WASHINGTON - House leaders are expected to try again to hold a vote this week on the slimmed-down version of the credit union regulatory relief bill in hopes of getting it passed in the dwindling days of this Congress.
The bill–known as the CU Regulatory Relief Act, or CURRA–was being reviewed last week by the White House Budget Office to determine any government costs, in preparation for this week’s vote.
Democratic leaders in the House hope to vote CURRA on the House’s so-called suspension calendar, which is reserved for non-controversial bills. Plans call for it to be voted side by side with a regulatory relief bill for banks–a strategy aimed at limiting the controversy to be created by the banks over the credit union bill.
“That is our hope,” said one Capitol Hill source involved in the negotiations on the bill.
But the strategy could fall apart quickly, as it did in April, when the bankers balked at the credit union bill–even at the expense of alienating lawmakers who would vote the bank bill, too.
What may complicate the strategy this time is the possibility that House leaders will combine the credit union and bank bills into a single package. Credit union lobbyists were reviewing that possibility last week.
The bill has been hung up since its brief April appearance on the suspension calendar by efforts by the bankers to scale back the definition of underserved communities–in which credit unions will be able to make unlimited business loans and offer payday loans to any potential members.
The bankers worry that the definition of underserved communities has been used by NCUA to encompass vast areas, including dozens of major U.S. cities like Miami, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Houston– which qualify as underserved communities because a majority of their residents are of low- and moderate income under U.S. Census guidelines.
Credit union representatives were wary of the bankers efforts, saying that CURRA already is a watered version of CURIA–the long-sought CU Regulatory Improvements Act. “There’s just so much you can water it down,” said one credit union lobbyist.
CURRA was introduced in March as an attempt by credit unions to get the regulatory relief promised in CURIA, without the two provisions most objected to by the bankers–an increase in the limit on member business loans and enactment of a risk-based capital system for credit unions.
CURIA has languished on the congressional calendar for five years, without it ever being voted.
Like CURIA, CURRA would: allow credit unions to retain their select employee groups after converting to a community charter; exempt credit unions from the pre-merger notification requirements of the Clayton Antitrust Act; increase the amount individual credit unions can invest in a CUSO from the current 1% of capital to 3%; allow NCUA, instead of Congress, to determine permissible investments for credit unions.
CURRA would also give NCUA greater flexibility in setting the annual interest rate ceiling and ease credit union participation in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Section 504 program.
(c) 2008
