[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 178 (Monday, October 19, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6052-S6059]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5,
UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE OFFICE OF THE
COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY RELATING TO ``COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT
REGULATIONS''--MOTION TO PROCEED
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I move to proceed to H.J. Res. 90,
providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5,
United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency relating to ``Community Reinvestment Act
Regulations,'' which was received from the House.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to H.J. Res. 90, a joint resolution
providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of
title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency relating to
``Community Reinvestment Act Regulations''.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote
on the motion to proceed to H.J. Res. 90 occur at 5:45 p.m. today, with
the time equally divided between the two leaders or their designees.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays are ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Boozman). The Senator from Tennessee is
recognized.
Censorship and Social Media
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, it doesn't take a genius to figure out
that there is a small but very loud sector of the American people who
are willing to condition their tolerance for diverging viewpoints on
how they feel, they themselves feel about what is being said,
worshipped, or reported. And as scary and as frightening as that
attitude is to many of us, it is increasingly reflected in the very
companies that have the most influence over how we access and consume
information.
Last week, we saw two of these companies go to extremes to get in
line with radicals who are trying to block, censor, and intimidate
their way into power. We all know the companies and the controversy I
am talking about. Twitter and Facebook censored the spread of a New
York Post article containing allegations that could potentially affect
the outcome of the upcoming election.
That is all I am going to say about the article itself because,
frankly, the content bears no importance on how anyone should react to
what happened after it was posted. Someone working for a private
company--someone who is a content reviewer or content moderator--
someone working for a private company made a unilateral decision to
stop Americans from reading the article. They didn't like it. They
said: I have the power to stop it, and because I have that power, I am
going to stop it.
Now that is precisely what happened, and I will tell you, colleagues,
it is not just that they blocked the link and the text of the article,
it is that at least in Twitter's case, they suspended the Trump
campaign's account; they suspended the New York Post account; they
locked the White House Press Secretary's account; and they suppressed
information posted by the House Judiciary Committee Republicans. They
couldn't even provide a plausible explanation for why they did this.
Think about that.
They made themselves the arbiters of free speech, and they, in their
almighty position, decided they were going to determine what you could
hear, when you could hear it, and how you could hear it. They decided.
The common element, of course, in all of this action that took place
was the New York Post story. Was it information or hacked information
or just inconvenient information? No one seems to want to answer that
question. Why do they not want to answer that question? It is because
they didn't like the information. It did not suit their narrative, but
the way things stand, they didn't have to, because there is no real
accountability and now their weak explanations have been co-opted into
arguments made by activists, rival media organizations, and even
journalists who were insisting that the information is harmful and must
be stricken from the record.
Mr. SCHUMER. Would the Senator yield? I have brought an announcement
to the floor that will take a brief minute. I don't mean to interrupt.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I would be happy to yield to the Democratic leader.
[[Page S6053]]
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Senator from Tennessee
Notice of Intent
Mr. SCHUMER. I just want to put the Members on notice. Later this
evening, I will make a motion to adjourn the Senate until after the
November election.
The Republican majority refused to consider the Supreme Court nominee
of a duly elected Democratic President because it was 8 months before
the election. Now they are trying to ram through a Justice in mere
days--days--before an election. It is the most rushed, the most
partisan, the least legitimate nomination process in Supreme Court
history, and it should not proceed.
So I want the Members to know that I will move to adjourn until after
the election with the ability to come back into session if there is a
bipartisan agreement on a COVID relief package.
I thank the Senator for letting me put Members on notice that we will
do this later this evening.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed.
Censorship and Social Media
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I have to tell
you, listening to the Democratic leader there, this is one of the
things that social media has taken off on.
They lost. They lost the 2016 Presidential election, and they have
never accepted the results. Never. It doesn't fit their narrative. So
what do they do? Look at this. Let's just not even work. Let's just
adjourn. Let's not do our constitutional duty.
I tell you what, you can't make this stuff up. You really can't.
Cognitive dissonance of this moment in history has overwhelmed the
discourse.
It is important to make it abundantly clear that the outrage--the
absolute outrage from the American people over this incident with
social media has everything to do with their very fluid and subjective
standards that these companies use to control the flow of information,
and over the last few years, they have gotten worse about it. And you
know what? They do it until we slap their hands and then pull them back
in, and we say: You can't do this.
Now, in the case that we are discussing that happened last week, it
looks suspiciously like they applied a brandnew set of standards
because someone got spooked at the prospect of losing momentum on a
political narrative.
They are all working together on this. So let's go home; let's not
work; let's not do our job; let's bury a story on social media. Why?
Their gal didn't win in 2016, and Donald Trump did because the American
people said: We are with him, not her.
Now, here in Washington we can argue all over election-year politics,
but in Tennessee, the people are seeing this for what it is, and they
are not talking about politics. They think this is pretty terrifying.
They are seeing a news platform censor the news, and they are seeing
extremely powerful people cheer it on. To them and to me, that is
frightening.
They are looking to us to get into one of those policy debates my
colleagues across the aisle were so eager to jump into just last week
during Judge Barrett's confirmation hearing.
Fortunately, for them, we have got a head start on that discussion.
Big Tech has spent the last several years building up a body of
evidence against its own intentions, and if we don't address their
growing influence, we will lose our ability to create responsive
policy.
I have already come to the floor several times to speak on various
ways we are doing this--through legislation, antitrust investigations,
and some good old-fashioned committee hearings. Congress doing its job,
precisely why we ought not to adjourn, precisely why we should stay
here and do our work.
