▶ 0:15:09The committee on financial services will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. This hearing is titled member day. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days within which to submit extraneous materials to the chair for inclusion in the record. I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. Welcome to today's member day.
▶ 0:15:34We welcome all of our members on and off the committee who are joining us to give testimony on their bills and legislative solutions that fall under the financial services committee's jurisdiction. Your work and experience will give members of this committee a unique perspective into legislation that we might consider in the course of this Congress. As we work to usher in a new era of our financial regulatory agencies under President Trump, the work that we're doing today is more important than ever.
▶ 0:16:03Consumers need protection. Small businesses and entrepreneurs need access to capital. And financial institutions need the opportunity to innovate. At the beginning of the 119th Congress, I shared my vision for our committee.
▶ 0:16:17Rightsize the regulatory system for financial institutions, particularly community banks, deliver clear rules of the road for the digital asset ecosystem, and ensure that agencies are focused on their core statutoilydirected During our first six months, the committee Republicans have delivered on this agenda by passing comprehensive digital asset legislation for both a dollarback payment stable coin and an overall financial market structure.
▶ 0:16:47passing over 25 bills that strengthen community banking and expand access to capital for entrepreneurs. Reviewing the Federal Reserve Board's monetary policy decisions through our committee's new task force on monetary policy, Treasury market resilience, and economic prosperity. Passing legislation to defend the United States and its allies against China.
▶ 0:17:11examining housing challenges that too many Americans face and recognizing the limitations of previous failed housing efforts and conducting oversight of the Biden administration's actions such as shedding light on politically motivated debanking efforts like Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and environmental social governance mandates.
▶ 0:17:34I look forward to hearing the testimony from our panels today on how we can work together over the rest of this Congress to further accomplish our committee's goals. And I yield back. This will be the best speech you hear all week because it's the shortest. Um, may I recognize you for five You don't you don't I just gave this I I finished my speech and the gentleman yields back for an opening statement.
▶ 0:18:03We have our witnesses today divided into two panels. The first panel we welcome the testimony of honorable Troy Downing of Montana, the the uh Sarah McBride representative from Delaware and the Honorable Nelly Poe of the state of New Jersey. We're glad all of you are with us. And we'll start with Representative Downing. and you're recognized for your oral remarks for 5 minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, you know, I'm very honored to be on this committee.
▶ 0:18:32I probably worked harder getting on this committee than I did on my campaign. Um, wanted to make sure that I hit the ground running with my, uh, private sector experience in technology, uh, in technology venture, in insurance, and then also I spent the last four years as a regulator, the insurance and securities regulator for the state of Montana.
▶ 0:18:52I wanted to make sure that uh I hit the ground running and uh I'm really excited about the work we do on this from ensuring the United States remains a hotbed of innovation to helping small businesses access capital to repealing senseless regulations on banks that only reduce access to credit for those who need it most. But today, I'd like to spend my time highlighting one of my top legislative priorities, which is eliminating the Federal Insurance Office.
▶ 0:19:20You know, as a former regulator of insurance for the state of Montana, I know that state-based regulation works works in the insurance industry. The McCarron Ferguson Act of 1945 makes it very clear that states have the sole regulatory authority over the insurance industry. The 2010 DoddFrank Act dumped decades of this practice by creating the Federal Insurance Office to monitor all all aspects of insurance.
▶ 0:19:46And uh one could uh ask the obvious question, if insurance is based is regulated by the states, why do we have a federal insurance office? And worst of all with Fio, I'll call it for short, the Biden administration weaponized Fio pursuing politicized data calls on climate rather than looking for ways to make the insurance sector oper offer operate more uh they weaponized this and usurp the state's authority doing these data calls on domestic insurance
▶ 0:20:16companies rather than leaving that where it truly belongs with the states. So the first bill that I introduced as a member of Congress was HR 643 the Federal Insurance Elimination Act with strong support from the insurance industry. The name, as the name suggests, this legislation simply eliminates the federal insurance office and returns the regulation of insurance to to the states where it belongs. Let me be clear. I did not come to Washington to slash and burn.
