an entirely 
     different business model of operating. They do not operate in 
     towns of 900 [people]. . . . That's not their business model 
     or their kinds of markets
       One of our key employees now spends most of her time on 
     compliance issues. Total costs for this employee, together 
     with the cost of the annual compliance audit [and everything 
     that goes with it is], now exceeds $100,000 annually.

  Again, folks in big towns may not think it is a big issue to have 
$100,000 in appliance costs, but the total net income of this bank for 
the year is right at $500,000 a year, and $100,000 of it is now spent 
on compliance.
  How did this happen? This happened when Congress decided in 2010 to 
pass something called Dodd-Frank. Dodd-Frank was a bill signed into law 
in July of 2010 to deal with the financial crisis that happened in 2007 
and 2008, which was real. The largest banks in our country took some 
incredible risks. It caused a financial domino effect all over the 
country, and it caused great risk for our international markets.
  In response to that, Congress rose up with a strong Democratic 
majority, and President Obama ran to it and said: We need to do 
something.
  They looped together as many different financial restrictions as they 
could. They created a new thing called the Consumer Financial 
Protection Bureau, with no oversight at all. They created a whole 
litany of new regulations and said: This will only be for the biggest 
banks because they were the violators.
  They put it out there, and then the regulations started flowing after 
that. Guess what. Farmers State Bank of Allen, which was not the cause 
of the financial collapse in America, is now caught up, and they are 
struggling to survive as a bank. Because Congress decided they were 
going to do something, the something ended up being something that is 
devastating rural economies in my State.
  Since the passage of Dodd-Frank, we have seen a 16-percent decline in 
the total number of Oklahoma bank charters--just in my State. There is 
a 35-percent decline in Oklahoma charter banks with less than $100 
million in

[[Page S1538]]

total assets since Dodd-Frank. The effects of Dodd-Frank were felt 
pretty quickly in Oklahoma. It was passed in 2010. By the 2013-to-2014 
reporting time, more than 40 percent of the banks in Oklahoma no longer 
did mortgage lending at all.
  Let that soak in for a minute--banks that don't do mortgages. If you 
are in a rural community, that is the bread and butter of normal 
lending in that community--going to get a mortgage. But 40 percent of 
the banks in Oklahoma, starting in about the 2013, 2014 reporting 
cycle--just 3 or 4 years after Dodd-Frank passed--had already said the 
compliance costs were so high and the complexity was so great that they 
no longer offered mortgages and mortgage lending.
  There are folks who say: We will just drive to a big city and go to a 
big bank and get it, and they will still take care of that. Quite 
frankly, that is what is happening. Dodd-Frank has done an excellent 
job of increasing the size, power, and strength of the biggest banks in 
America and has targeted the smallest banks in America. We are watching 
mergers all over my State, as the smallest banks struggle under the 
compliance costs. It almost looks like the design of Dodd-Frank was to 
cause biggest banks to get bigger because the smallest banks would not 
be able to survive under the compliance burdens that were then created 
for them.
  What does that look like in real life? Let me tell you about a 
gentleman who I bumped into early Monday morning. He was flying out of 
Oklahoma. I was sitting next to the gentleman, and were striking up a 
conversation. He is a farmer and rancher in Oklahoma. He owns about 200 
acres in North Central Oklahoma. He started to go through the purchase 
process to actually buy that acreage and couldn't get mortgage lending 
for it. No banks in the area would do it. Why? The Dodd-Frank 
requirements. Suddenly, a guy in Oklahoma trying to buy 200 acres had 
to find a way to scrape together $100,000 of cash to buy a ranch.
  Now, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, if you wanted to get 
that same ranch, you would go to the bank in town. Now the bank in town 
has to tell you that you have to go somewhere else or find some other 
way to do it because the restrictions are so high that they can't do it 
anymore.
  Local customers don't want to deal with someone else in another State 
or in another city. They would like to deal with their local bank, but 
they can't anymore. Oklahoma's community banks had nothing to do with 
the financial collapse in 2008. Yet they have been penalized all the 
way through this process.
  In total, Dodd-Frank required more than 10 Federal agencies to write 
more than 400 new rules, imposing 27,000 new mandates on financial 
institutions of every size. Just process that. When you are Farmer 
State Bank of Allen and you have 12 employees, you now have to track 
27,000 new mandates to keep up with it.
  How are you doing with that?
  That is what real life looks like. I have had folks say to me: This 
is some giveaway to the biggest banks.
  What we are dealing with in this reform package is pretty 
straightforward. The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial earlier 
this week saying that the bill ``eases administrative burdens on 5,000 
community banks that make up 98% of the financial institutions but only 
15% of the assets.''
  Let me run that past you again. What we are dealing with deals with 
98 percent of the banks, but of total banking assets in the country, it 
is only 15 percent of the assets. That means the top 2 percent of the 
banks in the country--the largest top 2 percent of the banks in the 
country--have 85 percent of the assets. I understand the higher 
regulations on those. They are significant. If they fail, they take 
down the global economy. For the other 98 percent of the banks in the 
country that have only 15 percent of the total assets in the country--
these are the smallest banks in the country--why are they being dragged 
into this?
  All we want to say is to allow local banks to be local banks again 
and to be able to loan to their neighbors. These are the folks with 
whom they go to church and are in Rotary Club, and with whom they have 
grown up. They know their kids, and they know their families, but they 
are dealing with all these arcane requirements. They are dealing with 
27,000 new rules, and they just can't make it.
  What does this look like in real life? Let me give you an 
illustration from Legacy Bank in Elk City. Damon, from Legacy Bank in 
Elk City, OK, said:

       As a community banker, my job has become much more 
     difficult and burdensome to our customers. Legacy has always 
     strived to offer the best customer service a bank can offer. 
     I used to be a lender to all. However, with the changes that 
     have come about with this bill, along with the fines and 
     penalties that are a potential and, at times, don't use 
     common sense, I am now a commercial lender only.

  Let that soak in for a second. At Legacy Bank in Elk City, he used to 
make loans to everyone, and now he is a commercial lender only. What 
does that look like in real life? I have folks who come to this floor 
and people who catch me and say: Banks are still making lots of money, 
and banks are doing just fine. Why is Dodd-Frank a problem?
  Yes, banks are going to find a way to still do business. What has 
happened? The biggest banks are loaning to corporate customers, and the 
smallest banks that used to do small business lending and mortgages and 
took care of their community can't do that anymore. So the big is 
getting bigger and helping the biggest, and the small is not able to 
help the small.

  I thought we were supposed to be a country that helped everyone--
corporations or individual farmers and ranchers and citizens who are 
trying to start small businesses. Let's get back to doing that again. 
Let's not put 27,000 new restrictions on a small community bank and 
tell it that it has to abide by everything that JPMorgan Chase does and 
treat it as if it is the same. It is not.
  There is Frazer Bank in Altus, about which my wife and I have a 
longstanding saying: Everywhere you go in the world, you are going to 
bump into somebody from Altus, OK. Try it sometime.
  A local banker wrote: This past week in Altus, we had a local small 
business owner who applied for a home mortgage loan. The customer had a 
down payment and closing costs, but one of the key issues preventing 
our bank from making this personal loan was the time constraint of 2 
years of history. This is someone to whom we would have made a home 
loan prior to Dodd-Frank, but now we cannot.
  So a small business owner with closing cost money and with an ability 
to repay is now blocked out. How serious is that?
  Jim Hamby from Vision Bank in Ada wrote me and was trying to describe 
exactly what this looks like.
  He made the statement: Overly prescriptive rules on mortgage lending 
are the big issue. The ability to repay and the rules governing that 
topic are geared for people who are W-2 wage earners, not small 
business people. Many small business people have already been denied 
credit who would have otherwise qualified for a mortgage, and that is 
bad policy. Any mortgage bank keeps its own books and should 
automatically define what is a qualified mortgage. This would help 
alleviate the ``ability to repay'' rule and allow us to take better 
care of our customers.
  Don't miss what he is saying there. The rules are written for people 
who get a paycheck from week to week, not for the small business owner 
and certainly not for the farmers and ranchers.
  Here is a statement from a banker in Northwest Oklahoma who asked a 
simple question: What about a $60 million bank in the northwest corner 
of Oklahoma? What about other rural markets where smaller, traditional 
community banks have completely abandoned lines of business and 
products because the cost of regulation makes it so unprofitable or 
because the price of regulation and risk from examiners and lawyers 
bring so much additional scrutiny that you can't afford it?
  One thing is certain. When banks are forced to leave lines of 
business due to government regulation, both customers and communities 
suffer. Even in markets in which there are other participants in the 
abandoned product line, the reality is, with fewer competitors, 
customers pay higher rates and higher fees for a simple service.
  This is not a hard issue. For the 2 percent of the largest banks that 
have

[[Page S1539]]

85 percent of the banking assets, I understand there is systemic risk 
there. For the other 98 percent of the banks in the country that cover 
15 percent total of all of the banking assets in the country, why are 
they considered so systemically important that 27,000 new regulations 
would need to come down on their 12 employees?
  This is a good moment in which to get small towns in rural America 
working again and to allow people to go down the street to the bankers 
they know and went to school with rather than to have to drive to some 
big city and talk to the biggest banks in America and have them try to 
understand more about rural America.
  We can fix this. I am looking forward to passing this reform and 
allowing our banks not just to make money--they will find a way to make 
money; they are businesses--but to actually get back to serving the 
customers they want to serve again in a fair way--farmers and ranchers 
and small businesses.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.


          Women's History Month and International Women's Day

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise to recognize March as Women's 
History Month and today, March 8, as International Women's Day.
  Both at home and abroad, how a country treats its women is very much 
a barometer of its success. When women live without limitations on 
their ability to work, societies prosper. When women live without 
restrictions on their access to jobs, healthcare, or justice, societies 
prosper. When women succeed, so do their families, their communities, 
and their countries.
  International Women's Day reminds us that America's global leadership 
starts with our progress here in the United States. Unfortunately, 
President Trump moved the United States in the wrong direction when he 
decided not just to reinstate the global gag rule but to expand it. The 
global gag rule disqualifies international organizations from receiving 
U.S. family planning assistance if they use any non-U.S. funds to 
provide abortion services or even counseling.
  What President Trump fails to realize is that access to the family 
planning services that these organizations provide is one of the best 
tools we have to prevent abortions. When enforced, the global gag rule 
has closed the door on some of the most effective, lifesaving women's 
health programs in developing countries. By reinstating and expanding 
the global gag rule, President Trump is denying millions of women and 
their families access to critical healthcare services and is 
endangering their lives and the lives of their children.
  International Women's Day is the appropriate time to remind my Senate 
colleagues that we must end the global gag rule once and for all.
  It was also recently reported that the State Department is removing 
references to women's rights from this year's human rights report. I am 
troubled to learn that the Trump administration, apparently, doesn't 
feel that women's rights are important enough to include in our 
conversation on human rights. I was equally troubled to learn that the 
State Department removed gender equality integration from the Foreign 
Affairs Manual. The Foreign Affairs Manual is the chief document for 
instructing our foreign policy leadership on the ways to integrate 
gender considerations into our diplomatic efforts. Abandoning that 
signals a reversal of decades' worth of work in promoting global gender 
equality.
  The United States should be taking the lead on fostering an open and 
honest dialogue about women's issues internationally, not silencing it. 
We are better than this.
  Here at home, women have succeeded this past year in taking control 
of the narrative on sexual harassment, and they have forced deaf ears 
to listen. We are witnessing the rise of a new, more equitable social 
order that is built on the raw guts and courage of women who are 
speaking out to say, ``Me too.''
  Hearing so many of my fellow Americans--mothers, sisters, wives, 
daughters, friends--retell and relive some of their most traumatic 
experiences has been deeply troubling, but it has also been a lesson in 
bravery, in tenacity, and in women's unbreakable spirits.
  It is that bravery which we must now meet with our own as individuals 
and collectively. If we witness harassment, we must be brave enough to 
intervene. If we are told about abuse, we must be brave enough to take 
decisive action. If we hear about gender discrimination, we must be 
brave enough to fight it even when doing so may not be politically 
expedient or popular. Scores of women have proved their moral strength. 
It is time for us to demonstrate ours.
  This Women's History Month, let us take a moment to reflect on the 
thousands and thousands of ``Me Too'' stories that go untold and 
unheard.
  Let us recognize the single working mother making barely more than 
minimum wage, living paycheck to paycheck, and struggling to turn $5 
into a meal for three. When her coworker begins propositioning her, 
there are no cameras and cable talk shows waiting to expose him. She 
bears the burden alone, often feeling forced to choose between enduring 
disparaging behavior at work or providing for her children at home.
  Let us recognize the college graduate working in an office, empowered 
and excited about the direction of her career. Yet, in every meeting, 
her boss undermines her ideas and, one day, when they are alone, 
questions her suggestively about her method of birth control. Weeks 
later, his lewd remarks evolve into inappropriate physical contact, and 
he tells her that if she ever complains, he will ensure she never finds 
another job in her chosen profession.
  Let us recognize the immigrant woman working hard at her new job in 
her new home, motivated to become part of the American dream. Her male 
coworker calls her by disparaging names and suggests openly to their 
supervisor that she should make less than he does in the event she ever 
becomes pregnant and costs the company money. She begins to fear both 
for her job and for herself, but to quit would mean to lose the new 
life she has so painstakingly built.
  For an untold number of women, these stories are painfully familiar. 
The ``Me Too'' movement has proven that sexual harassment and 
discrimination know no age and no income level. These experiences are 
felt by all women of all backgrounds, so it is up to all of us to 
combat it. Sexual harassment is about power. It is about the harassers 
and authority figures feeling emboldened by being able to behave the 
way they want, wherever they want, with impunity. So let us end the 
sense of impunity.
  If behavior is about exerting a twisted kind of power, let us arm 
women with the most powerful tool in our legal system--the U.S. 
Constitution. Let us finally pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The Equal 
Rights Amendment is barely longer than a tweet, but it would finally 
give women full and equal protection under the Constitution. Section 1 
of the ERA states, quite simply: ``Equality of rights under the law 
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on 
account of sex.''
  When Congress proposed the ERA in 1972, it provided that the measure 
had to be ratified by three-fourths of the States--38 States--within 7 
years. This deadline was later extended to 10 years by a joint 
resolution. Ultimately, only 35 out of 38 States had ratified the ERA 
when the deadline expired in 1982--three short. Note that the deadline 
was not contained in the amendment, itself. The deadline was contained 
in a joint resolution.
  Article V of the Constitution contains no time limits for the 
ratification of amendments, so the ERA deadline is arbitrary. To put 
the matter in context, the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, which 
prohibits congressional pay raises without an intervening election, was 
ratified in 1992--203 years after it was first proposed. The Senate 
should vote to remove the ERA deadline immediately, and every State in 
our Nation that has not yet taken up its consideration should do so 
without further delay.
  Nevada became the 36th State to ratify the amendment last March, 
leaving the ERA only two States short of the required three-fourths of 
the State threshold under the Constitution if the deadline were to be 
abolished. I think many--perhaps most--Americans

[[Page S1540]]

would be shocked to learn that our Constitution has no provision 
expressly prohibiting gender discrimination.
  The ERA would incorporate a ban on gender-based discrimination to be 
explicitly written into the Constitution. It would change outcomes in 
unequal pay cases by requiring the Supreme Court to use the higher 
standard of ``strict scrutiny'' when assessing those cases--the same 
standard it uses on racial and religious discrimination cases.
  Just as importantly, it would provide a constitutional basis for 
claims of gender-based violence and give the Congress the 
constitutional basis to pass laws that would give women who have been 
victimized by gender-based violence legal recourse in Federal courts.
  In a 2011 interview, the late Justice Antonin Scalia summed up best 
the need for an Equal Rights Amendment.
  He said:

       Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination 
     on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits 
     it. It doesn't.

  So I, most sincerely, ask my Senate colleagues this question: Are we 
willing to do what must be done to prohibit gender discrimination by 
including protection against it in the Constitution? Progress has no 
autopilot feature. We must be its agents. We must be its champions. 
When we wake up each day to the loud and growing chorus of women saying 
``me too,'' how can we deny them the legal tool as powerful and 
important as our own country's Constitution?

  The people being affected by systemic gender inequality are our 
constituents. They are our wives, our daughters, and our 
granddaughters. They are American citizens and human beings who deserve 
basic respect and equality.
  We are capable of so much more than lip service. We are capable of 
celebrating Women's History Month by making history. I call on this 
Senate to remove the deadline on passing the Equal Rights Amendment and 
show the American people we are the leaders they sent us here to be, 
and we will take action. Let us prove that we will use our voices when 
silence becomes complicity, and we will use our votes when our values 
need defending.
  Women deserve to see that their Nation's founding document values 
them and treats them in a fashion equal to men. They are right to 
expect that gender equality should be an explicit, basic principle of 
our society. Let us all work together to get this done.
  Women's rights are human rights, and human rights are not and never 
should be a partisan issue.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I stand today in support of my 
colleague from Maryland as the 36th State to ratify the Equal Rights 
Amendment. I couldn't agree more. I think it is time to eradicate 
discrimination of any kind, so I commend my colleague for standing up 
today and for his comments.
  Mr. President, I stand to talk about an issue that continues in our 
communities, and it is the issue of housing discrimination.
  I recently read an article from the Center for Investigative 
Journalism about a young woman named Rachelle. At the time, Rachelle 
was in her early thirties and living in Philadelphia. She was making 
$60,000 a year as a contractor at Rutgers University. She had savings, 
good credit, and an undergraduate degree from Northwestern.
  When she first went to apply for a home loan, she thought she would 
be the perfect applicant. On paper, it seemed that way, but a few weeks 
later, she received an email informing her that her application had 
been denied.
  In the email her broker told her that because she was a contractor 
and not a full-time employee, her application was too risky for the 
bank to approve. She was at a loss. She had been planning to purchase a 
home for years and thought she had done everything right. She then 
asked her partner, Hanako, to sign on to the application with her. At 
the time, Hanako was working a few hours a week at the grocery store 
making $300 a month. That is about $3,600 a year. Hanako tried calling 
the bank to speak to a loan officer about the application, and to 
Rachelle's surprise, the loan officer picked up. He was attentive, 
helpful, and friendly to Hanako. A few weeks later, he approved the 
couple's loan.
  This makes no sense, right? Rachelle was making an income in the 
upper five figures, $60,000 a year. She was the one with good credit, 
and she was the one paying for Hanako's health insurance. The 
difference here was that Rachelle was Black.
  This story did not take place in 1930, when it was legal for housing 
lenders to discriminate on the basis of race. It did not take place in 
1968, the year banks were formally banned from using race as a factor 
in deciding home loan applications. It took place less than 2 years 
ago, in 2016.
  Today, 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, stories 
like Rachelle's are all too common. For any person of color who has 
tried to navigate the housing market, Rachelle's experience is a case 
of deja vu.
  We now know that Rachelle was the victim of redlining. ``Redlining'' 
is a term that describes the practice of denying goods or services to 
people on the basis of the color of their skin.
  The term originated in the 1930s, when redlining was the official 
policy of the Federal Housing Administration. Back then, Federal 
officials divvied up cities and assigned a color to each neighborhood. 
The color system was supposed to help mortgage lenders know where to 
invest. Green and blue neighborhoods were home to desirable borrowers 
with good credit. Yellow or red meant risky borrowers lived here so 
don't invest. The practice became known as redlining because the FHA 
would draw red lines on city maps to designate ``bad'' neighborhoods. 
For the FHA, a bad neighborhood was defined by the color of one's skin.
  Redlining was banned in the 1960s, but as we learn from stories like 
Rachelle's, the practice still goes on under the radar; so much so that 
in 1975, Congress passed the Housing Mortgage Disclosure Act--HMDA--to 
help regulators identify when it was going on, but even with the new 
requirements, redlining continued.
  Then, in the 1990s, the financial industry began selling something 
called the subprime loan. Subprime loans have high fees, adjustable 
interest rates, and payment shocks--characteristics that made them 
extremely dangerous. People who weren't approved for traditional loans 
were offered subprime loans instead.
  In 2008, when the market crashed, subprime loan holders saw their 
interest rates skyrocket. They suddenly became unable to afford to stay 
in their homes. Who do you think was most likely to hold one of these 
so-called subprime mortgages? People living in redlined neighborhoods, 
people of color, people who had been denied access to traditional 
loans.
  My home State of Nevada was one of the hardest hit States in the 
country by the financial crisis. We had the highest foreclosure rates 
for 62 straight months. We had the most number of underwater mortgages, 
and over 219,000 families lost their homes.
  Anyone driving through parts of Las Vegas and Reno in 2009 could see 
boarded up houses, for sale signs, and empty lots everywhere. On many 
streets, you would see more houses in foreclosure than not, and while 
all neighborhoods suffered, African-American, Latino, and Asian-Pacific 
Islander communities were hit the hardest. Entire neighborhoods were 
hollowed out. Trillions of dollars were lost.
  I was the attorney general of Nevada at this time. We did everything 
we could to fight for homeowners and help them stay in their homes. As 
this was going on, I asked myself: How could this happen? The Federal 
Government was supposed to regulate these banks. Where were they? Why 
didn't they put a stop to these practices before it all came crashing 
down? The Federal Government was supposed to be the watchdog, but they 
were letting banks write their own rules.
  As attorney general of Nevada, I sued the big banks for their 
fraudulent practices and secured over $1.9 billion to help homeowners 
in my State.

[[Page S1541]]

  In 2010, Federal lawmakers passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform 
and Consumer Protection Act to ensure that what we saw in 2008 would 
never happen again. The bill was not perfect, but it did a lot of 
things right.
  It strengthened oversight of the big banks. It made the big banks 
undergo stress tests and develop bankruptcy plans, and it also 
strengthened HMDA, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. It strengthened 
reporting requirements to help regulators fight back against 
discriminatory, racist, redlining practices.
  Banks say they don't treat borrowers differently, but the data shows 
us that is a different story. Redlining remains a major problem for 
communities of color.
  The legislation we are now considering, S. 2155, would roll back Wall 
Street reform. It includes a section, section 104, that would repeal 
many of the reporting requirements we added after the financial crisis 
to prevent housing discrimination. Some rural and low-income census 
tracks are predominantly served by small lenders.
  If this specific loan data is removed from them, government 
officials, researchers, and the public will not have information on the 
quality of loans made, nor will they know about the credit scores of 
the borrowers or even a way to easily track the loans after they are 
sold to investors.
  When I was attorney general, I needed the information on the quality 
of the loans in the State to protect consumers. Where were the teaser 
rates and what was the reset? Who were the homeowners who might not be 
ready to pay $20,000 more on their monthly mortgages? These were the 
questions I had with no data. With everything we saw 10 years ago, I 
cannot now believe we are considering restricting access to this kind 
of data--the kind of data that is important to prevent housing 
discrimination.
  I have seen what happens when we don't have strong enough protections 
against housing discrimination. This is why I have submitted an 
amendment to strike section 104 to preserve access to data we need. 
With better information and protections, we could have prevented a 
crisis in which 12 million people lost their jobs, in which the banks 
took the homes of more than 7 million people.
  Let's not take away access to this information. Let's not make the 
same mistakes we made 10 years ago. I urge my colleagues to join me. 
Vote for fairness, vote for equality, vote for inclusion. Vote for 
everyone who got burned by the big banks. Vote for folks like Rachelle 
who just needed a break, who just needed a fair mortgage loan so they 
could buy their first home. Support my amendment to prevent loan and 
housing discrimination, to protect the access to data and to protect 
the progress we made under Wall Street reform.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I had not planned on talking about the 
bill we have before us, S. 2155, but the other day I was listening to 
another Member speak, and this Member was talking about how this bill 
could threaten and possibly increase the predatory practices of people 
who had mobile home loans.
  As a person who had a mobile home loan and somebody who lived in a 
mobile home park, I thought I would try to speak maybe about the 
practical easing--what we are trying to accomplish with this bill. The 
truth is, I would go further on regulatory tailoring than we have. We 
didn't because we wanted bipartisan agreement on this bill, which we 
have.
  As a matter of fact, I thank the members on the Banking Committee who 
joined with me and other members to make sure we kept the bill tailored 
enough so we had bipartisan support.
  On mobile homes--we get out here in the Senate, and we talk about 
facts and figures. I can talk about the fact that half of my community 
banks have ceased to exist in North Carolina since the crisis. I can 
talk about a number of people I speak with who can't get loans, but 
what I thought I would talk about is my own personal experience as a 
16-year-old, 17-year-old kid living in a trailer park working with my 
father.
  He would do maintenance work. If a house caught on fire or there was 
some sort of insurance damage, he would work with the insurance 
companies to actually do repair work, and I was his handyman when we 
would do these projects. We did not have a whole lot of money. My 
father didn't have a lot of cash on hand, so the way we did it is, when 
you had this insurance job, you bid on the insurance job. You knew how 
much money you would make at the end. Then you go to a bank and get 
what is called a 90-day note. Most of these projects were about 60- to 
90-day projects, and you would go to a banker whom you had built a 
relationship with, and you would ask them to trust you to get this 
project done. You would show them the project you were doing, and he 
would underwrite a loan that you had to pay back in 90 days. That is 
why they called it a 90-day note.
  Today, in the postcrisis world, that virtually never happens. Today, 
we don't have community banks and personal banking relationships that 
people can rely on to get access to capital. Even worse, with all the 
community banks and smaller banks consolidating, ceasing to exist, 
there are entire areas of North Carolina--a lot of people think North 
Carolina is an urban State. The fact is, about half our population, 
about 5 million people, live in rural areas. They have been hardest hit 
by the consolidation of banks and the ceasing to exist of these sort of 
lending institutions out in communities like the community I lived in 
when I was 17 years old. They are not getting the money they need to 
make ends meet.
  What this bill is trying to do is recognize that, of course, after 
the financial crisis, there was a regulatory exposure we needed to 
address. The problem is, we simply went too far or at least with the 
passing of time we now know we can claw back those regulations on 
certain banks--particularly community and regional banks. That is all 
this bill is intended to do.
  As a matter of fact, this bill allows the regulators to go back after 
those banks that are under the $250 billion threshold if they determine 
that the practices they are involved in are particularly problematic or 
may have a systemic impact on the financial system as a whole.
  What we are trying to do is make sure we start seeing community banks 
pop up in rural areas like the place I lived in outside of Nashville, 
TN, where bankers could work with people and give them the resources 
they need to pay their bills. Even as late as just a couple of years 
ago--we have some folks who are speaking against the bill who said it 
was important for us to advance these sorts of changes. As a matter of 
fact, one Member said: ``It is important we advance this conversation 
to ensure that prudential regulations for regional banks are crafted 
appropriately.'' That is what this bill does.
  Another Member or maybe the same Member said: ``We all agree that 
regional banks are not systemically important.'' Regional banks are the 
bigger banks. They would be like BB&T or Fifth Third Bank.
  They are not systemically important. Well, then, I guess we can all 
agree that the community banks and smaller banks aren't. That is what 
this bill is about, some of the midsized regional banks and community 
banks. We said we need to tailor it, and that is what this bipartisan 
bill does.
  Another Member said: ``I continue to believe we will not be 
successful in providing regulatory relief to institutions of any size 
if we don't have broad, bipartisan consensus.'' That is what this bill 
has.
  We always talk about the polar environment here and how we can get 
nothing done. This is a bill that has had members of the Committee on 
Banking, on which I serve, join together to make sure that all we 
advanced out of the committee was a bipartisan consensus for regulatory 
relief that allows cash to flow to people who need it--community banks, 
regional banks that have a more intimate relationship with people who 
need access to capital. That is what this bill does. For the life of 
me, I can't understand why we can't all agree.
  You have these discussions here where it sounds like we are doing 
some big-bank relief--not at all. I have a couple of large banking 
institutions in North Carolina, and they are going to have to continue 
to submit 60,000-page, 100,000-page stress tests and CCAR reports to 
make sure they don't create a

[[Page S1542]]

systemic threat. This bill doesn't touch that.
  What this bill touches is a part of the ecosystem that is suffering. 
What this bill does is reduce the regulatory burden so that guy who 
existed back in the midseventies who would give my dad a 90-day note 
can now do it and not have to say no because they simply can't afford 
to do it either because it affects their portfolio or because they are 
spending so much money on regulatory relief that they have to go after 
the bigger loans. It is the people at my level at that time back in the 
seventies who suffer.
  This is a bipartisan bill, it is a responsible bill, and it is a bill 
that is going to provide much needed relief.
  I thank the Members on both sides of the aisle who recognize that 
this is a prudent bill, that it is measured. I thank Chairman Crapo for 
all the great work he has done to live up to his commitment to the 
Members on the other side of the aisle to keep this tailored and to do 
exactly what we said we were going to do. I look forward to its 
passage.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, well, not exactly. Yesterday I spoke about 
the big banks that have violated our banking laws time and again, banks 
like Wells Fargo and Citigroup. I talked about foreign banks like 
Santander and Deutsche Bank--the President's personal German bank, I 
might add. Santander, a Spanish bank, has foreclosed on the cars of 
American service men and women when they are overseas serving our 
country, and we are rewarding that Spanish bank. We are rewarding a 
Swiss bank that has broken international law in support of Iran. We are 
rewarding these foreign banks.
  I liked this bill at the beginning. I have been working on these 
issues with Chairman Crapo, whom I respect--I really do--for some 
years, and we worked on coming up with a bill that would help community 
banks and the midsized regional banks, three of which are located in 
the Presiding Officer's boyhood State and my State of Ohio--Fifth 
Third, KeyCorp, and Huntington. We wanted to do those things.
  You know, in this place, when we work on something to help the small 
guy, the big guy thinks: Well, don't leave me out. I want to be part of 
this. I want to get my things too.
  So we start helping community banks, we start helping the little guy, 
and all of a sudden, Wall Street gets its hand out, just like on the 
tax bill. I guess I believed my colleagues on the tax bill when they 
said it was a middle-class tax cut bill. Well, it kind of didn't end up 
that way. By the end, 81 percent of the tax benefits went to the 
richest 1 percent.
  That is what we do. We start here. We go back home, and we talk about 
helping the middle class and helping the little guy. No matter whether 
she punches a time clock or works construction, we want to help middle-
income people. But you know what--by the time the lobbyists swoop in, 
by the time they are here, and they start talking to their friends and 
start doing what they do, then all of a sudden, these bills help the 
big guy. They help Wall Street. It is no surprise; it has happened here 
before.
  I particularly think we would learn about it when it comes to what 
happened 10 years ago. There are some pretty smart people in the 
Senate, but they have some kind of illness that I don't entirely 
understand called collective amnesia. They forget. They forget what 
happened 10 years ago.
  Where I live, Cleveland, OH, and where the Presiding Officer grew up 
in greater Cleveland, in my neighborhood, ZIP Code 44105, in early 
2007, in the first half of that year, more people lost their homes 
through foreclosure than any other ZIP Code in the United States of 
America. The neighborhood that I live in is not a gated community. I 
live in an area of about 200 relatively new homes. When I drive about 
500 yards in any direction, I see the blight that came because of what 
Wall Street and, frankly, this Congress and the regulators, the Bush 
regulators--I can mention names; it is all public record--did to our 
economy. And 10 years later, we have kind of forgotten about all that.
  Well, the people who lost their homes haven't forgotten about it. The 
people who lost their jobs haven't forgotten about it. The people who 
lost their retirement savings haven't forgotten about it. It is just a 
bunch of Members of Congress, a bunch of Republican members of the 
Banking Committee, a bunch of Members on that side of the aisle--almost 
all of whom, I believe, are supporting this bill--they seem to have 
forgotten what happened to the economy 10 years ago.
  After starting with a relatively simple and benign, let's help the 
community banks and the credit unions--which I want to do, too, and 
have a voting record to prove it--and help some of the smaller 
regionals, such as Huntington and Fifth Third and Key Corp in my State, 
it just sort of got out of hand.
  Well, now they are coming back and saying: Well, we will make a 
couple of changes. Let's talk about these couple of changes that 
Houdini would be proud of, sort of some sleight-of-hand kinds of 
changes. In fact, these changes have made the bill worse, and I will 
explain.

