Various Measures

The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days within which to submit additional materials to the chair for inclusion in the record. I recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. Good morning. Welcome to um our mark-up for April. Today we're marking up a series of bills reflecting the committee's priorities, fostering innovation, ensuring comprehensive oversight, and solidifying the United States' leadership in the global financial system. As we consider these measures, we face the critical task of formulating and refining policies that respond to the needs of American families, while keeping pace with the age of rapid technological change. The bills before us reflect the challenge of modernizing our financial framework while staying true to the core principles that underpin it. Together we must work to forge a financial system made for every American, one that promotes opportunity, increases access to capital, and operates with a level of trust that allows businesses to grow and flourish. We must ensure that our rules do not stifle innovation and drive smaller institutions or investors out of the market. while maintaining adequate transparency and accountability to protect consumers, insure orderly markets, and safeguard against fraud. Our founders designed our institutions not to eliminate risk or competition, but instead to guide them in a way that fosters economic growth while mitigating risk. Leaders like our first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, recognized that a stable and resilient financial system is essential to the strength of a nation. The bills before us today reflect the same ongoing effort to strike that right balance between advancing innovation while upholding accountability easing regulatory burden without sacrificing transparency and fostering economic growth while safeguarding the integrity of the financial system. That works evidence in the bill like Representative Warren Davidson's repealing Big Brother Overreach Act, which seeks to relieve American small business owners from the overly burdensome reporting requirements and compliance costs. By codifying the administration's rulemaking to eliminate onerous beneficial ownership reporting requirements for ordinary Americans, we're helping small business owners allocate more of their time and resources towards serving their local customers and their local community. We're also supporting the small small businesses through another bill, the bill like my small lender act. This bill addresses section ten seventy-one of the Dodd-Frank act. By delaying the implementation of small business lending data collection narrowing their scope and exempting our smallest institutions. Community banks play a principal role in our financial ecosystem. They foster competition, serve underserved communities, and drive economic growth. By reducing excessive reporting requirements, we're not only alleviating burdens that on these institutions, but we're enhancing their ability to deliver customer service to their small businesses. We will also consider representative Pete Sessions. Exchange Rate Accountability Act of twenty twenty-six, which directs the Treasury Secretary to oppose increases in the voting power for certain IMF member countries that fail to adopt exchange rate policies consistent with balanced and fair global trade practices. This measure underscores America's leadership in promoting transparency and accountability in the international financial system, while addressing the growing challenges posed by geopolitical competition. Additionally, Representative Brian Stiles, protecting American savings from Politics Act, takes important steps to refocus the proxy voting and investment decision-making on the best economic interest of investors rather than, uh, political or ideological agendas. This bill will strengthen transparency and accountability in the proxy process, curb conflicts of interest among proxy advisory firms, empower shareholders, and help that American savings are managed with a focus on economic return. The bills before us today encompass a wide range of policy areas, each reflecting the committee's focus on promoting economic growth, strengthening market integrity, and ensuring that our regulatory framework keeps up with the rapidly evolving financial landscape. I look forward to today's discussion among our members on these important bills to support a market of competitiveness and reinforce the strength and resilience of our financial system. I yield back and I recognize uh our ranking member, Mrs. Waters of California for five minutes for her opening comments.