▶ 0:20:46I came to Washington to advocate for targeted regulatory reforms. I understand the Federal Insurance Office does some important work particularly when it comes to representing the industry in the international stage and I promise to make sure that that work continues. Uh Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you and insurance stakeholders to advance this legislation and preserve state-based regulation because states are best equipped to address the insurance needs of their communities, not the federal government. Uh thank you, Mr.
▶ 0:21:16Chair. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. Represent McBride, you're recognized for five minutes. And I should have said at the top uh that each of you will be recognized for your oral presentation. Without objection, your written statements will be included as part of the record. And now, Representative Bride, I yield to you. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much to you and ranking member Waters for hosting this member hearing today. I'm here to discuss my bipartisan bill HR 306, the Ending Scam Credit Repair Act, ESCRA.
▶ 0:21:46I'd like to thank my colleague, Representative Young Kim, for serving as the Republican co-lead of this legislation. We've all seen the commercials for so-called credit repair organizations, also known as CRO's, shiny promises, and toll-free numbers offering miraculous credit score boosts. But what we don't see behind these advertisements is the deception, the abuse, and the heartbreak.
▶ 0:22:10Behind the curtain are CRO's exploiting legal loopholes, charging high upfront fees, taking advantage of cons confused constituents, and overwhelming financial institutions with manipulative tactics, leaving vulnerable Americans worse off than before. Our bill cracks down on these abusive and fraudulent practices by CRO's. It prohibits them from charging upfront fees until at least 6 months after they've provided proof of real credit score improvement.
▶ 0:22:37While this protection already exists in federal law, CRO's exploit a loophole to rip consumers off anyway, as long as they don't use certain telemarketing scale uh sales practices, they're able to evade this critical consumer protection. Our bill rightfully closes that loophole. ESCRA also prohibits CRO from jamming financial institutions with duplicative requests, which have prevented these institutions from addressing legitimate credit report issues.
▶ 0:23:03Additionally, escort strengthens state oversight, raises penalties for bad actors, and ensures that every consumer knows their rights, that they can do all of this on their own for free. Our bill doesn't punish legitimate services. It protects the ethical actors who are trying to do the right thing. Both the financial services industry and consumer advocates, groups that rarely align, support ESCRA. This legislation exemplifies how Congress is supposed to work, bringing people together to improve life for our constituents.
▶ 0:23:33Preventing scams is not a partisan issue. In Delaware, I've spoken with hardworking families who, in moments of financial stress, turned to these companies believing help was on the way. Instead, they were met with high costs, false hope, and ultimately more debt and confusion. That's not just immoral, it should be illegal. Thank you. and I urge the committee to consider this muchneeded bipartisan legislation. I yield back the remainder of my time.
▶ 0:24:01Thank you very much for your offer today. Uh Representative Poe, you're recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to Ranking Member Waters. Uh good afternoon. It is indeed my pleasure to offer testimony to the House Financial Services Committee as you set your agenda for the 119th Congress. One of the challenges that keeps my constituents up at night is housing.
▶ 0:24:28New Jersey is one of is is is the most densely populated state in the union and the need for affordable housing far exceeds supplies. More than two 200,000 affordable homes are needed for low-income people in our state where the average price of a home has increased 66% over the past five years.
▶ 0:24:54For those who dream of being homeowners, high rental prices combined with low housing availability make it difficult for New Jerseyians to save enough to afford a down payment. And with some of the h with some of the highest property taxes in the country, it's difficult for many to stay in their homes. Renters are also struggling to keep to keep up.
▶ 0:25:20Experts tell us not to spend more than 30% of our income on rent, but nationally more than a third of households exceed that. To meet that 30% metric in New Jersey, full-time workers need to make over $30 an hour simply to afford a two-bedroom uh rental. That's untenable.
▶ 0:25:45We've seen how the housing affordability crisis contributes to homelessness, which increased 24% in my state from to 2024 just in that one year. Beyond the affordability, accessing safe housing is also a challenge in my district. Almost twothirds of New Jersey housing was built before the lead paint um lead based paint was banned.