  Last September, we learned that Equifax had allowed hackers to 
exploit a known security flaw and make off with names, birth dates, 
Social Security numbers, and all matter of private information of 143 
millions Americans. There are probably 50 people in the Gallery. If the 
national averages hold out, 25 of them were wronged by Equifax. They 
were fraudulently or incompetently--perhaps through incompetence--
attacked by Equifax. In my State, it was about 5 million people. Around 
the country, it was about 143 million. In fact, most of the people in 
the Gallery are adults, so it is more than half the adult population 
that was wronged by Equifax. Half the country is vulnerable to identity 
theft.
  Americans are furious with Equifax, as they should be, but this 
amendment that apparently is in the substitute bill for reasons I can't 
fathom includes provisions designed to help Equifax. It is not just 
that this body doesn't punish Equifax and that these executives have no 
contrition--of course nobody went to jail.
  The people we send to jail in this country--we almost never send 
people to jail for financial fraud. They dress well, they are 
sophisticated, they belong to the right country clubs, and they would 
never go to jail. Let me back off on that for a moment and talk again 
about Equifax.
  Equifax and other credit reporting agencies apparently have been 
upset about a proposal to give men and women in the military credit 
monitoring. Think of that. Equifax executives didn't like that there 
was a proposal to give the people serving this country credit 
monitoring.
  I understand what Santander did; they repossessed autos of men and 
women from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton and from other 
places who were overseas serving. They repossessed their cars, and we 
rewarded them, so I guess Equifax thought, well, there is a good trend 
here, a good precedent there. We don't want to give men and women in 
the military credit monitoring.
  So we have an amendment to fix that. A small gesture to the people 
who serve our country, though, seemed too much for the Republicans and 
too much for Equifax. In exchange for this token benefit, they demanded 
that consumers and servicemembers give up their right to take Equifax 
to court. So Equifax is willing to do a little bit for people, just a 
little bit, but damn it, you can't sue us then. That was the deal--you 
can't sue us. We will give you a little bit of credit monitoring, but 
in return, you can't sue us for anything. I am not a lawyer, but that 
is called a right to action. So the next time the company's 
recklessness exposes sensitive financial data, sorry, you can't sue us. 
Sorry about that; that is the way it goes.
  In the end, Equifax--shocking--got exactly what it wanted. Equifax 
let your data loose and ruined your credit score, but you won't be able 
to sue them. Sorry about that.
  It gets worse. Equifax--a company that can't even safely store 
consumers' data--and that is their job; that is what they are hired to 
do, even though we don't individually choose them. The company spent 
nearly as much on executive salaries as it did on cyber security. So 
this company's job is to protect private data, but they didn't really 
invest that much in cyber security

[[Page S1543]]

because, for whatever reason, they paid their executives about the same 
amount of money.
  Now Equifax wants in on the credit-scoring business. Along with two 
other major credit reporting agencies, it has created a product to 
compete with Fair Isaac's FICO score.
  The Federal Housing Finance Agency has a process in place to try to 
broaden the factors it looks at in determining creditworthiness, but, 
as Director Mel Watt testified in the Banking Committee, it is 
complicated and it is time-consuming. Understandably, FHFA wants to get 
it right, and so do the lenders that sell loans to Fannie and Freddie. 
But instead of allowing FHFA to take the time it needs to get it right, 
this bill ignores that, and it sets up its own process. We have not 
taken any testimony on this legislation from market participants or 
from the government agency. I have my hunch, though, as to who is 
pushing for it. Guess who is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this 
change. The pages would know the answer to that, if they are listening. 
Equifax, of course.
  I know my colleagues were well-intentioned. It would be great if we 
had additional ways of determining whether someone is creditworthy and 
if we could give more Americans the opportunity to become homeowners. 
But determining creditworthiness and balancing access to credit with 
the need to make sure we don't end up with millions of foreclosures is 
complicated. That is why we have FHFA, and that is why we have a 
process in place.
  We know there are problems with the current system, and more data 
would improve our efforts to combat discrimination in housing. The 
Center for Investigative Reporting just completed a valuable study of 
tens of millions of mortgage records and found out that across the 
country, people of color are far more likely to be turned down for a 
loan, even when you take into account factors like income and the size 
of the loan. I will repeat that. Holding all things equal except for 
race, people of color are far more likely to be turned down for a loan. 
We know that.
  The trade associations for lenders argued that the study was flawed 
because more data--data like credit scores and debt-to-income ratios--
was needed to prove discrimination. The good news is that Dodd-Frank 
did that. It required this very kind of data to be collected, and 
beginning in January, banks and credit unions began reporting it.
  Problem solved, right? Well, once the more detailed data set is 
available and large enough, watchdogs can then undertake better 
analysis, target the bad actors, and allow the good lenders--and most 
of them are--to continue with their business without a regulator 
knocking on their door. But who are we kidding? This bill wants to do 
away with that too. I thought we had solved the problem. The substitute 
would repeal the reporting required by Dodd-Frank for 85 percent of all 
banks.
  Backers of the substitute will claim it has addressed complaints that 
this effort will undermine enforcement of civil rights laws, but it 
hasn't. Backers will point to a provision which says that banks that 
flunk the Community Reinvestment Act exam and get a rating of 
substantial noncompliance are ineligible for the reduced reporting of 
mortgage data. That sounds good, but in all of 2017, out of the 
thousands of Community Reinvestment Act exams, only two banks out of 
thousands flunked. When we have reason to believe banks all across the 
country are discriminating in their lending, even if it is 
unintentional--and sometimes it is--looking at data from two banks out 
of thousands isn't going to tell us a whole lot.
  The substitute would maintain current laws for banks that are given a 
``needs to improve'' rating on their CRA exam over two consecutive exam 
cycles. Let's say a bank is engaged in discriminatory lending. The 
examiner gives it a ``needs to improve'' rating. This amendment says: 
No harm, no foul; the first one is free. Really? A few years later, 
when the next exam rolls around, if the bank is still discriminating, 
only then will it have to submit to the amount of data required today. 
So this amendment says it is OK for a bank to engage in legally 
sanctioned discrimination for years before it faces any consequences. 
Why would we do that in this bill?
  In sharp contrast to the slow-motion response to discrimination, when 
it is the bank that wants the data from the Federal Government, the 
sponsors of this bill can't move fast enough. It is like everything 
around here--when Wall Street says ``jump,'' most of this Senate jumps, 
and frankly, straight down the hall in the House of Representatives, 
they jump faster and higher.
  There was a bill introduced just this Monday, referred to the Finance 
Committee, that would allow credit card companies to tap the Social 
Security Administration database to verify identities. There hasn't 
been a hearing on it, and it hasn't gotten attention, but guess what--
it is in the substitute bill. So the banking majority can move very 
fast when it comes to helping the banks; they can't move so fast when 
it comes to prohibiting discrimination against people of color. I 
suppose I understand why, but that is pretty outrageous. The demand on 
SSA would explode. Will the system be able to handle it? Will the 
public interfere? Will this public interface be one more way that 
hackers could gain access to the Social Security database? I don't know 
because there has been no time for the Finance Committee to look at 
this bill. Protecting people's Social Security numbers is the last 
place--the last place--where we should be rushing things to please the 
big banks.

  Whether it is a State as conservative as Tennessee or as liberal as 
California, I am guessing most Americans don't want Congress to rush 
something through that might expose their Social Security numbers 
without really understanding it through congressional hearings and 
examination.
  This would all be bad enough, but it is not just Equifax that gets 
goodies in this bill. This bill is a gift to foreign megabanks. 
Yesterday we saw a new provision on foreign banks included in the 
substitute to clarify the legislation, but it doesn't fix the issue. 
The substitute includes a figleaf to try to convince the public that 
this bill doesn't do what it actually does do.
  This provision provides some vague and ambiguous language that puts 
the question to the Fed. In this bill, we say: You can regulate the 
foreign banks or you don't have to regulate the foreign banks; it is up 
to the new Federal regulators. It is your choice. The legislation 
doesn't require the Fed to keep strong rules in place that are already 
in place. It doesn't stop the foreign banks from suing the Fed if it 
doesn't obey the request.
  We are expected to trust Randal Quarles to be tough on foreign 
banks--most of you don't know Randal Quarles. I have had conversations 
with him. He is a smart man. He is well educated. He is a nice guy--but 
that is not a bet I want to make. That is not a bet Congress should 
make.
  Just this week, Governor Quarles spoke at an international banking 
conference, and he promised--it was an international banking 
conference. That would probably not be with Wells Fargo, probably not 
JPMorgan Chase, probably not Bank of America; it would probably be with 
Santander, UBS, Swiss Bank, or Barclays--the British bank--or the 
President's personal bank, the German bank, Deutsche Bank. Those are 
who attended. He said, if we really want to fix the foreign bank 
issue--he said he plans to deregulate those foreign banks.
  I know the supporters of this bill think they can sort of obfuscate--
I don't think they are lying. I think they are just obfuscating and not 
really being straightforward about what this bill does for foreign 
banks, and I know they did this for foreign banks because I asked 
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin--Senator Corker was in the room with the 
Banking Committee--and he said: Yes, we plan to deregulate the foreign 
banks.
  We know that. We know that from other former regulators: Paul 
Volcker, former head of the Federal Reserve appointed by both President 
Carter and President Reagan; we know that from people like Sarah Bloom 
Raskin, who was a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal 
Reserve; we know that from professors and other regulators. I know 
Sheila Bair, a Republican nominee appointed by President Bush to run 
the FDIC, is concerned about this bill. We know that.
  So if we want to fix the foreign bank issue, let's just adopt my 
amendment. Let's fix it. It is simple: No favors for

[[Page S1544]]

the biggest global banks here in the United States. Don't give the 
regulators the option because we know whom the regulators for the banks 
are. We know most of the regulators for the banks used to work on Wall 
Street. You go to the White House, and the White House looks like a 
retreat for Wall Street executives.
  We want to write strong laws, clear laws. We don't need to place 
blind trust in the people who have failed us before--Quarles, Mick 
Mulvaney, Otting, and Mnuchin. We are expecting these people who have 
been strong in their public announcements to be right in their public 
actions? We are entrusting these people who have profited--I could name 
the names. We are entrusting these people who now have public service 
jobs and who have profited from Wall Street malfeasance to protect our 
economy and our country from Wall Street malfeasance.
  I take the side of Paul Volcker, Sheila Bair, Tom Hoenig, Barney 
Frank, Sarah Bloom Raskin, Phil Angelides, Antonio Weiss, and Michael 
Barr. They are all people who have counseled us--all good public 
officials, all former regulators. Not quite half, but a number of them 
are Republicans, and some are Democrats. They are all people who 
counseled us to vote no on this bill and whose concerns have not been 
addressed by this substitute.
  In addition, the substitute raises $675 million to pay for the 
privilege of deregulating the banks, but all it could manage on lead 
poisoning in housing was a report from HUD.
  Where are our priorities? The Congressional Budget Office said this 
bill makes it more likely they will need a bailout, more likely to lead 
to a bailout for the big banks. So $675 million of taxpayer money is 
squandered instead of doing infrastructure, instead of dealing with 
lead. That is part of the issue we dealt with in our committee. That is 
why I supported Secretary Carson for his confirmation, because I 
thought he was going to do something about lead. Shame on me for 
believing that, when I have seen nothing so far.
  Instead of those $675 million going to Wall Street, wouldn't it be 
great if we could direct those hundreds of millions of dollars to 
prevent children from developing developmental disabilities brought on 
by lead?
  Remember, I talked about my ZIP Code, 44105. Look at those houses. 
Drive through Cleveland. Drive through Memphis. Drive through Omaha. 
Drive through all kinds of cities in this country. You will see houses 
that were built in 1950 or before, and 80 or 90 percent of them have 
toxic levels of lead. We have sentenced millions of American children 
to live in those homes.
  This is called the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. We 
have done nothing in this committee for the last 5 years--not a damn 
thing--about getting that lead out of those homes and stopping the 
poisoning of children. We could be doing that but instead we are giving 
more to Wall Street.
  This substitute doesn't make this bill better. By papering over its 
fundamental problems, by treating servicemembers as second-class 
citizens--think of Santander, think of the amendment Senator Reed from 
Rhode Island is working on--we are opening up the Social Security 
system to possible threats. It represents a step backward.
  I urge my colleagues to reject the substitute and the underlying 
bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I enjoyed listening to the comments of 
my friend from Ohio. I think you guys are going to like the amendment I 
am getting ready to offer.
  Today I rise to offer an amendment to S. 2155--the Economic Growth, 
Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act--of which I am a 
cosponsor.
  My amendment is a simple correction that would clarify the intent of 
this original bill as it relates to custodial banks.
  As originally introduced, section 402 was intended to provide better 
tailored capital requirements for true custodial banks. However, there 
have been concerns raised that the current definition of this section, 
following revisions during the committee consideration, could open this 
provision to a wider group of financial institutions.
  I know that was not the intent of my colleagues, and this technical 
correction amendment makes clear that section 402 applies only when the 
primary focus of the banking organization is custodial activities.
  Section 402 is not intended to provide relief to an organization 
engaged in consumer banking, investment banking, or other businesses, 
and that also happens to have some custodial business or a banking 
subsidiary that engages in custodial activities.
  In conclusion, section 402 was intended as a very narrowly tailored 
provision, focused on true custodial banks. This technical correction 
amendment would clarify the scope of 402.
  I am requesting a vote and urge my colleagues to support adoption of 
this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        Tribute to Carol Seppilu

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, as many of my colleagues know, one of 
my favorite parts of the week is coming down to the Senate floor to 
recognize somebody special in my State, somebody we refer to as our 
``Alaskan of the Week.'' It is one of the most fulfilling things I do 
all week, to get to talk about people who make my State very, very 
special.
  I know many of you--people in the Gallery--have seen Alaska on TV or 
have read about it in the newspapers, but there is no substitute for 
being there. We want you all to come. It would be the trip of a 
lifetime, particularly now.
  What is going on in Alaska right now, one of the highlights of the 
entire year, is the Iditarod--the ``last great race'' in the world--
which is in full throttle. When you visit, Alaska will change your 
life--the wilderness, the wildlife, the quiet, the sense of unbridled 
freedom, the liberty, and the majesty. It is all there. It is all 
there, so come on, come on and visit.
  Also, when you visit, you will realize that Alaska is home to some of 
the most courageous, hard-working, and tenacious people in the world, 
many of whom have overcome tremendous odds and are determined to 
inspire others to live a full and healthy life.
  Madam President, I would like to take you, take everybody listening, 
to Nome, AK, and tell you about Carol Seppilu, someone who I believe 
personifies determination and perseverance and who is an inspiration to 
us all and is this week's Alaskan of the Week.
  Carol lives in Nome--a rugged, unique, and beautiful town in Alaska's 
northwest, about 500 miles from Anchorage. You might have heard of 
Nome. The reality show ``Gold Rush Alaska'' was filmed there, and it is 
also the finish for the Iditarod.
  Pretty soon, if you are watching on TV--our best guess is early next 
week--the mushers and the dozens of dogs--that, by the way, love the 
race. They love the race--will begin to cross the finish line. People 
from all over our State, but really people from all over the world, 
will be there to greet them as they finish this incredible race, to 
greet them and congratulate them. We call it the ``last great race,'' 
and it finishes at Nome.
  There is no place like Nome, we like to say in Alaska. If you live in 
Nome, you might have seen Carol running in winter, spring, summer, and 
fall. Carol runs through the streets and into the mountains surrounding 
Nome. It is one of the ways that she has found purpose in her life, 
which in turn she has used to help others, to inspire others.
  Like a lot of us, Carol had big dreams when she was growing up. She 
was interested in science and space. She was actually interested in 
being an astrophysicist. Then, as sometimes happens to young kids, her 
life took a bit of a turn. She got in with the wrong crowd and started 
drinking and using drugs, and her life lost meaning.
  This is a difficult subject to talk about on the Senate floor, but we 
must. We must. Carol wants us to. Alaska has the second highest suicide 
rate in the country, and it has the highest teen suicide rate in the 
entire

[[Page S1545]]

Nation. The suicide rate among Alaska Native teens is also very, very 
high--tragically high, horribly high. When it comes to suicide, silence 
is deadly.
  Carol knows all about this. When she was 16, she tried to end her 
life by shooting herself. After the gun went off, she remembers 
thinking: Dear God, save me. I don't want to die anymore.
  Then she described how, during this awful incident, her ancestors 
came to her, her elders, telling her that she was going to be OK and 
that she had a reason to live. She did live. Badly scarred, after 
having multiple operations on her face, recovery has not been easy for 
Carol, but she has made it through. She has toughed it out.
  What she did was remarkable and incredible. She began to speak about 
suicide at schools. She was a member of the State's Suicide Prevention 
Council. Eventually, she got a job at an elders' home, where she is 
currently the cultural activities specialist. She organizes Alaska 
Native dances. She cooks traditional Alaska Native food for her elders. 
Moose and muskox soup is their favorite. I think Senator Murkowski is 
going to let us enjoy a little muskox stew over lunch today, so Carol 
will be pleased about that.
  But as the years went by, she again experienced depression, which is 
not uncommon. She didn't feel like getting out of bed. She was 
unhealthy. But then again, in 2014, more inspiration--again, 
incredible. A high school friend who was a runner urged Carol to try 
it. You are not feeling healthy? You are feeling sad? Go out, try to 
get a run in. At first, when she did it, she could only go a few 
blocks. Eventually the blocks turned into miles, which is even more 
challenging for her because of some of her injuries. Nonetheless, she 
persevered.
  We are seeing a theme in her life. She began to get healthy and to 
feel good about herself again. Again, she found her reason to live. 
Guess what. She has turned into an amazing athlete. She began to enter 
races in 2015 when she ran the local 8-mile Dexter Challenge. ``I 
thought, if I do eight miles, I could do a half marathon,'' she said. 
And then she did.
  Carol didn't stop there. Now she is running ultramarathons across the 
country--50 miles in Iowa, multiple ultramarathons in Utah, a 50K in 
Washington State. Early last month, she was running a 50K in Texas 
when, about 5 miles in, she broke her ankle, but that didn't stop her. 
She finished even with a broken ankle and is recovering. We are seeing 
a woman, a young lady of perseverance. Her ultimate goal is to do an 
ultramarathon in every State in America.
  Because of Carol's scars, she wears a mask. In August she decided 
that it was too cumbersome to wear the mask while running, so during a 
race in Alaska--the very challenging 50-mile Resurrection Pass 
ultramarathon--she took it off, and it was liberating for her. Here is 
the beautiful thing: Everybody--everybody--was so supportive, so she 
doesn't run with a mask anymore.
  It is not only runners who are supportive of Carol; she has gotten 
people in her hometown, the town of Nome, to start running themselves. 
Across the State, people approach her wherever she goes, and they tell 
her they have heard about her, they have heard about her life, and if 
she has made it through her challenge, they can too. In other words, 
she is an inspiration. She has become an inspiration throughout Alaska 
to so many people. She said:

       I think I'm helping other people overcome difficulties. 
     They tell me I'm inspiring them to keep going. So that's why 
     I believe I'm here now--to help others.

  That is Carol's quote.
  So, Carol, for your inspiration to so many in our great State, for 
all you have done and all you continue to do, we are proud of you and 
thank you for being our Alaskan of the Week this week, as the Iditarod 
finishes up in your hometown of Nome, AK.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                       Remembering Charley Thone

  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to a great public 
servant who passed away last night, former Member of Congress and 
Nebraska Governor Charley Thone.
  I think the Omaha World-Herald summed up his outlook well:

       Official biographies list Thone's first name as Charles. 
     But Nebraskans knew him better as Charley, the unpretentious 
     farm boy who adopted ``Accentuate the Positive'' as his 
     personal theme song.

  Governor Thone was born near Hartington, NE. He served our country in 
the U.S. Army Infantry during World War II. While serving in the House 
of Representatives, then-Congressman Thone fought on behalf of farmers 
and ranchers as a member of the House Agriculture Committee. When 
tragedy struck with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, he 
served on the Warren Commission to investigate the death of our 
President.
  As Governor of Nebraska, his love of our State was always evident 
during his time in office. He guided Nebraska during a tough farm 
economy in the 1970s, but he always looked ahead and supported others. 
Governor Thone led by example, and he empowered and encouraged others. 
He was a mentor to a Nebraska woman named Kay Orr, who became his chief 
of staff and then went on to be the first woman Governor of Nebraska. 
Governor Orr, herself, has said she would not have been Governor had it 
not been for the opportunities Governor Thone had given her along the 
way.
  The legacy of service and the mark Governor Thone left on Nebraska 
will never be forgotten. The motto that he held so dear, ``accentuate 
the positive,'' was a good one. It reminds us to find the good in every 
person and every moment. His positivity made Nebraska a better place 
both while he served and afterward as he worked in his community. 
Governor Thone served the State of Nebraska with dignity. He was an 
exemplary public servant and a dear friend to my father and to me.
  I join all Nebraskans in praying for his wife, Ruth, and the entire 
Thone family.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                    Amendment No. 2151, as Modified

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a modification to amendment No. 
2151 to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is so modified.
  The amendment, as modified, is as follows:

       Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the 
     following:

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

       (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Economic 
     Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act''.
       (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act 
     is as follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Definitions.

         TITLE I--IMPROVING CONSUMER ACCESS TO MORTGAGE CREDIT

Sec. 101. Minimum standards for residential mortgage loans.
Sec. 102. Safeguarding access to habitat for humanity homes.
Sec. 103. Exemption from appraisals of real property located in rural 
              areas.
Sec. 104. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act adjustment and study.
Sec. 105. Credit union residential loans.
Sec. 106. Eliminating barriers to jobs for loan originators.
Sec. 107. Protecting access to manufactured homes.
Sec. 108. Escrow requirements relating to certain consumer credit 
              transactions.
Sec. 109. No wait for lower mortgage rates.

  TITLE II--REGULATORY RELIEF AND PROTECTING CONSUMER ACCESS TO CREDIT

Sec. 201. Capital simplification for qualifying community banks.
Sec. 202. Limited exception for reciprocal deposits.
Sec. 203. Community bank relief.
Sec. 204. Removing naming restrictions.
Sec. 205. Short form call reports.
Sec. 206. Option for Federal savings associations to operate as covered 
              savings associations.

[[Page S1546]]

Sec. 207. Small bank holding company policy statement.
Sec. 208. Application of the Expedited Funds Availability Act.
Sec. 209. Small public housing agencies.
Sec. 210. Examination cycle.
Sec. 211. International insurance capital standards accountability.
Sec. 212. Budget transparency for the NCUA.
Sec. 213. Making online banking initiation legal and easy.
Sec. 214. Promoting construction and development on Main Street.
Sec. 215. Reducing identity fraud.
Sec. 216. Treasury report on risks of cyber threats.
Sec. 217. Discretionary surplus funds.

     TITLE III--PROTECTIONS FOR VETERANS, CONSUMERS, AND HOMEOWNERS

Sec. 301. Protecting consumers' credit.
Sec. 302. Protecting veterans' credit.
Sec. 303. Immunity from suit for disclosure of financial exploitation 
              of senior citizens.
Sec. 304. Restoration of the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 
              2009.
Sec. 305. Remediating lead and asbestos hazards.
Sec. 306. Family self-sufficiency program.
Sec. 307. Property Assessed Clean Energy financing.
Sec. 308. GAO report on consumer reporting agencies.
Sec. 309. Protecting veterans from predatory lending.
Sec. 310. Credit score competition.
Sec. 311. GAO report on Puerto Rico foreclosures.
Sec. 312. Report on children's lead-based paint hazard prevention and 
              abatement.
Sec. 313. Foreclosure relief and extension for servicemembers.

   TITLE IV--TAILORING REGULATIONS FOR CERTAIN BANK HOLDING COMPANIES

Sec. 401. Enhanced supervision and prudential standards for certain 
              bank holding companies.
Sec. 402. Supplementary leverage ratio for custodial banks.
Sec. 403. Treatment of certain municipal obligations.

                 TITLE V--ENCOURAGING CAPITAL FORMATION

Sec. 501. National securities exchange regulatory parity.
Sec. 502. SEC study on algorithmic trading.
Sec. 503. Annual review of government-business forum on capital 
              formation.
Sec. 504. Supporting America's innovators.
Sec. 505. Securities and Exchange Commission overpayment credit.
Sec. 506. U.S. territories investor protection.
Sec. 507. Encouraging employee ownership.
Sec. 508. Improving access to capital.
Sec. 509. Parity for closed-end companies regarding offering and proxy 
              rules.

              TITLE VI--PROTECTIONS FOR STUDENT BORROWERS

Sec. 601. Protections in the event of death or bankruptcy.
Sec. 602. Rehabilitation of private education loans.
Sec. 603. Best practices for higher education financial literacy.

     SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

       In this Act:
       (1) Appropriate federal banking agency; company; depository 
     institution; depository institution holding company.--The 
     terms ``appropriate Federal banking agency'', ``company'', 
     ``depository institution'', and ``depository institution 
     holding company'' have the meanings given those terms in 
     section 3 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1813).
       (2) Bank holding company.--The term ``bank holding 
     company'' has the meaning given the term in section 2 of the 
     Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (12 U.S.C. 1841).

         TITLE I--IMPROVING CONSUMER ACCESS TO MORTGAGE CREDIT

     SEC. 101. MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGE LOANS.

       Section 129C(b)(2) of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 
     1639c(b)(2)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(F) Safe harbor.--
       ``(i) Definitions.--In this subparagraph--

       ``(I) the term `covered institution' means an insured 
     depository institution or an insured credit union that, 
     together with its affiliates, has less than $10,000,000,000 
     in total consolidated assets;
       ``(II) the term `insured credit union' has the meaning 
     given the term in section 101 of the Federal Credit Union Act 
     (12 U.S.C. 1752);
       ``(III) the term `insured depository institution' has the 
     meaning given the term in section 3 of the Federal Deposit 
     Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813);
       ``(IV) the term `interest-only' means that, under the terms 
     of the legal obligation, one or more of the periodic payments 
     may be applied solely to accrued interest and not to loan 
     principal; and
       ``(V) the term `negative amortization' means payment of 
     periodic payments that will result in an increase in the 
     principal balance under the terms of the legal obligation.

       ``(ii) Safe harbor.--In this section--

       ``(I) the term `qualified mortgage' includes any 
     residential mortgage loan--

       ``(aa) that is originated and retained in portfolio by a 
     covered institution;
       ``(bb) that is in compliance with the limitations with 
     respect to prepayment penalties described in subsections 
     (c)(1) and (c)(3);
       ``(cc) that is in compliance with the requirements of 
     clause (vii) of subparagraph (A);
       ``(dd) that does not have negative amortization or 
     interest-only features; and
       ``(ee) for which the covered institution considers and 
     documents the debt, income, and financial resources of the 
     consumer in accordance with clause (iv); and

       ``(II) a residential mortgage loan described in subclause 
     (I) shall be deemed to meet the requirements of subsection 
     (a).

       ``(iii) Exception for certain transfers.--A residential 
     mortgage loan described in clause (ii)(I) shall not qualify 
     for the safe harbor under clause (ii) if the legal title to 
     the residential mortgage loan is sold, assigned, or otherwise 
     transferred to another person unless the residential mortgage 
     loan is sold, assigned, or otherwise transferred--

       ``(I) to another person by reason of the bankruptcy or 
     failure of a covered institution;
       ``(II) to a covered institution so long as the loan is 
     retained in portfolio by the covered institution to which the 
     loan is sold, assigned, or otherwise transferred;
       ``(III) pursuant to a merger of a covered institution with 
     another person or the acquisition of a covered institution by 
     another person or of another person by a covered institution, 
     so long as the loan is retained in portfolio by the person to 
     whom the loan is sold, assigned, or otherwise transferred; or
       ``(IV) to a wholly owned subsidiary of a covered 
     institution, provided that, after the sale, assignment, or 
     transfer, the residential mortgage loan is considered to be 
     an asset of the covered institution for regulatory accounting 
     purposes.

       ``(iv) Consideration and documentation requirements.--The 
     consideration and documentation requirements described in 
     clause (ii)(I)(ee) shall--

       ``(I) not be construed to require compliance with, or 
     documentation in accordance with, appendix Q to part 1026 of 
     title 12, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor 
     regulation; and
       ``(II) be construed to permit multiple methods of 
     documentation.''.

     SEC. 102. SAFEGUARDING ACCESS TO HABITAT FOR HUMANITY HOMES.

       Section 129E(i)(2) of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 
     1639e(i)(2)) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating subparagraphs (A) and (B) as clauses 
     (i) and (ii), respectively, and adjusting the margins 
     accordingly;
       (2) in the matter preceding clause (i), as so redesignated, 
     by striking ``For purposes of'' and inserting the following:
       ``(A) In general.--For purposes of''; and
       (3) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(B) Rule of construction related to appraisal 
     donations.--If a fee appraiser voluntarily donates appraisal 
     services to an organization eligible to receive tax-
     deductible charitable contributions, such voluntary donation 
     shall be considered customary and reasonable for the purposes 
     of paragraph (1).''.

     SEC. 103. EXEMPTION FROM APPRAISALS OF REAL PROPERTY LOCATED 
                   IN RURAL AREAS.

       Title XI of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, 
     and Enforcement Act of 1989 (12 U.S.C. 3331 et seq.) is 
     amended by adding at the end the following:

     ``SEC. 1127. EXEMPTION FROM APPRAISALS OF REAL ESTATE LOCATED 
                   IN RURAL AREAS.

       ``(a) Definitions.--In this section--
       ``(1) the term `mortgage originator' has the meaning given 
     the term in section 103 of the Truth in Lending Act (15 
     U.S.C. 1602); and
       ``(2) the term `transaction value' means the amount of a 
     loan or extension of credit, including a loan or extension of 
     credit that is part of a pool of loans or extensions of 
     credit.
       ``(b) Appraisal Not Required.--Except as provided in 
     subsection (d), notwithstanding any other provision of law, 
     an appraisal in connection with a federally related 
     transaction involving real property or an interest in real 
     property is not required if--
       ``(1) the real property or interest in real property is 
     located in a rural area, as described in section 
     1026.35(b)(2)(iv)(A) of title 12, Code of Federal 
     Regulations;
       ``(2) not later than 3 days after the date on which the 
     Closing Disclosure Form, made in accordance with the final 
     rule of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection entitled 
     `Integrated Mortgage Disclosures Under the Real Estate 
     Settlement Procedures Act (Regulation X) and the Truth in 
     Lending Act (Regulation Z)' (78 Fed. Reg. 79730 (December 31, 
     2013)), relating to the federally related transaction is 
     given to the consumer, the mortgage originator or its agent, 
     directly or indirectly--
       ``(A) has contacted not fewer than 3 State certified 
     appraisers or State licensed appraisers, as applicable, on 
     the mortgage originator's approved appraiser list in the 
     market area in accordance with part 226 of title 12, Code of 
     Federal Regulations; and
       ``(B) has documented that no State certified appraiser or 
     State licensed appraiser, as applicable, was available within 
     5 business days beyond customary and reasonable fee and 
     timeliness standards for comparable appraisal assignments, as 
     documented by the mortgage originator or its agent;
       ``(3) the transaction value is less than $400,000; and

[[Page S1547]]

       ``(4) the mortgage originator is subject to oversight by a 
     Federal financial institutions regulatory agency.
       ``(c) Sale, Assignment, or Transfer.--A mortgage originator 
     that makes a loan without an appraisal under the terms of 
     subsection (b) shall not sell, assign, or otherwise transfer 
     legal title to the loan unless--
       ``(1) the loan is sold, assigned, or otherwise transferred 
     to another person by reason of the bankruptcy or failure of 
     the mortgage originator;
       ``(2) the loan is sold, assigned, or otherwise transferred 
     to another person regulated by a Federal financial 
     institutions regulatory agency, so long as the loan is 
     retained in portfolio by the person;
       ``(3) the sale, assignment, or transfer is pursuant to a 
     merger of the mortgage originator with another person or the 
     acquisition of the mortgage originator by another person or 
     of another person by the mortgage originator; or
       ``(4) the sale, loan, or transfer is to a wholly owned 
     subsidiary of the mortgage originator, provided that, after 
     the sale, assignment, or transfer, the loan is considered to 
     be an asset of the mortgage originator for regulatory 
     accounting purposes.
       ``(d) Exception.--Subsection (b) shall not apply if--
       ``(1) a Federal financial institutions regulatory agency 
     requires an appraisal under section 225.63(c), 323.3(c), 
     34.43(c), or 722.3(e) of title 12, Code of Federal 
     Regulations; or
       ``(2) the loan is a high-cost mortgage, as defined in 
     section 103 of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 1602).
       ``(e) Anti-Evasion.--Each Federal financial institutions 
     regulatory agency shall ensure that any mortgage originator 
     that the Federal financial institutions regulatory agency 
     oversees that makes a significant amount of loans under 
     subsection (b) is complying with the requirements of 
     subsection (b)(2) with respect to each loan.''.

     SEC. 104. HOME MORTGAGE DISCLOSURE ACT ADJUSTMENT AND STUDY.

       (a) In General.--Section 304 of the Home Mortgage 
     Disclosure Act of 1975 (12 U.S.C. 2803) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating subsection (i) as paragraph (3) and 
     adjusting the margins accordingly;
       (2) by inserting before paragraph (3), as so redesignated, 
     the following:
       ``(i) Exemptions.--
       ``(1) Closed-end mortgage loans.--With respect to an 
     insured depository institution or insured credit union, the 
     requirements of paragraphs (5) and (6) of subsection (b) 
     shall not apply with respect to closed-end mortgage loans if 
     the insured depository institution or insured credit union 
     originated fewer than 500 closed-end mortgage loans in each 
     of the 2 preceding calendar years.
       ``(2) Open-end lines of credit.--With respect to an insured 
     depository institution or insured credit union, the 
     requirements of paragraphs (5) and (6) of subsection (b) 
     shall not apply with respect to open-end lines of credit if 
     the insured depository institution or insured credit union 
     originated fewer than 500 open-end lines of credit in each of 
     the 2 preceding calendar years.
       ``(3) Required compliance.--Notwithstanding paragraphs (1) 
     and (2), an insured depository institution shall comply with 
     paragraphs (5) and (6) of subsection (b) if the insured 
     depository institution has received a rating of `needs to 
     improve record of meeting community credit needs' during each 
     of its 2 most recent examinations or a rating of `substantial 
     noncompliance in meeting community credit needs' on its most 
     recent examination under section 807(b)(2) of the Community 
     Reinvestment Act of 1977 (12 U.S.C. 2906(b)(2)).''; and
       (3) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(o) Definitions.--In this section--
       ``(1) the term `insured credit union' has the meaning given 
     the term in section 101 of the Federal Credit Union Act (12 
     U.S.C. 1752); and
       ``(2) the term `insured depository institution' has the 
     meaning given the term in section 3 of the Federal Deposit 
     Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813).''.
       (b) Lookback Study.--
       (1) Study.--Not earlier than 2 years after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United 
     States shall conduct a study to evaluate the impact of the 
     amendments made by subsection (a) on the amount of data 
     available under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (12 
     U.S.C. 2801 et seq.) at the national and local level.
       (2) Report.--Not later than 3 years after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United 
     States shall submit to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and 
     Urban Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Financial 
     Services of the House of Representatives a report that 
     includes the findings and conclusions of the Comptroller 
     General with respect to the study required under paragraph 
     (1).
       (c) Technical Correction.--Section 304(i)(3) of the Home 
     Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, as so redesignated by 
     subsection (a)(1), is amended by striking ``section 
     303(2)(A)'' and inserting ``section 303(3)(A)''.

     SEC. 105. CREDIT UNION RESIDENTIAL LOANS.

       (a) Removal From Member Business Loan Limitation.--Section 
     107A(c)(1)(B)(i) of the Federal Credit Union Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1757a(c)(1)(B)(i)) is amended by striking ``that is the 
     primary residence of a member''.
       (b) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this section or the 
     amendment made by this section shall preclude the National 
     Credit Union Administration from treating an extension of 
     credit that is fully secured by a lien on a 1- to 4-family 
     dwelling that is not the primary residence of a member as a 
     member business loan for purposes other than the member 
     business loan limitation requirements under section 107A of 
     the Federal Credit Union Act (12 U.S.C. 1757a).

     SEC. 106. ELIMINATING BARRIERS TO JOBS FOR LOAN ORIGINATORS.

       (a) In General.--The S.A.F.E. Mortgage Licensing Act of 
     2008 (12 U.S.C. 5101 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end 
     the following:

     ``SEC. 1518. EMPLOYMENT TRANSITION OF LOAN ORIGINATORS.

       ``(a) Definitions.--In this section:
       ``(1) Application state.--The term `application State' 
     means a State in which a registered loan originator or a 
     State-licensed loan originator seeks to be licensed.
       ``(2) State-licensed mortgage company.--The term `State-
     licensed mortgage company' means an entity that is licensed 
     or registered under the law of any State to engage in 
     residential mortgage loan origination and processing 
     activities.
       ``(b) Temporary Authority To Originate Loans for Loan 
     Originators Moving From a Depository Institution to a Non-
     Depository Institution.--
       ``(1) In general.--Upon becoming employed by a State-
     licensed mortgage company, an individual who is a registered 
     loan originator shall be deemed to have temporary authority 
     to act as a loan originator in an application State for the 
     period described in paragraph (2) if the individual--
       ``(A) has not had--
       ``(i) an application for a loan originator license denied; 
     or
       ``(ii) a loan originator license revoked or suspended in 
     any governmental jurisdiction;
       ``(B) has not been subject to, or served with, a cease and 
     desist order--
       ``(i) in any governmental jurisdiction; or
       ``(ii) under section 1514(c);
       ``(C) has not been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony 
     that would preclude licensure under the law of the 
     application State;
       ``(D) has submitted an application to be a State-licensed 
     loan originator in the application State; and
       ``(E) was registered in the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing 
     System and Registry as a loan originator during the 1-year 
     period preceding the date on which the information required 
     under section 1505(a) is submitted.
       ``(2) Period.--The period described in this paragraph shall 
     begin on the date on which an individual described in 
     paragraph (1) submits the information required under section 
     1505(a) and shall end on the earliest of the date--
       ``(A) on which the individual withdraws the application to 
     be a State-licensed loan originator in the application State;
       ``(B) on which the application State denies, or issues a 
     notice of intent to deny, the application;
       ``(C) on which the application State grants a State 
     license; or
       ``(D) that is 120 days after the date on which the 
     individual submits the application, if the application is 
     listed on the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and 
     Registry as incomplete.
       ``(c) Temporary Authority To Originate Loans for State-
     Licensed Loan Originators Moving Interstate.--
       ``(1) In general.--A State-licensed loan originator shall 
     be deemed to have temporary authority to act as a loan 
     originator in an application State for the period described 
     in paragraph (2) if the State-licensed loan originator--
       ``(A) meets the requirements of subparagraphs (A), (B), 
     (C), and (D) of subsection (b)(1);
       ``(B) is employed by a State-licensed mortgage company in 
     the application State; and
       ``(C) was licensed in a State that is not the application 
     State during the 30-day period preceding the date on which 
     the information required under section 1505(a) was submitted 
     in connection with the application submitted to the 
     application State.
       ``(2) Period.--The period described in this paragraph shall 
     begin on the date on which the State-licensed loan originator 
     submits the information required under section 1505(a) in 
     connection with the application submitted to the application 
     State and end on the earliest of the date--
       ``(A) on which the State-licensed loan originator withdraws 
     the application to be a State-licensed loan originator in the 
     application State;
       ``(B) on which the application State denies, or issues a 
     notice of intent to deny, the application;
       ``(C) on which the application State grants a State 
     license; or
       ``(D) that is 120 days after the date on which the State-
     licensed loan originator submits the application, if the 
     application is listed on the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing 
     System and Registry as incomplete.
       ``(d) Applicability.--
       ``(1) Employer of loan originators.--Any person employing 
     an individual who is deemed to have temporary authority to 
     act as a loan originator in an application State under this 
     section shall be subject to the requirements of this title 
     and to applicable State law to the same extent as if that 
     individual was a State-licensed loan originator licensed by 
     the application State.
       ``(2) Engaging in mortgage loan activities.--Any individual 
     who is deemed to have

[[Page S1548]]

     temporary authority to act as a loan originator in an 
     application State under this section and who engages in 
     residential mortgage loan origination activities shall be 
     subject to the requirements of this title and to applicable 
     State law to the same extent as if that individual was a 
     State-licensed loan originator licensed by the application 
     State.''.
       (b) Table of Contents Amendment.--Section 1(b) of the 
     Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (42 U.S.C. 4501 
     note) is amended by inserting after the item relating to 
     section 1517 the following:

``Sec. 1518. Employment transition of loan originators.''.
       (c) Civil Liability.--Section 1513 of the S.A.F.E. Mortgage 
     Licensing Act of 2008 (12 U.S.C. 5112) is amended by striking 
     ``persons who are loan originators or are applying for 
     licensing or registration as loan originators.'' and 
     inserting ``persons who--
       ``(1) have applied, are applying, or are licensed or 
     registered through the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System 
     and Registry; and
       ``(2) work in an industry with respect to which persons 
     were licensed or registered through the Nationwide Mortgage 
     Licensing System and Registry on the date of enactment of the 
     Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection 
     Act.''.
       (d) Effective Date.--This section and the amendments made 
     by this section shall take effect on the date that is 18 
     months after the date of enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 107. PROTECTING ACCESS TO MANUFACTURED HOMES.

       Section 103 of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 1602) is 
     amended--
       (1) by redesignating the second subsection (cc) (relating 
     to definitions relating to mortgage origination and 
     residential mortgage loans) and subsection (dd) as 
     subsections (dd) and (ee), respectively; and
       (2) in paragraph (2) of subsection (dd), as so 
     redesignated, by striking subparagraph (C) and inserting the 
     following:
       ``(C) does not include any person who is--
       ``(i) not otherwise described in subparagraph (A) or (B) 
     and who performs purely administrative or clerical tasks on 
     behalf of a person who is described in any such subparagraph; 
     or
       ``(ii) a retailer of manufactured or modular homes or an 
     employee of the retailer if the retailer or employee, as 
     applicable--

       ``(I) does not receive compensation or gain for engaging in 
     activities described in subparagraph (A) that is in excess of 
     any compensation or gain received in a comparable cash 
     transaction;
       ``(II) discloses to the consumer--

       ``(aa) in writing any corporate affiliation with any 
     creditor; and
       ``(bb) if the retailer has a corporate affiliation with any 
     creditor, at least 1 unaffiliated creditor; and

       ``(III) does not directly negotiate with the consumer or 
     lender on loan terms (including rates, fees, and other 
     costs).''.

     SEC. 108. ESCROW REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO CERTAIN CONSUMER 
                   CREDIT TRANSACTIONS.

       Section 129D of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 1639d) 
     is amended--
       (1) in subsection (c)--
       (A) by redesignating paragraphs (1) through (4) as 
     subparagraphs (A) through (D), respectively, and adjusting 
     the margins accordingly;
       (B) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), as so 
     redesignated, by striking ``The Board'' and inserting the 
     following:
       ``(1) In general.--The Bureau'';
       (C) in paragraph (1), as so redesignated, by striking ``the 
     Board'' each place that term appears and inserting ``the 
     Bureau''; and
       (D) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(2) Treatment of loans held by smaller institutions.--The 
     Bureau shall, by regulation, exempt from the requirements of 
     subsection (a) any loan made by an insured depository 
     institution or an insured credit union secured by a first 
     lien on the principal dwelling of a consumer if--
       ``(A) the insured depository institution or insured credit 
     union has assets of $10,000,000,000 or less;
       ``(B) during the preceding calendar year, the insured 
     depository institution or insured credit union and its 
     affiliates originated 1,000 or fewer loans secured by a first 
     lien on a principal dwelling; and
       ``(C) the transaction satisfies the criteria in sections 
     1026.35(b)(2)(iii)(A), 1026.35(b)(2)(iii)(D), and 
     1026.35(b)(2)(v) of title 12, Code of Federal Regulations, or 
     any successor regulation.''; and
       (2) in subsection (i), by adding at the end the following:
       ``(3) Insured credit union.--The term `insured credit 
     union' has the meaning given the term in section 101 of the 
     Federal Credit Union Act (12 U.S.C. 1752).
       ``(4) Insured depository institution.--The term `insured 
     depository institution' has the meaning given the term in 
     section 3 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1813).''.

     SEC. 109. NO WAIT FOR LOWER MORTGAGE RATES.

       (a) In General.--Section 129(b) of the Truth in Lending Act 
     (15 U.S.C. 1639(b)) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating paragraph (3) as paragraph (4); and
       (2) by inserting after paragraph (2) the following:
       ``(3) No wait for lower rate.--If a creditor extends to a 
     consumer a second offer of credit with a lower annual 
     percentage rate, the transaction may be consummated without 
     regard to the period specified in paragraph (1) with respect 
     to the second offer.''.
       (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that, 
     whereas the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection issued a 
     final rule entitled ``Integrated Mortgage Disclosures Under 
     the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Regulation X) and 
     the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z)'' (78 Fed. Reg. 79730 
     (December 31, 2013)) (in this subsection referred to as the 
     ``TRID Rule'') to combine the disclosures a consumer receives 
     in connection with applying for and closing on a mortgage 
     loan, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection should 
     endeavor to provide clearer, authoritative guidance on--
       (1) the applicability of the TRID Rule to mortgage 
     assumption transactions;
       (2) the applicability of the TRID Rule to construction-to-
     permanent home loans, and the conditions under which those 
     loans can be properly originated; and
       (3) the extent to which lenders can rely on model 
     disclosures published by the Bureau of Consumer Financial 
     Protection without liability if recent changes to regulations 
     are not reflected in the sample TRID Rule forms published by 
     the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

  TITLE II--REGULATORY RELIEF AND PROTECTING CONSUMER ACCESS TO CREDIT

     SEC. 201. CAPITAL SIMPLIFICATION FOR QUALIFYING COMMUNITY 
                   BANKS.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Community bank leverage ratio.--The term ``Community 
     Bank Leverage Ratio'' means the ratio of the tangible equity 
     capital of a qualifying community bank, as reported on the 
     qualifying community bank's applicable regulatory filing with 
     the qualifying community bank's appropriate Federal banking 
     agency, to the average total consolidated assets of the 
     qualifying community bank, as reported on the qualifying 
     community bank's applicable regulatory filing with the 
     qualifying community bank's appropriate Federal banking 
     agency.
       (2) Generally applicable leverage capital requirements; 
     generally applicable risk-based capital requirements.--The 
     terms ``generally applicable leverage capital requirements'' 
     and ``generally applicable risk-based capital requirements'' 
     have the meanings given those terms in section 171(a) of the 
     Financial Stability Act of 2010 (12 U.S.C. 5371(a)).
       (3) Qualifying community bank.--
       (A) Asset threshold.--The term ``qualifying community 
     bank'' means a depository institution or depository 
     institution holding company with total consolidated assets of 
     less than $10,000,000,000.
       (B) Risk profile.--The appropriate Federal banking agencies 
     may determine that a depository institution or depository 
     institution holding company (or a class of depository 
     institutions or depository institution holding companies) 
     described in subparagraph (A) is not a qualifying community 
     bank based on the depository institution's or depository 
     institution holding company's risk profile, which shall be 
     based on consideration of--
       (i) off-balance sheet exposures;
       (ii) trading assets and liabilities;
       (iii) total notional derivatives exposures; and
       (iv) such other factors as the appropriate Federal banking 
     agencies determine appropriate.
       (b) Community Bank Leverage Ratio.--The appropriate Federal 
     banking agencies shall, through notice and comment rule 
     making under section 553 of title 5, United States Code--
       (1) develop a Community Bank Leverage Ratio of not less 
     than 8 percent and not more than 10 percent for qualifying 
     community banks; and
       (2) establish procedures for treatment of a qualifying 
     community bank that has a Community Bank Leverage Ratio that 
     falls below the percentage developed under paragraph (1) 
     after exceeding the percentage developed under paragraph (1).
       (c) Capital Compliance.--
       (1) In general.--Any qualifying community bank that exceeds 
     the Community Bank Leverage Ratio developed under subsection 
     (b)(1) shall be considered to have met--
       (A) the generally applicable leverage capital requirements 
     and the generally applicable risk-based capital requirements;
       (B) in the case of a qualifying community bank that is a 
     depository institution, the capital ratio requirements that 
     are required in order to be considered well capitalized under 
     section 38 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1831o) and any regulation implementing that section; and
       (C) any other capital or leverage requirements to which the 
     qualifying community bank is subject.
       (2) Existing authorities.--Nothing in paragraph (1) shall 
     limit the authority of the appropriate Federal banking 
     agencies as in effect on the date of enactment of this Act.
       (d) Consultation.--The appropriate Federal banking agencies 
     shall--
       (1) consult with the applicable State bank supervisors in 
     carrying out this section; and
       (2) notify the applicable State bank supervisor of any 
     qualifying community bank that it supervises that exceeds, or 
     does not exceed after previously exceeding, the Community 
     Bank Leverage ratio developed under subsection (b)(1).

[[Page S1549]]

  


     SEC. 202. LIMITED EXCEPTION FOR RECIPROCAL DEPOSITS.

       (a) In General.--Section 29 of the Federal Deposit 
     Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1831f) is amended by adding at the 
     end the following:
       ``(i) Limited Exception for Reciprocal Deposits.--
       ``(1) In general.--Reciprocal deposits of an agent 
     institution shall not be considered to be funds obtained, 
     directly or indirectly, by or through a deposit broker to the 
     extent that the total amount of such reciprocal deposits does 
     not exceed the lesser of--
       ``(A) $5,000,000,000; or
       ``(B) an amount equal to 20 percent of the total 
     liabilities of the agent institution.
       ``(2) Definitions.--In this subsection:
       ``(A) Agent institution.--The term `agent institution' 
     means an insured depository institution that places a covered 
     deposit through a deposit placement network at other insured 
     depository institutions in amounts that are less than or 
     equal to the standard maximum deposit insurance amount, 
     specifying the interest rate to be paid for such amounts, if 
     the insured depository institution--
       ``(i)(I) when most recently examined under section 10(d) 
     was found to have a composite condition of outstanding or 
     good; and
       ``(II) is well capitalized;
       ``(ii) has obtained a waiver pursuant to subsection (c); or
       ``(iii) does not receive an amount of reciprocal deposits 
     that causes the total amount of reciprocal deposits held by 
     the agent institution to be greater than the average of the 
     total amount of reciprocal deposits held by the agent 
     institution on the last day of each of the 4 calendar 
     quarters preceding the calendar quarter in which the agent 
     institution was found not to have a composite condition of 
     outstanding or good or was determined to be not well 
     capitalized.
       ``(B) Covered deposit.--The term `covered deposit' means a 
     deposit that--
       ``(i) is submitted for placement through a deposit 
     placement network by an agent institution; and
       ``(ii) does not consist of funds that were obtained for the 
     agent institution, directly or indirectly, by or through a 
     deposit broker before submission for placement through a 
     deposit placement network.
       ``(C) Deposit placement network.--The term `deposit 
     placement network' means a network in which an insured 
     depository institution participates, together with other 
     insured depository institutions, for the processing and 
     receipt of reciprocal deposits.
       ``(D) Network member bank.--The term `network member bank' 
     means an insured depository institution that is a member of a 
     deposit placement network.
       ``(E) Reciprocal deposits.--The term `reciprocal deposits' 
     means deposits received by an agent institution through a 
     deposit placement network with the same maturity (if any) and 
     in the same aggregate amount as covered deposits placed by 
     the agent institution in other network member banks.
       ``(F) Well capitalized.--The term `well capitalized' has 
     the meaning given the term in section 38(b)(1).''.
       (b) Interest Rate Restriction.--Section 29 of the Federal 
     Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1831f) is amended by 
     striking subsection (e) and inserting the following:
       ``(e) Restriction on Interest Rate Paid.--
       ``(1) Definitions.--In this subsection--
       ``(A) the terms `agent institution', `reciprocal deposits', 
     and `well capitalized' have the meanings given those terms in 
     subsection (i); and
       ``(B) the term `covered insured depository institution' 
     means an insured depository institution that--
       ``(i) under subsection (c) or (d), accepts funds obtained, 
     directly or indirectly, by or through a deposit broker; or
       ``(ii) while acting as an agent institution under 
     subsection (i), accepts reciprocal deposits while not well 
     capitalized.
       ``(2) Prohibition.--A covered insured depository 
     institution may not pay a rate of interest on funds or 
     reciprocal deposits described in paragraph (1) that, at the 
     time that the funds or reciprocal deposits are accepted, 
     significantly exceeds the limit set forth in paragraph (3).
       ``(3) Limit on interest rates.--The limit on the rate of 
     interest referred to in paragraph (2) shall be--
       ``(A) the rate paid on deposits of similar maturity in the 
     normal market area of the covered insured depository 
     institution for deposits accepted in the normal market area 
     of the covered insured depository institution; or
       ``(B) the national rate paid on deposits of comparable 
     maturity, as established by the Corporation, for deposits 
     accepted outside the normal market area of the covered 
     insured depository institution.''.