Thank you, Chairman Hill. A report last week found that more than half of Americans have already withdrawn, or planning to withdraw, early from their retirement savings to keep up with rising costs. Now, I know that's true, cuz I'm in the same situation. At the same time, more families are turning to buy now, pay later loans just to cover basic needs like groceries. In fact, fifty-four percent of BNLPL users say they wouldn't be able to make ends meet otherwise. Mister Chairman, is this the golden age that Donald Trump promised working families? Or is it a dark age? From what I see, American families are falling behind, all because of the ref- reckless, selfish, and just flat-out dumb policies. of this administration. Across the country, Americans are paying more at the pump uh because of Trump's ill-conceived decision to wage war on Iran. And our constituents in small businesses must deal with higher costs of all types of goods because of Trump's unlawful tariffs. This is a reality under Donald Trump's disastrous agenda and failing Republican majorities in the House and Senate. Unfortunately, instead of offering any solutions to help Committee Republicans will push policies that will make things worse. For exen instance, one bill undermines the Corporate Transparency Act, a strongly bipartisan law that was designed to crack down on anonymous shell companies used by criminals drug cartels human traffickers, and foreign adversaries who hide their dirty mind. Let me be clear, repealing or weakening that law doesn't help small businesses. It doesn't lower costs. Instead, it makes it easier for bad actors, including some in Trump's orbit, to exploit our financial system, scam people from their savings, and harm our national security. The next Jeffrey Epstein will fully fly under the radar. And maybe that's what they want. Republicans will also try to advance a bill that weakens Godwell's Congress past to ensure small businesses can access fair credit. Under Trump's administration, small businesses are already facing rising loan denials and tighter credit. And it is even worse for women and entrepreneurs of color. Rather than fixing that, Republicans are weakening transparency and undermining support for community lenders, like CDFIs, the very institutions that help get capital to underserved communities. That means fewer loans, fewer opportunities to grow, and more small businesses having to their doors altogether. And it doesn't stop there. Republicans who wanna make it harder for investors, especially retail investors, to use their own money to buy independent analysis and make informed decisions when voting on proposals that affect the companies they own. Taking away this shareholder right is not efficiency, it's about silencing investors and protecting corporate executives from accountability. And it's anti-capitalist. No one would be surprised that by this anti-capitalist trend, Republicans are doing nothing when Trump demanded golden shares and profits from private companies to do business. They said nothing as Trump demanded for illegal businesses from private law firms, and Republicans did nothing as Trump undermined free trade with illegal tariffs. The result of this bill is clear. Less transparency, weaker oversight, and power concentrated away from people who provide the capital and own these companies. Mister Chairman, committee of democrats are focused on what actually matters, lowering costs, protecting consumers, strengthening our financial system, and making sure small businesses and working people have a fair shot. We should be cracking down on fraud, not making it easier. We should be expanding access to capital, not cutting it off. And we should be protecting investors, not silencing them. Families, workers and entrepreneurs cannot afford any more of this presidency or these Republican proposals. I yield back the balance of my time.

The gentlewoman yields back. Pursuant to notice, I'll start our mark-up by calling up H R nine forty-one, the small lender act, which I introduced. The clerk will report the bill which was distributed in advance.

H R nine forty-one, to amend the equal credit opportunity act to provide for an effective and a temporary safe harbor for compliance with certain small business lending data

Without objection, the first reading is dispensed with. Without objection, the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point. I have an amendment in the nature of a substitute, the copies of which were also distributed in advance. The clerk will report that amendment.

Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H R nine forty one offered by Mister Hill of Arkansas, designated as Hill AR zero seven six.

Without objection, the amendment is considered read and will serve as base text for purposes of the amendment. I'll recognize myself. for five minutes to provide background on H R nine four one, the Small Lender Act. Since the hundred and seventeenth Congress, I've introduced legislation to tackle this uh vexing and misdirected challenge. The Small Lender Act would reform section ten seventy-one of the Dodd-Frank Act, which spells out the statutory requirements for the CFPB's small business lending rule. Section ten seventy-one mandates the collection and reporting of demographic data on small businesses from loan applicants, placing unnecessary burdens on lenders and small businesses alike, and cutting off credit to the very small businesses that need it the most. While the disastrous Biden-era rule from ten twenty twenty-three went beyond the statutory requirements in section ten seventy-one and continues to face legal challenges, the Trump administration is currently working on a new proposal that would streamline reduce complexity for lenders, and improve data quality. And I think this is a key point that the the Biden administration put out their rule in twenty twenty-three and yet this was port of Dodd Dodd-Frank and neither the Obama administration the first Trump administration uh could find a way or path forward for this rule and that w- this was really the first effort we saw out of President Biden. The Republicans on this committee support the effort of the Trump administration to modify uh the rule making. This bill would codify the kinds of changes that are being proposed by the CFPB and make additional reforms to section ten seventy-one that are only possible through legislation and that's why we're marking the bill up today. For example, H R nine forty-one would exempt smaller institutions from the requirements of section ten seventy-one and extend the compliance date to twenty thirty-one, providing certainty to market participants on coordinating their IT systems and their collection of the data and reporting it. Critically, the bill enshrines small business loan applicants quote " right to refuse" close quote as intended in Dodd-Frank by requiring lenders to inform applicants that they are not required to provide ten seventy-one data and that in doing so will not affect the lender's credit decision. H R nine forty-one would also ban lenders from using visual ob- observation to collect data from their applicants, such as right, race, sex, or ethnicity, which all members should support given serious privacy concerns. And finally, the bill builds on the previous effort championed by Small Business Committee Chair Roger Williams. The committee marked up legislation last April that would have repealed section ten seventy-one altogether. Before we go into debate, I want to address one of the claims that we're going to hear, uh, potentially from our friends on the other side of the aisle. Some may argue that H. R. nine forty-one will weaken fair lending and harm small businesses by preventing regulators from identifying fair lending violations. But you cannot help small businesses if lenders stop making loans in the first place. Instead of weakening transparency, H. R. ninety nine forty-one strengthens it by ensuring higher quality data and more consistent reporting standards are uh the standard. I want to thank Senators Katie Britt and John Bozeman. for introducing the Senate companion legislation uh S twenty three fifty two, the Protect It Act. And I'd like to insert in the record letters of support for the Small Lender Act from the American Bankers Association the Independent Community Bankers of America the Consumer Bankers Association the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association and the Electronic Transactions Association, without objection. They will be included. I urge all members to support the Small Lender Act.