▶ 0:26:13My hometown, my hometown of Patterson has one of the highest level of the in the state of children with elevated blood level uh blood le levels. As you know, lead exposures in children is linked to learning behaviors, hearing and speech problems which can earn uh certainly uh affect the academic environment as well as their achievement.
▶ 0:26:40Ensuring that every child grow up in a lead-free home is a smart investment in the future and the right thing to do. I encourage the committee to prioritize legislation that will help build new homes and rental units, particularly in the area near public transportation. Make existing housing safer like through like through lead remediation.
▶ 0:27:05help low and middle inome people afford rent and down and provide for that their ability to provide a down payment, especially for seniors and families with children and promote fair housing practices so every American has a fair shot at buying or renting a home. And while I am here, I would also like to encourage this committee to renew and reform the National Flood Insurance Program.
▶ 0:27:34Homeowners across my district in New Jersey, from the Meadowlands to the Pake River Basin, remember the devastation from hurricanes like Irene and Sandy. Like it was just yesterday. Our neighbors saw their entire lives swept away in just an instant. Instant. I encourage the committee to advance legislation to make the program more affordable and fairer.
▶ 0:28:03We need safeguards to stop premiums from being raised to unaffordable levels. We need accurate maps and flood prevention investments. We need to strengthen the claims process so survivors can get what they need to rebuild. Flood victims are counting on Congress to make our flood insurance program better. I look forward uh Mr.
▶ 0:28:26chairman to working with the committee on this issue and in any other way to support the residents of the New Jersey's 9inth Congressional District. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this uh committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you, uh, Representative Po. Thank you for your time today. We'll now turn to member questions. Let me begin that. Let me start with Mr. Downing.
▶ 0:28:52Um you referenced uh in if one were to eliminate the federal insurance office that you thought one of the key functions that it had was representing the US uh in international fora for insurance oversight. How would you see that being handled were the Fio office eliminated? Mr. Chair, thank you uh for your question.
▶ 0:29:17uh on the very narrow part of that where they are um dealing with uh um uh covered contracts with the very very narrow part where we do need to deal with international issues. I I believe that that could be an appointee under Treasury.
▶ 0:29:31I think that could be a person that handled that part and that would solve, you know, the problem with the life companies that do have international exposure and I think that that person should also take the seat that Fio currently has on FSOC and so that would also have that insurance representation on FSOC as well as being the international. The problem is is that Fio, you know, historically did not consult with the actual uh insurance regulators, the state regulators.
▶ 0:29:59And so the NIC, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, uh their toes were stepped on, you know, figuratively by FIO misrepresenting what mattered to these state regulators. And so that that's a huge issue. But the the one thing where I do, as you uh as you pointed out, believe we need to solve is to have that one spot on the international representation, which I believe can be an appointee under Treasury.
▶ 0:30:22So you um you also make the excuse me you also make the point that your view of the the insurance expert that's at Treasury now at the Fio office is not regularly consulting with the insurance commissioners around the country. How could they be representative on the financial stability oversight board if they weren't taking the pulse of our insurance commissioners around the country? And then that that is the key to the problem.
▶ 0:30:51You know when uh the start of my discontent as an insurance commissioner was that the US markets were misrepresented. And so a lot of us took the time and effort to start attending IIS the international association of insurance supervisors meetings making sure that we were monitoring that so that they had a voice independent of of Fio. And that was the start of my discontent.
▶ 0:31:14But where I really uh realized that there was a problem is I first of all FIO I don't believe should have subpoena power over insurance companies and when they started to push the last administration's uh aspirations on green new deal issues they started uh doing data calls from domestic insurers which was uh disruptive and expensive to the domestic insurers and in my opinion it was a usurpation of the state's authority to regulate their own markets.
▶ 0:31:43Well, thank you. I appreciate that feedback very much. Representative McBride on your suggestions and we this committee is frequently concerned about consumer protection and proper disclosure and you bring up good issues with your bill that you proposed with young Kim.
▶ 0:32:02Can you tell us just what either the states attorney general or just pick Delaware as an example uh just some egregious uh issues around the loophole you describe and has it gotten worse over the years due to technology or what what's risen to the occasion now where you think this is important for this fix? Well, thank you for that question, Mr.
