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by Jay Kruse, Chief Advocacy Officer Good Morning! It’s another busy week in Washington, D.C. – at least for the Senate, with the House out on recess through the end of August. The Senate has begun action on bipartisan infrastructure legislation that was unveiled Sunday. As of Tuesday afternoon, Senators had filed nearly 300 amendments to the $1 trillion package that could come up for vote as early as this weekend. As you could guess members on both sides of the aisle are spending as much time on defense against concerning amendments as they are spending pushing for new amendments. While the legislation would provide hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure related funding for roads and bridges, passenger and freight rail, public transportation, and broadband upgrades, there is plenty of pork barrel spending with little or nothing to do with “infrastructure,” which is unfortunately quite typical in large spending packages like this. Senate Banking Committee Hears from Regulators On Tuesday, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing entitled: "Oversight of Regulators: Does our Financial System Work for Everyone?" The witnesses testifying in front of the committee included: The Honorable Todd M. Harper, Chairman, National Credit Union Administration; The Honorable Jelena McWilliams, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and Mr. Michael J. Hsu, Acting Comptroller, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. DakCU did submit a few questions to Senator Rounds (R-SD) in anticipation of the hearing which included: “Chairman Harper, in your view, did NCUA have all the tools it needed to help credit unions navigate the impact this crisis had on their financials and, importantly, their members’ financial well-being? What should Congress do to ensure that the agency has appropriate tools in its toolbelt for the next crisis?” FOLLOW-UP: “Credit unions entered the crisis very well capitalized but they have experienced downward pressure on their capital as a result of the economic impact payments sent to Americans, slower than normal loan growth, and faster than normal deposit growth. The Federal Credit Union Act is very prescriptive that NCUA must make a credit union take prompt corrective action if their net worth ratio drops below 5%. Would you support legislation that gives NCUA flexibility to forbear prompt corrective action on a case-by-case basis for otherwise health credit unions negatively impacted by a federally declared disaster or emergency?” In-Person Fall Hike the Hill Cancelled I have some disheartening news to report today as well. Unfortunately, due to the direction the COVID-19 pandemic is trending in response to the Delta variant, especially in the D.C. area, and the newest restrictions put in place for travel and meetings, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our in-person Fall Regulatory/Legislative Hike the Hill event that was scheduled for September 14 – 15. We want to ensure we are being good stewards of everyone’s resources and provide the best value proposition to our attendees. We are also questioning what legislators’ availability may look like in September with the recent COVID diagnosis of ranking and vaccinated GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) earlier this week. Therefore, we believe it is in everyone’s best interest to pivot and make some changes to this event to ensure we are able to host the most effective and meaningful meetings with both regulators and our congressional delegation. The NCUA and CFPB meetings will all be converted to virtual events, and we will follow up very shortly with details regarding how to register and join these meetings. The congressional meetings will be postponed to potentially late October or November. However, we are also exploring the possibility of conducting these meetings in-district. While we were looking forward to getting back to conducting in-person meetings with our industry partners in Washington, we are excited for the opportunity to once again open attendance up to these virtual regulatory meetings to all DakCU members. We appreciate your continuing support of our regulatory and legislative advocacy efforts. As always, don't hesitate to contact me at jkruse@dakcu.org with any questions or comments.
Good Morning!
It’s another busy week in Washington, D.C. – at least for the Senate, with the House out on recess through the end of August. The Senate has begun action on bipartisan infrastructure legislation that was unveiled Sunday. As of Tuesday afternoon, Senators had filed nearly 300 amendments to the $1 trillion package that could come up for vote as early as this weekend. As you could guess members on both sides of the aisle are spending as much time on defense against concerning amendments as they are spending pushing for new amendments. While the legislation would provide hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure related funding for roads and bridges, passenger and freight rail, public transportation, and broadband upgrades, there is plenty of pork barrel spending with little or nothing to do with “infrastructure,” which is unfortunately quite typical in large spending packages like this.
Senate Banking Committee Hears from Regulators
On Tuesday, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing entitled: "Oversight of Regulators: Does our Financial System Work for Everyone?" The witnesses testifying in front of the committee included: The Honorable Todd M. Harper, Chairman, National Credit Union Administration; The Honorable Jelena McWilliams, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and Mr. Michael J. Hsu, Acting Comptroller, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
DakCU did submit a few questions to Senator Rounds (R-SD) in anticipation of the hearing which included:
“Chairman Harper, in your view, did NCUA have all the tools it needed to help credit unions navigate the impact this crisis had on their financials and, importantly, their members’ financial well-being? What should Congress do to ensure that the agency has appropriate tools in its toolbelt for the next crisis?”
FOLLOW-UP: “Credit unions entered the crisis very well capitalized but they have experienced downward pressure on their capital as a result of the economic impact payments sent to Americans, slower than normal loan growth, and faster than normal deposit growth. The Federal Credit Union Act is very prescriptive that NCUA must make a credit union take prompt corrective action if their net worth ratio drops below 5%. Would you support legislation that gives NCUA flexibility to forbear prompt corrective action on a case-by-case basis for otherwise health credit unions negatively impacted by a federally declared disaster or emergency?”
In-Person Fall Hike the Hill Cancelled
I have some disheartening news to report today as well. Unfortunately, due to the direction the COVID-19 pandemic is trending in response to the Delta variant, especially in the D.C. area, and the newest restrictions put in place for travel and meetings, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our in-person Fall Regulatory/Legislative Hike the Hill event that was scheduled for September 14 – 15.
We want to ensure we are being good stewards of everyone’s resources and provide the best value proposition to our attendees. We are also questioning what legislators’ availability may look like in September with the recent COVID diagnosis of ranking and vaccinated GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) earlier this week. Therefore, we believe it is in everyone’s best interest to pivot and make some changes to this event to ensure we are able to host the most effective and meaningful meetings with both regulators and our congressional delegation.
The NCUA and CFPB meetings will all be converted to virtual events, and we will follow up very shortly with details regarding how to register and join these meetings. The congressional meetings will be postponed to potentially late October or November. However, we are also exploring the possibility of conducting these meetings in-district.
While we were looking forward to getting back to conducting in-person meetings with our industry partners in Washington, we are excited for the opportunity to once again open attendance up to these virtual regulatory meetings to all DakCU members. We appreciate your continuing support of our regulatory and legislative advocacy efforts.
As always, don't hesitate to contact me at jkruse@dakcu.org with any questions or comments.