On October 28, the Commerce Committee will host a few familiar faces
for a hearing where we will analyze the effect that the liability
shield found in section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has on
Big Tech's behavior. Over the course of the hearing, we will speak with
Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Sundar Pichai
of Google about their approach to using the section 230 shield.
We will also examine various legislative proposals to modernize
section 230, including one of my own that would resolve some
ambiguities regarding what sorts of content moderation policies are
shielded from liability and which ones aren't protected. We are going
to talk about the unintended consequences that stem from these
policies. We are going to talk about their platforms' interaction with
activists and with the media.
I think we will probably get around to talking about it, whether they
like it or not, because we have the bipartisan and unanimously
authorized subpoenas in hand to do it, and those subpoenas are good
through the end of this Congress.
Hopefully, by going straight to the top, we will gain a better
understanding of why these companies can't seem to regulate themselves,
why they can't seem to stop themselves from having a complete meltdown
every single time we turn up the heat and talk about these issues of
privacy, talk about censorship, talk about prioritization, talk about
preferencing, talk about holding them accountable for the spectrum they
use to put out their message and the activity that they are taking now
to censor the free speech of the American public.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I am glad to see a Member of the majority
saying that Mitch McConnell ought to have us around here doing some
work. I appreciate the Senator from Tennessee saying that.
Senator McConnell said there was no urgency to help unemployed
workers. Six hundred thousand unemployed workers in my State in August
lost their $600 a week. What are they to do?
Foreclosures are up. There are no dollars for public education so
schools can open safely.
I appreciate the Senator from Tennessee. Maybe she will talk to
Senator McConnell and ask him to do his job so we can do our job.
H.J. Res. 90
Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of H.J. Res. 90, the joint
resolution of disapproval of the Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency's Community Reinvestment Act rule.
We know who gets hit the hardest by this pandemic and economic
crisis. It is not Wall Street. It is not CEOs. It is not U.S. Senators.
It is low-income workers. It is essential workers. It is workers who go
to work every day and get exposed to this virus and then come home,
anxious about potentially infecting their family. It is the middle
class. It is communities of color. Those are the people getting hit the
hardest. It is the same story we see over and over and over. Corporate
lobbyists and their allies in Washington do whatever it takes--whatever
it takes to make sure that Wall Street recovers, and then they say: Oh,
no, we can't afford to--we can't--the budget, the deficit. We can give
a tax cut to rich people, explode the deficit, but we can't do anything
for regular people, for middle-class people, and for low-income people.
We just can't afford to help anyone else.
The stock market is back up, so Leader McConnell and President Trump
seem to think that everything is just fine, thank you, in our country.
Meanwhile, families don't know how to feed their children and how to
make rent. They don't know about family businesses closing their doors
and schools can't open for in-person learning. But, oh, yeah, the stock
market is up, so Leader McConnell and President Trump seem to think
everything is fine.
Black-owned businesses have closed down at twice the rate--including
in the State of Arkansas--closed at twice the rate of White-owned
businesses during this pandemic. Black and Latino renters are more
likely to be behind on their rent or mortgage. But the stock market is
up, so Leader McConnell and President Trump seem to think that
everything is just fine.
Low-wage workers are more likely to remain out of work. There are
600,000 people in my State who can't find jobs. They have lost their
unemployment insurance. But the stock market is up, so Leader McConnell
and President Trump seem to think that everything is fine.
Low-wage workers are more likely to remain out of work and more
likely to be struggling to pay for food. We
[[Page S6054]]
should--we should--but we are not because Leader McConnell is taking
care of his contributors, he is taking care of the big-money people,
and he is taking care of Wall Street. The stock market is up--I know I
have said that a few times--but that is what matters to far too many
people around here, and to the President of the United States, that is
what matters. We should be rolling up our sleeves to invest in
neighborhoods and the small businesses that sustain them. Instead, we
have had another Trump appointee working to actually make it harder to
invest in these communities at a time when they need support the most.
For decades, redlining and government bank sanctions--you know how
they started. It was the Black codes after reconstruction; then it was
Jim Crow; then it was redlining; and now it is locking in
discrimination by Trump nominees who have had another Trump appointee
working to make it harder to invest.
For decades, redlining and government- and bank-sanctioned
discrimination left parts of this country--often Black and Brown
communities, often rural areas in Southeast Ohio and Arkansas--with
virtually no investment from banks. All kinds of people had dreams to
start businesses, to build houses, to grow and support their
communities, but they couldn't get the loans to do it. Even after
Congress outlawed housing and lending discrimination based on race,
whole communities struggled to get the loans they needed. Banks were
happy to take Black and Brown and low-income people's deposits, and
then they would lend their money to wealthy investors and companies
outside of the community. Long after redlining and long after legal
segregation officially ended, people living in largely Black and Brown
neighborhoods weren't able to get mortgages to buy a home because the
bank just wasn't making loans in those parts of town.
Small farms and small businesses couldn't get the loans they needed
to grow. That is why we passed the Community Reinvestment Act, the CRA,
to make it clear that banks have a responsibility to serve all of the
places where they do business, including low- and moderate-income
areas. As I said, they would take the deposits and then take the money
and lend it out to wealthy investors.