▶ 0:32:24chairman and it's a good one because the current consumer protections were written at in a period of time where the main method for these CRO CRO to communicate with consumers was through telephones but with the advent of the internet these CRO are now utilizing uh digital communications which evades the consumer protections that exist. So the protections while um well intended are obviously hollow in those communication methods.
▶ 0:32:51Um, we have seen actions by both states and the federal government over the last several years to challenge some of these abusive practices. The CFPB did receive, I believe, a $2 billion do $2 billion settlement um as a result of uh taking to task these CRO's.
▶ 0:33:07But until we have clarity, until we have uh this loophole closed, um we're going to see a lot of constituents continue to face the situation where they're paying these upfront fees and the CRO's either make progress, fake progress, the illusion of progress, or just don't even provide the service at all.
▶ 0:33:25Uh and so I believe closing this loophole, modernizing these protections and guaranteeing that the financial institutions are no longer jammed with duplicative requests so that they can focus on actual genuine credit report issues. Uh it'll make sure that the entire system works better. Appreciate that. Appreciate your advocacy. And Congress, Congresswoman uh Poe, thank you for your advocacy for housing. It's a top issue for all the members across the country particularly in highcost markets like New Jersey.
▶ 0:33:55So we look forward to having that as a priority during the course of of our committee. I yield back my questions. I ask my friend from California would yield time to him five minutes for questions if you have some for this panel. I do. Uh uh Mr. Donning, thank you for your experience uh in insurance. uh uh at a very minimum, we've got to get the Fio to consult with uh the National Association of uh State Insurance Regulators.
▶ 0:34:22Um whether I'll go as far as your bill, I'm going to have to to think through. Uh, Miss McBride, uh, thank you for, uh, and I look forward I want to read your bill, but I think I'm going to co-sponsor it because, uh, you have hit on a very important, uh, area where consumers are are being abused. Uh, Miss Bo, how I, uh, share a lot of concerns from your district.
▶ 0:34:51I also represent a very highcost area and we need hundreds of thousands of additional housing units in Los Angeles County and uh share your concerns about disasters because I represent the Pacific Palisades. Um I'll uh point out that uh I have always supported flood insurance even though Los Angeles is the most important city in the world built in a desert.
▶ 0:35:18Uh but I still support flood insurance and uh uh I would hope that uh this talk from the White House that uh Los Angeles's uh horrendous natural disasters fires should be ignored by the federal government just because he doesn't like our governor.
▶ 0:35:40um is is a huge problem and one that you might face depending upon who's elected governor of your state and uh I look forward to Congress reclaiming its role and saying that when we establish a program and it's supposed to be treat all 50 states equally that we don't have an administration uh choosing to ignore certain states for political reasons. Uh with that I yield back. gentleman yields back.
▶ 0:36:09I want to thank our first panel for your participation. Your statements will be made part of our record. We really appreciate your advocacy and thanks for sharing your time today. Give us a moment. We'll suspend for a moment while we change
▶ 0:37:57come back to order. What a distinction it is to see these three distinguished members of our committee testifying on member day. We thank each of you for taking time to come back to the hearing room today. Each of you will be recognized for five minutes to give an oral presentation of your testimony and of course without objection your written statements and any other material may part of the record. We'll start from my left and we'll start with Mr. Cleaver and you're recognized for I mean I'm sorry Mr.
▶ 0:38:27Sherman you're recognized for five minutes. Got a whole package of bills that I'm sure the chair would want to mark up. The first is the bank safety act that focuses on the problem where banks invest in long-term often treasuries and treat it as if there's no If the treasuries go up in value, they can sell the treasuries, have a huge profit, and then
▶ 0:38:58uh announce uh bonuses for their board and executives. But if the treasuries go down, they just don't do anything and continue for regulatory purposes to list the treasuries at their original purchase price. And they're allowed to do this even for treasuries and other bond instruments that are in the account of held for sale. So they're holding these instruments for sale.
▶ 0:39:25They go down in value and they treat them as if they're still had the original value. This is exactly what Silicon Valley Bank did and that's why we don't have Silicon Valley Bank. More banks will do exactly this.