     SEC. 203. COMMUNITY BANK RELIEF.

       Section 13(h)(1) of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 
     (12 U.S.C. 1851(h)(1)) is amended--
       (1) in subparagraph (D), by redesignating clauses (i) and 
     (ii) as subclauses (I) and (II), respectively, and adjusting 
     the margins accordingly;
       (2) by redesignating subparagraphs (A) through (D) as 
     clauses (i) through (iv), respectively, and adjusting the 
     margins accordingly;
       (3) in the matter preceding clause (i), as so redesignated, 
     in the second sentence, by striking ``institution that 
     functions solely in a trust or fiduciary capacity, if--'' and 
     inserting the following: ``institution--
       ``(A) that functions solely in a trust or fiduciary 
     capacity, if--'';
       (4) in clause (iv)(II), as so redesignated, by striking the 
     period at the end and inserting ``; or''; and
       (5) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(B) that does not have and is not controlled by a company 
     that has--
       ``(i) more than $10,000,000,000 in total consolidated 
     assets; and
       ``(ii) total trading assets and trading liabilities, as 
     reported on the most recent applicable regulatory filing 
     filed by the institution, that are more than 5 percent of 
     total consolidated assets.''.

     SEC. 204. REMOVING NAMING RESTRICTIONS.

       Section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (12 
     U.S.C. 1851) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (d)(1)(G)(vi), by inserting before the 
     semicolon the following: ``, except that the hedge fund or 
     private equity fund may share the same name or a variation of 
     the same name as a banking entity that is an investment 
     adviser to the hedge fund or private equity fund, if--

       ``(I) such investment adviser is not an insured depository 
     institution, a company that controls an insured depository 
     institution, or a company that is treated as a bank holding 
     company for purposes of section 8 of the International 
     Banking Act of 1978 (12 U.S.C. 3106);
       ``(II) such investment adviser does not share the same name 
     or a variation of the same name as an insured depository 
     institution, any company that controls an insured depository 
     institution, or any company that is treated as a bank holding 
     company for purposes of section 8 of the International 
     Banking Act of 1978 (12 U.S.C. 3106); and
       ``(III) such name does not contain the word `bank' ''; and

       (2) in subsection (h)(5)(C), by inserting before the period 
     the following: ``, except as permitted under subsection 
     (d)(1)(G)(vi)''.

     SEC. 205. SHORT FORM CALL REPORTS.

       Section 7(a) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 
     U.S.C. 1817(a)) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:
       ``(12) Short form reporting.--
       ``(A) In general.--The appropriate Federal banking agencies 
     shall issue regulations that allow for a reduced reporting 
     requirement for a covered depository institution when the 
     institution makes the first and third report of condition for 
     a year, as required under paragraph (3).
       ``(B) Definition.--In this paragraph, the term `covered 
     depository institution' means an insured depository 
     institution that--
       ``(i) has less than $5,000,000,000 in total consolidated 
     assets; and
       ``(ii) satisfies such other criteria as the appropriate 
     Federal banking agencies determine appropriate.''.

     SEC. 206. OPTION FOR FEDERAL SAVINGS ASSOCIATIONS TO OPERATE 
                   AS COVERED SAVINGS ASSOCIATIONS.

       The Home Owners' Loan Act (12 U.S.C. 1461 et seq.) is 
     amended by inserting after section 5 (12 U.S.C. 1464) the 
     following:

     ``SEC. 5A. ELECTION TO OPERATE AS A COVERED SAVINGS 
                   ASSOCIATION.

       ``(a) Definition.--In this section, the term `covered 
     savings association' means a Federal savings association that 
     makes an election that is approved under subsection (b).
       ``(b) Election.--
       ``(1) In general.--In accordance with the rules issued 
     under subsection (f), a Federal savings association with 
     total consolidated assets equal to or less than 
     $20,000,000,000, as reported by the association to the 
     Comptroller as of December 31, 2017, may elect to operate as 
     a covered savings association by submitting a notice to the 
     Comptroller of that election.
       ``(2) Approval.--A Federal savings association shall be 
     deemed to be approved to operate as a covered savings 
     association beginning on the date that is 60 days after the 
     date on which the Comptroller receives the notice submitted 
     under paragraph (1), unless the Comptroller notifies the 
     Federal savings association that the Federal savings 
     association is not eligible.
       ``(c) Rights and Duties.--Notwithstanding any other 
     provision of law, and except as otherwise provided in this 
     section, a covered savings association shall--
       ``(1) have the same rights and privileges as a national 
     bank that has the main office of the national bank situated 
     in the same location as the home office of the covered 
     savings association; and
       ``(2) be subject to the same duties, restrictions, 
     penalties, liabilities, conditions, and limitations that 
     would apply to a national bank described in paragraph (1).
       ``(d) Treatment of Covered Savings Associations.--A covered 
     savings association shall be treated as a Federal savings 
     association for the purposes--
       ``(1) of governance of the covered savings association, 
     including incorporation, bylaws, boards of directors, 
     shareholders, and distribution of dividends;
       ``(2) of consolidation, merger, dissolution, conversion 
     (including conversion to a stock bank or to another charter), 
     conservatorship, and receivership; and
       ``(3) determined by regulation of the Comptroller.
       ``(e) Existing Branches.--A covered savings association may 
     continue to operate any branch or agency that the covered 
     savings association operated on the date on which an election 
     under subsection (b) is approved.

[[Page S1550]]

       ``(f) Rule Making.--The Comptroller shall issue rules to 
     carry out this section--
       ``(1) that establish streamlined standards and procedures 
     that clearly identify required documentation and timelines 
     for an election under subsection (b);
       ``(2) that require a Federal savings association that makes 
     an election under subsection (b) to identify specific assets 
     and subsidiaries that--
       ``(A) do not conform to the requirements for assets and 
     subsidiaries of a national bank; and
       ``(B) are held by the Federal savings association on the 
     date on which the Federal savings association submits a 
     notice of the election;
       ``(3) that establish--
       ``(A) a transition process for bringing the assets and 
     subsidiaries described in paragraph (2) into conformance with 
     the requirements for a national bank; and
       ``(B) procedures for allowing the Federal savings 
     association to submit to the Comptroller an application to 
     continue to hold assets and subsidiaries described in 
     paragraph (2) after electing to operate as a covered savings 
     association;
       ``(4) that establish standards and procedures to allow a 
     covered savings association to--
       ``(A) terminate an election under subsection (b) after an 
     appropriate period of time; and
       ``(B) make a subsequent election under subsection (b) after 
     terminating an election under subparagraph (A);
       ``(5) that clarify requirements for the treatment of 
     covered savings associations, including the provisions of law 
     that apply to covered savings associations; and
       ``(6) as the Comptroller determines necessary in the 
     interests of safety and soundness.
       ``(g) Grandfathered Covered Savings Associations.--Subject 
     to the rules issued under subsection (f), a covered savings 
     association may continue to operate as a covered savings 
     association if, after the date on which the election is made 
     under subsection (b), the covered savings association has 
     total consolidated assets greater than $20,000,000,000.''.

     SEC. 207. SMALL BANK HOLDING COMPANY POLICY STATEMENT.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Board.--The term ``Board'' means the Board of Governors 
     of the Federal Reserve System.
       (2) Savings and loan holding company.--The term ``savings 
     and loan holding company'' has the meaning given the term in 
     section 10(a) of the Home Owners' Loan Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1467a(a)).
       (b) Changes Required to Small Bank Holding Company Policy 
     Statement on Assessment of Financial and Managerial 
     Factors.--Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment 
     of this Act, the Board shall revise appendix C to part 225 of 
     title 12, Code of Federal Regulations (commonly known as the 
     ``Small Bank Holding Company and Savings and Loan Holding 
     Company Policy Statement''), to raise the consolidated asset 
     threshold under that appendix from $1,000,000,000 to 
     $3,000,000,000 for any bank holding company or savings and 
     loan holding company that--
       (1) is not engaged in significant nonbanking activities 
     either directly or through a nonbank subsidiary;
       (2) does not conduct significant off-balance sheet 
     activities (including securitization and asset management or 
     administration) either directly or through a nonbank 
     subsidiary; and
       (3) does not have a material amount of debt or equity 
     securities outstanding (other than trust preferred 
     securities) that are registered with the Securities and 
     Exchange Commission.
       (c) Exclusions.--The Board may exclude any bank holding 
     company or savings and loan holding company, regardless of 
     asset size, from the revision under subsection (b) if the 
     Board determines that such action is warranted for 
     supervisory purposes.
       (d) Conforming Amendment.--Section 171(b)(5) of the 
     Financial Stability Act of 2010 (12 U.S.C. 5371(b)(5)) is 
     amended by striking subparagraph (C) and inserting the 
     following:
       ``(C) any bank holding company or savings and loan holding 
     company that is subject to the application of appendix C to 
     part 225 of title 12, Code of Federal Regulations (commonly 
     known as the `Small Bank Holding Company and Savings and Loan 
     Holding Company Policy Statement').''.

     SEC. 208. APPLICATION OF THE EXPEDITED FUNDS AVAILABILITY 
                   ACT.

       (a) In General.--The Expedited Funds Availability Act (12 
     U.S.C. 4001 et seq.) is amended--
       (1) in section 602 (12 U.S.C. 4001)--
       (A) in paragraph (20), by inserting ``, located in the 
     United States,'' after ``ATM'';
       (B) in paragraph (21), by inserting ``American Samoa, the 
     Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam,'' after 
     ``Puerto Rico,''; and
       (C) in paragraph (23), by inserting ``American Samoa, the 
     Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam,'' after 
     ``Puerto Rico,''; and
       (2) in section 603(d)(2)(A) (12 U.S.C. 4002(d)(2)(A)), by 
     inserting ``American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern 
     Mariana Islands, Guam,'' after ``Puerto Rico,''.
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall take effect on the date that is 30 days after the date 
     of enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 209. SMALL PUBLIC HOUSING AGENCIES.

       (a) Small Public Housing Agencies.--Title I of the United 
     States Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437 et seq.) is 
     amended by adding at the end the following:

     ``SEC. 38. SMALL PUBLIC HOUSING AGENCIES.

       ``(a) Definitions.--In this section:
       ``(1) Housing voucher program.--The term `housing voucher 
     program' means a program for tenant-based assistance under 
     section 8.
       ``(2) Small public housing agency.--The term `small public 
     housing agency' means a public housing agency--
       ``(A) for which the sum of the number of public housing 
     dwelling units administered by the agency and the number of 
     vouchers under section 8(o) administered by the agency is 550 
     or fewer; and
       ``(B) that predominantly operates in a rural area, as 
     described in section 1026.35(b)(2)(iv)(A) of title 12, Code 
     of Federal Regulations.
       ``(3) Troubled small public housing agency.--The term 
     `troubled small public housing agency' means a small public 
     housing agency designated by the Secretary as a troubled 
     small public housing agency under subsection (c)(3).
       ``(b) Applicability.--Except as otherwise provided in this 
     section, a small public housing agency shall be subject to 
     the same requirements as a public housing agency.
       ``(c) Program Inspections and Evaluations.--
       ``(1) Public housing projects.--
       ``(A) Frequency of inspections by secretary.--The Secretary 
     shall carry out an inspection of the physical condition of a 
     small public housing agency's public housing projects not 
     more frequently than once every 3 years, unless the agency 
     has been designated by the Secretary as a troubled small 
     public housing agency based on deficiencies in the physical 
     condition of its public housing projects. Nothing contained 
     in this subparagraph relieves the Secretary from conducting 
     lead safety inspections or assessments in accordance with 
     procedures established by the Secretary under section 302 of 
     the Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (42 U.S.C. 
     4822).
       ``(B) Standards.--The Secretary shall apply to small public 
     housing agencies the same standards for the acceptable 
     condition of public housing projects that apply to projects 
     assisted under section 8.
       ``(2) Housing voucher program.--Except as required by 
     section 8(o)(8)(F), a small public housing agency 
     administering assistance under section 8(o) shall make 
     periodic physical inspections of each assisted dwelling unit 
     not less frequently than once every 3 years to determine 
     whether the unit is maintained in accordance with the 
     requirements under section 8(o)(8)(A). Nothing contained in 
     this paragraph relieves a small public housing agency from 
     conducting lead safety inspections or assessments in 
     accordance with procedures established by the Secretary under 
     section 302 of the Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act 
     (42 U.S.C. 4822).
       ``(3) Troubled small public housing agencies.--
       ``(A) Public housing program.--Notwithstanding any other 
     provision of law, the Secretary may designate a small public 
     housing agency as a troubled small public housing agency with 
     respect to the public housing program of the small public 
     housing agency if the Secretary determines that the agency 
     has failed to maintain the public housing units of the small 
     public housing agency in a satisfactory physical condition, 
     based upon an inspection conducted by the Secretary.
       ``(B) Housing voucher program.--Notwithstanding any other 
     provision of law, the Secretary may designate a small public 
     housing agency as a troubled small public housing agency with 
     respect to the housing voucher program of the small public 
     housing agency if the Secretary determines that the agency 
     has failed to comply with the inspection requirements under 
     paragraph (2).
       ``(C) Appeals.--
       ``(i) Establishment.--The Secretary shall establish an 
     appeals process under which a small public housing agency may 
     dispute a designation as a troubled small public housing 
     agency.
       ``(ii) Official.--The appeals process established under 
     clause (i) shall provide for a decision by an official who 
     has not been involved, and is not subordinate to a person who 
     has been involved, in the original determination to designate 
     a small public housing agency as a troubled small public 
     housing agency.
       ``(D) Corrective action agreement.--
       ``(i) Agreement required.--Not later than 60 days after the 
     date on which a small public housing agency is designated as 
     a troubled public housing agency under subparagraph (A) or 
     (B), the Secretary and the small public housing agency shall 
     enter into a corrective action agreement under which the 
     small public housing agency shall undertake actions to 
     correct the deficiencies upon which the designation is based.
       ``(ii) Terms of agreement.--A corrective action agreement 
     entered into under clause (i) shall--

       ``(I) have a term of 1 year, and shall be renewable at the 
     option of the Secretary;
       ``(II) provide, where feasible, for technical assistance to 
     assist the public housing agency in curing its deficiencies;
       ``(III) provide for--

[[Page S1551]]

       ``(aa) reconsideration of the designation of the small 
     public housing agency as a troubled small public housing 
     agency not less frequently than annually; and
       ``(bb) termination of the agreement when the Secretary 
     determines that the small public housing agency is no longer 
     a troubled small public housing agency; and

       ``(IV) provide that in the event of substantial 
     noncompliance by the small public housing agency under the 
     agreement, the Secretary may--

       ``(aa) contract with another public housing agency or a 
     private entity to manage the public housing of the troubled 
     small public housing agency;
       ``(bb) withhold funds otherwise distributable to the 
     troubled small public housing agency;
       ``(cc) assume possession of, and direct responsibility for, 
     managing the public housing of the troubled small public 
     housing agency;
       ``(dd) petition for the appointment of a receiver, in 
     accordance with section 6(j)(3)(A)(ii); and
       ``(ee) exercise any other remedy available to the Secretary 
     in the event of default under the public housing annual 
     contributions contract entered into by the small public 
     housing agency under section 5.
       ``(E) Emergency actions.--Nothing in this paragraph may be 
     construed to prohibit the Secretary from taking any emergency 
     action necessary to protect Federal financial resources or 
     the health or safety of residents of public housing projects.
       ``(d) Reduction of Administrative Burdens.--
       ``(1) Exemption.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, a small public housing agency shall be exempt from any 
     environmental review requirements with respect to a 
     development or modernization project having a total cost of 
     not more than $100,000.
       ``(2) Streamlined procedures.--The Secretary shall, by 
     rule, establish streamlined procedures for environmental 
     reviews of small public housing agency development and 
     modernization projects having a total cost of more than 
     $100,000.''.
       (b) Energy Conservation.--Section 9(e)(2) of the United 
     States Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437g(e)(2)) is amended 
     by adding at the end the following:
       ``(D) Freeze of consumption levels.--
       ``(i) In general.--A small public housing agency, as 
     defined in section 38(a), may elect to be paid for its 
     utility and waste management costs under the formula for a 
     period, at the discretion of the small public housing agency, 
     of not more than 20 years based on the small public housing 
     agency's average annual consumption during the 3-year period 
     preceding the year in which the election is made (in this 
     subparagraph referred to as the `consumption base level').
       ``(ii) Initial adjustment in consumption base level.--The 
     Secretary shall make an initial one-time adjustment in the 
     consumption base level to account for differences in the 
     heating degree day average over the most recent 20-year 
     period compared to the average in the consumption base level.
       ``(iii) Adjustments in consumption base level.--The 
     Secretary shall make adjustments in the consumption base 
     level to account for an increase or reduction in units, a 
     change in fuel source, a change in resident controlled 
     electricity consumption, or for other reasons.
       ``(iv) Savings.--All cost savings resulting from an 
     election made by a small public housing agency under this 
     subparagraph--

       ``(I) shall accrue to the small public housing agency; and
       ``(II) may be used for any public housing purpose at the 
     discretion of the small public housing agency.

       ``(v) Third parties.--A small public housing agency making 
     an election under this subparagraph--

       ``(I) may use, but shall not be required to use, the 
     services of a third party in its energy conservation program; 
     and
       ``(II) shall have the sole discretion to determine the 
     source, and terms and conditions, of any financing used for 
     its energy conservation program.''.

       (c) Reporting by Agencies Operating in Consortia.--Not 
     later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, 
     the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall develop 
     and deploy all electronic information systems necessary to 
     accommodate full consolidated reporting by public housing 
     agencies, as defined in section 3(b)(6) of the United States 
     Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437a(b)(6)), electing to 
     operate in consortia under section 13(a) of such Act (42 
     U.S.C. 1437k(a)).
       (d) Effective Date.--The amendments made by subsections (a) 
     and (b) shall take effect on the date that is 60 days after 
     the date of enactment of this Act.
       (e) Shared Waiting Lists.--Not later than 1 year after the 
     date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Housing and 
     Urban Development shall make available to interested public 
     housing agencies and owners of multifamily properties 
     receiving assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban 
     Development 1 or more software programs that will facilitate 
     the voluntary use of a shared waiting list by multiple public 
     housing agencies or owners receiving assistance, and shall 
     publish on the website of the Department of Housing and Urban 
     Development procedural guidance for implementing shared 
     waiting lists that includes information on how to obtain the 
     software.

     SEC. 210. EXAMINATION CYCLE.

       Section 10(d) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 
     U.S.C. 1820(d)) is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (4)(A), by striking ``$1,000,000,000'' and 
     inserting ``$3,000,000,000''; and
       (2) in paragraph (10), by striking ``$1,000,000,000'' and 
     inserting ``$3,000,000,000''.

     SEC. 211. INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE CAPITAL STANDARDS 
                   ACCOUNTABILITY.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
       (1) the Secretary of the Treasury, Board of Governors of 
     the Federal Reserve System, and Director of the Federal 
     Insurance Office shall support increasing transparency at any 
     global insurance or international standard-setting regulatory 
     or supervisory forum in which they participate, including 
     supporting and advocating for greater public observer access 
     to working groups and committee meetings of the International 
     Association of Insurance Supervisors; and
       (2) to the extent that the Secretary of the Treasury, the 
     Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the 
     Director of the Federal Insurance Office take a position or 
     reasonably intend to take a position with respect to an 
     insurance proposal by a global insurance regulatory or 
     supervisory forum, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Board 
     of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Director 
     of the Federal Insurance Office shall achieve consensus 
     positions with State insurance regulators through the 
     National Association of Insurance Commissioners, when they 
     are United States participants in negotiations on insurance 
     issues before the International Association of Insurance 
     Supervisors, Financial Stability Board, or any other 
     international forum of financial regulators or supervisors 
     that considers such issues.
       (b) Insurance Policy Advisory Committee.--
       (1) Establishment.--There is established the Insurance 
     Policy Advisory Committee on International Capital Standards 
     and Other Insurance Issues at the Board of Governors of the 
     Federal Reserve System.
       (2) Membership.--The Committee shall be composed of not 
     more than 21 members, all of whom represent a diverse set of 
     expert perspectives from the various sectors of the United 
     States insurance industry, including life insurance, property 
     and casualty insurance and reinsurance, agents and brokers, 
     academics, consumer advocates, or experts on issues facing 
     underserved insurance communities and consumers.
       (c) Reports.--
       (1) Reports and testimony by secretary of the treasury and 
     chairman of the federal reserve.--
       (A) In general.--The Secretary of the Treasury and the 
     Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 
     System, or their designee, shall submit to the Committee on 
     Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate, and the 
     Committee on Financial Services of the House of 
     Representatives, an annual report and provide annual 
     testimony to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
     Affairs of the Senate, and the Committee on Financial 
     Services of the House of Representatives on the efforts of 
     the Secretary and the Chairman with the National Association 
     of Insurance Commissioners with respect to global insurance 
     regulatory or supervisory forums, including--
       (i) a description of the insurance regulatory or 
     supervisory standard-setting issues under discussion at 
     international standard-setting bodies, including the 
     Financial Stability Board and the International Association 
     of Insurance Supervisors;
       (ii) a description of the effects that proposals discussed 
     at international insurance regulatory or supervisory forums 
     of insurance could have on consumer and insurance markets in 
     the United States;
       (iii) a description of any position taken by the Secretary 
     of the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal 
     Reserve System, and the Director of the Federal Insurance 
     Office in international insurance discussions; and
       (iv) a description of the efforts by the Secretary of the 
     Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 
     System, and the Director of the Federal Insurance Office to 
     increase transparency at the Financial Stability Board with 
     respect to insurance proposals and the International 
     Association of Insurance Supervisors, including efforts to 
     provide additional public access to working groups and 
     committees of the International Association of Insurance 
     Supervisors.
       (B) Termination.--This paragraph shall terminate on 
     December 31, 2024.
       (2) Reports and testimony by national association of 
     insurance commissioners.--The National Association of 
     Insurance Commissioners may provide testimony to Congress on 
     the issues described in paragraph (1)(A).
       (3) Joint report by the chairman of the federal reserve and 
     the director of the federal insurance office.--
       (A) In general.--The Secretary of the Treasury, the 
     Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 
     System, and the Director of the Federal Insurance Office 
     shall, in consultation with the National Association of 
     Insurance Commissioners, complete a study on, and submit to 
     Congress a report on the results of the study, the impact on 
     consumers and markets in the United States before supporting 
     or consenting to

[[Page S1552]]

     the adoption of any final international insurance capital 
     standard.
       (B) Notice and comment.--
       (i) Notice.--The Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of 
     the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the 
     Director of the Federal Insurance Office shall provide public 
     notice before the date on which drafting a report required 
     under subparagraph (A) is commenced and after the date on 
     which the draft of the report is completed.
       (ii) Opportunity for comment.--There shall be an 
     opportunity for public comment for a period beginning on the 
     date on which the report is submitted under subparagraph (A) 
     and ending on the date that is 60 days after the date on 
     which the report is submitted.
       (C) Review by comptroller general.--The Secretary of the 
     Treasury, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal 
     Reserve System, and the Director of the Federal Insurance 
     Office shall submit to the Comptroller General of the United 
     States the report described in subparagraph (A) for review.
       (4) Report on increase in transparency.--Not later than 180 
     days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Chairman of 
     the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the 
     Secretary of the Treasury, or their designees, shall submit 
     to Congress a report and provide testimony to Congress on the 
     efforts of the Chairman and the Secretary to increase 
     transparency at meetings of the International Association of 
     Insurance Supervisors.

     SEC. 212. BUDGET TRANSPARENCY FOR THE NCUA.

       Section 209(b) of the Federal Credit Union Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1789(b)) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating paragraphs (1) and (2) as paragraphs 
     (2) and (3), respectively;
       (2) by inserting before paragraph (2), as so redesignated, 
     the following:
       ``(1) on an annual basis and prior to the submission of the 
     detailed business-type budget required under paragraph (2)--
       ``(A) make publicly available and publish in the Federal 
     Register a draft of the detailed business-type budget; and
       ``(B) hold a public hearing, with public notice provided of 
     the hearing, during which the public may submit comments on 
     the draft of the detailed business-type budget;''; and
       (3) in paragraph (2), as so redesignated--
       (A) by inserting ``detailed'' after ``submit a''; and
       (B) by inserting ``, which shall address any comment 
     submitted by the public under paragraph (1)(B)'' after 
     ``Control Act''.

     SEC. 213. MAKING ONLINE BANKING INITIATION LEGAL AND EASY.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Affiliate.--The term ``affiliate'' has the meaning 
     given the term in section 2 of the Bank Holding Company Act 
     of 1956 (12 U.S.C. 1841).
       (2) Driver's license.--The term ``driver's license'' means 
     a license issued by a State to an individual that authorizes 
     the individual to operate a motor vehicle on public streets, 
     roads, or highways.
       (3) Federal bank secrecy laws.--The term ``Federal bank 
     secrecy laws'' means--
       (A) section 21 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 
     U.S.C. 1829b);
       (B) section 123 of Public Law 91-508 (12 U.S.C. 1953); and
       (C) subchapter II of chapter 53 of title 31, United States 
     Code.
       (4) Financial institution.--The term ``financial 
     institution'' means--
       (A) an insured depository institution;
       (B) an insured credit union; or
       (C) any affiliate of an insured depository institution or 
     insured credit union.
       (5) Financial product or service.--The term ``financial 
     product or service'' has the meaning given the term in 
     section 1002 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 
     (12 U.S.C. 5481).
       (6) Insured credit union.--The term ``insured credit 
     union'' has the meaning given the term in section 101 of the 
     Federal Credit Union Act (12 U.S.C. 1752).
       (7) Insured depository institution.--The term ``insured 
     depository institution'' has the meaning given the term in 
     section 3 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1813).
       (8) Online service.--The term ``online service'' means any 
     Internet-based service, such as a website or mobile 
     application.
       (9) Personal identification card.--The term ``personal 
     identification card'' means an identification document issued 
     by a State or local government to an individual solely for 
     the purpose of identification of that individual.
       (10) Personal information.--The term ``personal 
     information'' means the information displayed on or 
     electronically encoded on a driver's license or personal 
     identification card that is reasonably necessary to fulfill 
     the purpose and uses permitted by subsection (b).
       (11) Scan.--The term ``scan'' means the act of using a 
     device or software to decipher, in an electronically readable 
     format, personal information displayed on or electronically 
     encoded on a driver's license or personal identification 
     card.
       (12) State.--The term ``State'' means any State of the 
     United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of 
     Puerto Rico, and any other commonwealth, possession, or 
     territory of the United States.
       (b) Use of a Driver's License or Personal Identification 
     Card.--
       (1) In general.--When an individual initiates a request 
     through an online service to open an account with a financial 
     institution or obtain a financial product or service from a 
     financial institution, the financial institution may record 
     personal information from a scan of the driver's license or 
     personal identification card of the individual, or make a 
     copy or receive an image of the driver's license or personal 
     identification card of the individual, and store or retain 
     such information in any electronic format for the purposes 
     described in paragraph (2).
       (2) Uses of information.--Except as required to comply with 
     Federal bank secrecy laws, a financial institution may only 
     use the information obtained under paragraph (1)--
       (A) to verify the authenticity of the driver's license or 
     personal identification card;
       (B) to verify the identity of the individual; and
       (C) to comply with a legal requirement to record, retain, 
     or transmit the personal information in connection with 
     opening an account or obtaining a financial product or 
     service.
       (3) Deletion of image.--A financial institution that makes 
     a copy or receives an image of a driver's license or personal 
     identification card of an individual in accordance with 
     paragraphs (1) and (2) shall, after using the image for the 
     purposes described in paragraph (2), permanently delete--
       (A) any image of the driver's license or personal 
     identification card, as applicable; and
       (B) any copy of any such image.
       (4) Disclosure of personal information.--Nothing in this 
     section shall be construed to amend, modify, or otherwise 
     affect any State or Federal law that governs a financial 
     institution's disclosure and security of personal information 
     that is not publicly available.
       (c) Relation to State Law.--The provisions of this section 
     shall preempt and supersede any State law that conflicts with 
     a provision of this section, but only to the extent of such 
     conflict.

     SEC. 214. PROMOTING CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT ON MAIN 
                   STREET.

       The Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1811 et seq.) 
     is amended by adding at the end the following new section:

     ``SEC. 51. CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTAIN ACQUISITION, 
                   DEVELOPMENT, OR CONSTRUCTION LOANS.