If you strike the last word.

Uh, the ranking member, uh, you will recognize the strike last word.

At a time when the Trump administration has shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, robbing American consumers of a federal watchdog that returned twenty-one billion dollars to two hundred million harmed consumers. I'm disappointed. We're considering another bill to roll back consumer protections further. Chairman Hill's bill would sharply reduce transparency of the small business lending market, by significantly narrowing the data collection requirements of dot Franks section ten seventy-one. I was proud to work with our small business committee, ranking member Representative Velazquez to advance and pass section ten seventy-one into law. We modeled that provision after the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, or HMDA, which for decades has promoted transparency, competition and fairness in the mortgage market. This has helped expand access to affordable mortgage credit. In recent years, HMDA Data also revealed that modern-day redlining continues in more than sixty cities across the United States which bolstered efforts in the Biden administration to strengthen the enforcement of our fair lending and community reinvestment laws. So section ten seventy-one was designed to do the same thing for small business financing. Unfortunately, the bill exempts nearly all lenders from the section uh ten seventy-one reporting requirements except the largest banks, and further narrows the scope of ten seventy-one to only cover loans to small businesses with annual revenues of one million or less instead of five million, and CFPB's rule. Also troubling, the bill delays any compliance until June twenty twenty-three nearly a quarter of a century. after Congress passed this section into law in twenty ten. And this is despite the fact that small business owners like Roshunda Young in Ohio, who testified before this committee, had to sue the CFPB and secured a court supervised settlement requiring CFPB to finally implement this law during Trump's first term. Truly small and underserved businesses are tired of struggling to get According, uh rather during the first round of the paycheck protection program, when the big banks help their concierge clients, Representative Velazquez and I worked with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to secure a sixty billion set-aside for CDFIs and MDIs and other small lenders to better lend those PPP loans to small businesses who really needed it. While that was a successful bipartisan effort, then there's more we need to do to support small business owners. Unfortunately, lenders too often get away with charging entrepreneurs higher rates and fees if not denying them credit. That's because this market has been opaque for far too long. No wonder then that more than two hundred million businesses, civil rights, consumer, and other groups across the country oppose this harmful bill. We need this small business data because you can't improve what you don't measure. If members support market transparency, you should vote no. If you support fair competition that will lower borrowing costs, you should vote no. And if members really want to support small businesses, you should vote no. Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Gentleman yields back, uh, th who seeks recognition, uh, chair recognizes the chair of

Move to strike the last word.