▶ 0:39:43Not only that, there's a fight for capital between the small business that wants to borrow a loan from the bank and the bank's opportunity to invest in long-term uh securities on the stock market. If they invest in business loans, there's very little interest rate risk because there tend to be short-term loans or adjustable rate. There's a credit risk and the credit a and the bank examiners are all over them looking at that credit risk.
▶ 0:40:13If you invest in the long-term bonds, there's an interest rate risk and we have a don't look at it policy toward that interest rate risk. So, banks have a strong reason to say no to Main Street. Then I've got a package of bills dealing with China. One is outside the jurisdiction of this committee, but certainly we should not be providing a capital gains allowance or step up in basis for those Americans who invest in Chinese, Russian, Bellarus or Iranian stocks.
▶ 0:40:42Second, I've got and this I think is one that the chairman may be very interested in and that is the China risk reporting act. If we're going to inform investors, we have to tell them what risk the company has because of its involvement in China. We've seen a possible breakdown in the China relationship in the last few months and China may invade Taiwan uh and or blockade it and that would create such a rift.
▶ 0:41:11Investors deserve to know but also under this bill they company would have to show what it is doing to derisk and decouple America's biggest corporations. should be looking at reducing their China risk. The next uh act would impose would say that you cannot buy stock in companies that we're There are 144 companies that the federal government is sanctioning where their stock is available for purchase by Americans.
▶ 0:41:41And finally, the NoChina Index Funds Act. index funds uh do not have the uh capacity to evaluate these unique Chinese risks. And furthermore, these index funds are investing not in Chinese stocks but in variable interest entities that then have a contractual relationship from the Cayman Islands to the Chinese company.
▶ 0:42:06So you're being told that you're investing in the biggest companies in the world and you're not investing in Alibaba of China. You're investing in Alibaba Cayman Islands, a completely different entity. Two things on crypto because there are two things that I think everybody in this committee can agree on in crypto. Crypto should not be bailed out by the American taxpayer and we shouldn't use taxpayer money to buy crypto assets. So the first one is the no crypto bailout act.
▶ 0:42:33I don't want to see a circumstance where all of a sudden Skibbiditycoin or Bitcoin or Trumpcoin is diving in value and the people who invested it are somehow claiming that it is a uh systemically important asset and somehow we should be bailing them out. Even crypto advocates don't think that the taxpayer should play that role. Second is to say no federal investments in crypto. we had just at this panel.
▶ 0:43:02Jay pal say he does not have and does not want the authority to buy crypto but the treasury does have that authority uh that Trump has talked about a strategic Bitcoin reserve. The fact is that cryp that we should not be investing uh in uh in crypto.
▶ 0:43:22It's high risk and we're investing in a competitor to the US dollar and giving it credibility by saying that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency and then crypto is a reserve currency for the reserve currency. Uh Pepsi Coke wouldn't do that for Pepsi. We shouldn't do it for crypto. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. The distinguished ranking member of our housing and insurance subcommittee, Mr. Clever, you're recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 0:43:50Uh I appreciate very much giving us an opportunity to uh present our ideas. Um and I currently as you mentioned serve as ranking member on the subcommittee on housing and insurance and the 119th Congress subcommittee held three housing hearings. several bipartisan bills, including legislation I've worked on to address exclusionary zoning, support manufactured housing, and the preservation of rural housing were noticed.
▶ 0:44:21The affordable housing crisis is fundamentally a supply and demand imbalance. Communities of all sizes need stronger public and private partnerships to preserve existing units and to bring millions of more new units On April 8th, the oversight committee of this committee also heard from the HUD IG. Much of the IG's testimony spoke to HUD's lack of capacity to address challenges.
▶ 0:44:49I echo ranking members waters in stressing the importance of HUD Secretary Turner appearing before our members before this committee. Last Congress during a Democratic administration, I supported the HUD Accountability Act, which would require annual testimony from the HUD Secretary.
