WASHINGTON — NCUA Chairman JoAnn Johnson will be testifying before the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday on mortgage reforms.

The hearing, entitled Legislative Proposals on Reforming Mortgage Practices, includes a panel of the federal government regulators and a representative from the Conference of State Banking Supervisors. The second panel will include several consumer groups, including the Center for Responsible lending and NAACP. Finally, one panel will be comprised of industry trade associations but no credit union groups.

Representatives Brad Miller (D-N.C.) and Mel Watt (D-N.C.) together with House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) have introduced The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007 (H.R. 3915), which would prohibit steering, call for licensing of mortgage originators, set standards for a borrowers ability to repay, and attached limited liability to secondary market securitizers. It would also expand consumer protections for high-cost loans.

House Republicans have also introduced legislation to curb predatory mortgage lending: The Fair Mortgage Practices Act (H.R. 3012). “Our goals should be to correct problems within the subprime market without choking off working Americans' access to credit. This is an important issue, and we need to get it right,” Committee Ranking Member Spencer Bachus commented.