       ``(a) In General.--The appropriate Federal banking agencies 
     may only require a depository institution to assign a 
     heightened risk weight to a high volatility commercial real 
     estate (HVCRE) exposure (as such term is defined under 
     section 324.2 of title 12, Code of Federal Regulations, as of 
     October 11, 2017, or if a successor regulation is in effect 
     as of the date of the enactment of this section, such term or 
     any successor term contained in such successor regulation) 
     under any risk-based capital requirement if such exposure is 
     an HVCRE ADC loan.
       ``(b) HVCRE ADC Loan Defined.--For purposes of this section 
     and with respect to a depository institution, the term `HVCRE 
     ADC loan'--
       ``(1) means a credit facility secured by land or improved 
     real property that, prior to being reclassified by the 
     depository institution as a non-HVCRE ADC loan pursuant to 
     subsection (d)--
       ``(A) primarily finances, has financed, or refinances the 
     acquisition, development, or construction of real property;
       ``(B) has the purpose of providing financing to acquire, 
     develop, or improve such real property into income-producing 
     real property; and
       ``(C) is dependent upon future income or sales proceeds 
     from, or refinancing of, such real property for the repayment 
     of such credit facility;
       ``(2) does not include a credit facility financing--
       ``(A) the acquisition, development, or construction of 
     properties that are--
       ``(i) one- to four-family residential properties;
       ``(ii) real property that would qualify as an investment in 
     community development; or
       ``(iii) agricultural land;
       ``(B) the acquisition or refinance of existing income-
     producing real property secured by a mortgage on such 
     property, if the cash flow being generated by the real 
     property is sufficient to support the debt service and 
     expenses of the real property, in accordance with the 
     institution's applicable loan underwriting criteria for 
     permanent financings;
       ``(C) improvements to existing income-producing improved 
     real property secured by a mortgage on such property, if the 
     cash flow being generated by the real property is sufficient 
     to support the debt service and expenses of the real 
     property, in accordance with the institution's applicable 
     loan underwriting criteria for permanent financings; or
       ``(D) commercial real property projects in which--
       ``(i) the loan-to-value ratio is less than or equal to the 
     applicable maximum supervisory loan-to-value ratio as 
     determined by the appropriate Federal banking agency;
       ``(ii) the borrower has contributed capital of at least 15 
     percent of the real property's appraised, `as completed' 
     value to the project in the form of--

       ``(I) cash;
       ``(II) unencumbered readily marketable assets;
       ``(III) paid development expenses out-of-pocket; or

[[Page S1553]]

       ``(IV) contributed real property or improvements; and

       ``(iii) the borrower contributed the minimum amount of 
     capital described under clause (ii) before the depository 
     institution advances funds (other than the advance of a 
     nominal sum made in order to secure the depository 
     institution's lien against the real property) under the 
     credit facility, and such minimum amount of capital 
     contributed by the borrower is contractually required to 
     remain in the project until the credit facility has been 
     reclassified by the depository institution as a non-HVCRE ADC 
     loan under subsection (d);
       ``(3) does not include any loan made prior to January 1, 
     2015; and
       ``(4) does not include a credit facility reclassified as a 
     non-HVCRE ADC loan under subsection (d).
       ``(c) Value of Contributed Real Property.--For purposes of 
     this section, the value of any real property contributed by a 
     borrower as a capital contribution shall be the appraised 
     value of the property as determined under standards 
     prescribed pursuant to section 1110 of the Financial 
     Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 
     (12 U.S.C. 3339), in connection with the extension of the 
     credit facility or loan to such borrower.
       ``(d) Reclassification as a Non-HVRCE ADC Loan.--For 
     purposes of this section and with respect to a credit 
     facility and a depository institution, upon--
       ``(1) the substantial completion of the development or 
     construction of the real property being financed by the 
     credit facility; and
       ``(2) cash flow being generated by the real property being 
     sufficient to support the debt service and expenses of the 
     real property,
     in accordance with the institution's applicable loan 
     underwriting criteria for permanent financings, the credit 
     facility may be reclassified by the depository institution as 
     a Non-HVCRE ADC loan.
       ``(e) Existing Authorities.--Nothing in this section shall 
     limit the supervisory, regulatory, or enforcement authority 
     of an appropriate Federal banking agency to further the safe 
     and sound operation of an institution under the supervision 
     of the appropriate Federal banking agency.''.

     SEC. 215. REDUCING IDENTITY FRAUD.

       (a) Purpose.--The purpose of this section is to reduce the 
     prevalence of synthetic identity fraud, which 
     disproportionally affects vulnerable populations, such as 
     minors and recent immigrants, by facilitating the validation 
     by permitted entities of fraud protection data, pursuant to 
     electronically received consumer consent, through use of a 
     database maintained by the Commissioner.
       (b) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Commissioner.--The term ``Commissioner'' means the 
     Commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
       (2) Financial institution.--The term ``financial 
     institution'' has the meaning given the term in section 509 
     of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6809).
       (3) Fraud protection data.--The term ``fraud protection 
     data'' means a combination of the following information with 
     respect to an individual:
       (A) The name of the individual (including the first name 
     and any family forename or surname of the individual).
       (B) The social security number of the individual.
       (C) The date of birth (including the month, day, and year) 
     of the individual.
       (4) Permitted entity.--The term ``permitted entity'' means 
     a financial institution or a service provider, subsidiary, 
     affiliate, agent, subcontractor, or assignee of a financial 
     institution.
       (c) Efficiency.--
       (1) Reliance on existing methods.--The Commissioner shall 
     evaluate the feasibility of making modifications to any 
     database that is in existence as of the date of enactment of 
     this Act or a similar resource such that the database or 
     resource--
       (A) is reasonably designed to effectuate the purpose of 
     this section; and
       (B) meets the requirements of subsection (d).
       (2) Execution.--The Commissioner shall make the 
     modifications necessary to any database that is in existence 
     as of the date of enactment of this Act or similar resource, 
     or develop a database or similar resource, to effectuate the 
     requirements described in paragraph (1).
       (d) Protection of Vulnerable Consumers.--The database or 
     similar resource described in subsection (c) shall--
       (1) compare fraud protection data provided in an inquiry by 
     a permitted entity against such information maintained by the 
     Commissioner in order to confirm (or not confirm) the 
     validity of the information provided;
       (2) be scalable and accommodate reasonably anticipated 
     volumes of verification requests from permitted entities with 
     commercially reasonable uptime and availability; and
       (3) allow permitted entities to submit--
       (A) 1 or more individual requests electronically for real-
     time machine-to-machine (or similar functionality) accurate 
     responses; and
       (B) multiple requests electronically, such as those 
     provided in a batch format, for accurate electronic responses 
     within a reasonable period of time from submission, not to 
     exceed 24 hours.
       (e) Certification Required.--Before providing confirmation 
     of fraud protection data to a permitted entity, the 
     Commissioner shall ensure that the Commissioner has a 
     certification from the permitted entity that is dated not 
     more than 2 years before the date on which that confirmation 
     is provided that includes the following declarations:
       (1) The entity is a permitted entity.
       (2) The entity is in compliance with this section.
       (3) The entity is, and will remain, in compliance with its 
     privacy and data security requirements, as described in title 
     V of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6801 et seq.), 
     with respect to information the entity receives from the 
     Commissioner pursuant to this section.
       (4) The entity will retain sufficient records to 
     demonstrate its compliance with its certification and this 
     section for a period of not less than 2 years.
       (f) Consumer Consent.--
       (1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law 
     or regulation, a permitted entity may submit a request to the 
     database or similar resource described in subsection (c) 
     only--
       (A) pursuant to the written, including electronic, consent 
     received by a permitted entity from the individual who is the 
     subject of the request; and
       (B) in connection with a credit transaction or any 
     circumstance described in section 604 of the Fair Credit 
     Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681b).
       (2) Electronic consent requirements.--For a permitted 
     entity to use the consent of an individual received 
     electronically pursuant to paragraph (1)(A), the permitted 
     entity must obtain the individual's electronic signature, as 
     defined in section 106 of the Electronic Signatures in Global 
     and National Commerce Act (15 U.S.C. 7006).
       (3) Effectuating electronic consent.--No provision of law 
     or requirement, including section 552a of title 5, United 
     States Code, shall prevent the use of electronic consent for 
     purposes of this subsection or for use in any other consent 
     based verification under the discretion of the Commissioner.
       (g) Compliance and Enforcement.--
       (1) Audits and monitoring.--The Commissioner may--
       (A) conduct audits and monitoring to--
       (i) ensure proper use by permitted entities of the database 
     or similar resource described in subsection (c); and
       (ii) deter fraud and misuse by permitted entities with 
     respect to the database or similar resource described in 
     subsection (c); and
       (B) terminate services for any permitted entity that 
     prevents or refuses to allow the Commissioner to carry out 
     the activities described in subparagraph (A).
       (2) Enforcement.--
       (A) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, including the matter preceding paragraph (1) of section 
     505(a) of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6805(a)), any 
     violation of this section and any certification made under 
     this section shall be enforced in accordance with paragraphs 
     (1) through (7) of such section 505(a) by the agencies 
     described in those paragraphs.
       (B) Relevant information.--Upon discovery by the 
     Commissioner, pursuant to an audit described in paragraph 
     (1), of any violation of this section or any certification 
     made under this section, the Commissioner shall forward any 
     relevant information pertaining to that violation to the 
     appropriate agency described in subparagraph (A) for 
     evaluation by the agency for purposes of enforcing this 
     section.
       (h) Recovery of Costs.--
       (1) In general.--
       (A) In general.--Amounts obligated to carry out this 
     section shall be fully recovered from the users of the 
     database or verification system by way of advances, 
     reimbursements, user fees, or other recoveries as determined 
     by the Commissioner. The funds recovered under this paragraph 
     shall be deposited as an offsetting collection to the account 
     providing appropriations for the Social Security 
     Administration, to be used for the administration of this 
     section without fiscal year limitation.
       (B) Prices fixed by commissioner.--The Commissioner shall 
     establish the amount to be paid by the users under this 
     paragraph, including the costs of any services or work 
     performed, such as any appropriate upgrades, maintenance, and 
     associated direct and indirect administrative costs, in 
     support of carrying out the purposes described in this 
     section, by reimbursement or in advance as determined by the 
     Commissioner. The amount of such prices shall be periodically 
     adjusted by the Commissioner to ensure that amounts collected 
     are sufficient to fully offset the cost of the administration 
     of this section.
       (2) Initial development.--The Commissioner shall not begin 
     development of a verification system to carry out this 
     section until the Commissioner determines that amounts equal 
     to at least 50 percent of program start-up costs have been 
     collected under paragraph (1).
       (3) Existing resources.--The Commissioner may use funds 
     designated for information technology modernization to carry 
     out this section.
       (4) Annual report.--The Commissioner shall annually submit 
     to the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of 
     Representatives and the Committee on Finance of the Senate a 
     report on the amount of indirect costs to the Social Security 
     Administration arising as a result of the implementation of 
     this section.

[[Page S1554]]

  


     SEC. 216. TREASURY REPORT ON RISKS OF CYBER THREATS.

       Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this 
     Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall submit to the 
     Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the 
     Senate and the Committee on Financial Services of the House 
     of Representatives a report on the risks of cyber threats to 
     financial institutions and capital markets in the United 
     States, including--
       (1) an assessment of the material risks of cyber threats to 
     financial institutions and capital markets in the United 
     States;
       (2) the impact and potential effects of material cyber 
     attacks on financial institutions and capital markets in the 
     United States;
       (3) an analysis of how the appropriate Federal banking 
     agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission are 
     addressing the material risks of cyber threats described in 
     paragraph (1), including--
       (A) how the appropriate Federal banking agencies and the 
     Securities and Exchange Commission are assessing those 
     threats;
       (B) how the appropriate Federal banking agencies and the 
     Securities and Exchange Commission are assessing the cyber 
     vulnerabilities and preparedness of financial institutions;
       (C) coordination amongst the appropriate Federal banking 
     agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and 
     their coordination with other government agencies (including 
     with respect to regulations, examinations, lexicon, 
     duplication, and other regulatory tools); and
       (D) areas for improvement; and
       (4) a recommendation of whether any appropriate Federal 
     banking agency or the Securities and Exchange Commission 
     needs additional legal authorities or resources to adequately 
     assess and address the material risks of cyber threats 
     described in paragraph (1), given the analysis required by 
     paragraph (3).

     SEC. 217. DISCRETIONARY SURPLUS FUNDS.

       Section 7(a)(3)(A) of the Federal Reserve Act (12 U.S.C. 
     289(a)(3)(A)) is amended by striking ``$7,500,000,000'' and 
     inserting ``$6,825,000,000''.

     TITLE III--PROTECTIONS FOR VETERANS, CONSUMERS, AND HOMEOWNERS

     SEC. 301. PROTECTING CONSUMERS' CREDIT.

       (a) In General.--Section 605A of the Fair Credit Reporting 
     Act (15 U.S.C. 1681c-1) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (a)(1)(A), by striking ``90 days'' and 
     inserting ``1 year''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(i) National Security Freeze.--
       ``(1) Definitions.--For purposes of this subsection:
       ``(A) The term `consumer reporting agency' means a consumer 
     reporting agency described in section 603(p).
       ``(B) The term `proper identification' has the meaning of 
     such term as used under section 610.
       ``(C) The term `security freeze' means a restriction that 
     prohibits a consumer reporting agency from disclosing the 
     contents of a consumer report that is subject to such 
     security freeze to any person requesting the consumer report.
       ``(2) Placement of security freeze.--
       ``(A) In general.--Upon receiving a direct request from a 
     consumer that a consumer reporting agency place a security 
     freeze, and upon receiving proper identification from the 
     consumer, the consumer reporting agency shall, free of 
     charge, place the security freeze not later than--
       ``(i) in the case of a request that is by toll-free 
     telephone or secure electronic means, 1 business day after 
     receiving the request directly from the consumer; or
       ``(ii) in the case of a request that is by mail, 3 business 
     days after receiving the request directly from the consumer.
       ``(B) Confirmation and additional information.--Not later 
     than 5 business days after placing a security freeze under 
     subparagraph (A), a consumer reporting agency shall--
       ``(i) send confirmation of the placement to the consumer; 
     and
       ``(ii) inform the consumer of--

       ``(I) the process by which the consumer may remove the 
     security freeze, including a mechanism to authenticate the 
     consumer; and
       ``(II) the consumer's right described in section 
     615(d)(1)(D).

       ``(C) Notice to third parties.--A consumer reporting agency 
     may advise a third party that a security freeze has been 
     placed with respect to a consumer under subparagraph (A).
       ``(3) Removal of security freeze.--
       ``(A) In general.--A consumer reporting agency shall remove 
     a security freeze placed on the consumer report of a consumer 
     only in the following cases:
       ``(i) Upon the direct request of the consumer.
       ``(ii) The security freeze was placed due to a material 
     misrepresentation of fact by the consumer.
       ``(B) Notice if removal not by request.--If a consumer 
     reporting agency removes a security freeze under subparagraph 
     (A)(ii), the consumer reporting agency shall notify the 
     consumer in writing prior to removing the security freeze.
       ``(C) Removal of security freeze by consumer request.--
     Except as provided in subparagraph (A)(ii), a security freeze 
     shall remain in place until the consumer directly requests 
     that the security freeze be removed. Upon receiving a direct 
     request from a consumer that a consumer reporting agency 
     remove a security freeze, and upon receiving proper 
     identification from the consumer, the consumer reporting 
     agency shall, free of charge, remove the security freeze not 
     later than--
       ``(i) in the case of a request that is by toll-free 
     telephone or secure electronic means, 1 hour after receiving 
     the request for removal; or
       ``(ii) in the case of a request that is by mail, 3 business 
     days after receiving the request for removal.
       ``(D) Third-party requests.--If a third party requests 
     access to a consumer report of a consumer with respect to 
     which a security freeze is in effect, where such request is 
     in connection with an application for credit, and the 
     consumer does not allow such consumer report to be accessed, 
     the third party may treat the application as incomplete.
       ``(E) Temporary removal of security freeze.--Upon receiving 
     a direct request from a consumer under subparagraph (A)(i), 
     if the consumer requests a temporary removal of a security 
     freeze, the consumer reporting agency shall, in accordance 
     with subparagraph (C), remove the security freeze for the 
     period of time specified by the consumer.
       ``(4) Exceptions.--A security freeze shall not apply to the 
     making of a consumer report for use of the following:
       ``(A) A person or entity, or a subsidiary, affiliate, or 
     agent of that person or entity, or an assignee of a financial 
     obligation owed by the consumer to that person or entity, or 
     a prospective assignee of a financial obligation owed by the 
     consumer to that person or entity in conjunction with the 
     proposed purchase of the financial obligation, with which the 
     consumer has or had prior to assignment an account or 
     contract including a demand deposit account, or to whom the 
     consumer issued a negotiable instrument, for the purposes of 
     reviewing the account or collecting the financial obligation 
     owed for the account, contract, or negotiable instrument. For 
     purposes of this subparagraph, `reviewing the account' 
     includes activities related to account maintenance, 
     monitoring, credit line increases, and account upgrades and 
     enhancements.
       ``(B) Any Federal, State, or local agency, law enforcement 
     agency, trial court, or private collection agency acting 
     pursuant to a court order, warrant, or subpoena.
       ``(C) A child support agency acting pursuant to part D of 
     title IV of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 651 et seq.).
       ``(D) A Federal agency or a State or its agents or assigns 
     acting to investigate fraud or acting to investigate or 
     collect delinquent taxes or unpaid court orders or to fulfill 
     any of its other statutory responsibilities, provided such 
     responsibilities are consistent with a permissible purpose 
     under section 604.
       ``(E) By a person using credit information for the purposes 
     described under section 604(c).
       ``(F) Any person or entity administering a credit file 
     monitoring subscription or similar service to which the 
     consumer has subscribed.
       ``(G) Any person or entity for the purpose of providing a 
     consumer with a copy of the consumer's consumer report or 
     credit score, upon the request of the consumer.
       ``(H) Any person using the information in connection with 
     the underwriting of insurance.
       ``(I) Any person using the information for employment, 
     tenant, or background screening purposes.
       ``(J) Any person using the information for assessing, 
     verifying, or authenticating a consumer's identity for 
     purposes other than the granting of credit, or for 
     investigating or preventing actual or potential fraud.
       ``(5) Notice of rights.--At any time a consumer is required 
     to receive a summary of rights required under section 609, 
     the following notice shall be included:

        `` `Consumers Have the Right To Obtain a Security Freeze

       `` `You have a right to place a ``security freeze'' on your 
     credit report, which will prohibit a consumer reporting 
     agency from releasing information in your credit report 
     without your express authorization. The security freeze is 
     designed to prevent credit, loans, and services from being 
     approved in your name without your consent. However, you 
     should be aware that using a security freeze to take control 
     over who gets access to the personal and financial 
     information in your credit report may delay, interfere with, 
     or prohibit the timely approval of any subsequent request or 
     application you make regarding a new loan, credit, mortgage, 
     or any other account involving the extension of credit.
       `` `As an alternative to a security freeze, you have the 
     right to place an initial or extended fraud alert on your 
     credit file at no cost. An initial fraud alert is a 1-year 
     alert that is placed on a consumer's credit file. Upon seeing 
     a fraud alert display on a consumer's credit file, a business 
     is required to take steps to verify the consumer's identity 
     before extending new credit. If you are a victim of identity 
     theft, you are entitled to an extended fraud alert, which is 
     a fraud alert lasting 7 years.
       `` `A security freeze does not apply to a person or entity, 
     or its affiliates, or collection agencies acting on behalf of 
     the person or entity, with which you have an existing account 
     that requests information in your credit report for the 
     purposes of reviewing or collecting the account. Reviewing 
     the account includes activities related to account

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     maintenance, monitoring, credit line increases, and account 
     upgrades and enhancements.'.
       ``(6) Webpage.--
       ``(A) Consumer reporting agencies.--A consumer reporting 
     agency shall establish a webpage that--
       ``(i) allows a consumer to request a security freeze;
       ``(ii) allows a consumer to request an initial fraud alert;
       ``(iii) allows a consumer to request an extended fraud 
     alert;
       ``(iv) allows a consumer to request an active duty fraud 
     alert;
       ``(v) allows a consumer to opt-out of the use of 
     information in a consumer report to send the consumer a 
     solicitation of credit or insurance, in accordance with 
     section 615(d); and
       ``(vi) shall not be the only mechanism by which a consumer 
     may request a security freeze.
       ``(B) FTC.--The Federal Trade Commission shall establish a 
     single webpage that includes a link to each webpage 
     established under subparagraph (A) within the Federal Trade 
     Commission's website www.Identitytheft.gov, or a successor 
     website.
       ``(j) National Protection for Files and Credit Records of 
     Protected Consumers.--
       ``(1) Definitions.--As used in this subsection:
       ``(A) The term `consumer reporting agency' means a consumer 
     reporting agency described in section 603(p).
       ``(B) The term `protected consumer' means an individual who 
     is--
       ``(i) under the age of 16 years at the time a request for 
     the placement of a security freeze is made; or
       ``(ii) an incapacitated person or a protected person for 
     whom a guardian or conservator has been appointed.
       ``(C) The term `protected consumer's representative' means 
     a person who provides to a consumer reporting agency 
     sufficient proof of authority to act on behalf of a protected 
     consumer.
       ``(D) The term `record' means a compilation of information 
     that--
       ``(i) identifies a protected consumer;
       ``(ii) is created by a consumer reporting agency solely for 
     the purpose of complying with this subsection; and
       ``(iii) may not be created or used to consider the 
     protected consumer's credit worthiness, credit standing, 
     credit capacity, character, general reputation, personal 
     characteristics, or mode of living.
       ``(E) The term `security freeze' means a restriction that 
     prohibits a consumer reporting agency from disclosing the 
     contents of a consumer report that is the subject of such 
     security freeze or, in the case of a protected consumer for 
     whom the consumer reporting agency does not have a file, a 
     record that is subject to such security freeze to any person 
     requesting the consumer report for the purpose of opening a 
     new account involving the extension of credit.
       ``(F) The term `sufficient proof of authority' means 
     documentation that shows a protected consumer's 
     representative has authority to act on behalf of a protected 
     consumer and includes--
       ``(i) an order issued by a court of law;
       ``(ii) a lawfully executed and valid power of attorney;
       ``(iii) a document issued by a Federal, State, or local 
     government agency in the United States showing proof of 
     parentage, including a birth certificate; or
       ``(iv) with respect to a protected consumer who has been 
     placed in a foster care setting, a written communication from 
     a county welfare department or its agent or designee, or a 
     county probation department or its agent or designee, 
     certifying that the protected consumer is in a foster care 
     setting under its jurisdiction.
       ``(G) The term `sufficient proof of identification' means 
     information or documentation that identifies a protected 
     consumer and a protected consumer's representative and 
     includes--
       ``(i) a social security number or a copy of a social 
     security card issued by the Social Security Administration;
       ``(ii) a certified or official copy of a birth certificate 
     issued by the entity authorized to issue the birth 
     certificate; or
       ``(iii) a copy of a driver's license, an identification 
     card issued by the motor vehicle administration, or any other 
     government issued identification.
       ``(2) Placement of security freeze for a protected 
     consumer.--
       ``(A) In general.--Upon receiving a direct request from a 
     protected consumer's representative that a consumer reporting 
     agency place a security freeze, and upon receiving sufficient 
     proof of identification and sufficient proof of authority, 
     the consumer reporting agency shall, free of charge, place 
     the security freeze not later than--
       ``(i) in the case of a request that is by toll-free 
     telephone or secure electronic means, 1 business day after 
     receiving the request directly from the protected consumer's 
     representative; or
       ``(ii) in the case of a request that is by mail, 3 business 
     days after receiving the request directly from the protected 
     consumer's representative.
       ``(B) Confirmation and additional information.--Not later 
     than 5 business days after placing a security freeze under 
     subparagraph (A), a consumer reporting agency shall--
       ``(i) send confirmation of the placement to the protected 
     consumer's representative; and
       ``(ii) inform the protected consumer's representative of 
     the process by which the protected consumer may remove the 
     security freeze, including a mechanism to authenticate the 
     protected consumer's representative.
       ``(C) Creation of file.--If a consumer reporting agency 
     does not have a file pertaining to a protected consumer when 
     the consumer reporting agency receives a direct request under 
     subparagraph (A), the consumer reporting agency shall create 
     a record for the protected consumer.
       ``(3) Prohibition on release of record or file of protected 
     consumer.--After a security freeze has been placed under 
     paragraph (2)(A), and unless the security freeze is removed 
     in accordance with this subsection, a consumer reporting 
     agency may not release the protected consumer's consumer 
     report, any information derived from the protected consumer's 
     consumer report, or any record created for the protected 
     consumer.
       ``(4) Removal of a protected consumer security freeze.--
       ``(A) In general.--A consumer reporting agency shall remove 
     a security freeze placed on the consumer report of a 
     protected consumer only in the following cases:
       ``(i) Upon the direct request of the protected consumer's 
     representative.
       ``(ii) Upon the direct request of the protected consumer, 
     if the protected consumer is not under the age of 16 years at 
     the time of the request.
       ``(iii) The security freeze was placed due to a material 
     misrepresentation of fact by the protected consumer's 
     representative.
       ``(B) Notice if removal not by request.--If a consumer 
     reporting agency removes a security freeze under subparagraph 
     (A)(iii), the consumer reporting agency shall notify the 
     protected consumer's representative in writing prior to 
     removing the security freeze.
       ``(C) Removal of freeze by request.--Except as provided in 
     subparagraph (A)(iii), a security freeze shall remain in 
     place until a protected consumer's representative or 
     protected consumer described in subparagraph (A)(ii) directly 
     requests that the security freeze be removed. Upon receiving 
     a direct request from the protected consumer's representative 
     or protected consumer described in subparagraph (A)(ii) that 
     a consumer reporting agency remove a security freeze, and 
     upon receiving sufficient proof of identification and 
     sufficient proof of authority, the consumer reporting agency 
     shall, free of charge, remove the security freeze not later 
     than--
       ``(i) in the case of a request that is by toll-free 
     telephone or secure electronic means, 1 hour after receiving 
     the request for removal; or
       ``(ii) in the case of a request that is by mail, 3 business 
     days after receiving the request for removal.
       ``(D) Temporary removal of security freeze.--Upon receiving 
     a direct request from a protected consumer or a protected 
     consumer's representative under subparagraph (A)(i), if the 
     protected consumer or protected consumer's representative 
     requests a temporary removal of a security freeze, the 
     consumer reporting agency shall, in accordance with 
     subparagraph (C), remove the security freeze for the period 
     of time specified by the protected consumer or protected 
     consumer's representative.''.
       (b) Conforming Amendment.--Section 625(b)(1) of the Fair 
     Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681t(b)(1)) is amended--
       (1) in subparagraph (H), by striking ``or'' at the end; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(J) subsections (i) and (j) of section 605A relating to 
     security freezes; or''.
       (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall take effect on the date that is 120 days after the date 
     of enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 302. PROTECTING VETERANS' CREDIT.