▶ 0:45:10This Congress during a Republican administration, Congressman Lawler and I introduce introduced this leg Cuts to HUD programs and staff are damaging and create bottlenecks, not efficiency. Congress needs to provide the necessary oversight improvements and resources. USDA also increases access to housing in rural areas.
▶ 0:45:36Congressman Nun of Iowa and I are leading the rural housing service reform reform act which would save USDA affordable housing affordable home home ownership and rental programs. These are constructive directions for the committee. Importantly, there is a bipartisan agreement that housing has been State and local regulations drive up costs and make federal investments less effective.
▶ 0:46:03I'm sure that you're probably surprised to hear uh someone from my background saying that. But the federal government uh has also conditioned in investments on compliance with massive amounts of additional uh regulations. In some cases, the cost of these requirements exceeds the funding provided.
▶ 0:46:24Housing programs include regulations related to achieving public benefits related to such issues as minimum wage rates, environmental protection, or the scoring of materials, sourcing of materials, excuse me. I support positive outcomes in these areas. However, I distinguish process from overcomes.
▶ 0:46:45The compliance process for achieving these outcomes is so burdensome that it can take years and exorbitant amounts of time and capital to execute an affordable housing project. This is something that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson wrote at length about in the millioneller be in their uh book called abundance. I I strongly urge every one of my colleagues to read that book.
▶ 0:47:13In many cases, particularly when uncoordinated rules for each different program and agency are placed on small not nonprofits, public housing authorities and minority housing developers uh the ancillary public goals are not meaningfully advanced or in many cases being harmed. This committee should provide maximum support to efforts led by subcommittee chair flood and myself to strengthen HUD programs.
▶ 0:47:42This includes effort to efforts to update HUD's home and CDBG programs. These programs are critically important to increasing housing supply in lo local local communities. We have advocates, industry, and government in agreement that common sense reforms can be made. I urge this committee to help facilitate constructive engagement with the administration in that process. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to testify. Thank you, Mr. Clever.
▶ 0:48:12Y he yield. Mr. Clever yields back. Gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, you're recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I greatly appreciate this privilege and would like to indicate that there are several pieces of legislation pending the original legislation awarding a Congressional Gold Medal collectively to Africans and their descendants enslaved in our country from August 20th, 1619 to December 6, 1865. Uh, Mr.
▶ 0:48:41Chairman, in 1956, Congress in its infinite wisdom awarded a Congressional Gold Medal to Confederate soldiers. We have never given the proper that they have richly earned by virtue of sacrificing their lives for this country. And I'm talking about the enslaved. I think it's time that they receive treatment similar to what the Confederate soldiers received, a Congressional Gold Medal. By the way, this is not reparations.
▶ 0:49:12Uh this is a means of saying uh we are expressing our appreciation. The Reforming Disaster Recovery Act is a piece of legislation that Miss Wagner and I uh co-authored. She initially had it and passed it to me and we passed it back and forth. We passed it out of the House. The most significant thing that the legislation does is this. It codifies a process. Currently after each disaster we reinvent the wheel. Uh we lose institutional knowledge.
▶ 0:49:43It makes it difficult to move efficaciously quickly to deal with some of the needs of people who are suffering from a disaster that they did not cause. Um the shielding community banks from systemic risk assessment act. Uh this is a piece of legislation that uh would help us with the small banks.
▶ 0:50:06The community banks they don't create these huge problems that impact society cause the systemic risk uh but they have to pay for the actions of others and that seems to be fairly consistent. I'm sure you'll find an example someplace where uh they were involved to some extent, but I think that we should do something to help these small banks.
▶ 0:50:30Um the systemic risk authority transparency act would require financial regulators to issue a report following the use of a systemic risk exception. We just had this piece of legislation before the committee and I'm very honored to say that um Mr. bar was very instrumental in helping this to get back to the committee and to get passed at the committee level. My trust and belief is that we should get it to the floor.
▶ 0:50:58Uh this is a very valuable piece of legislation. It gives the public information about things that we should know and they need to know as well. The financial compensation for the CFPB whistleblowers act would require the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to to provide awards to whistleblowers who come forward with evidence of wrongdoing. It really is legislation that would incentivize whistleblowers to reveal evidence of unlawful activity.