Gentleman's recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, uh, Chairman Hill, and I appreciate your leadership on this issue and in trying to reduce the burdens on uh our uh small community financial institutions uh who are doing great work, uh, supporting uh small businesses on Main Street and entrepreneurs who are uh trying to access credit to build the American dream. This committee has been dedicated to reforming burdensome regulations for community banks and That's exactly what Chairman Hill's legislation does. H R nine forty-one supports community banks by exempting smaller financial institutions from the CFPB's small business lending rule, extending the compliance date for ten seventy-one regulation, and ensuring the regulation is voluntary, as the original statute makes clear. Uh, and by the way, as the ranking member conceded in an earlier debate, uh, as I recall on on the House floor, section ten seventy-one was intended to help identify the needs and opportunities of small businesses. But the Biden administration's proposed rulemaking went far beyond section ten seventy-one's intended scope and created a compliance nightmare for small business lenders and forced financial institutions to overly standardize their loan making processes. The twenty twenty th- three uh chopper rule sought to implement section ten seventy-one by vastly expanding the data collection requirements for financial institutions in s- in the small business lending market well beyond what was required by law. In fact, under that rule, under the Chopra rule, lenders were required to report eighty-one data points, including, listen to this, offensive questions like the applicant's minority-owned business status, women-owned business status, and LGBTQI plus owned business status, uh, well as ethnicity, race and sex of the applicant's principal owners. I thought uh that we were supposed to be moving to a color bl- blind society where the content of your character was what counted as opposed to the color of your skin. But apparently under the Biden administration the only thing that matters uh is the is are these immutable characteristics as opposed to the content of character uh of the borrowers. In the twenty twenty-three rule, the CFPB itself admitted that it believed that the cost of compliance would be passed on to small businesses through higher interest rates or fees. So the twenty twenty-three rule not only discouraged small business lending, but it disincentivized small business owners from using small banks in favor of larger competitors that could spread the compliance costs more broadly. And uh and I I I uh witnessed this um with my own constituents the CEO of a small commercial bank in Lexington, Kentucky, told me that the that the Chopra rulemaking would, if implemented, forced his institution to completely exit small business lending, diminishing credit availability to central Kentucky area businesses, including minority owned and women owned businesses. This was a community bank that prided itself on lending to minority owned and women owned businesses And the result of the Chopra rule was that this bank was going to no longer be able to provide credit to those very small businesses. So this was a disastrous proposal. And fortunately, Chairman uh Hill's legislation, HR nine forty-one, codifies the smart reforms proposed by the Trump administration, CFPB, and creates a workable implementation of ten seventy-one by ensuring that it's supporting, not burdening small businesses while also establishing the framework for ten seventy-one implementation. So this bill protects the data privacy of borrowers and ensures that smaller institutions like the community uh bank in my district are not burdened by excessive data collection requirements and so that small businesses of all types have access to to the credit that they need to build successful businesses. I urge members to support this bill and yield back my time.

Gentleman yields back, uh who seeks uh recognition?

Mr. Chairman.

Gentleman of New York, your recognizer is.

I must strike the last word.

Recognized.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Thank you. Here we are once again, debating the merits of section ten seventy-one. We have discussed this provision so many times, I have literally lost count. Let me say one more time that I believe in section ten seventy-one's mission, and believe it is necessary tool to ensure all of America's small businesses have access to capital on fair and equal terms. As both chair and ranking member of the House Small Business Committee and a senior member of this committee I have seen for far too long, women and minority owned small businesses experience obstacle in accessing capital. During the COVID pandemic, ranking member Waters and I saw first-hand how our underserved, small businesses were shut out of the first round of PPP funding by financial institutions. We told Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi that we will not support a re- a second round of funding unless we were assured small businesses in our nations on the search communities will be able to access these funds. I will argue that had section ten ten seventy-one been in place, we would have known where the funding gaps were, and the entire scenario could have been avoided. And I think our small businesses and our economy would have been better off for it. Now, there are portion of this bill that I think are reasonable and deserve merit. I think it is a worthwhile idea for the financial institution to inform a credit that the institution is required to ask, collect, and report demographic data on the federal law. I think it's also a worthwhile idea to inform the borrower in writing that they are not required to respond. And the creation of a model form to ensure uniformity is also equally sound. Had these ideas been presented years ago, and offer as a genuine compromise to support the rule, I probably would have supported them. Yet, congressional Republicans and their industry allies took the opposite approach, instead doing everything possible to undermine, discredit, and destroy the rule. They sued the CFPB, they tried to nullify the rulemaking through the Congressional Review Act, and, last, year they passed legislation out of the house to strip section ten seventy-one entirely from federal law. Thankfully, our colleagues in the Senate have not taken up this measure. Perhaps more egregious and incendiary, congressional Republicans and industry allies ignore repeated statement offered by me, ranking member Waters, ranking member Warren, former CFPB director Chopra, and other supporters about the rule's details, its impact, and how it will be implemented. In fact, I heard former director Chopra make repeated statement in this very room about the rule having safe harbors mother forms and giving borrowers the right to decline all details that Sherman Hill included in today's bill. Mister Chairman, what was wrong in the view of Republicans sixteen years ago is welcome today, under your bill. This is why the American people don't trust us. And they gonna show in big numbers coming, Would would the Jun- would the gentleman yield? no, no, wait. Uh, no, I don't have time, I'm sorry. Okay, okay. So, while on the surface, this idea seem reasonable, they must be viewed in a broader context and after sixteen years of endless debate. We should also not ignore that the bill once again extends the rules compliance date, a compliance date that was already repeatedly extended in good faith by Director in order to accommodate Republican lawsuits against the CFPB,