The CRA is one of the foundational civil rights laws passed to
address decades of explicit disinvestment and begin to undo the legacy
of redlining. For 40 years, our government and banks alike have
recognized in theory--in theory--that banking shouldn't just be about
serving the people with six-figure salaries and big mortgages. It is
about helping a family farm take out a loan. It is about helping a
busdriver buy their first home or a brother and sister open a corner
store in a neighborhood where there is nowhere to buy fresh groceries.
It is about listening to what the communities need and making it
happen, like helping to finance a new affordable housing development or
offering small loans so that people don't have to turn to payday
lenders. It is about investing in neighborhoods and borrowers who are
locked out of the financial system based on who they were and where
they were born.
The three entities that oversee our banking system--the Comptroller
of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC--acted together over
those 40 years so that there was one CRA for all banks to follow and
one set of expectations about serving customers in communities.
But, in May, the Trump OCC threw out 40 years of progress--just threw
it out the window. But, you know, the stock market is up, so Leader
McConnell and President Trump seem to think everything is just fine. In
the middle of a pandemic disproportionately--we have established, and
even Senator McConnell understands, this pandemic disproportionately
harms Black and Brown communities in Kentucky, Arkansas, New Jersey,
Delaware, Ohio, and all over this country, but Trump's OCC unilaterally
rewrote the CRA--unilaterally. The other Trump nominees didn't even go
that far.
Just 6 weeks before the rule was finalized, civil rights leaders,
community development organizations, State and local officials, Senator
Menendez on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Budget Committee,
and I and others submitted over 7,500 comments on the OCC's and FDIC's
proposed rewrite of the CRA. The vast majority of commenters opposed
the agency's proposal. A coalition of civil rights leaders, the NAACP,
the National Fair Housing Alliance, and UnidosUS said the proposed rule
invited--their words--``a return to discrimination against communities
of color and low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.''
Remember how this worked. It was the Black codes; then it was Jim
Crow; then it was redlining. Now it is locking in these discriminatory
rules, and we said no to that. But, unfortunately, the Trump
administration says yes to that. But 22 State attorneys general wrote
that the proposal was ``contrary to the [Community Reinvestment Act's]
purpose and text, will harm communities in the States, and should be
withdrawn.''
Across my home State of Ohio, cities such as Akron, Toledo, Dayton,
Cincinnati, Mansfield, Lima, and many others wrote and passed
resolutions opposing this plan. Some in government--those not directly
connected to the Trump administration--listened to the people we serve.
The FDIC heard the feedback. FDIC saw the financial pain of the
pandemic, and they declined to move forward. The Federal Reserve also
said no, but the OCC plowed ahead. It ignored the thousands of civil
rights groups and local nonprofits and banks, all of whom told them
their plan just wouldn't work for low- and moderate-income communities.
Instead, the agency said: We know best
They think these Trump appointees in Washington know better than
mayors and city council members and local advocates and small
businesses in Ohio and around the country.
The day after they announced they were ignoring the rest of the
country and plowing ahead, Comptroller of the Currency Otting announced
he would resign. Imagine that. First he inflicts this on us, and then
he walks away, probably for a better paying job down the road.
Since the rule was finalized, the Federal Reserve has set out on a
path for all three regulators to work together to create a CRA rule
that will increase the focus on lending and investments and services in
low- and moderate-income communities and to small businesses and farms.
That is what CRA is there for. That used to be bipartisan. That used to
be the consensus around here. We should be investing in these
communities that have been systematically excluded from sharing in our
country's prosperity. That means strengthening the CRA. It means
listening to communities when they tell us what they need. But the
OCC's rule does the opposite. They even acknowledge there was
widespread opposition to this rule, particularly from the communities
the CRA was meant to serve.
It should be easy for my Republican colleagues to join us in voting
to revoke the OCC's rule and to stand up for the underserved in low-
and moderate-income communities, rural communities, and communities of
color whom CRA was meant to serve.
I would just ask our Republican colleagues to join with what the FDIC
wants to do--the Trump appointees there. Join with the Federal
Reserve--Jay Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve, Trump appointee. It
is what the Senate should be doing--working to get our country through
the worst crisis we have seen in our lifetime and investing in the
communities getting hit the hardest.
Instead, Leader McConnell is using the final days before an election
to jam through another special interest judge who will carry out the
corporate agenda that the voters keep rejecting. The Senate needs to
get back to focusing on the people we are here to serve and to repeal
the OCC's misguided rule to gut the Community Reinvestment Act.
I urge my colleagues to support the resolution so that we can get
back to the task of strengthening the CRA. The stock market being up--
as important as that is to Leader McConnell and President Trump in
their belief that everything is fine because the stock market is up,
there is way more to measure our economy than that. Support our
resolution; strengthen the CRA; and help our communities across the
country.
[[Page S6055]]
Before yielding the floor, I ask unanimous consent that the letters
from the National Urban League, the Center for Responsible Lending, and
45 civil rights organizations, consumer advocates, and unions in
support of H.J. Res. 90 and opposing OCC's CRA rule be printed in the
Record. Along with these letters that I have requested to be printed, I
would also like to refer to a coalition letter supporting the
resolution which can be found at: https://ncrc.org/wp-content/uploads/
dlm_uploads/2020/10/FINAL-H.J.-Res-90-SignOn-Letter.pdf
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
National Urban League,
October 19, 2020.
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators: On behalf of the National Urban League and
our 90 affiliates across 36 states and the District of
Columbia, I write to express strong support for H.J.
Resolution 90 (H.J. Res. 90), a Congressional Review Act
resolution intended to reverse the Office of the Comptroller
of the Currency's (OCC) harmful and woefully misguided
changes to the implementation of the Community Reinvestment
Act of 1977 (CRA).
