- Key insight: Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., said that getting banks more involved in the mortgage space is still a priority, but the housing affordability package wasn't the place to do it.
- What's at stake: Bankers' lost out on some of their most favored provisions from the House's version of a housing package.
- Forward look: With the midterm elections approaching and a potential switch in House control anticipated, any package that has a chance of becoming law would need wide bipartisan support.
WASHINGTON — Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., told reporters that he is working on developing a financial institutions legislative package that would include community banks' concerns about their competitiveness in the mortgage lending market, among other priorities.
Scott took reporters' questions Tuesday afternoon after he and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the panel's ranking member,
The House version of the bill also included riders that would support de-novo bank formation and relax supervisory oversight for banks with less than $6 billion in assets.
Soon after the House bill passed, Warren
"I'm glad to see the House move forward on housing proposals, but House Republicans should not hold housing relief hostage to push forward several bank deregulatory bills that will make our community banks more fragile while harming consumers, small businesses, and economic growth. Americans need relief from the housing crisis now," she said in a statement at the time.
The Senate voted to consider the housing package, which will be the Scott-Warren version of the legislation, in an 84-6 vote.
Scott said that the community bank provisions weren't the focus of this housing bill, but that he plans to release a broader bank legislative package that would include measures to bolster banks' involvement in mortgage lending, particularly for community banks.
"We're going to have a financial institutions package that addresses a lot of the issues around financing, whereas this is a home package, which is really focusing on how we spur more access on the local level, as much as it does anything else," Scott said. "We'll get to the other part of financial institutions here shortly."
Scott didn't give any specifics on how soon the new financial institutions legislation would be introduced.
"We've got some meetings with my good friend French Hill on the House side, as well as the administration," Scott said.
Congress in the last year has weighed a number of bills aimed at offering regulatory relief to the banking industry, particularly for community banks. The Senate Banking Committee has held hearings on bipartisan legislation to
The House Financial Services Committee under Hill has passed a