Yeah.

and dramatically increases the number of loan originations required for rules compliant blowing a massive hole in the final rule. Finally, and perhaps more importantly, we will we also cannot ignore what Ro- uh Russell Boat and President Trump are doing right now at the CFPB. Since the start of the second Trump administration, Director Boat and President Trump have undermined the CFPB uh everything. They have tried to fire staff, starve the agency of resources, dismissed critical rules, enforcement action, settlements and consent orders have been undone. Consumer complaints have been disregarded, and bad actors continue to profit off consumer.

General Osama's expired.

It is a discontent that I ask my colleagues to do.

General Osama's expired.

Oh no, now you're back.

General Muñoz back. Who seeks recognition? Gentleman from Oklahoma.

Miss Chairman, could I yield to you for response?

I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma. Let me uh make some comments. I appreciate the gentleman from New York's uh outline of the history of this rule. And she's right, sixteen years ago is when Dodd-Frank passed uh this section ten seventy-one. And guess when we finally got a rulemaking on it? Twenty twenty-three. Twenty twenty-three, the Biden administration. We're debating essentially Chopra's exercise in trying to implement ten seventy-one. And the gentleman is one hundred percent right. Uh, we made uh comments to uh the director uh since twenty twenty-three about some of the things the core principles that are in this bill. She's she's correct. Uh, expanding the safe harbor, uh lowering, increasing the number of compliant loans that would have to be there, streamlining the data points. These are all points that the industry has made, but in fact that's not what the Biden administration did. And so we have the rule that's before us. I think it's uh overkill uh in the keeping with the statutory intent of the Congress sixteen years ago. And uh while yes it's true that uh Small Business Chair, your your colleague on the Small Business Committee, Roger Williams, proposed uh eliminating it, ten seventy-one, that that's true and we debated it and we have passed it. I've also since the hundred and seventeenth Congress pro-offered these concrete ways to find a middle ground. to simply accept the statutory fact that ten seventy-one exists, but try to make it work both for small businesses and for community banks. And most of those ideas are contained in this bill that we're debating today. So I I thank the general one for her advocacy for small business and for her advocacy for the topic. But I don't think fair lending, you know, is um is enhanced by an overwhelming amount of data, so data uh, compliance on the part of banks or trying to fill out more forms, if you're a small business trying to get credit from a bank. Uh, and I just would remind, uh, members on both sides of the aisle, if you think we had, don't have any data on small business lending, let me remind everybody that in the call report we collect detailed information on bank loans to small businesses and small farms. Small businesses and small farm lending data is also collected individually by the bank regulators. under CRA requirements, community reinvestment. The FDIC also conducts small business lending surveys, a nationally representative sample of US banks that offers important insights into all their small business lending practices. Next, all twelve Federal Reserve Banks jointly conduct an annual small business credit survey that includes information on non-depository lenders and in my view uh having been in the industry for a couple of decades before I was in Congress, ten seventy-one is duplicative of these data requirements and is an unnecessary burden on our community banks and will deter, in my view, a small business uh lending. But we'll continue the debate and I yield back to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

Gentleman yields back who seeks recognition. The gentleman from California, Mister Vargas, you're recognized.

Uh, thank you very much, Mister Chair. I moved a strike the last week.

You're recognized for five minutes.