       (a) Purposes.--The purposes of this section are--
       (1) to rectify problematic reporting of medical debt 
     included in a consumer report of a veteran due to 
     inappropriate or delayed payment for hospital care, medical 
     services, or extended care services provided in a non-
     Department of Veterans Affairs facility under the laws 
     administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; and
       (2) to clarify the process of debt collection for such 
     medical debt.
       (b) Amendments to Fair Credit Reporting Act.--
       (1) Veteran's medical debt defined.--Section 603 of the 
     Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681a) is amended by 
     adding at the end the following:
       ``(z) Veteran.--The term `veteran' has the meaning given 
     the term in section 101 of title 38, United States Code.
       ``(aa) Veteran's Medical Debt.--The term `veteran's medical 
     debt'--
       ``(1) means a medical collection debt of a veteran owed to 
     a non-Department of Veterans Affairs health care provider 
     that was submitted to the Department for payment for health 
     care authorized by the Department of Veterans Affairs; and
       ``(2) includes medical collection debt that the Department 
     of Veterans Affairs has wrongfully charged a veteran.''.
       (2) Exclusion for veteran's medical debt.--Section 605(a) 
     of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681c(a)) is 
     amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(7) With respect to a consumer reporting agency described 
     in section 603(p), any information related to a veteran's 
     medical debt if

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     the date on which the hospital care, medical services, or 
     extended care services was rendered relating to the debt 
     antedates the report by less than 1 year if the consumer 
     reporting agency has actual knowledge that the information is 
     related to a veteran's medical debt and the consumer 
     reporting agency is in compliance with its obligation under 
     section 302(c)(5) of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, 
     and Consumer Protection Act.
       ``(8) With respect to a consumer reporting agency described 
     in section 603(p), any information related to a fully paid or 
     settled veteran's medical debt that had been characterized as 
     delinquent, charged off, or in collection if the consumer 
     reporting agency has actual knowledge that the information is 
     related to a veteran's medical debt and the consumer 
     reporting agency is in compliance with its obligation under 
     section 302(c)(5) of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, 
     and Consumer Protection Act.''.
       (3) Removal of veteran's medical debt from consumer 
     report.--Section 611 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 
     U.S.C. 1681i) is amended--
       (A) in subsection (a)(1)(A), by inserting ``and except as 
     provided in subsection (g)'' after ``subsection (f)''; and
       (B) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(g) Dispute Process for Veteran's Medical Debt.--
       ``(1) In general.--With respect to a veteran's medical 
     debt, the veteran may submit a notice described in paragraph 
     (2), proof of liability of the Department of Veterans Affairs 
     for payment of that debt, or documentation that the 
     Department of Veterans Affairs is in the process of making 
     payment for authorized hospital care, medical services, or 
     extended care services rendered to a consumer reporting 
     agency or a reseller to dispute the inclusion of that debt on 
     a consumer report of the veteran.
       ``(2) Notification to veteran.--The Department of Veterans 
     Affairs shall submit to a veteran a notice that the 
     Department of Veterans Affairs has assumed liability for part 
     or all of a veteran's medical debt.
       ``(3) Deletion of information from file.--If a consumer 
     reporting agency receives notice, proof of liability, or 
     documentation under paragraph (1), the consumer reporting 
     agency shall delete all information relating to the veteran's 
     medical debt from the file of the veteran and notify the 
     furnisher and the veteran of that deletion.''.
       (c) Verification of Veteran's Medical Debt.--
       (1) Definitions.--For purposes of this subsection--
       (A) the term ``consumer reporting agency'' means a consumer 
     reporting agency described in section 603(p) of the Fair 
     Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681a(p)); and
       (B) the terms ``veteran'' and ``veteran's medical debt'' 
     have the meanings given those terms in section 603 of the 
     Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681a), as added by 
     subsection (b)(1).
       (2) Establishment.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs 
     shall establish a database to allow consumer reporting 
     agencies to verify whether a debt furnished to a consumer 
     reporting agency is a veteran's medical debt.
       (3) Database features.--The Secretary of Veterans Affairs 
     shall ensure that the database established under paragraph 
     (2), to the extent permitted by law, provides consumer 
     reporting agencies with--
       (A) sufficiently detailed and specific information to 
     verify whether a debt being furnished to the consumer 
     reporting agency is a veteran's medical debt;
       (B) access to verification information in a secure 
     electronic format;
       (C) timely access to verification information; and
       (D) any other features that would promote the efficient, 
     timely, and secure delivery of information that consumer 
     reporting agencies could use to verify whether a debt is a 
     veteran's medical debt.
       (4) Stakeholder input.--Prior to establishing the database 
     for verification under paragraph (2), the Secretary of 
     Veterans Affairs shall publish in the Federal Register a 
     notice and request for comment that solicits input from 
     consumer reporting agencies and other stakeholders.
       (5) Verification.--Provided the database established under 
     paragraph (2) is fully functional and the data available to 
     consumer reporting agencies, a consumer reporting agency 
     shall use the database as a means to identify a veteran's 
     medical debt pursuant to paragraphs (7) and (8) of section 
     605(a) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681c(a)), 
     as added by subsection (b)(2).
       (d) Credit Monitoring.--
       (1) In general.--Section 605A of the Fair Credit Reporting 
     Act (15 U.S.C. 1681c-1), as amended by section 301(a), is 
     amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(k) Credit Monitoring.--
       ``(1) Definitions.--In this subsection:
       ``(A) The term `active duty military consumer' includes a 
     member of the National Guard.
       ``(B) The term `National Guard' has the meaning given the 
     term in section 101(c) of title 10, United States Code.
       ``(2) Credit monitoring.--A consumer reporting agency 
     described in section 603(p) shall provide a free electronic 
     credit monitoring service that, at a minimum, notifies a 
     consumer of material additions or modifications to the file 
     of the consumer at the consumer reporting agency to any 
     consumer who provides to the consumer reporting agency--
       ``(A) appropriate proof that the consumer is an active duty 
     military consumer; and
       ``(B) contact information of the consumer.
       ``(3) Rulemaking.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     enactment of this subsection, the Federal Trade Commission 
     shall promulgate regulations regarding the requirements of 
     this subsection, which shall at a minimum include--
       ``(A) a definition of an electronic credit monitoring 
     service and material additions or modifications to the file 
     of a consumer; and
       ``(B) what constitutes appropriate proof.
       ``(4) Applicability.--
       ``(A) Sections 616 and 617 shall not apply to any violation 
     of this subsection.
       ``(B) This subsection shall be enforced exclusively under 
     section 621 by the Federal agencies and Federal and State 
     officials identified in that section.''.
       (2) Conforming amendment.--Section 625(b)(1) of the Fair 
     Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681t(b)(1)), as amended by 
     section 301(b), is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:
       ``(K) subsection (k) of section 605A, relating to credit 
     monitoring for active duty military consumers, as defined in 
     that subsection;''.
       (e) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall take effect on the date that is 1 year after the date 
     of enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 303. IMMUNITY FROM SUIT FOR DISCLOSURE OF FINANCIAL 
                   EXPLOITATION OF SENIOR CITIZENS.

       (a) Immunity.--
       (1) Definitions.--In this section--
       (A) the term ``Bank Secrecy Act officer'' means an 
     individual responsible for ensuring compliance with the 
     requirements mandated by subchapter II of chapter 53 of title 
     31, United States Code (commonly known as the ``Bank Secrecy 
     Act'');
       (B) the term ``broker-dealer'' means a broker and a dealer, 
     as those terms are defined in section 3(a) of the Securities 
     Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78c(a));
       (C) the term ``covered agency'' means--
       (i) a State financial regulatory agency, including a State 
     securities or law enforcement authority and a State insurance 
     regulator;
       (ii) each of the Federal agencies represented in the 
     membership of the Financial Institutions Examination Council 
     established under section 1004 of the Federal Financial 
     Institutions Examination Council Act of 1978 (12 U.S.C. 
     3303);
       (iii) a securities association registered under section 15A 
     of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78o-3);
       (iv) the Securities and Exchange Commission;
       (v) a law enforcement agency; or
       (vi) a State or local agency responsible for administering 
     adult protective service laws;
       (D) the term ``covered financial institution'' means--
       (i) a credit union;
       (ii) a depository institution;
       (iii) an investment adviser;
       (iv) a broker-dealer;
       (v) an insurance company;
       (vi) an insurance agency; or
       (vii) a transfer agent;
       (E) the term ``credit union'' has the meaning given the 
     term in section 2 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and 
     Consumer Protection Act (12 U.S.C. 5301);
       (F) the term ``depository institution'' has the meaning 
     given the term in section 3(c) of the Federal Deposit 
     Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813(c));
       (G) the term ``exploitation'' means the fraudulent or 
     otherwise illegal, unauthorized, or improper act or process 
     of an individual, including a caregiver or a fiduciary, 
     that--
       (i) uses the resources of a senior citizen for monetary or 
     personal benefit, profit, or gain; or
       (ii) results in depriving a senior citizen of rightful 
     access to or use of benefits, resources, belongings, or 
     assets;
       (H) the term ``insurance agency'' means any business entity 
     that sells, solicits, or negotiates insurance coverage;
       (I) the term ``insurance company'' has the meaning given 
     the term in section 2(a) of the Investment Company Act of 
     1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-2(a));
       (J) the term ``insurance producer'' means an individual who 
     is required under State law to be licensed in order to sell, 
     solicit, or negotiate insurance coverage;
       (K) the term ``investment adviser'' has the meaning given 
     the term in section 202(a) of the Investment Advisers Act of 
     1940 (15 U.S.C. 80b-2(a));
       (L) the term ``investment adviser representative'' means an 
     individual who--
       (i) is employed by, or associated with, an investment 
     adviser; and
       (ii) does not perform solely clerical or ministerial acts;
       (M) the term ``registered representative'' means an 
     individual who represents a broker-dealer in effecting or 
     attempting to effect a purchase or sale of securities;
       (N) the term ``senior citizen'' means an individual who is 
     not younger than 65 years of age;
       (O) the term ``State'' means each of the several States, 
     the District of Columbia, and any territory or possession of 
     the United States;
       (P) the term ``State insurance regulator'' has the meaning 
     given the term in section

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     315 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6735);
       (Q) the term ``State securities or law enforcement 
     authority'' has the meaning given the term in section 
     24(f)(4) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 
     78x(f)(4)); and
       (R) the term ``transfer agent'' has the meaning given the 
     term in section 3(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 
     (15 U.S.C. 78c(a)).
       (2) Immunity from suit.--
       (A) Immunity for individuals.--An individual who has 
     received the training described in subsection (b) shall not 
     be liable, including in any civil or administrative 
     proceeding, for disclosing the suspected exploitation of a 
     senior citizen to a covered agency if the individual, at the 
     time of the disclosure--
       (i) served as a supervisor or in a compliance or legal 
     function (including as a Bank Secrecy Act officer) for, or, 
     in the case of a registered representative, investment 
     adviser representative, or insurance producer, was affiliated 
     or associated with, a covered financial institution; and
       (ii) made the disclosure--

       (I) in good faith; and
       (II) with reasonable care.

       (B) Immunity for covered financial institutions.--A covered 
     financial institution shall not be liable, including in any 
     civil or administrative proceeding, for a disclosure made by 
     an individual described in subparagraph (A) if--
       (i) the individual was employed by, or, in the case of a 
     registered representative, insurance producer, or investment 
     adviser representative, affiliated or associated with, the 
     covered financial institution at the time of the disclosure; 
     and
       (ii) before the time of the disclosure, each individual 
     described in subsection (b)(1) received the training 
     described in subsection (b).
       (C) Rule of construction.--Nothing in subparagraph (A) or 
     (B) shall be construed to limit the liability of an 
     individual or a covered financial institution in a civil 
     action for any act, omission, or fraud that is not a 
     disclosure described in subparagraph (A).
       (b) Training.--
       (1) In general.--A covered financial institution or a third 
     party selected by a covered financial institution may provide 
     the training described in paragraph (2)(A) to each officer or 
     employee of, or registered representative, insurance 
     producer, or investment adviser representative affiliated or 
     associated with, the covered financial institution who--
       (A) is described in subsection (a)(2)(A)(i);
       (B) may come into contact with a senior citizen as a 
     regular part of the professional duties of the individual; or
       (C) may review or approve the financial documents, records, 
     or transactions of a senior citizen in connection with 
     providing financial services to a senior citizen.
       (2) Content.--
       (A) In general.--The content of the training that a covered 
     financial institution or a third party selected by the 
     covered financial institution may provide under paragraph (1) 
     shall--
       (i) be maintained by the covered financial institution and 
     made available to a covered agency with examination authority 
     over the covered financial institution, upon request, except 
     that a covered financial institution shall not be required to 
     maintain or make available such content with respect to any 
     individual who is no longer employed by, or affiliated or 
     associated with, the covered financial institution;
       (ii) instruct any individual attending the training on how 
     to identify and report the suspected exploitation of a senior 
     citizen internally and, as appropriate, to government 
     officials or law enforcement authorities, including common 
     signs that indicate the financial exploitation of a senior 
     citizen;
       (iii) discuss the need to protect the privacy and respect 
     the integrity of each individual customer of the covered 
     financial institution; and
       (iv) be appropriate to the job responsibilities of the 
     individual attending the training.
       (B) Timing.--The training under paragraph (1) shall be 
     provided--
       (i) as soon as reasonably practicable; and
       (ii) with respect to an individual who begins employment, 
     or becomes affiliated or associated, with a covered financial 
     institution after the date of enactment of this Act, not 
     later than 1 year after the date on which the individual 
     becomes employed by, or affiliated or associated with, the 
     covered financial institution in a position described in 
     subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) of paragraph (1).
       (C) Records.--A covered financial institution shall--
       (i) maintain a record of each individual who--

       (I) is employed by, or affiliated or associated with, the 
     covered financial institution in a position described in 
     subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) of paragraph (1); and
       (II) has completed the training under paragraph (1), 
     regardless of whether the training was--

       (aa) provided by the covered financial institution or a 
     third party selected by the covered financial institution;
       (bb) completed before the individual was employed by, or 
     affiliated or associated with, the covered financial 
     institution; and
       (cc) completed before, on, or after the date of enactment 
     of this Act; and
       (ii) upon request, provide a record described in clause (i) 
     to a covered agency with examination authority over the 
     covered financial institution.
       (c) Relationship to State Law.--Nothing in this section 
     shall be construed to preempt or limit any provision of State 
     law, except only to the extent that subsection (a) provides a 
     greater level of protection against liability to an 
     individual described in subsection (a)(2)(A) or to a covered 
     financial institution described in subsection (a)(2)(B) than 
     is provided under State law.

     SEC. 304. RESTORATION OF THE PROTECTING TENANTS AT 
                   FORECLOSURE ACT OF 2009.

       (a) Repeal of Sunset Provision.--Section 704 of the 
     Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009 (12 U.S.C. 5201 
     note; 12 U.S.C. 5220 note; 42 U.S.C. 1437f note) is repealed.
       (b) Restoration.--Sections 701 through 703 of the 
     Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009, the provisions 
     of law amended by such sections, and any regulations 
     promulgated pursuant to such sections, as were in effect on 
     December 30, 2014, are restored and revived.
       (c) Effective Date.--Subsections (a) and (b) shall take 
     effect on the date that is 30 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 305. REMEDIATING LEAD AND ASBESTOS HAZARDS.

       Section 109(a)(1) of the Emergency Economic Stabilization 
     Act of 2008 (12 U.S.C. 5219(a)(1)) is amended, in the second 
     sentence, by inserting ``and to remediate lead and asbestos 
     hazards in residential properties'' before the period at the 
     end.

     SEC. 306. FAMILY SELF-SUFFICIENCY PROGRAM.

       (a) In General.--Section 23 of the United States Housing 
     Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437u) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (a)--
       (A) by striking ``public housing and''; and
       (B) by striking ``the certificate and voucher programs 
     under section 8'' and inserting ``sections 8 and 9'';
       (2) by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:
       ``(b) Continuation of Prior Required Programs.--
       ``(1) In general.--Each public housing agency that was 
     required to administer a local Family Self-Sufficiency 
     program on the date of enactment of the Economic Growth, 
     Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act shall operate 
     such local program for, at a minimum, the number of families 
     the agency was required to serve on the date of enactment of 
     such Act, subject only to the availability under 
     appropriations Acts of sufficient amounts for housing 
     assistance and the requirements of paragraph (2).
       ``(2) Reduction.--The number of families for which a public 
     housing agency is required to operate such local program 
     under paragraph (1) shall be decreased by 1 for each family 
     from any supported rental housing program administered by 
     such agency that, after October 21, 1998, fulfills its 
     obligations under the contract of participation.
       ``(3) Exception.--The Secretary shall not require a public 
     housing agency to carry out a mandatory program for a period 
     of time upon the request of the public housing agency and 
     upon a determination by the Secretary that implementation is 
     not feasible because of local circumstances, which may 
     include--
       ``(A) lack of supportive services accessible to eligible 
     families, which shall include insufficient availability of 
     resources for programs under title I of the Workforce 
     Investment Act of 1998 (29 U.S.C. 2801 et seq.);
       ``(B) lack of funding for reasonable administrative costs;
       ``(C) lack of cooperation by other units of State or local 
     government; or
       ``(D) any other circumstances that the Secretary may 
     consider appropriate.'';
       (3) by striking subsection (i);
       (4) by redesignating subsections (c), (d), (e), (f), (g), 
     and (h) as subsections (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), and (i) 
     respectively;
       (5) by inserting after subsection (b), as amended, the 
     following:
       ``(c) Eligibility.--
       ``(1) Eligible families.--A family is eligible to 
     participate in a local Family Self-Sufficiency program under 
     this section if--
       ``(A) at least 1 household member seeks to become and 
     remain employed in suitable employment or to increase 
     earnings; and
       ``(B) the household member receives direct assistance under 
     section 8 or resides in a unit assisted under section 8 or 9.
       ``(2) Eligible entities.--The following entities are 
     eligible to administer a local Family Self-Sufficiency 
     program under this section:
       ``(A) A public housing agency administering housing 
     assistance to or on behalf of an eligible family under 
     section 8 or 9.
       ``(B) The owner or sponsor of a multifamily property 
     receiving project-based rental assistance under section 8, in 
     accordance with the requirements under subsection (l).'';
       (6) in subsection (d), as so redesignated--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) by striking ``public housing agency'' the first time it 
     appears and inserting ``eligible entity'';
       (ii) in the first sentence, by striking ``each leaseholder 
     receiving assistance under the certificate and voucher 
     programs of the public housing agency under section 8 or 
     residing in public housing administered by the agency'' and 
     inserting ``a household member of an eligible family''; and
       (iii) by striking the third sentence and inserting the 
     following: ``Housing assistance may not be terminated as a 
     consequence of either successful completion of the contract 
     of participation or failure to complete such contract. A 
     contract of participation shall

[[Page S1558]]

     remain in effect until the participating family exits the 
     Family Self-Sufficiency program upon successful graduation or 
     expiration of the contract of participation, or for other 
     good cause.'';
       (B) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A)--

       (I) in the first sentence--

       (aa) by striking ``A local program under this section'' and 
     inserting ``An eligible entity'';
       (bb) by striking ``provide'' and inserting ``coordinate''; 
     and
       (cc) by striking ``to'' and inserting ``for''; and

       (II) in the second sentence--

       (aa) by striking ``provided during'' and inserting 
     ``coordinated for'';
       (bb) by striking ``under section 8 or residing in public 
     housing'' and inserting ``pursuant to section 8 or 9 and for 
     the duration of the contract of participation''; and
       (cc) by inserting ``, but are not limited to'' after ``may 
     include'';
       (ii) in subparagraph (D), by inserting ``or attainment of a 
     high school equivalency certificate'' after ``high school'';
       (iii) by striking subparagraph (G);
       (iv) by redesignating subparagraphs (E), (F), and (J) as 
     subparagraphs (F), (G), and (K) respectively;
       (v) by inserting after subparagraph (D) the following:
       ``(E) education in pursuit of a post-secondary degree or 
     certification;'';
       (vi) in subparagraph (H), by inserting ``financial 
     literacy, such as training in financial management, financial 
     coaching, and asset building, and'' after ``training in'';
       (vii) in subparagraph (I), by striking ``and'' at the end; 
     and
       (viii) by inserting after subparagraph (I) the following:
       ``(J) homeownership education and assistance; and''; and
       (C) in paragraph (3)--
       (i) in the first sentence, by inserting ``the first 
     recertification of income after'' after ``not later than 5 
     years after''; and
       (ii) in the second sentence--

       (I) by striking ``public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``eligible entity''; and
       (II) by striking ``of the agency'';

       (D) by amending paragraph (4) to read as follows:
       ``(4) Employment.--The contract of participation shall 
     require 1 household member of the participating family to 
     seek and maintain suitable employment.''; and
       (E) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(5) Nonparticipation.--Assistance under section 8 or 9 
     for a family that elects not to participate in a Family Self-
     Sufficiency program shall not be delayed by reason of such 
     election.'';
       (7) in subsection (e), as so redesignated--
       (A) in paragraph (1), by striking ``whose monthly adjusted 
     income does not exceed 50 percent'' and all that follows 
     through the period at the end of the third sentence and 
     inserting ``shall be calculated under the rental provisions 
     of section 3 or section 8(o), as applicable.'';
       (B) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) by striking the first sentence and inserting the 
     following: ``For each participating family, an amount equal 
     to any increase in the amount of rent paid by the family in 
     accordance with the provisions of section 3 or 8(o), as 
     applicable, that is attributable to increases in earned 
     income by the participating family, shall be placed in an 
     interest-bearing escrow account established by the eligible 
     entity on behalf of the participating family. Notwithstanding 
     any other provision of law, an eligible entity may use funds 
     it controls under section 8 or 9 for purposes of making the 
     escrow deposit for participating families assisted under, or 
     residing in units assisted under, section 8 or 9, 
     respectively, provided such funds are offset by the increase 
     in the amount of rent paid by the participating family.'';
       (ii) by striking the second sentence and inserting the 
     following: ``All Family Self-Sufficiency programs 
     administered under this section shall include an escrow 
     account.'';
       (iii) in the fourth sentence, by striking ``subsection 
     (c)'' and inserting ``subsection (d)''; and
       (iv) in the last sentence--

       (I) by striking ``A public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``An eligible entity''; and
       (II) by striking ``the public housing agency'' and 
     inserting ``such eligible entity''; and

       (C) by amending paragraph (3) to read as follows:
       ``(3) Forfeited escrow.--Any amount placed in an escrow 
     account established by an eligible entity for a participating 
     family as required under paragraph (2), that exists after the 
     end of a contract of participation by a household member of a 
     participating family that does not qualify to receive the 
     escrow, shall be used by the eligible entity for the benefit 
     of participating families in good standing.'';
       (8) in subsection (f), as so redesignated, by striking ``, 
     unless the income of the family equals or exceeds 80 percent 
     of the median income of the area (as determined by the 
     Secretary with adjustments for smaller and larger 
     families)'';
       (9) in subsection (g), as so redesignated--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) by striking ``public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``eligible entity'';
       (ii) by striking ``the public housing agency'' and 
     inserting ``such eligible entity''; and
       (iii) by striking ``subsection (g)'' and inserting 
     ``subsection (h)''; and
       (B) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) by striking ``public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``eligible entity'' each place that term appears;
       (ii) by striking ``or the Job Opportunities and Basic 
     Skills Training Program under part F of title IV of the 
     Social Security Act'';
       (iii) by inserting ``primary, secondary, and post-
     secondary'' after ``public and private''; and
       (iv) in the second sentence, by inserting ``and tenants 
     served by the program'' after ``the unit of general local 
     government'';
       (10) in subsection (h), as so redesignated--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) by striking ``public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``eligible entity'';
       (ii) by striking ``participating in the'' and inserting 
     ``carrying out a''; and
       (iii) by striking ``to the Secretary'';
       (B) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) by striking ``public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``eligible entity'';
       (ii) by striking ``subsection (f)'' and inserting 
     ``subsection (g)'';
       (iii) by striking ``residents of the public housing'' and 
     inserting ``the current and prospective participants of the 
     program''; and
       (iv) by striking ``or the Job Opportunities and Basic 
     Skills Training Program under part F of title IV of the 
     Social Security Act''; and
       (C) in paragraph (3)--
       (i) in subparagraph (C)--

       (I) by striking ``subsection (c)(2)'' and inserting 
     ``subsection (d)(2)'';
       (II) by striking ``provided to'' and inserting 
     ``coordinated on behalf of participating'';
       (III) by inserting ``direct'' before ``assistance''; and
       (IV) by striking ``the section 8 and public housing 
     programs'' and inserting ``sections 8 and 9'';

       (ii) in subparagraph (D)--

       (I) by striking ``subsection (d)'' and inserting 
     ``subsection (e)''; and
       (II) by striking ``public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``eligible entity'';

       (iii) in subparagraph (E), by striking ``deliver'' and 
     inserting ``coordinate'';
       (iv) in subparagraph (H), by striking ``the Job 
     Opportunities and Basic Skills Training Program under part F 
     of title IV of the Social Security Act and''; and
       (v) in subparagraph (I), by striking ``public housing or 
     section 8 assistance'' and inserting ``assistance under 
     section 8 or 9'';
       (11) by amending subsection (i), as so redesignated, to 
     read as follows:
       ``(i) Family Self-Sufficiency Awards.--
       ``(1) In general.--Subject to appropriations, the Secretary 
     shall establish a formula by which annual funds shall be 
     awarded or as otherwise determined by the Secretary for the 
     costs incurred by an eligible entity in administering the 
     Family Self-Sufficiency program under this section.
       ``(2) Eligibility for awards.--The award established under 
     paragraph (1) shall provide funding for family self-
     sufficiency coordinators as follows:
       ``(A) Base award.--An eligible entity serving 25 or more 
     participants in the Family Self-Sufficiency program under 
     this section is eligible to receive an award equal to the 
     costs, as determined by the Secretary, of 1 full-time family 
     self-sufficiency coordinator position. The Secretary may, by 
     regulation or notice, determine the policy concerning the 
     award for an eligible entity serving fewer than 25 such 
     participants, including providing prorated awards or allowing 
     such entities to combine their programs under this section 
     for purposes of employing a coordinator.
       ``(B) Additional award.--An eligible entity that meets 
     performance standards set by the Secretary is eligible to 
     receive an additional award sufficient to cover the costs of 
     filling an additional family self-sufficiency coordinator 
     position if such entity has 75 or more participating 
     families, and an additional coordinator for each additional 
     50 participating families, or such other ratio as may be 
     established by the Secretary based on the award allocation 
     evaluation under subparagraph (E).
       ``(C) State and regional agencies.--For purposes of 
     calculating the award under this paragraph, each 
     administratively distinct part of a State or regional 
     eligible entity may be treated as a separate agency.
       ``(D) Determination of number of coordinators.--In 
     determining whether an eligible entity meets a specific 
     threshold for funding pursuant to this paragraph, the 
     Secretary shall consider the number of participants enrolled 
     by the eligible entity in its Family Self-Sufficiency program 
     as well as other criteria determined by the Secretary.
       ``(E) Award allocation evaluation.--The Secretary shall 
     submit to Congress a report evaluating the award allocation 
     under this subsection, and make recommendations based on this 
     evaluation and other related findings to modify such 
     allocation, within 4 years after the date of enactment of the 
     Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection 
     Act, and not less frequently than every 4 years thereafter. 
     The report requirement under this subparagraph shall 
     terminate after the Secretary has submitted 2 such reports to 
     Congress.
       ``(3) Renewals and allocation.--
       ``(A) In general.--Funds allocated by the Secretary under 
     this subsection shall be allocated in the following order of 
     priority:
       ``(i) First priority.--Renewal of the full cost of all 
     coordinators in the previous year

[[Page S1559]]

     at each eligible entity with an existing Family Self-
     Sufficiency program that meets applicable performance 
     standards set by the Secretary.
       ``(ii) Second priority.--New or incremental coordinator 
     funding authorized under this section.
       ``(B) Guidance.--If the first priority, as described in 
     subparagraph (A)(i), cannot be fully satisfied, the Secretary 
     may prorate the funding for each eligible entity, as long 
     as--
       ``(i) each eligible entity that has received funding for at 
     least 1 part-time coordinator in the prior fiscal year is 
     provided sufficient funding for at least 1 part-time 
     coordinator as part of any such proration; and
       ``(ii) each eligible entity that has received funding for 
     at least 1 full-time coordinator in the prior fiscal year is 
     provided sufficient funding for at least 1 full-time 
     coordinator as part of any such proration.
       ``(4) Recapture or offset.--Any awards allocated under this 
     subsection by the Secretary in a fiscal year that have not 
     been spent by the end of the subsequent fiscal year or such 
     other time period as determined by the Secretary may be 
     recaptured by the Secretary and shall be available for 
     providing additional awards pursuant to paragraph (2)(B), or 
     may be offset as determined by the Secretary. Funds 
     appropriated pursuant to this section shall remain available 
     for 3 years in order to facilitate the re-use of any 
     recaptured funds for this purpose.
       ``(5) Performance reporting.--Programs under this section 
     shall be required to report the number of families enrolled 
     and graduated, the number of established escrow accounts and 
     positive escrow balances, and any other information that the 
     Secretary may require. Program performance shall be reviewed 
     periodically as determined by the Secretary.
       ``(6) Incentives for innovation and high performance.--The 
     Secretary may reserve up to 5 percent of the amounts made 
     available under this subsection to provide support to or 
     reward Family Self-Sufficiency programs based on the rate of 
     successful completion, increased earned income, or other 
     factors as may be established by the Secretary.'';
       (12) in subsection (j)--
       (A) by striking ``public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``eligible entity'';
       (B) by striking ``public housing'' before ``units'';
       (C) by striking ``in public housing projects administered 
     by the agency'';
       (D) by inserting ``or coordination'' after ``provision''; 
     and
       (E) by striking the last sentence;
       (13) in subsection (k), by striking ``public housing 
     agencies'' and inserting ``eligible entities'';
       (14) by striking subsection (n);
       (15) by striking subsection (o);
       (16) by redesignating subsections (l) and (m) as 
     subsections (m) and (n), respectively;
       (17) by inserting after subsection (k) the following:
       ``(l) Programs for Tenants in Privately Owned Properties 
     With Project-Based Assistance.--
       ``(1) Voluntary availability of fss program.--The owner of 
     a privately owned property may voluntarily make a Family 
     Self-Sufficiency program available to the tenants of such 
     property in accordance with procedures established by the 
     Secretary. Such procedures shall permit the owner to enter 
     into a cooperative agreement with a local public housing 
     agency that administers a Family Self-Sufficiency program or, 
     at the owner's option, operate a Family Self-Sufficiency 
     program on its own or in partnership with another owner. An 
     owner, who voluntarily makes a Family Self-Sufficiency 
     program available pursuant to this subsection, may access 
     funding from any residual receipt accounts for the property 
     to hire a family self-sufficiency coordinator or coordinators 
     for their program.
       ``(2) Cooperative agreement.--Any cooperative agreement 
     entered into pursuant to paragraph (1) shall require the 
     public housing agency to open its Family Self-Sufficiency 
     program waiting list to any eligible family residing in the 
     owner's property who resides in a unit assisted under 
     project-based rental assistance.
       ``(3) Treatment of families assisted under this 
     subsection.--A public housing agency that enters into a 
     cooperative agreement pursuant to paragraph (1) may count any 
     family participating in its Family Self-Sufficiency program 
     as a result of such agreement as part of the calculation of 
     the award under subsection (i).
       ``(4) Escrow.--
       ``(A) Cooperative agreement.--A cooperative agreement 
     entered into pursuant to paragraph (1) shall provide for the 
     calculation and tracking of the escrow for participating 
     residents and for the owner to make available, upon request 
     of the public housing agency, escrow for participating 
     residents, in accordance with paragraphs (2) and (3) of 
     subsection (e), residing in units assisted under section 8.
       ``(B) Calculation and tracking by owner.--The owner of a 
     privately owned property who voluntarily makes a Family Self-
     Sufficiency program available pursuant to paragraph (1) shall 
     calculate and track the escrow for participating residents 
     and make escrow for participating residents available in 
     accordance with paragraphs (2) and (3) of subsection (e).
       ``(5) Exception.--This subsection shall not apply to 
     properties assisted under section 8(o)(13).
       ``(6) Suspension of enrollment.--In any year, the Secretary 
     may suspend the enrollment of new families in Family Self-
     Sufficiency programs under this subsection based on a 
     determination that insufficient funding is available for this 
     purpose.'';
       (18) in subsection (m), as so redesignated--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) in the first sentence, by striking ``Each public 
     housing agency'' and inserting ``Each eligible entity'';
       (ii) in the second sentence, by striking ``The report shall 
     include'' and inserting ``The contents of the report shall 
     include''; and
       (iii) in subparagraph (D)--

       (I) by striking ``public housing agency'' and inserting 
     ``eligible entity''; and
       (II) by striking ``local''; and

       (B) in paragraph (2), by inserting ``and describing any 
     additional research needs of the Secretary to evaluate the 
     effectiveness of the program'' after ``under paragraph (1)'';
       (19) in subsection (n), as so redesignated, by striking 
     ``may'' and inserting ``shall''; and
       (20) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(o) Definitions.--In this section:
       ``(1) Eligible entity.--The term `eligible entity' means an 
     entity that meets the requirements under subsection (c)(2) to 
     administer a Family Self-Sufficiency program under this 
     section.
       ``(2) Eligible family.--The term `eligible family' means a 
     family that meets the requirements under subsection (c)(1) to 
     participate in the Family Self-Sufficiency program under this 
     section.
       ``(3) Participating family.--The term `participating 
     family' means an eligible family that is participating in the 
     Family Self-Sufficiency program under this section.''.
       (b) Effective Date.--Not later than 360 days after the date 
     of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Housing and Urban 
     Development shall issue regulations to implement this section 
     and any amendments made by this section, and this section and 
     any amendments made by this section shall take effect upon 
     such issuance.