The framework represented by OCC's final CRA rule
represents a serious shift from the CRA's original intent of
addressing the history of redlining, disinvestment, and the
market failures that continue to leave communities of color
in America underserved. Notably, it is illustrative that two
of the three federal agencies charged with enforcing the
CRA--the Federal Reserve (the Fed) and the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation (FDIC)--did not join the OCC in
finalizing this controversial rule. Moreover, under the
leadership of Chair Jerome Powell and Governor Lael Brainard,
the Fed has now proposed a different approach to modernizing
the CRA that better aligns with the original intent of this
crucial civil rights law.
If fully enacted, the OCC's final rule would effectively
give banks under the agency's jurisdiction more credit for
performing less CRA activity, resulting in significantly
fewer lending opportunities and bank services for the many
low- and middle-income (LMI) families nationwide who most
need the vital access to the sustainable lending and
homeownership opportunities made possible by the CRA.
Additionally, the OCC's final rule favors investments that
are already well-served by current market trends and for
which the CRA was never intended.
The CRA was designed to combat generations of
discrimination and redlining by requiring banks to better
meet the lending needs of the surrounding communities in
which they are chartered to serve, including underserved
areas. This important law was enacted in large part because
communities of color continued to face barriers accessing
credit despite the passage of federal fair lending laws,
including the Fair Housing Act, the Equal Opportunity Act,
and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.
In light of the very serious concerns about the OCC's
finalized changes to the implementation of the CRA, the
National Urban League urges Senators to vote in favor of H.J.
Res. 90 when it comes to the Senate floor for consideration.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact
Julius Niyonsaba at the National Urban League.
Sincerely,
Marc H. Morial,
President & CEO, National Urban League.
____
Center for Responsible Lending
October 19, 2020.
U.S. Senate,
U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator: The Center for Responsible Lending writes to
express our strong support for H.J. Res. 90, a Congressional
Review Act resolution of disapproval that will invalidate the
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) final rule on
the Community Reinvestment Act.
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) was one in a
series of landmark civil rights legislation and is a critical
tool to help our nation work toward overcoming the legacy of
redlining. Today's racial wealth gap and lending disparities
are in large part the result of decades of government
policies and practices that enabled the redlining of
communities of color for most of the 20th century. In the
post-Depression era, federal policies that created housing
opportunities for returning veterans and their families
explicitly excluded people of color from the benefits of
government-supported housing programs. Among these programs
were public housing, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation
(HOLC), and mortgage insurance through the Federal Housing
Administration (FHA). Not only did this redlining segregate
residential neighborhoods across the United States, but it
granted whites the ability to build wealth through
homeownership while denying equal opportunities for families
of color to build similar home equity over the same period.
The inequities that result from these discriminatory programs
are part of the injustices that today's people led protests
are demanding to be addressed.
The CRA imposes continuing and affirmative obligations on
banks to help meet the credit needs of the local communities
in which they are chartered and continues to be an important
tool for fostering access to credit for these communities
today. The law has urged banks to more actively lend in LMI
areas; it has also played a key role in ensuring bank
participation in community revitalization efforts across the
country.
Despite the importance of CRA and the community investment
it has spurred, CRA rules must be strengthened. The CRA as
applied has not done nearly enough to revitalize previously
redlined areas and has not made a substantial dent in the
lagging homeownership rate for people of color. The white
homeownership rate is 73% while the rate is 44% and 48% for
Black and Latino borrowers respectively. Additionally, bank
lending in LMI communities and communities of color has
declined dramatically since the Great Recession. And existing
disparities will be further perpetuated in the face of the
COVID-19 global public health and economic crisis.
Unfortunately, the OCC decided to act unilaterally--without
the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation--to issue a structurally flawed final rule that
weakens the CRA and will harm low- and moderate-communities
and communities of color. Rather than postpone rulemaking to
focus on the devastating economic crisis caused by the COVID-
19 health pandemic, the OCC issued the rule a mere six weeks
after the closing of the comment period on its proposed rule
despite broad requests for delay from community groups, civil
rights and consumer organizations, and industry. The OCC
acknowledged in the preamble to the final rule that most of
the comments disagreed with the proposal's approach. Yet, the
OCC decided to side with the minority of comments in support
of the proposed rule. The OCC's rule will harm the
communities most adversely affected by the current crisis,
including many families that were hardest hit by the Great
Recession and have yet to recover.
The final rule imposes an overly simplistic evaluation
measure that fails to ensure that local banking needs are
met, and sanctions bank redlining. The rule overvalues the
dollar amount of CRA activities in comparison to the quality
of such activities and allows banks to earn more credit for
easier and larger investments in communities from which they
can get the highest return. Indeed, the rule permits banks to
ignore 20% of their assessment areas and still pass,
resulting in unchecked neighborhood disinvestment and
redlining. The rule also disincentives investment in LMI
neighborhoods and communities of color. It incentivizes
activities and investments that do not ``primarily'' benefit
LMI communities, such as large-scale infrastructure projects.
Estimating such projects' impact on LMI neighborhoods is
difficult and thus will likely divest funds away from smaller
scale, yet impactful community development activities.
Furthermore, the rule reduces the importance of retail
lending and retail services, resulting in less lending and
investments in communities that are already credit starved.
The rule is opposite to the CRA's statutory mission and will
cause deep harm to communities.