Uh, thank you, Mister What ten seventy-one does is collect data. That's the requirement. You know, I hear one of my colleagues said, well there's these banks and and they lend to minority businesses, they lend to women, and that's their word. We don't know what the data is. I recall back when uh early nineties, I've been in politics for a long time, when I was on the San Diego City Council. We had these contractors that used to say the same thing. course we hire lots of people of color and we hire lots of women. And the neighboring district to mine was one held by a gentleman named George Stephens, an African-American. And he noticed that in the construction of the school and in the construction of all the infrastructure that was being built in this area of his district where over over fifty percent of the people that lived there were black, there wasn't one black person. working on any of those jobs. And yet the contractors had said, " Oh yeah, great diversity here, not one person." He invited me to come and see, and I didn't find one black person working on these projects that together were over fifty million dollars, back when fifty million dollars was a hell of a lot of money. And so we demanded data. After that we passed an ordinance saying, " No, we wanna see the - the the data this, we don't wanna see your word, we don't wanna hear your word, because often your word's not worth anything. You say, " Yeah, sure you hire people of color," and they did some, of course, but not one person from the community, not one African American in a community that was over fifty percent African American. That's why it's so important to get the actual facts and not the words of people. Say, " Oh yeah, I do it." Sure you do. Let's see the facts. And with that, I yield back.

Gentleman from California yields back, who seeks recognition. Chairman, Mister Musier of Pennsylvania, the chair of our oversight committee, recognized.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chairman. I move to strike the last word.

You're recognized for five minutes.

Uh, I do urge colleagues to support H R nine forty one, the small lender act, introduced by Chairman Hill through our work on financial services and small business committees. We've seen how critical it is to preserve access to capital for small businesses. The CFPB section ten seventy-one small business data collection rule remains a very clear example of regulatory overreach that threatens that access. It is misguided, invasive, and imposes unnecessary burdens on the very institutions that serve our communities best. It went way beyond the scope of the CFPB. As written, the rule requires financial institutions to collect and store highly sensitive personal information that has nothing to do with a borrower's ability to repay a loan. Uh, ten seventy-one was passed sixteen years ago and uh died frank. Uh, the Biden administration, um, CFPB under Chopra, uh, went again well beyond its scope. Um, it w- it covered lenders, um, it required collection data points, including applicant race, sex, ethnicity, revenue, income, and whether the business is minority, women owned, or LGBTQ, and other sexual preference data points. Uh, why that is necessary in determining a a loan is well, uh, irrational government overreach that is somehow rationalized to sound as if it's necessary. Um, anyone who's in the business world can appreciate that business is business, and you you always want to have a diversified group, um, uh, and you want to provide, based upon merit, cuz that's what a bank does, providing access to capital for those whom needed to grow their businesses and are credit worthy, regardless of what any of these ridiculous um, data points uh b- uh b- are. So, again, the banks don't make lending decisions based on personal characteristics. They're focused on and remain on the creditworthiness of the business. Community banks and small lenders already face significant compliance costs. Community banks are probably the most regulated and larger banks uh e- entity in our economy. And this rule only adds to the burden. The data collection mandates under section ten seventy-one increased cost, discouraged lending, and ultimately make it harder for small business to access the capital they need to grow and succeed. Uh, H R nine four one takes a targeted approach to fix this by raising the threshold for those who are subject to the rule, ensuring that truly small lenders are not swept in. Under the CFPB's framework, lenders originating as few as one hundred small business loans annually can be subject to these requirements. This bill increases that threshold, focusing compliance on larger institutions that have the scale and infrastructure to absorb these mandates. This is about right-sizing the rules so it does not unintentionally cut off access to credit in rural and underserved communities that rely on relationship banking. I am encouraged to see the CFPB taking steps to revisit this rule and work toward improvement and ensure it does not impose unnecessary burdens, personal burdens on small and community banks that are essential to serving Main Street we should be strengthening community banks not overwhelming them with costly intrusive requirements, and we must protect the privacy, privacy of business owners, not inundate them with questions about their personal characteristics, which by the way, in the rule, if they, the bank does not receive, uh, they are required to guess and report something on the uh documentation. So um, I um I thank Chairman Hill for his leadership and I urge my colleagues to support HR nine four one.

Would the gentleman yield? Would the gentleman yield?

I I yield.

