WASHINGTON – The new corporate credit union bailout bill introduced in the House yesterday is widely expected to be combined with one or more other bills seeking to ease the burden of the $6 billion corporate plan on credit unions.
The bill is expected to be combined either with the housing bill passed by the Senate last week that also includes funding for an expanded bank bailout; or with the House’s version of the housing bill passed in March, according to credit union lobbyists.
"There’s still a lot of moving parts," Brad Thaler, senior lobbyist for NAFCU, told The Credit Union Journal yesterday. "Putting this bill out there provides a vehicle to get these provisions passed in one form or another."
The bill introduced in the House yesterday is identical to provisions passed by the Senate last week and would create a $6 billion Corporate Stabilization Fund that would be merged into the National CU Share Insurance Fund after seven years; allow credit unions to pay their share of the corporate bailout over as long as eight years; and provide as much as $30 billion in emergency funding for NCUA to help stem a systemic crisis.
The bill does not include provisions that would expand emergency funding for the FDIC to as much as $500 billion, or to increase the federal deposit insurance coverage to $250,000 per account. Those measures are expected to be merged eventually with the credit union provisions.
The House bill will serve as a basis for next week’s hearings by the House Financial Services Committee on the corporate bailout, according to Thaler. NCUA Chairman Michael Fryzel, as well as representatives from CUNA, NAFCU and NASCUS are expected to testify at the hearing.