     SEC. 307. PROPERTY ASSESSED CLEAN ENERGY FINANCING.

       Section 129C(b)(3) of the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 
     1639c(b)(3)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(C) Consideration of underwriting requirements for 
     property assessed clean energy financing.--
       ``(i) Definition.--In this subparagraph, the term `Property 
     Assessed Clean Energy financing' means financing to cover the 
     costs of home improvements that results in a tax assessment 
     on the real property of the consumer.
       ``(ii) Regulations.--The Bureau shall prescribe regulations 
     that carry out the purposes of subsection (a) and apply 
     section 130 with respect to violations under subsection (a) 
     of this section with respect to Property Assessed Clean 
     Energy financing, which shall account for the unique nature 
     of Property Assessed Clean Energy financing.
       ``(iii) Collection of information and consultation.--In 
     prescribing the regulations under this subparagraph, the 
     Bureau--

       ``(I) may collect such information and data that the Bureau 
     determines is necessary; and
       ``(II) shall consult with State and local governments and 
     bond-issuing authorities.''.

     SEC. 308. GAO REPORT ON CONSUMER REPORTING AGENCIES.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section, the terms ``consumer'', 
     ``consumer report'', and ``consumer reporting agency'' have 
     the meanings given those terms in section 603 of the Fair 
     Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681a).
       (b) Report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United 
     States shall submit to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and 
     Urban Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Financial 
     Services of the House of Representatives a comprehensive 
     report that includes--
       (1) a review of the current legal and regulatory structure 
     for consumer reporting agencies and an analysis of any gaps 
     in that structure, including, in particular, the rulemaking, 
     supervisory, and enforcement authority of State and Federal 
     agencies under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681 
     et seq.), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Public Law 106-102; 113 
     Stat. 1338), and any other relevant statutes;
       (2) a review of the process by which consumers can appeal 
     and expunge errors on their consumer reports;
       (3) a review of the causes of consumer reporting errors;
       (4) a review of the responsibilities of data furnishers to 
     ensure that accurate information is initially reported to 
     consumer reporting agencies and to ensure that such 
     information continues to be accurate;
       (5) a review of data security relating to consumer 
     reporting agencies and their efforts to safeguard consumer 
     data;
       (6) a review of who has access to, and may use, consumer 
     reports;
       (7) a review of who has control or ownership of a 
     consumer's credit data;
       (8) an analysis of--
       (A) which Federal and State regulatory agencies supervise 
     and enforce laws relating to how consumer reporting agencies 
     protect consumer data; and
       (B) all laws relating to data security applicable to 
     consumer reporting agencies; and

[[Page S1560]]

       (9) recommendations to Congress on how to improve the 
     consumer reporting system, including legislative, regulatory, 
     and industry-specific recommendations.

     SEC. 309. PROTECTING VETERANS FROM PREDATORY LENDING.

       (a) Protecting Veterans From Predatory Lending.--
       (1) In general.--Subchapter I of chapter 37 of title 38, 
     United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the 
     following new section:

     ``Sec. 3709. Refinancing of housing loans

       ``(a) Fee Recoupment.--Except as provided in subsection (d) 
     and notwithstanding section 3703 of this title or any other 
     provision of law, a loan to a veteran for a purpose specified 
     in section 3710 of this title that is being refinanced may 
     not be guaranteed or insured under this chapter unless--
       ``(1) the issuer of the refinanced loan provides the 
     Secretary with a certification of the recoupment period for 
     fees, closing costs, and any expenses (other than taxes, 
     amounts held in escrow, and fees paid under this chapter) 
     that would be incurred by the borrower in the refinancing of 
     the loan;
       ``(2) all of the fees and incurred costs are scheduled to 
     be recouped on or before the date that is 36 months after the 
     date of loan issuance; and
       ``(3) the recoupment is calculated through lower regular 
     monthly payments (other than taxes, amounts held in escrow, 
     and fees paid under this chapter) as a result of the 
     refinanced loan.
       ``(b) Net Tangible Benefit Test.--Except as provided in 
     subsection (d) and notwithstanding section 3703 of this title 
     or any other provision of law, a loan to a veteran for a 
     purpose specified in section 3710 of this title that is 
     refinanced may not be guaranteed or insured under this 
     chapter unless--
       ``(1) the issuer of the refinanced loan provides the 
     borrower with a net tangible benefit test;
       ``(2) in a case in which the original loan had a fixed rate 
     mortgage interest rate and the refinanced loan will have a 
     fixed rate mortgage interest rate, the refinanced loan has a 
     mortgage interest rate that is not less than 50 basis points 
     less than the previous loan;
       ``(3) in a case in which the original loan had a fixed rate 
     mortgage interest rate and the refinanced loan will have an 
     adjustable rate mortgage interest rate, the refinanced loan 
     has a mortgage interest rate that is not less than 200 basis 
     points less than the previous loan; and
       ``(4) the lower interest rate is not produced solely from 
     discount points, unless--
       ``(A) such points are paid at closing; and
       ``(B) such points are not added to the principal loan 
     amount, unless--
       ``(i) for discount point amounts that are less than or 
     equal to one discount point, the resulting loan balance after 
     any fees and expenses allows the property with respect to 
     which the loan was issued to maintain a loan to value ratio 
     of 100 percent or less; and
       ``(ii) for discount point amounts that are greater than one 
     discount point, the resulting loan balance after any fees and 
     expenses allows the property with respect to which the loan 
     was issued to maintain a loan to value ratio of 90 percent or 
     less.
       ``(c) Loan Seasoning.--Except as provided in subsection (d) 
     and notwithstanding section 3703 of this title or any other 
     provision of law, a loan to a veteran for a purpose specified 
     in section 3710 of this title that is refinanced may not be 
     guaranteed or insured under this chapter until the date that 
     is the later of--
       ``(1) the date that is 210 days after the date on which the 
     first monthly payment is made on the loan; and
       ``(2) the date on which the sixth monthly payment is made 
     on the loan.
       ``(d) Cash-out Refinances.--(1) Subsections (a) through (c) 
     shall not apply in a case of a loan refinancing in which the 
     amount of the principal for the new loan to be guaranteed or 
     insured under this chapter is larger than the payoff amount 
     of the refinanced loan.
       ``(2) Not later than 180 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this section, the Secretary shall promulgate 
     such rules as the Secretary considers appropriate with 
     respect to refinancing described in paragraph (1) to ensure 
     that such refinancing is in the financial interest of the 
     borrower, including rules relating to recoupment, seasoning, 
     and net tangible benefits.''.
       (2) Regulations.--
       (A) In general.--In prescribing any regulation to carry out 
     section 3709 of title 38, United States Code, as added by 
     paragraph (1), the Secretary of Veterans Affairs may waive 
     the requirements of sections 551 through 559 of title 5, 
     United States Code, if--
       (i) the Secretary determines that urgent or compelling 
     circumstances make compliance with such requirements 
     impracticable or contrary to the public interest;
       (ii) the Secretary submits to the Committee on Veterans' 
     Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Veterans' Affairs 
     of the House of Representatives, and publishes in the Federal 
     Register, notice of such waiver, including a description of 
     the determination made under clause (i); and
       (iii) a period of 10 days elapses following the 
     notification under clause (ii).
       (B) Public notice and comment.--If a regulation prescribed 
     pursuant to a waiver made under subparagraph (A) is in effect 
     for a period exceeding 1 year, the Secretary shall provide 
     the public an opportunity for notice and comment regarding 
     such regulation.
       (C) Effective date.--This paragraph shall take effect on 
     the date of the enactment of this Act.
       (D) Termination date.--The authorities under this paragraph 
     shall terminate on the date that is 1 year after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act.
       (3) Report on cash-out refinances.--
       (A) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall, in 
     consultation with the President of the Ginnie Mae, submit to 
     Congress a report on refinancing--
       (i) of loans--

       (I) made to veterans for purposes specified in section 3710 
     of title 38, United States Code; and
       (II) that were guaranteed or insured under chapter 37 of 
     such title; and

       (ii) in which the amount of the principal for the new loan 
     to be guaranteed or insured under such chapter is larger than 
     the payoff amount of the refinanced loan.
       (B) Contents.--The report required by subparagraph (A) 
     shall include the following:
       (i) An assessment of whether additional requirements, 
     including a net tangible benefit test, fee recoupment period, 
     and loan seasoning requirement, are necessary to ensure that 
     the refinancing described in subparagraph (A) is in the 
     financial interest of the borrower.
       (ii) Such recommendations as the Secretary may have for 
     additional legislative or administrative action to ensure 
     that refinancing described in subparagraph (A) is carried out 
     in the financial interest of the borrower.
       (4) Clerical amendment.--The table of sections at the 
     beginning of chapter 37 of title 38, United States Code, is 
     amended by inserting after the item relating to section 3709 
     the following new item:

``3709. Refinancing of housing loans.''.
       (b) Loan Seasoning for Ginnie Mae Mortgage-backed 
     Securities.--Section 306(g)(1) of the National Housing Act 
     (12 U.S.C. 1721(g)(1)) is amended by inserting ``The 
     Association may not guarantee the timely payment of principal 
     and interest on a security that is backed by a mortgage 
     insured or guaranteed under chapter 37 of title 38, United 
     States Code, and that was refinanced until the later of the 
     date that is 210 days after the date on which the first 
     monthly payment is made on the mortgage being refinanced and 
     the date on which 6 full monthly payments have been made on 
     the mortgage being refinanced.'' after ``Act of 1992.''.
       (c) Report on Liquidity of the Department of Veterans 
     Affairs Housing Loan Program.--
       (1) Report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Housing and Urban 
     Development and the President of the Ginnie Mae shall submit 
     to the appropriate committees of Congress a report on the 
     liquidity of the housing loan program under chapter 37 of 
     title 38, United States Code, in the secondary mortgage 
     market, which shall--
       (A) assess the loans provided under that chapter that 
     collateralize mortgage-backed securities that are guaranteed 
     by Ginnie Mae; and
       (B) include recommendations for actions that Ginnie Mae 
     should take to ensure that the liquidity of that housing loan 
     program is maintained.
       (2) Definitions.--In this subsection:
       (A) Appropriate committees of congress.--The term 
     ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means--
       (i) the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the Committee on 
     Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate; and
       (ii) the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the Committee 
     on Financial Services of the House of Representatives.
       (B) Ginnie mae.--The term ``Ginnie Mae'' means the 
     Government National Mortgage Association.
       (d) Annual Report on Document Disclosure and Consumer 
     Education.--Not less frequently than once each year, the 
     Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall issue a publicly 
     available report that--
       (1) examines, with respect to loans provided to veterans 
     under chapter 37 of title 38, United States Code--
       (A) the refinancing of fixed-rate mortgage loans to 
     adjustable rate mortgage loans;
       (B) whether veterans are informed of the risks and 
     disclosures associated with that refinancing; and
       (C) whether advertising materials for that refinancing are 
     clear and do not contain misleading statements or assertions; 
     and
       (2) includes findings based on any complaints received by 
     veterans and on an ongoing assessment of the refinancing 
     market by the Secretary.

     SEC. 310. CREDIT SCORE COMPETITION.

       (a) Use of Credit Scores by Fannie Mae in Purchasing 
     Residential Mortgages.--Section 302(b) of the Federal 
     National Mortgage Association Charter Act (12 U.S.C. 1717(b)) 
     is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(7)(A) Definitions.--In this paragraph--
       ``(i) the term `credit score' means a numerical value or a 
     categorization created by a third party derived from a 
     statistical tool or modeling system used by a person who 
     makes or arranges a loan to predict the likelihood of certain 
     credit behaviors, including default; and
       ``(ii) the term `residential mortgage' has the meaning 
     given the term in section 302 of

[[Page S1561]]

     the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1451).
       ``(B) Use of Credit Scores.--The corporation shall 
     condition purchase of a residential mortgage by the 
     corporation under this subsection on the provision of a 
     credit score for the borrower only if--
       ``(i) the credit score is derived from any credit scoring 
     model that has been validated and approved by the corporation 
     under this paragraph; and
       ``(ii) the corporation provides for the use of the credit 
     score by all of the automated underwriting systems of the 
     corporation and any other procedures and systems used by the 
     corporation to purchase residential mortgages that use a 
     credit score.
       ``(C) Validation and Approval Process.--The corporation 
     shall establish a validation and approval process for the use 
     of credit score models, under which the corporation may not 
     validate and approve a credit score model unless the credit 
     score model--
       ``(i) satisfies minimum requirements of integrity, 
     reliability, and accuracy;
       ``(ii) has a historical record of measuring and predicting 
     default rates and other credit behaviors;
       ``(iii) is consistent with the safe and sound operation of 
     the corporation;
       ``(iv) complies with any standards and criteria established 
     by the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency under 
     section 1328(1) of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial 
     Safety and Soundness Act of 1992; and
       ``(v) satisfies any other requirements, as determined by 
     the corporation.
       ``(D) Replacement of Credit Score Model.--If the 
     corporation has validated and approved 1 or more credit score 
     models under subparagraph (C) and the corporation validates 
     and approves an additional credit score model, the 
     corporation may determine that--
       ``(i) the additional credit score model has replaced the 
     credit score model or credit score models previously 
     validated and approved; and
       ``(ii) the credit score model or credit score models 
     previously validated and approved shall no longer be 
     considered validated and approved for the purposes of 
     subparagraph (B).
       ``(E) Public Disclosure.--Upon establishing the validation 
     and approval process required under subparagraph (C), the 
     corporation shall make publicly available a description of 
     the validation and approval process.
       ``(F) Application.--Not later than 30 days after the 
     effective date of this paragraph, the corporation shall 
     solicit applications from developers of credit scoring models 
     for the validation and approval of those models under the 
     process required under subparagraph (C).
       ``(G) Timeframe for Determination; Notice.--
       ``(i) In general.--The corporation shall make a 
     determination with respect to any application submitted under 
     subparagraph (F), and provide notice of that determination to 
     the applicant, before a date established by the corporation 
     that is not later than 180 days after the date on which an 
     application is submitted to the corporation.
       ``(ii) Extensions.--The Director of the Federal Housing 
     Finance Agency may authorize not more than 2 extensions of 
     the date established under clause (i), each of which shall 
     not exceed 30 days, upon a written request and a showing of 
     good cause by the corporation.
       ``(iii) Status notice.--The corporation shall provide 
     notice to an applicant regarding the status of an application 
     submitted under subparagraph (F) not later than 60 days after 
     the date on which the application was submitted to the 
     corporation.
       ``(iv) Reasons for disapproval.--If an application 
     submitted under subparagraph (F) is disapproved, the 
     corporation shall provide to the applicant the reasons for 
     the disapproval not later than 30 days after a determination 
     is made under this subparagraph.
       ``(H) Authority of Director.--If the corporation elects to 
     use a credit score model under this paragraph, the Director 
     of the Federal Housing Finance Agency shall require the 
     corporation to periodically review the validation and 
     approval process required under subparagraph (C) as the 
     Director determines necessary to ensure that the process 
     remains appropriate and adequate and complies with any 
     standards and criteria established pursuant to section 
     1328(1) of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety 
     and Soundness Act of 1992.
       ``(I) Extension.--If, as of the effective date of this 
     paragraph, a credit score model has not been approved under 
     subparagraph (C), the corporation may use a credit score 
     model that was in use before the effective date of this 
     paragraph, if necessary to prevent substantial market 
     disruptions, until the earlier of--
       ``(i) the date on which a credit score model is validated 
     and approved under subparagraph (C); or
       ``(ii) the date that is 2 years after the effective date of 
     this paragraph.''.
       (b) Use of Credit Scores by Freddie Mac in Purchasing 
     Residential Mortgages.--Section 305 of the Federal Home Loan 
     Mortgage Corporation Act (12 U.S.C. 1454) is amended by 
     adding at the end the following:
       ``(d)(1) Definition.--In this subsection, the term `credit 
     score' means a numerical value or a categorization created by 
     a third party derived from a statistical tool or modeling 
     system used by a person who makes or arranges a loan to 
     predict the likelihood of certain credit behaviors, including 
     default.
       ``(2) Use of Credit Scores.--The Corporation shall 
     condition purchase of a residential mortgage by the 
     Corporation under this section on the provision of a credit 
     score for the borrower only if--
       ``(A) the credit score is derived from any credit scoring 
     model that has been validated and approved by the Corporation 
     under this subsection; and
       ``(B) the Corporation provides for the use of the credit 
     score by all of the automated underwriting systems of the 
     Corporation and any other procedures and systems used by the 
     Corporation to purchase residential mortgages that use a 
     credit score.
       ``(3) Validation and Approval Process.--The Corporation 
     shall establish a validation and approval process for the use 
     of credit score models, under which the Corporation may not 
     validate and approve a credit score model unless the credit 
     score model--
       ``(A) satisfies minimum requirements of integrity, 
     reliability, and accuracy;
       ``(B) has a historical record of measuring and predicting 
     default rates and other credit behaviors;
       ``(C) is consistent with the safe and sound operation of 
     the corporation;
       ``(D) complies with any standards and criteria established 
     by the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency under 
     section 1328(1) of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial 
     Safety and Soundness Act of 1992; and
       ``(E) satisfies any other requirements, as determined by 
     the Corporation.
       ``(4) Replacement of Credit Score Model.--If the 
     Corporation has validated and approved 1 or more credit score 
     models under paragraph (3) and the Corporation validates and 
     approves an additional credit score model, the Corporation 
     may determine that--
       ``(A) the additional credit score model has replaced the 
     credit score model or credit score models previously 
     validated and approved; and
       ``(B) the credit score model or credit score models 
     previously validated and approved shall no longer be 
     considered validated and approved for the purposes of 
     paragraph (2).
       ``(5) Public Disclosure.--Upon establishing the validation 
     and approval process required under paragraph (3), the 
     Corporation shall make publicly available a description of 
     the validation and approval process.
       ``(6) Application.--Not later than 30 days after the 
     effective date of this subsection, the Corporation shall 
     solicit applications from developers of credit scoring models 
     for the validation and approval of those models under the 
     process required under paragraph (3).
       ``(7) Timeframe for Determination; Notice.--
       ``(A) In general.--The Corporation shall make a 
     determination with respect to any application submitted under 
     paragraph (6), and provide notice of that determination to 
     the applicant, before a date established by the Corporation 
     that is not later than 180 days after the date on which an 
     application is submitted to the Corporation.
       ``(B) Extensions.--The Director of the Federal Housing 
     Finance Agency may authorize not more than 2 extensions of 
     the date established under subparagraph (A), each of which 
     shall not exceed 30 days, upon a written request and a 
     showing of good cause by the Corporation.
       ``(C) Status notice.--The Corporation shall provide notice 
     to an applicant regarding the status of an application 
     submitted under paragraph (6) not later than 60 days after 
     the date on which the application was submitted to the 
     Corporation.
       ``(D) Reasons for disapproval.--If an application submitted 
     under paragraph (6) is disapproved, the Corporation shall 
     provide to the applicant the reasons for the disapproval not 
     later than 30 days after a determination is made under this 
     paragraph.
       ``(8) Authority of Director.--If the Corporation elects to 
     use a credit score under this subsection, the Director of the 
     Federal Housing Finance Agency shall require the Corporation 
     to periodically review the validation and approval process 
     required under paragraph (3) as the Director determines 
     necessary to ensure that the process remains appropriate and 
     adequate and complies with any standards and criteria 
     established pursuant to section 1328(1) of the Federal 
     Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 
     1992.
       ``(9) Extension.--If, as of the effective date of this 
     subsection, a credit score model has not been approved under 
     paragraph (3), the Corporation may use a credit score model 
     that was in use before the effective date of this subsection, 
     if necessary to prevent substantial market disruptions, until 
     the earlier of--
       ``(A) the date on which a credit score model is validated 
     and approved under paragraph (3); or
       ``(B) the date that is 2 years after the effective date of 
     this subsection.''.
       (c) Authority of the Director.--Subpart A of part 2 of 
     subtitle A of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial 
     Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4541 et seq.) is 
     amended by adding at the end the following:

     ``SEC. 1328. REGULATIONS FOR USE OF CREDIT SCORES.

       ``The Director shall--
       ``(1) by regulation, establish standards and criteria for 
     any process used by an enterprise to validate and approve 
     credit scoring models pursuant to section 302(b)(7) of the 
     Federal National Mortgage Association Charter

[[Page S1562]]

     Act (12 U.S.C. 1717(b)(7)) and section 305(d) of the Federal 
     Home Loan Mortgage Corporation Act (12 U.S.C. 1454(d)); and
       ``(2) ensure that any credit scoring model that is 
     validated and approved by an enterprise under section 
     302(b)(7) (12 U.S.C. 1717(b)(7)) of the Federal National 
     Mortgage Association Charter Act or section 305(d) of the 
     Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation Act (12 U.S.C. 
     1454(d)) meets the requirements of clauses (i), (ii), and 
     (iii) of section 302(b)(7)(C) of the Federal National 
     Mortgage Association Charter Act and subparagraphs (A), (B), 
     and (C) of section 305(d)(3) of the Federal Home Loan 
     Mortgage Corporation Act, respectively.''.
       (d) Effective Date.--The amendments made by subsections (a) 
     and (b) shall take effect on the date that is 180 days after 
     the date of enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 311. GAO REPORT ON PUERTO RICO FORECLOSURES.

       Not earlier than 1 year after the date of enactment of this 
     Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall 
     submit to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
     Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Financial Services 
     of the House of Representatives a report on foreclosures in 
     the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, including--
       (1) the rate of foreclosures in the Commonwealth of Puerto 
     Rico before and after Hurricane Maria;
       (2) the rate of return for housing developers in the 
     Commonwealth of Puerto Rico before and after Hurricane Maria;
       (3) the rate of delinquency in the Commonwealth of Puerto 
     Rico before and after Hurricane Maria;
       (4) the rate of homeownership in the Commonwealth of Puerto 
     Rico before and after Hurricane Maria; and
       (5) the rate of defaults on federally insured mortgages in 
     the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico before and after Hurricane 
     Maria.

     SEC. 312. REPORT ON CHILDREN'S LEAD-BASED PAINT HAZARD 
                   PREVENTION AND ABATEMENT.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section--
       (1) the term ``Department'' means the Department of Housing 
     and Urban Development; and
       (2) the term ``public housing agency'' has the meaning 
     given the term in section 3(b) of the United States Housing 
     Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437a(b)).
       (b) Report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Housing and Urban 
     Development shall submit to Congress a report that includes--
       (1) an overview of existing policies and enforcement of the 
     Department, including public outreach, relating to lead-based 
     paint hazard prevention and abatement;
       (2) recommendations and best practices for the Department, 
     public housing agencies, and landlords for improving lead-
     based paint hazard prevention standards and Federal lead 
     prevention and abatement policies to protect the 
     environmental health and safety of children, including within 
     housing receiving assistance from or occupied by families 
     receiving housing assistance from the Department; and
       (3) recommendations for legislation to improve lead-based 
     paint hazard prevention and abatement.

     SEC. 313. FORECLOSURE RELIEF AND EXTENSION FOR 
                   SERVICEMEMBERS.

       Section 710(d) of the Honoring America's Veterans and 
     Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 (Public Law 112-
     154; 50 U.S.C. 3953 note) is amended by striking paragraphs 
     (1) and (3).

   TITLE IV--TAILORING REGULATIONS FOR CERTAIN BANK HOLDING COMPANIES

     SEC. 401. ENHANCED SUPERVISION AND PRUDENTIAL STANDARDS FOR 
                   CERTAIN BANK HOLDING COMPANIES.