▶ 0:51:27And uh I think that we all want to make sure that people who commit crimes make sure they're prosecuted. The housing fairness act uh another piece of legislation of importance would expand the efforts to detect and address There is still discrimination, invidious discrimination in housing and uh we have a program of testing with this legislation that would help us identify and
▶ 0:51:58to give people first a chance to correct their uh behavior and if not then some additional action can be taken but the identification usually is enough to cause people to see that they should atone for transgressions.
▶ 0:52:12Uh the Fair Lending for All Act would um create an office of fair lending and testing within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to impose it expose invidious discrimination and hold predatory financial institutions and individuals Um this office would test financial institutions for compliance with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
▶ 0:52:36Uh and this is quite similar to how the department of housing and urban development's office of fair housing and equal opportunity test for compliance with the fair housing act. I close with this Mr. chairman of all of this and I think it's all important but given that the people who were enslaved for almost two and a half centuries have never been respected.
▶ 0:53:07It just seems to me that it's about time for us to accord them respect and what better way than to do for them what we did for the Confederate soldiers. I thank you. I yield back. gentleman yields back. We'll now turn to questions and uh let me start uh first with uh you Mr. Green.
▶ 0:53:28Um, and I want to thank you for your work for I guess six or eight years, maybe longer, with Congresswoman Wagner about this HUD disaster fund issue, disaster recovery money that's in the HUD bureau in our It, you know, as as it turns out, as you well know, but I think the record should show, it's never been authorized.
▶ 0:53:53It was essentially at one time a supplemental appropriation and we've obviously refilled its coffers since after uh disasters, but I want to commend you on trying to put some clear, more transparent rules of the road around this program and how it might work.
▶ 0:54:13the gentleman from Missouri's work as Is there some way it could be beneficial, you know, before a disaster in terms of a use by a city as opposed to only after a disaster? So much of our resilience money is only spent or targeted after the fact. And then from the testimony in this committee, it's frequently the auditing on that money and the supervision of that money and the oversight of that money is frequently lacking.
▶ 0:54:43So in your conversations, is there any way that we could think about um that resilience funding be available to a city before they actually had a disaster? Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you again for acknowledging Miss Wagner. Uh she was a real champion in working to get this done. This legislation currently would help the smaller cities understand the process.
▶ 0:55:13I think that's important too uh because when the disaster hits they find themselves trying to compile information acquire empirical evidence of what they should do and it is very difficult at that time when you have this disaster that you're dealing with to to acquire information. Now city like Houston which is huge we have departments that can deal with these things but they still need the help that we can accord.
▶ 0:55:40I think that yes, to to be more specific, we should uh if we can keep a coffer that has an amount of funds in it to be determined uh that would give us the opportunity to move quickly with the immediate needs, the immediate needs and thereafter we can deal with the long-term needs. I would be more than honored to work with the chairman uh to uh facilitate the um development of this idea.
▶ 0:56:10such that we might bring it to the committee at some point in the future. Thank you. And I I had one other follow-up question for you on your community bank uh FDIC assessment bill. Um tell me again how it's structured. Does it lower the assessments for the smaller community banks and shift those assessment to larger banks? I wasn't quite sure your how it how it was structured. Well, I don't want to say it shifts it. Okay.
▶ 0:56:35I I want to believe that it is placed where it should be because the community banks are they're not really creating systemic risk they they're they're small but now granted uh in number they are large but in terms of being capitalized they compared to the the major banks they they're insignificant.
▶ 0:57:00So, I just think that they they don't assume responsibility for things that they don't uh create. I appreciate that. I want to thank each of you for your uh advocacy today for these specific bill ideas from foreign policy to crypto to housing to housing affordability to uh fair lending and community banks. I want to thank you each and let me yield back. Uh Mr. Mr. Downing, you have any questions?
▶ 0:57:32Mr. Downing doesn't have any questions. So, I want to thank our panel for being with us this afternoon. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions to the witnesses to the chair. Questions will be forwarded to the witnesses for the response. Witnesses, please respond no later than July 29th, 2025. And with that, our member day hearing is adjourned.