WASHINGTON – CUNA President Dan Mica is expected to make one final pitch for Congress to increase the limit on member business loans when he testifies Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee on ways to expand small business lending.
Mica, who has been pushing for the MBL provision for the better part of a decade, has been absent from the Senate debate on the bank reform bill, which has turned out to have broad ramifications for credit unions. CUNA said Mica was traveling and was unavailable for comment last Thursday as the Senate was debating amendments to the bill that are widely expected to vastly reduce credit union revenues for card interchange. Mica was vacationing in the Perdido Bay, the luxury golf resort on Florida’s Gulf Coast that is a popular vacation spot for state credit union league presidents.
Tuesday’s House hearing may be the last opportunity for Mica, who is retiring from CUNA, to testify for credit unions. He is scheduled to appear with representatives from the Independent Community Bankers Association, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the American Institute of Architects.
Mica and credit unions have been unsuccessfully lobbying Congress to lift the cap on member business loans, set at 12.25% of assets, since the 1998 passage of HR 1151, the CU Membership Access Act, which set the MBL cap. A bill to do so has more than 100 House sponsors but its prospects are unclear as Congress nears the completion of its substantive legislative work for this year.
