WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised this morning he will let the Senate finally vote on a long-sought bill to double the limit on member business loans, despite continued opposition from the banks.
"I'm to the point now where we're going to have a vote on this," Reid said on the Senate floor after Colorado Sen. Mark Udall asked him when they might vote on his bill, which would raise the MBLs cap from 12.25% of assets to 27%. “We're going to have a vote on this. Democrats and Republicans are going to have to make a decision on where they stand for American credit unions.
A similar bill is pending in the House, which has never voted on it.
Udall’s bill, S. 509, has been stalled in the Senate and he has also offered it as an amendment to other bills.
The MBLs measure has been opposed by banks which successfully got Congress to limit MBls for the first time as HR 1151, the 1998 CU Membership Access Act. Since then the credit union lobby has been working almost every Congress to get the cap raised.
"This is a bill… that presents problems for people because a number of the banks don't want this to happen," Reid said. "But I do and I'm going to do everything I can to have this brought before the Senate."
The reemergence of the issue comes as 4,000 credit union executives and volunteers are making their annual lobbying pilgrimage to Capitol Hill as part of CUNA's Government Affairs Conference.
Reid didn't say when the Senate would vote on the bill.