We urge support for H.J. Res. 90 to reverse the OCC's
regulatory attack on the Community Reinvestment Act. Thank
you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Center for Responsible Lending.
____
National Community
Reinvestment Coalition,
October 19, 2020.
Dear Senator: We, the undersigned organizations, write to
express our strong support for H.J. Res. 90, a Congressional
Review Act resolution of disapproval that will nullify a
rulemaking by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
(OCC) that, if allowed to stand, would drastically undermine
one of our nation's most important civil rights laws, the
Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (the CRA).
Enacted in 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has
been vital in fighting redlining, a practice that
systematically--and for decades, as a matter of federal
policy--shut neighborhoods of color and lower-income
communities out from home loans and other essential financial
services. The CRA requires banks to undertake reasonable
efforts to lend to and invest in all of the neighborhoods in
areas where they do business. The law has helped to spur
increased investments in formerly-redlined communities. It
did not, however, prevent non-bank lenders (who are not
subject to the CRA) from flooding communities of color with
toxic subprime mortgages in the years before the 2008 crisis;
and research shows that racial disparities in lending--which
cannot be explained away by differences in credit scores--
persist to this day.
It is clear that the CRA needs to be modernized and
strengthened in order to fulfill its original purpose. But in
January, the OCC and the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
(NPRM) that would instead significantly weaken the CRA. The
agencies proposed new overly simplistic metrics system that
would make it far easier for banks to pass their CRA exams by
making large investments in communities where they can reap
the largest rewards, rather than carefully-targeted, smaller
investments in underserved consumers and neighborhoods.
Even before the NPRM was published, a wide range of
stakeholders weighed in with
[[Page S6056]]
both the OCC and FDIC to raise concerns and to ask for more
data justifying the changes. Those concerns were not
addressed, and the data was never released. By the time the
NPRM was published, the United States and the world were just
beginning to learn about the growing threat posed by a
dangerous new respiratory virus. In the coming weeks, it
became clear that the virus had not been contained, and it
spread rapidly to multiple countries including the United
States. As stakeholders and the public began devoting more
and more resources and attention to the health, social, and
economic fallout of the growing pandemic, and many urged the
OCC and FDIC to temporarily suspend rulemaking not related to
COVID-19, the agencies continued plowing ahead, only agreeing
to a one-month extension for comments.
In the days before the deadline for comments on the rule,
it had become clear that COVID-19 was proving fatal to
communities of color--the very communities the CRA was
intended to help--at a rate several times higher than the
population at large; the U.S. Surgeon General warned the
public to prepare for ``our 9/11 moment,'' and models
predicted 100,000 or more deaths in the United States alone.
Only 41 days after the comment period ended, and even though
only a minority of commenters voiced support for the new
framework, the OCC rushed through a final rule that left it
largely intact. The FDIC, to its credit, declined to finalize
its version of the rule at this time.
In the months since the OCC finalized its rule, our nation
has been facing a long-overdue reckoning with our troubled
legacy of racial and ethnic discrimination. While much of the
conversation has rightly been focused on police brutality and
the impact of over-policing in communities of color, this
conversation is inexorably tied to the lasting economic,
social, and legal legacy of redlining and other forms of
racial discrimination.
We will not succeed in addressing issues surrounding law
enforcement in communities of color without also addressing
decades of underinvestment in housing, employment, education,
health care, transportation, and other factors that, to this
day, have contributed to the longstanding disparities that
are once again coming to light. Now is certainly not the time
to weaken the most important civil rights laws we have at our
disposal to correct those disparities.
As such, we urge Congress to support H.J. Res. 90, to
overturn the OCC's regulatory attack on the Community
Reinvestment Act. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
9to5, National Association of Working Women; Alianza
Nacional de Campesinas; Alliance for Justice; Americans for
Financial Reform; Andrew Goodman Foundation; AREAA--Asian
Real Estate Association of America; Bend the Arc: Jewish
Action; Campesinos Sin Fronteras; Center for Responsible
Lending; Color of Change; Consortium for Citizens with
Disabilities Housing Task Force; Consumer Action; Equality
California; Farmworker Association of Florida; Green For All,
a program of Dream Corps; Impact Fund; Japanese American
Citizens League; Justice in Aging; The Leadership Conference
on Civil and Human Rights; League of Women Voters of the
United States; Matthew Shepard Foundation; Multicultural
Efforts to end Sexual Assault (MESA).
NAACP; NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.;
National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders
(NALCAB); National Association of Consumer Advocates;
National Association of Human Rights Workers; National Center
for Lesbian Rights; National Community Reinvestment
Coalition; National Community Stabilization Trust; National
Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients);
The National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA);
National Council of Churches; National Fair Housing Alliance;
National Housing Law Project; National LGBTQ Task Force
Action Fund; National Urban League; OCA-Asian Pacific
American Advocates; Poverty & Race Research Action Council;
Prosperity Now; Service Employees International Union; Silver
State Equality-Nevada; Tash; Union for Reform Judaism;
Woodstock Institute.
Mr. BROWN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues from Ohio and
from New Jersey in saying that we should not allow this OCC rule,
gutting the core elements of the CRA, to move forward. The Community
Reinvestment Act is a landmark civil rights and anti-redlining law
created to improve the welfare of low- and moderate-income Americans
all over our Nation and to assess banks lending to, investing in, and
serving of the communities in which they do business.
