WASHINGTON - Vice President Gore stunned his audience in mid-February when he demanded that the bank regulatory agencies finalize new Community Reinvestment Act rules within a month.
Six weeks later, regulators swear they'll finish the rule revisions by the end of April.
"It will be next month," Federal Reserve Board Governor Lawrence B. Lindsey said in a brief interview. Regulators have resolved most of the substantive issues, he said, but they've bogged down on the phrasing, he said.
A spokeswoman for Vice President Gore said he is eager to see the final rules.
"His position is the same as six weeks ago," the spokeswoman said. "We would like to see these proposals come forth as quickly as possible."
While none of the agencies would discuss details of the revisions, some information has slipped out.
First, the new rules will take effect Jan. 1, said Matthew Roberts, director of the consumer and community law division at the Office of the Comptroller of Currency, but banks will have up to 18 months to comply with some provisions, he said.
"They will have at least as long as with the time frame we were anticipating in the last proposal," Mr. Roberts said.
If regulators include new data collection requirements for small business loans, then that would begin at the start of January, he said.
"I think Jan. 1 seems to be a sensible time to start certain collection things you might have to do," he said. "But that's open."
The regulators also said the proposal will closely resemble the 1994 draft. The three-pronged test, which focuses on lending, investment and service, remains. So does the assessment context, which bases a bank's CRA requirements on the needs of the community.
Also surviving are the strategic plan option allowing banks to design their own CRA compliance rules, and the streamlined exam for small banks.
However, details for all these provisions are still in flux, Mr. Roberts said.
Mr. Lindsey said staff from the agencies have spent the past several weeks going through the regulations to make sure each phrase is properly defined.
"What we are making sure is that having gone this far, that the thing hangs together as a whole," Mr. Lindsey said.
Mr. Roberts said several events have slowed the process.
First, Ricki Helfer joined the fray as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. "We've had a new chairman of the FDIC who came in and made her views known," Mr. Roberts said.
Then, the early March congressional hearing diverted the staff from preparing the rules to preparing testimony, he said.
And finally, the staff wasted countless hours working on provisions that never made it into the draft, he said.
The staff now is back on track, meeting at least once a week on an interagency basis, he said. Just last week, lawyers from all the agency poured over each section's wording for more than 10 hours, he said.
"Everyone's working on it," he said.
While the principals refuse to release more details about their substantive changes, Mr. Lindsey did put to rest one issue.
"We aren't going out for public comment this time," he said. "How's that for definitive?"