       (a) In General.--Section 165 of the Financial Stability Act 
     of 2010 (12 U.S.C. 5365) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (a)--
       (A) in paragraph (1), in the matter preceding subparagraph 
     (A), by striking ``$50,000,000,000'' and inserting 
     ``$250,000,000,000''; and
       (B) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``may'' and inserting 
     ``shall'';
       (ii) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``$50,000,000,000'' 
     and inserting ``the applicable threshold''; and
       (iii) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(C) Risks to financial stability and safety and 
     soundness.--The Board of Governors may by order or rule 
     promulgated pursuant to section 553 of title 5, United States 
     Code, apply any prudential standard established under this 
     section to any bank holding company or bank holding companies 
     with total consolidated assets equal to or greater than 
     $100,000,000,000 to which the prudential standard does not 
     otherwise apply provided that the Board of Governors--
       ``(i) determines that application of the prudential 
     standard is appropriate--

       ``(I) to prevent or mitigate risks to the financial 
     stability of the United States, as described in paragraph 
     (1); or
       ``(II) to promote the safety and soundness of the bank 
     holding company or bank holding companies; and

       ``(ii) takes into consideration the bank holding company's 
     or bank holding companies' capital structure, riskiness, 
     complexity, financial activities (including financial 
     activities of subsidiaries), size, and any other risk-related 
     factors that the Board of Governors deems appropriate.'';
       (2) in subsection (b)(1)--
       (A) in subparagraph (A)(iv), by striking ``and credit 
     exposure report''; and
       (B) in subparagraph (B)(ii), by inserting ``, including 
     credit exposure reports'' before the semicolon at the end;
       (3) in subsection (d)(2), in the matter preceding 
     subparagraph (A), by striking ``shall'' and inserting 
     ``may'';
       (4) in subsection (h)(2), by striking ``$10,000,000,000'' 
     each place that term appears and inserting 
     ``$50,000,000,000'';
       (5) in subsection (i)--
       (A) in paragraph (1)(B)(i)--
       (i) by striking ``3'' and inserting ``2''; and
       (ii) by striking ``, adverse,''; and
       (B) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) in subparagraph (A)--

       (I) in the first sentence, by striking ``semiannual'' and 
     inserting ``periodic''; and
       (II) in the second sentence--

       (aa) by striking ``$10,000,000,000'' and inserting 
     ``$250,000,000,000''; and
       (bb) by striking ``annual'' and inserting ``periodic''; and
       (ii) in subparagraph (C)(ii)--

       (I) by striking ``3'' and inserting ``2''; and
       (II) by striking ``, adverse,''; and

       (6) in subsection (j)(1), in the first sentence, by 
     striking ``$50,000,000,000'' and inserting 
     ``$250,000,000,000''.
       (b) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in subsection (a) shall 
     be construed to limit--
       (1) the authority of the Board of Governors of the Federal 
     Reserve System, in prescribing prudential standards under 
     section 165 of the Financial Stability Act of 2010 (12 U.S.C. 
     5365) or any other law, to tailor or differentiate among 
     companies on an individual basis or by category, taking into 
     consideration their capital structure, riskiness, complexity, 
     financial activities (including financial activities of their 
     subsidiaries), size, and any other risk-related factors that 
     the Board of Governors deems appropriate; or
       (2) the supervisory, regulatory, or enforcement authority 
     of an appropriate Federal banking agency to further the safe 
     and sound operation of an institution under the supervision 
     of the appropriate Federal banking agency.
       (c) Technical and Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Financial stability act of 2010.--The Financial 
     Stability Act of 2010 (12 U.S.C. 5311 et seq.) is amended--
       (A) in section 115(a)(2)(B) (12 U.S.C. 5325(a)(2)(B)), by 
     striking ``$50,000,000,000'' and inserting ``the applicable 
     threshold'';
       (B) in section 116(a) (12 U.S.C. 5326(a)), in the matter 
     preceding paragraph (1), by striking ``$50,000,000,000'' and 
     inserting ``$250,000,000,000'';
       (C) in section 121(a) (12 U.S.C. 5331(a)), in the matter 
     preceding paragraph (1), by striking ``$50,000,000,000'' and 
     inserting ``$250,000,000,000'';
       (D) in section 155(d) (12 U.S.C. 5345(d)), by striking 
     ``50,000,000,000'' and inserting ``$250,000,000,000'';
       (E) in section 163(b) (12 U.S.C. 5363(b)), by striking 
     ``$50,000,000,000'' each place that term appears and 
     inserting ``$250,000,000,000''; and
       (F) in section 164 (12 U.S.C. 5364), by striking 
     ``$50,000,000,000'' and inserting ``$250,000,000,000''.
       (2) Federal reserve act.--The second subsection (s) 
     (relating to assessments) of section 11 of the Federal 
     Reserve Act (12 U.S.C. 248(s)) is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (2)--
       (i) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``$50,000,000,000'' 
     and inserting ``$100,000,000,000''; and
       (ii) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``$50,000,000,000'' 
     and inserting ``$100,000,000,000''; and
       (B) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(3) Tailoring assessments.--In collecting assessments, 
     fees, or other charges under paragraph (1) from each company 
     described in paragraph (2) with total consolidated assets of 
     between $100,000,000,000 and $250,000,000,000, the Board 
     shall adjust the amount charged to reflect any changes in 
     supervisory and regulatory responsibilities resulting from 
     the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer 
     Protection Act with respect to each such company.''.
       (d) Effective Date.--
       (1) In general.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), the 
     amendments made by this section shall take effect on the date 
     that is 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act.
       (2) Exception.--Notwithstanding paragraph (1), the 
     amendments made by this section shall take effect on the date 
     of enactment of this Act with respect to any bank holding 
     company with total consolidated assets of less than 
     $100,000,000,000.
       (3) Additional authority.--Before the effective date 
     described in paragraph (1), the Board of Governors of the 
     Federal Reserve System may by order exempt any bank holding 
     company with total consolidated assets of less than 
     $250,000,000,000 from any prudential standard under section 
     165 of the Financial Stability Act of 2010 (12 U.S.C. 5365).
       (4) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this section shall be 
     construed to prohibit the Board of Governors of the Federal 
     Reserve System from issuing an order or rule making under 
     section 165(a)(2)(C) of the Financial Stability Act of 2010 
     (12 U.S.C. 5365(a)(2)(C)), as added by this section, before 
     the effective date described in paragraph (1).
       (e) Supervisory Stress Test.--Beginning on the effective 
     date described in subsection

[[Page S1563]]

     (d)(1), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System 
     shall, on a periodic basis, conduct supervisory stress tests 
     of bank holding companies with total consolidated assets 
     equal to or greater than $100,000,000,000 and total 
     consolidated assets of less than $250,000,000,000 to evaluate 
     whether such bank holding companies have the capital, on a 
     total consolidated basis, necessary to absorb losses as a 
     result of adverse economic conditions.
       (f) Global Systemically Important Bank Holding Companies.--
     Any bank holding company, regardless of asset size, that has 
     been identified as a global systemically important BHC under 
     section 217.402 of title 12, Code of Federal Regulations, 
     shall be considered a bank holding company with total 
     consolidated assets equal to or greater than $250,000,000,000 
     with respect to the application of standards or requirements 
     under--
       (1) this section;
       (2) sections 116(a), 121(a), 155(d), 163(b), 164, and 165 
     of the Financial Stability Act of 2010 (12 U.S.C. 5326(a), 
     5331(a), 5345(d), 5363(b), 5364, 5365); and
       (3) paragraph (2)(A) of the second subsection (s) (relating 
     to assessments) of section 11 of the Federal Reserve Act (12 
     U.S.C. 248(s)(2)).
       (g) Clarification for Foreign Banks.--Nothing in this 
     section shall be construed to--
       (1) affect the legal effect of the final rule of the Board 
     of Governors of the Federal Reserve System entitled 
     ``Enhanced Prudential Standards for Bank Holding Companies 
     and Foreign Banking Organizations'' (79 Fed. Reg. 17240 
     (March 27, 2014)) as applied to foreign banking organizations 
     with total consolidated assets equal to or greater than 
     $100,000,000,000; or
       (2) limit the authority of the Board of Governors of the 
     Federal Reserve System to require the establishment of an 
     intermediate holding company under, implement enhanced 
     prudential standards with respect to, or tailor the 
     regulation of a foreign banking organization with total 
     consolidated assets equal to or greater than 
     $100,000,000,000.

     SEC. 402. SUPPLEMENTARY LEVERAGE RATIO FOR CUSTODIAL BANKS.

       (a) Definition.--In this section, the term ``custodial 
     bank'' means any depository institution holding company 
     predominantly engaged in custody, safekeeping, and asset 
     servicing activities, including any insured depository 
     institution subsidiary of such a holding company.
       (b) Regulations.--
       (1) Definition.--In this subsection, the term ``central 
     bank'' means--
       (A) the Federal Reserve System;
       (B) the European Central Bank; and
       (C) central banks of member countries of the Organisation 
     for Economic Co-operation and Development, if--
       (i) the member country has been assigned a zero percent 
     risk weight under sections 3.32, 217.32, and 324.32 of title 
     12, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor regulation; 
     and
       (ii) the sovereign debt of such member country is not in 
     default or has not been in default during the previous 5 
     years.
       (2) Regulations.--The appropriate Federal banking agencies 
     shall promulgate regulations to amend sections 3.10, 217.10, 
     and 324.10 of title 12, Code of Federal Regulations, to 
     specify that--
       (A) subject to subparagraph (B), funds of a custodial bank 
     that are deposited with a central bank shall not be taken 
     into account when calculating the supplementary leverage 
     ratio as applied to the custodial bank; and
       (B) with respect to the funds described in subparagraph 
     (A), any amount that exceeds the total value of deposits of 
     the custodial bank that are linked to fiduciary or custodial 
     and safekeeping accounts shall be taken into account when 
     calculating the supplementary leverage ratio as applied to 
     the custodial bank.
       (c) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in subsection (b) shall 
     be construed to limit the authority of the appropriate 
     Federal banking agencies to tailor or adjust the 
     supplementary leverage ratio or any other leverage ratio for 
     any company that is not a custodial bank.

     SEC. 403. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN MUNICIPAL OBLIGATIONS.

       (a) In General.--Section 18 of the Federal Deposit 
     Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1828) is amended--
       (1) by moving subsection (z) so that it appears after 
     subsection (y); and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(aa) Treatment of Certain Municipal Obligations.--
       ``(1) Definitions.--In this subsection--
       ``(A) the term `investment grade', with respect to an 
     obligation, has the meaning given the term in section 1.2 of 
     title 12, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor 
     thereto;
       ``(B) the term `liquid and readily-marketable' has the 
     meaning given the term in section 249.3 of title 12, Code of 
     Federal Regulations, or any successor thereto; and
       ``(C) the term `municipal obligation' means an obligation 
     of--
       ``(i) a State or any political subdivision thereof; or
       ``(ii) any agency or instrumentality of a State or any 
     political subdivision thereof.
       ``(2) Municipal obligations.--For purposes of the final 
     rule entitled `Liquidity Coverage Ratio: Liquidity Risk 
     Measurement Standards' (79 Fed. Reg. 61439 (October 10, 
     2014)), the final rule entitled `Liquidity Coverage Ratio: 
     Treatment of U.S. Municipal Securities as High-Quality Liquid 
     Assets' (81 Fed. Reg. 21223 (April 11, 2016)), and any other 
     regulation that incorporates a definition of the term `high-
     quality liquid asset' or another substantially similar term, 
     the appropriate Federal banking agencies shall treat a 
     municipal obligation as a high-quality liquid asset that is a 
     level 2B liquid asset if that obligation is, as of the date 
     of calculation--
       ``(A) liquid and readily-marketable; and
       ``(B) investment grade.''.
       (b) Amendment to Liquidity Coverage Ratio Regulations.--Not 
     later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, 
     the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of 
     Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Comptroller 
     of the Currency shall amend the final rule entitled 
     ``Liquidity Coverage Ratio: Liquidity Risk Measurement 
     Standards'' (79 Fed. Reg. 61439 (October 10, 2014)) and the 
     final rule entitled ``Liquidity Coverage Ratio: Treatment of 
     U.S. Municipal Securities as High-Quality Liquid Assets'' (81 
     Fed. Reg. 21223 (April 11, 2016)) to implement the amendments 
     made by this section.

                 TITLE V--ENCOURAGING CAPITAL FORMATION

     SEC. 501. NATIONAL SECURITIES EXCHANGE REGULATORY PARITY.

       Section 18(b)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933 (15 U.S.C. 
     77r(b)(1)) is amended--
       (1) by striking subparagraph (A);
       (2) in subparagraph (B)--
       (A) by inserting ``a security designated as qualified for 
     trading in the national market system pursuant to section 
     11A(a)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 
     78k-1(a)(2)) that is'' before ``listed''; and
       (B) by striking ``that has listing standards that the 
     Commission determines by rule (on its own initiative or on 
     the basis of a petition) are substantially similar to the 
     listing standards applicable to securities described in 
     subparagraph (A)'';
       (3) in subparagraph (C), by striking ``or (B)''; and
       (4) by redesignating subparagraphs (B) and (C) as 
     subparagraphs (A) and (B), respectively.

     SEC. 502. SEC STUDY ON ALGORITHMIC TRADING.

       (a) In General.--Not later than 18 months after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the staff of the Securities and 
     Exchange Commission shall submit to the Committee on Banking, 
     Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on 
     Financial Services of the House of Representatives a report 
     on the risks and benefits of algorithmic trading in capital 
     markets in the United States.
       (b) Matters Required To Be Included.--The matters covered 
     by the report required by subsection (a) shall include the 
     following:
       (1) An assessment of the effect of algorithmic trading in 
     equity and debt markets in the United States on the provision 
     of liquidity in stressed and normal market conditions.
       (2) An assessment of the benefits and risks to equity and 
     debt markets in the United States by algorithmic trading.
       (3) An analysis of whether the activity of algorithmic 
     trading and entities that engage in algorithmic trading are 
     subject to appropriate Federal supervision and regulation.
       (4) A recommendation of whether--
       (A) based on the analysis described in paragraphs (1), (2), 
     and (3), any changes should be made to regulations; and
       (B) the Securities and Exchange Commission needs additional 
     legal authorities or resources to effect the changes 
     described in subparagraph (A).

     SEC. 503. ANNUAL REVIEW OF GOVERNMENT-BUSINESS FORUM ON 
                   CAPITAL FORMATION.

       Section 503 of the Small Business Investment Incentive Act 
     of 1980 (15 U.S.C. 80c-1) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:
       ``(e) The Commission shall--
       ``(1) review the findings and recommendations of the forum; 
     and
       ``(2) each time the forum submits a finding or 
     recommendation to the Commission, promptly issue a public 
     statement--
       ``(A) assessing the finding or recommendation of the forum; 
     and
       ``(B) disclosing the action, if any, the Commission intends 
     to take with respect to the finding or recommendation.''.

     SEC. 504. SUPPORTING AMERICA'S INNOVATORS.

       Section 3(c)(1) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 
     U.S.C. 80a-3(c)(1)) is amended--
       (1) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by inserting 
     ``(or, in the case of a qualifying venture capital fund, 250 
     persons)'' after ``one hundred persons''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(C)(i) The term `qualifying venture capital fund' means a 
     venture capital fund that has not more than $10,000,000 in 
     aggregate capital contributions and uncalled committed 
     capital, with such dollar amount to be indexed for inflation 
     once every 5 years by the Commission, beginning from a 
     measurement made by the Commission on a date selected by the 
     Commission, rounded to the nearest $1,000,000.
       ``(ii) The term `venture capital fund' has the meaning 
     given the term in section 275.203(l)-1 of title 17, Code of 
     Federal Regulations, or any successor regulation.''.

     SEC. 505. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION OVERPAYMENT 
                   CREDIT.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section--
       (1) the term ``Commission'' means the Securities and 
     Exchange Commission;

[[Page S1564]]

       (2) the term ``national securities association'' means an 
     association that is registered under section 15A of the 
     Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78o-3); and
       (3) the term ``national securities exchange'' means an 
     exchange that is registered as a national securities exchange 
     under section 6 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 
     U.S.C. 78f).
       (b) Credit for Overpayment of Fees.--Notwithstanding 
     section 31(j) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 
     U.S.C. 78ee(j)), and subject to subsection (c) of this 
     section, if a national securities exchange or a national 
     securities association has paid fees and assessments to the 
     Commission in an amount that is more than the amount that the 
     exchange or association was required to pay under section 31 
     of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78ee) and, 
     not later than 10 years after the date of such payment, the 
     exchange or association informs the Commission about the 
     payment of such excess amount, the Commission shall offset 
     future fees and assessments due by that exchange or 
     association in an amount that is equal to the difference 
     between the amount that the exchange or association paid and 
     the amount that the exchange or association was required to 
     pay under such section 31.
       (c) Applicability.--Subsection (b) shall apply only to fees 
     and assessments that a national securities exchange or a 
     national securities association was required to pay to the 
     Commission before the date of enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 506. U.S. TERRITORIES INVESTOR PROTECTION.

       (a) In General.--Section 6(a) of the Investment Company Act 
     of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-6(a)) is amended--
       (1) by striking paragraph (1); and
       (2) by redesignating paragraphs (2) through (5) as 
     paragraphs (1) through (4), respectively.
       (b) Effective Date and Safe Harbor.--
       (1) Effective date.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), 
     the amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the 
     date of enactment of this Act.
       (2) Safe harbor.--With respect to a company that is exempt 
     under section 6(a)(1) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 
     (15 U.S.C. 80a-6(a)(1)) on the day before the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the amendment made by subsection (a) 
     shall take effect on the date that is 3 years after the date 
     of enactment of this Act.
       (3) Extension of safe harbor.--The Securities and Exchange 
     Commission, by rule or regulation upon its own motion, or by 
     order upon application, may conditionally or unconditionally, 
     under section 6(c) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 
     U.S.C. 80a-6(c)), further delay the effective date for a 
     company described in paragraph (2) for a maximum of 3 years 
     following the initial 3-year period if, before the end of the 
     initial 3-year period, the Commission determines that such a 
     rule, regulation, motion, or order is necessary or 
     appropriate in the public interest and for the protection of 
     investors.

     SEC. 507. ENCOURAGING EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP.

       Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission shall revise 
     section 230.701(e) of title 17, Code of Federal Regulations, 
     so as to increase from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 the 
     aggregate sales price or amount of securities sold during any 
     consecutive 12-month period in excess of which the issuer is 
     required under such section to deliver an additional 
     disclosure to investors. The Commission shall index for 
     inflation such aggregate sales price or amount every 5 years 
     to reflect the change in the Consumer Price Index for All 
     Urban Consumers published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 
     rounding to the nearest $1,000,000.

     SEC. 508. IMPROVING ACCESS TO CAPITAL.

       The Securities and Exchange Commission shall amend--
       (1) section 230.251 of title 17, Code of Federal 
     Regulations, to remove the requirement that the issuer not be 
     subject to section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act 
     of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78a et seq.) immediately before the 
     offering; and
       (2) section 230.257 of title 17, Code of Federal 
     Regulations, with respect to an offering described in section 
     230.251(a)(2) of title 17, Code of Federal Regulations, to 
     deem any issuer that is subject to section 13 or 15(d) of the 
     Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as having met the periodic 
     and current reporting requirements of section 230.257 of 
     title 17, Code of Federal Regulations, if such issuer meets 
     the reporting requirements of section 13 of the Securities 
     Exchange Act of 1934.

     SEC. 509. PARITY FOR CLOSED-END COMPANIES REGARDING OFFERING 
                   AND PROXY RULES.

       (a) Revision to Rules.--Not later than the end of the 1-
     year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, 
     the Securities and Exchange Commission shall propose and, not 
     later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, 
     the Securities and Exchange Commission shall finalize any 
     rules, as appropriate, to allow any closed-end company, as 
     defined in section 5(a)(2) of the Investment Company Act of 
     1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-5), that is registered as an investment 
     company under such Act, and is listed on a national 
     securities exchange or that makes periodic repurchase offers 
     pursuant to section 270.23c-3 of title 17, Code of Federal 
     Regulations, to use the securities offering and proxy rules, 
     subject to conditions the Commission determines appropriate, 
     that are available to other issuers that are required to file 
     reports under section 13 or section 15(d) of the Securities 
     Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78m; 78o(d)). Any action that 
     the Commission takes pursuant to this subsection shall 
     consider the availability of information to investors, 
     including what disclosures constitute adequate information to 
     be designated as a ``well-known seasoned issuer''.
       (b) Treatment if Revisions Not Completed in a Timely 
     Manner.--If the Commission fails to complete the revisions 
     required by subsection (a) by the time required by such 
     subsection, any registered closed-end company that is listed 
     on a national securities exchange or that makes periodic 
     repurchase offers pursuant to section 270.23c-3 of title 17, 
     Code of Federal Regulations, shall be deemed to be an 
     eligible issuer under the final rule of the Commission titled 
     ``Securities Offering Reform'' (70 Fed. Reg. 44722; published 
     August 3, 2005).
       (c) Rules of Construction.--
       (1) No effect on rule 482.--Nothing in this section or the 
     amendments made by this section shall be construed to impair 
     or limit in any way a registered closed-end company from 
     using section 230.482 of title 17, Code of Federal 
     Regulations, to distribute sales material.
       (2) References.--Any reference in this section to a section 
     of title 17, Code of Federal Regulations, or to any form or 
     schedule means such rule, section, form, or schedule, or any 
     successor to any such rule, section, form, or schedule.

              TITLE VI--PROTECTIONS FOR STUDENT BORROWERS

     SEC. 601. PROTECTIONS IN THE EVENT OF DEATH OR BANKRUPTCY.

       (a) In General.--Section 140 of the Truth in Lending Act 
     (15 U.S.C. 1650) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (a)--
       (A) by redesignating paragraphs (1) through (8) as 
     paragraphs (2) through (9), respectively; and
       (B) by inserting before paragraph (2), as so redesignated, 
     the following:
       ``(1) the term `cosigner'--
       ``(A) means any individual who is liable for the obligation 
     of another without compensation, regardless of how designated 
     in the contract or instrument with respect to that 
     obligation, other than an obligation under a private 
     education loan extended to consolidate a consumer's pre-
     existing private education loans;
       ``(B) includes any person the signature of which is 
     requested as condition to grant credit or to forbear on 
     collection; and
       ``(C) does not include a spouse of an individual described 
     in subparagraph (A), the signature of whom is needed to 
     perfect the security interest in a loan.''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(g) Additional Protections Relating to Borrower or 
     Cosigner of a Private Education Loan.--
       ``(1) Prohibition on automatic default in case of death or 
     bankruptcy of non-student obligor.--With respect to a private 
     education loan involving a student obligor and 1 or more 
     cosigners, the creditor shall not declare a default or 
     accelerate the debt against the student obligor on the sole 
     basis of a bankruptcy or death of a cosigner.
       ``(2) Cosigner release in case of death of borrower.--
       ``(A) Release of cosigner.--The holder of a private 
     education loan, when notified of the death of a student 
     obligor, shall release within a reasonable timeframe any 
     cosigner from the obligations of the cosigner under the 
     private education loan.
       ``(B) Notification of release.--A holder or servicer of a 
     private education loan, as applicable, shall within a 
     reasonable time-frame notify any cosigners for the private 
     education loan if a cosigner is released from the obligations 
     of the cosigner for the private education loan under this 
     paragraph.
       ``(C) Designation of individual to act on behalf of the 
     borrower.--Any lender that extends a private education loan 
     shall provide the student obligor an option to designate an 
     individual to have the legal authority to act on behalf of 
     the student obligor with respect to the private education 
     loan in the event of the death of the student obligor.''.
       (b) Applicability.--The amendments made by subsection (a) 
     shall only apply to private education loan agreements entered 
     into on or after the date that is 180 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 602. REHABILITATION OF PRIVATE EDUCATION LOANS.

       (a) In General.--Section 623(a)(1) of the Fair Credit 
     Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681s-2(a)(1)) is amended by adding 
     at the end the following:
       ``(E) Rehabilitation of private education loans.--
       ``(i) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     this section, a consumer may request a financial institution 
     to remove from a consumer report a reported default regarding 
     a private education loan, and such information shall not be 
     considered inaccurate, if--

       ``(I) the financial institution chooses to offer a loan 
     rehabilitation program which includes, without limitation, a 
     requirement of the consumer to make consecutive on-time 
     monthly payments in a number that demonstrates, in the 
     assessment of the financial institution offering the loan 
     rehabilitation program, a renewed ability and willingness to 
     repay the loan; and

[[Page S1565]]

       ``(II) the requirements of the loan rehabilitation program 
     described in subclause (I) are successfully met.

       ``(ii) Banking agencies.--

       ``(I) In general.--If a financial institution is supervised 
     by a Federal banking agency, the financial institution shall 
     seek written approval concerning the terms and conditions of 
     the loan rehabilitation program described in clause (i) from 
     the appropriate Federal banking agency.
       ``(II) Feedback.--An appropriate Federal banking agency 
     shall provide feedback to a financial institution within 120 
     days of a request for approval under subclause (I).

       ``(iii) Limitation.--

       ``(I) In general.--A consumer may obtain the benefits 
     available under this subsection with respect to 
     rehabilitating a loan only 1 time per loan.
       ``(II) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subparagraph 
     may be construed to require a financial institution to offer 
     a loan rehabilitation program or to remove any reported 
     default from a consumer report as a consideration of a loan 
     rehabilitation program, except as described in clause (i).

       ``(iv) Definitions.--For purposes of this subparagraph--

       ``(I) the term `appropriate Federal banking agency' has the 
     meaning given the term in section 3 of the Federal Deposit 
     Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813); and
       ``(II) the term `private education loan' has the meaning 
     given the term in section 140(a) of the Truth in Lending Act 
     (15 U.S.C. 1650(a)).''.

       (b) GAO Study.--
       (1) Study.--The Comptroller General of the United States 
     shall conduct a study, in consultation with the appropriate 
     Federal banking agencies, regarding--
       (A) the implementation of subparagraph (E) of section 
     623(a)(1) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681s-
     2(a)(1)) (referred to in this paragraph as ``the 
     provision''), as added by subsection (a);
       (B) the estimated operational, compliance, and reporting 
     costs associated with the requirements of the provision;
       (C) the effects of the requirements of the provision on the 
     accuracy of credit reporting;
       (D) the risks to safety and soundness, if any, created by 
     the loan rehabilitation programs described in the provision; 
     and
       (E) a review of the effectiveness and impact on the credit 
     of participants in any loan rehabilitation programs described 
     in the provision and whether such programs improved the 
     ability of participants in the programs to access credit 
     products.
       (2) Report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United 
     States shall submit to Congress a report that contains all 
     findings and determinations made in conducting the study 
     required under paragraph (1).

     SEC. 603. BEST PRACTICES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION FINANCIAL 
                   LITERACY.

       Section 514(a) of the Financial Literacy and Education 
     Improvement Act (20 U.S.C. 9703(a)) is amended by adding at 
     the end the following:
       ``(3) Best practices for teaching financial literacy.--
       ``(A) In general.--After soliciting public comments and 
     consulting with and receiving input from relevant parties, 
     including a diverse set of institutions of higher education 
     and other parties, the Commission shall, by not later than 1 
     year after the date of enactment of the Economic Growth, 
     Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, establish 
     best practices for institutions of higher education regarding 
     methods to--
       ``(i) teach financial literacy skills; and
       ``(ii) provide useful and necessary information to assist 
     students at institutions of higher education when making 
     financial decisions related to student borrowing.
       ``(B) Best practices.--The best practices described in 
     subparagraph (A) shall include the following:
       ``(i) Methods to ensure that each student has a clear sense 
     of the student's total borrowing obligations, including 
     monthly payments, and repayment options.
       ``(ii) The most effective ways to engage students in 
     financial literacy education, including frequency and timing 
     of communication with students.
       ``(iii) Information on how to target different student 
     populations, including part-time students, first-time 
     students, and other nontraditional students.
       ``(iv) Ways to clearly communicate the importance of 
     graduating on a student's ability to repay student loans.
       ``(C) Maintenance of best practices.--The Commission shall 
     maintain and periodically update the best practices 
     information required under this paragraph and make the best 
     practices available to the public.
       ``(D) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this paragraph 
     shall be construed to require an institution of higher 
     education to adopt the best practices required under this 
     paragraph.''.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk for 
amendment No. 2151, as modified.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Senate amendment 
     No. 2151, as modified, to Calendar No. 287, S. 2155, a bill 
     to promote economic growth, provide tailored regulatory 
     relief, and enhance consumer protections, and for other 
     purposes.
         Mitch McConnell, Tom Cotton, Bob Corker, Ron Johnson, 
           John Barrasso, Cory Gardner, Steve Daines, Mike Crapo, 
           Deb Fischer, Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Rounds, Jeff 
           Flake, John Kennedy, Johnny Isakson, James Lankford, 
           Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk for 
the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 
     287, S. 2155, a bill to promote economic growth, provide 
     tailored regulatory relief, and enhance consumer protections, 
     and for other purposes.
         Mitch McConnell, Tom Cotton, Bob Corker, Ron Johnson, 
           John Barrasso, Cory Gardner, Steve Daines, Mike Crapo, 
           Deb Fischer, Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Rounds, Jeff 
           Flake, John Kennedy, Johnny Isakson, James Lankford, 
           Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn.

                          ____________________