The Community Reinvestment Act works. Since its enactment in 1977, it
has resulted in trillions of dollars invested in low- and moderate-
income communities. It promotes fair treatment and equal access to
credit and capital for Black and Brown communities, for underserved
populations, and it is essential to the economic health of our country.
It is a successful incentive for banks to provide mortgage lending and
financial services to neighborhoods of color and low- and moderate-
income communities.
There is a long legacy of racial discrimination in our Nation in
financial services, and the Community Reinvestment Act has been a vital
tool in helping to fight that cruel legacy. In Delaware, I have seen
the benefits of the CRA firsthand. I have seen investments in
affordable housing, homeownership opportunities, and economic and small
business development as a result.
Discover Bank, for example, partnered with the Delaware State Housing
Authority to provide mortgages to low- and moderate-income borrowers
throughout the State by purchasing loans. WSFA made a $1.5 million
investment in NCALL's Restoring Central Dover Initiative and a $500,000
line of credit to help build homes for new homeowners who were low- and
moderate-income and gave a $1 million low-interest loan for economic
development in our capital city. Capital One recently made a $20
million loan to finance the community education building in downtown
Wilmington where Kuumba Academy is residing.
The OCC final rule is wrong in substance and in process. The CRA has
been beneficial for more than four decades. Sure, there is some room
for modernization or improvement, and it is necessary to continue to
build on this monumental act, but the OCC final rule goes in exactly
the wrong direction. In substance, it is unlikely to encourage
investment in underresourced and overlooked regions. Instead, it
expands qualifying CRA activities to include ones that don't directly
benefit communities in need. This OCC rule will cause harm to current
investment areas, leading to less community development in Delaware and
across our Nation.
The OCC rule would allow banks to pass their CRA assessments with
broad-stroke, large investments instead of smaller, targeted
investments in underserved communities. In process, the OCC hasn't
worked to achieve consensus with fellow Federal regulators, the Fed and
the FDIC, nor with banks, community advocacy, and civil rights groups.
That is why I am joining my colleagues from New Jersey, Ohio, and many
other States in voting for congressional disapproval of this OCC final
rule. It undermines and actively weakens this important civil rights
law. We must ensure changes to the CRA strengthen the law, not weaken
it, and all the related regulators and stakeholders must work together
to ensure that any changes to the CRA work to combat racial inequality
and to lift up communities long overlooked by traditional banking and
their investment priorities.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, today, I rise to urge my colleagues to
take a stand for civil rights and basic financial fairness and join us
in defense of the Community Reinvestment Act. I appreciate my
distinguished colleagues from Delaware and the ranking Democrat on the
Banking Committee, Senator Brown, for their remarks.
For more than four decades now, this core civil rights law has helped
ensure that banks that do business in our low- and moderate-income
communities actually invest--invest--in those communities. Before the
Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, as it is called, banks often
avoided lending to customers and businesses in the lower income
neighborhoods where they opened branches. This practice was known as
redlining because, back then, banks would draw literal red lines around
the communities that they did not want to lend money to. Not
surprisingly, the communities that were redlined were African American,
Latino, and low-income communities.
In essence, they were content to take the deposits from low- and
moderate-income families, people of color, small businesses, and farms,
but then they turned around and denied those very customers mortgages,
loans, and other lines of credit.
The Community Reinvestment Act was enacted to put an end to that
redlining and spur greater investment in our minority communities and
lower income neighborhoods. But even today, we are still grappling with
the socioeconomic and racial consequences of this systemic financial
discrimination.
[[Page S6057]]
Many of our most impoverished neighborhoods are the same neighborhoods
that were redlined decades ago. It is one of the reasons that the
generational wealth of Black and Brown Americans remains drastically
lesser than those of their White counterparts. That is why we have to
reject the Trump administration's proposed rule changes to the
Community Reinvestment Act.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's--the OCC--CRA new
rule would result in significantly fewer loans, investments, and
services to low- and moderate-income communities, and it would permit
banks to avoid businesses and investments in these neighborhoods. In
essence, it would lead to a new form of modern-day redlining, all with
the Federal Government's blessing. It is no wonder why civil rights
groups, including the NAACP and the Leadership Council on Civil and
Human Rights, have fought so hard against this rule. They do not want
banks to be given the green light to discriminate against minority and
low-income consumers. Make no mistake--industry stakeholders and
regulators are just as divided over the Trump administration's actions.
That is why, in fact, neither the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
nor the Federal Reserve has joined in this effort. Neither of them has
joined in this effort.
That is why I urge our colleagues to do the right thing and repeal
this harmful new CRA rule.
In a year where the entrenched racial and economic disparities that
have long plagued our Nation have been exacerbated and on full display,
the last thing we need to do is to steer money away from Black and
Brown families, homeowners, consumers, and businesses. As a matter of
fact, in the midst of this pandemic, we can see the consequences to
those communities that are often at the frontline of mortgage
foreclosure and losing their homes.
I urge my colleagues to join me in rejecting this new CRA rule. This
is about protecting civil rights. This is about protecting economic
opportunity for all. And this is about continuing to do the hard work
of reversing the discrimination, the financial disparities, and the
socioeconomic injustices that have plagued our Nation for far too long.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the resolution vacating
the OCC's final rule on the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA.
Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks has noted: ``The new
Community Reinvestment Act rule was finalized for one reason--to
promote more lending and investment in underserved areas--including
low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.''
The key changes the rule makes are these: It clarifies what counts
for CRA credit, updates where activity is evaluated, evaluates CRA
performance more objectively, and makes record-keeping and reporting
timelier and more transparent.
