WASHINGTON—By a vote of 30-17, the House Appropriations Committee approved a fiscal 2017 financial services and general government appropriations bill that includes several provisions relating to the CFPB and the FCC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules, NAFCU reported.
Provisions seeking greater CFPB exemptions for small institutions and relief for financial institutions from the FCC’s order on robocalls under the TCPA were approved along with the bill, in addition to language changing the CFPB’s funding and structure. As CUToday.info previously reported, NAFCU urged approval of these provisions, found in the bill’s report language, in a letter sent ahead of Thursday’s mark-up.
The bill would fund the Treasury Department, the Federal Communications Commission, the Small Business Administration and other related agencies.
Two CFPB-related amendments passed during mark-up. The first, introduced by Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), would loosen CFPB rules to improve access to manufactured housing and financing and was passed by a 31-17 vote. The other, introduced by Reps. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX), would bar the CFPB from using its payday lending rule restricting credit and loans to consumers until it reports to Congress on the entities most impacted by the rule and alternative tools available for consumers to access credit. It passed by a 30-18 vote, NAFCU stated.
Committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY), introduced two amendments that focused on agencies regulating financial institutions; both failed. One of the amendments, rejected on a vote of 29-18, would have stripped language from the appropriations bill that would prevent the CFPB from issuing arbitration rules until it has studied the use and effectiveness of pre-dispute arbitration.
NAFCU stated that it was the only credit union trade association to oppose subjecting credit unions to CFPB authority under Dodd-Frank. The association maintains that the CFPB has and should be using its authority to exempt credit unions from regulations aimed at bad actors.