Uh, I thank the gentleman, I wanna reiterate he's making some good points. We've raised the threshold of reporting to minimize the impact on the smallest companies uh in the country with the uh number of loans uh that they make to qualify, and also the bank size. But to the, my friend from California's point, Mister Vargas, and also the general woman ranking member of the small business committee, I'll remind you, the data my bill still collects, whether it's a minority owned or women owned business, they're not excluded. And secondly, uh, as I said, it, in my judgment it was redundant, and uh, you know, in looking at the Federal Reserve Small Business Credit survey, which I referenced a few minutes ago in response to the general woman from New York, uh, the demographics that have been in that survey are collected by the federal government extensively gender, race, minority ownership status. So I yield back to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

I yield.

Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition?

Seek recognition.

Uh, uh, the Ju- the Chair of our uh uh, Small Business Committee, Mister Williams.

Uh, thank you, Chairman. Uh, small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, and as Chairman of the House Small Business Committee and Small Business Owner myself, I understand one of the largest issues facing small business and entrepreneurs today is access to capital. One of the main drivers pushing necessary uh capital out of reach for small businesses is CFPB's section ten seventy-one, small business lending rule. This rule is a clear example of government overreach. It hurts Main Street America. Instead of helping small businesses, it creates new barriers for current business owners and entre- and aspiring entrepreneurs trying to secure the capital they need to start their business or expand their current operations. So I'm proud to be an original sp- uh co-sponsor of Chairman Hill's HR nine four one, Small Lender Act. This critical uh legislation would exempt smaller financial institutions from the requirements of the CFPB's disastrous rule. It also extends compliance dates, creates a two year safe harbor, and insures that ten seventy-one regulatory compliance is voluntary for small business loan applicants. This bill's about helping Main Street, Main Street America, making sure our financial policies actually support Main Street and give small businesses the chance to grow, hire and succeed. Section ten seventy-one is out of touch with reality and works against the very businesses it claims to support. So I want to thank Chairman Hill for his leadership and for incorporating many of our shared uh priorities into this legislation, urge all of my colleagues, I repeat, all of my colleagues who support H R nine four one, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Gentleman yields back, chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green.

Uh, Green of Texas, uh, desired to strike the last word.

The gentleman is recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Mr. Chairman, invidious discrimination still exists. And, my fear is that we are allowing privacy, or the notion that somehow we are encroaching upon privacy, to prevent us from fighting invidious discrimination. I have some data that I'd like to share with you. Um, CFPB pilot study found lenders expressed interest in applications from forty percent of white participants compared to twenty-three percent of black participants. Research shows black-owned businesses are charged on average three point zero nine percentage points more in interest, while white women-owned businesses pay roughly two point three eight. And the empirical evidence continues to support the fact that invidious discrimination exists. The question becomes, how will we, if we accord the privacy that is being discussed today, how will we prevent invidious discrimination from becoming even greater than it currently is? People of color in this country have suffered historically, it is very difficult to overlook the history of invidious discrimination in this country. I - I just find it very difficult to understand how privacy trumps the notion that persons ought not be discriminated against. Um, this is - this is - Rolling back the clock. We're moving back. We're we're making it easier to discriminate and impossible for some small businesses to get loans. Um, the chairwoman of the small business committee, former chair, is is eminently correct. Mister Vargas gave an excellent example. invidious discrimination exists. And to be more specific, racism still exists. Discrimination against women still exists. Sexism. Discrimination against people who are of the LGBTQ plus community exist. We are now going to limit the tools that we use to fight invidious discrimination because we conclude that there is some encroachment upon privacy. This is unacceptable. I would encourage my colleagues to vote against this. And let's continue to move forward and not take a quantum leap into the past. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition? Uh, hearing none, we'll move to amendments. Does anyone wish to offer an amendment to the amendment in nature of substitute?

I have an amendment at the desk.

Uh, the ranking member has amendment in the desk. We'll pause while that amendment is distributed.

Miss Chairman.

Uh, the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Can I reserve a point of order, Miss Chairman?

A point of order has been reserved. Without objection, the amendment's considered read. Um, and uh, the General Woman from California is recognized to describe her amendment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My amendment would restore the consumer

Oh, sorry, excuse me a second, I I I skipped over uh reading the amendment. Uh, the clerk if the clerk would read the amendment, I apologize.

Oh, let me An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H R nine forty one, read the amendment. offered by Miss Waters of California, designated as Waters point six.

Objection, amendment's considered read, the gentleman is now recognized, four five minutes to describe her amendment.