The OCC's efforts to improve the CRA framework began in 2017 with an
extensive and deliberate process, engaging numerous stakeholders along
the way. The OCC issued its advance notice of proposed rulemaking in
2018, and in December 2019, the OCC jointly issued a proposed rule with
the FDIC, which received 7,500 comments. The OCC says those comments
made it better and significantly different from the proposal.
The status quo was failing. The OCC found that the regulatory status
quo had failed to improve economic outcomes for underserved groups,
including minorities and low- and moderate-income communities.
The CRA regulatory process was broken. Acting Comptroller Brooks
stated:
In addition to not achieving the societal goals of the
statute, the regulatory process around CRA was broken. Banks
and stakeholders were uncertain of what activities would
qualify for CRA consideration from exam to exam. The
framework's lack of objectivity, transparency, consistency,
and fairness left the whole process open to sweetheart deals
and made it nearly impossible to assess the impact of
billions of dollars that were spent each year. Stakeholders
have voiced the need to update the CRA regulations now for
more than a decade.
What does the final rule do? The final rule establishes objective
criteria for determining and an illustrative list of what qualifies for
CRA credit, while also creating a preapproval process for banks. It
updates and expands assessment areas to better reflect how banks serve
customers today by adding deposit-based assessment areas. It also
incentivizes CRA activity in new areas of need, including Indian
Country and rural and distressed areas. The final rule establishes new
general performance standards to more objectively evaluate a bank's CRA
performance. Finally, the rule requires banks to report better data to
improve the transparency and accountability of banks and their
regulators to their communities.
Importantly, the rule does not change the OCC's authority or
obligation to fight discrimination and illegal practices.
Several organizations have praised the final rule, including the
Consumer Bankers Association, the National Disability Institute, the
National Congress of American Indians, and the National Diversity
Coalition.
FDIC Chairman McWilliams noted: ``There are many provisions in the
final rule that will greatly benefit low- and moderate-income
communities, and provide greater clarity to banks on CRA
expectations.''
Last month, the Federal Reserve issued its own advance notice of
proposed rulemaking, and Acting Comptroller Brooks observed that
``there is a significant amount of overlap between what the Fed has
proposed and what the OCC has finalized.''
The OCC issued this rule in May. Senate Democrats have waited until
the end of the Congressional Review Act window to act, timing this vote
to be most disruptive to the Senate's floor schedule. More importantly,
this vote comes after the rule's effective date of October 1. Voiding
it would create confusion and uncertainty for communities, industry,
and other stakeholders, harming the very communities the CRA would
help.
Acting Comptroller Brooks said it well:
Overturning the OCC's new CRA rule would roll back benefits
to Native Americans, people with disabilities, American
farmers, and small business owners. It would preserve a
status quo that on its face has failed to make the progress
promised 43 years ago. It would force banks, communities
groups, and examiners to operate in the dark without the
transparency, objectivity, and regulatory certainty that the
new rule provides. It would also prevent future Comptrollers
from taking up the rule to improve how CRA works in the
future.
Additionally, former Comptroller Joseph Otting wrote:
The coronavirus pandemic has only made it more dire that
communities--particularly low- and moderate-income
communities--need more capital and better access to capital.
And they need it now.
I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against this resolution, to
preserve this important modernization of our CRA regulations.
Thank you.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote scheduled for
5:45 p.m. begin immediately.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Arizona (Ms. McSally), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski),
the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), and the Senator from Florida (Mr.
Rubio).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris),
the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones), the Senator from Virginia (Mr.
Kaine), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator from
Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 43, nays 48, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 201 Leg.]
YEAS--43
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hirono
King
Klobuchar
[[Page S6058]]
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--48
Alexander
Barrasso
Blackburn
Blunt
Boozman
Braun
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Loeffler
McConnell
Moran
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Romney
Rounds
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young
NOT VOTING--9
Harris
Jones
Kaine
McSally
Murkowski
Murray
Paul
Rubio
Sinema
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Motion to Adjourn
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, our Republican majority refused to
consider the Supreme Court nominee of the duly elected Democratic
President on the supposed principle that the American people should
have a voice in selecting their next Supreme Court Justice. Now they
are moving forward with a Supreme Court nomination while the
Presidential election is already under way.
This is the most rushed, most partisan, least legitimate Supreme
Court nomination process in our Nation's history--in our Nation's
entire history--and it should not proceed. Therefore, I will move to
adjourn the Senate until after the November 3 election with the ability
to come back into session if there is a bipartisan agreement on a COVID
relief package.
Therefore, I move to adjourn and then convene for pro forma sessions
only, with no business being conducted, at 12 noon on the following
dates, and that, following each pro forma session, the Senate adjourn
until the next pro forma session: Tuesday, October 20; Friday, October
23; Tuesday, October 27; Friday, October 30; Tuesday, November 3;
Friday, November 6; that when the Senate adjourns on Friday, November
6, it reconvene at 4:30 p.m., Monday, November 9, and that following
the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal
of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be
reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be
closed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That motion would require consent and is not
in order.
Motion to Table
Mr. SCHUMER. I appeal the ruling of the Chair, and I move to table
the appeal.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the motion to table the
appeal.
Mr. SCHUMER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
Mr. BOOZMAN. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. McSally), the
Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr.
Paul), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris),
the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones), the Senator from Virginia (Mr.
Kaine), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator from
Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 48, nays 42, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 202 Leg.]
YEAS--48
Alexander
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Braun
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Loeffler
McConnell
Moran
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Romney
Rounds
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young
NAYS--42
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hirono
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--10
Blunt
Harris
Jones
Kaine
McSally
Murkowski
Murray
Paul
Rubio
Sinema
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to table was agreed to, and the
decision of the Chair stands.
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am glad we just voted down the motion
by the Democratic leader to adjourn because we have work to do here,
including the COVID-19 legislation that we need to be here to be
working on. So I am glad the motion to table was successful. And, yes,
we also have to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Tribute to John Ruthven
Mr. President, I have come to the floor today to pay tribute to John
Ruthven, a beloved son of Ohio who passed away last week at the age of
95.
John Ruthven was a nationally recognized wildlife artist and a
naturalist whose extraordinary artistic skills earned him numerous
awards and other recognitions. But it was John's integrity, his
humility, his generosity, and personal warmth that led to so many
admirers.
John never met a stranger, and even in these strident times, John
never had an enemy. He was an eternal optimist who looked for the best
in people and in doing so, brought out the best in everyone.
John was a true son of Ohio who grew up in Cincinnati and, as a boy,
was often found fishing and hunting and sketching along the Ohio River.
He was a lifelong patriot who was very proud of his country and proud
of having served his country as an 18-year-old sailor during World War
II. He was generous of spirit and generous in giving back to his
community, contributing his time and artwork to literally hundreds of
good causes.
John loved his family--his kids, Ricki and Kevin; his grandsons, Adam
and Matt; and his great-grandsons, William, Jack, and Michael. He lost
the love of his life, Judy, just under a decade ago. They were
inseparable, and they are now together.
My wife Jane and I feel John's presence every day through his artwork
that hangs on our walls at home and at work. Here in my Washington, DC,
office, we displayed his painting ``Eagle to the Moon,'' for the past
decade, a masterpiece of natural painting signed not just by John but
also John's good friend, the famous astronaut Neil Armstrong.
Each Ruthven painting has its own story, and ``Eagle to the Moon'' is
no exception. Ohio Governor James Rhodes had commissioned John to paint
an eagle on the Moon in honor of the Apollo 11 mission and Neil
Armstrong's famous words, ``The eagle has landed.'' John told the
Governor there were no eagles on the Moon, and as a naturalist painter,
he refused to place one there. Governor Rhodes insisted, so John--
always a peacemaker--found a compromise. He painted a majestic bald
eagle flying past an Ohio buckeye tree--tying the eagle, therefore, to
the Earth and to Ohio--and put a glowing Moon in the background to
please Governor Rhodes. The Governor could not say no to such a
beautiful portrayal, and it is beautiful.
His paintings are displayed in the statehouse in Columbus and in
thousands of offices and living rooms all across Ohio and beyond. You
will see his work when strolling through my hometown of Cincinnati,
where the side of a downtown building displays a three-story high mural
dedicated to Martha, the last passenger pigeon who died at the
Cincinnati Zoo. At age 88, high on a rickety scaffolding in the August
heat, John Ruthven led the volunteers in creating that rendition of
passenger pigeons, taking it from one of
[[Page S6059]]
his paintings. Those passenger pigeons, once numerous and now extinct,
are soaring through the air in a thick flock, warning us all of the
fragility of nature.
I will always feel John's presence personally when I am in the woods
of Southern Ohio, where I had the privilege of spending many hours with
him hunting for edible wild mushrooms, hunting turkeys, and learning
from an accomplished naturalist who had stories about every single
tree, flower, and bird. It was a joy to learn from John. It wasn't a
lecture; like every good teacher, John drew you in.
John was called a modern-day James Audubon, and there were striking
similarities between the two. Both were naturalists, good hunters,
artists, and authors whose work was influential in teaching us about
the natural world. Like Audubon, John was rightly recognized as one of
the most important ambassadors for nature of his time.
Starting with his delivery of a hummingbird to the Cincinnati Museum
of Natural History at age 10, his name is on specimens he collected
around the world and donated to museums. Four Presidents commissioned
painters from John Ruthven, and his artwork is hung in the galleries of
the Smithsonian and right here in the Halls of Congress.
Early in his career, John had the great honor of being selected as
the artist for the annual Federal duck stamp. He has been featured in
many major magazines and documentaries. He received numerous awards and
honors, including from some of his favorite organizations like the
Cincinnati Zoo, the Cincinnati Nature Center, the Museum Center, and so
many others.
One accolade John was most proud of was when he and his wife Judy
were inducted into the Brown County Hall of Fame. Judy and John had a
beautiful farm and an art gallery in Brown County, 50 miles east of
Cincinnati. They developed lifelong friendships there and dedicated
time and energy to their adopted home, leading to the restoration of
the historic courthouse in Georgetown, OH, and preserving and promoting
the boyhood home of Ulysses S. Grant, one of John's heroes.
In 2004, I was with John and President George W. Bush at the White
House when he became the first wildlife artist ever to receive the
National Medal of the Arts, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon
an artist.
Until his death, John continued to paint every day at his home
studio. He still had a number of commissions he was working on. For
countless young artists and lovers of nature, he was and will continue
to be a true inspiration.
As we mourn our loss, we take heart in knowing that we will all
continue to feel his presence, that John Ruthven will live on through
his masterful artwork, his loving family, and all he did to advance the
cause of appreciating and protecting the natural world.
I yield the floor.
____________________