My amendment

would restore the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's budget to the original twelve percent cap of funding from the Fed that was in Dodd-Frank. This would reserve the harmful budget cuts Republicans passed into law last year to slash CFPB's budget nearly in half. And so, back when we had a fully funded and functioning CFPB, we had a very popular agency with support from eighty percent of Americans, including Republicans. That's because Americans, both Democratic and Republican, didn't like to pay junk fees or get ripped off. The CFPB was popular because it returned twenty-one billion dollars to two hundred million consumers harmed by financial institution. But the Trump administration brought the CFPB's work to a halt. Mister Chairman, while we're talking about CFPB, I look forward to hearing about any progress you have made in scheduling hearing with CFPB's acting director. At a time when families are struggling through Trump's affordability crisis, it is past time for Congress to stop ignoring their cries for help and step up to support them so let's get the CFPB's hundreds of hard-working public servants I urge members to support this amendment and I yield back.

Remember yields back, who seeks recognition? Oh, does the gentleman from Oklahoma insist on his point of order?

I do not, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to withdraw.

Thank you so much. The point of order order is withdrawn and now the chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky the chair of our uh subcommittee on financial institutions, Mister Barr.

Thank you, I move to strike the last word.

You're recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, I I uh rise in opposition to the amendment. Um, You know, our efforts, Republican efforts in the the the the working families tax cut bill, uh, was aimed at reducing the unaccountable funding feature, um, the unaccountable funding stream at the CFPB to promote more accountability and save American taxpayers money. As we all know, Dodd-Frank unwisely permitted the CFPB to simply request fund funds from the Federal Reserve, which is itself not subject to the normal preparations, Reducing the funding cap from transfers from the Fed system from twelve to six and a half percent is helping to reduce this opaque funding stream and save over two billion dollars, according to the CBO. As Republicans on this committee have advocated for over a decade, the Bureau should be under the normal congressional preparations process, where we could openly debate in Congress the proper level of funding. And we could ga- uh, uh, engage in normal oversight, where the activities, the rule making activities such as implementation of ten seventy-one, could be examined uh through the lens of real accountability, where members of Congress on both sides of the aisle could actually exercise the power of the purse to achieve whatever goal it might be uh in terms of implementation of the Dodd-Frank law. But we can't do that. N- n- neither this side of the aisle nor that nor the other side of the aisle can do that, because we've ceded our power of the purse to the Federal Reserve. We've just given away our meaningful oversight over this agency. So we have disagreements about ten seventy-one. That's that's fair. But what we should what what should unite us all is defending the Congress as an institution. And we've and Dodd-Frank, we gave that away. We gave away our authority, away. And this amendment would take the opposite approach, it would reverse these reforms that Congress passed in July to help try to reclaim some of our reducing transparency and accountability in the CFPB's funding. I I wanna make another point. That even if we were to adopt the amendment and restore twelve percent of of funding, this would have absolutely no impact on the the the Trump administration's imp- uh reforms here. None. Uh, the the vote uh CFPB would be able to move forward with reversing the Chopra rulemaking and restoration of funding would make a bit of difference. So, if the amendment is designed to push back against the vote CFPB, this kind of illustrates the point I'm making, uh, is that we don't have meaningful oversight over the CFPB, whether it is the vote CFPB or no,

Will the gentleman here

I will not. Let me finish the point.

Will the gentleman here

Whether it's the vote CFPB or whether it's the Chopra CB. If the gentlelady and my friends on the other side of the aisle are dissatisfied with uh the current administration's approach to ten seventy-one, then I invite them to join me and my colleagues on this side of the aisle in a bipartisan effort to reclaim our oversight over this renegade, unaccountable agency,

Will the gentleman here?

restore the power of the purse, where we could have more meaningful oversight and influence the policy direction regardless of who is in the White House. Um, I I will yield back.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, he talks about accountability to Congress.

That's okay. He

Why has your side refused to have the current acting director testify before our committee, as required by law?

I'll yield uh to the chairman.

Um, as I've said before in this committee, th- uh, we expect Director Vol- to uh, Acting Director Vol to testify before the committee. We've certainly made that invitation and we know the strong feelings the ranking member has on it and I expect that to happen in coming days. I yield back. Further debate on the amendment from the ranking member? Anybody seek uh To comment on the ranking members' amendment, if there's no further debate, the question now occurs on the amendment, all those in favor of the amendment shall signify by saying aye.