Preemption of state laws and exempting more credit unions from examination by the new consumer regulator are among the key priorities of the credit union trade associations as the Senate Banking Committee begins marking up regulatory restructuring legislation this afternoon.
NAFCU Director of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler said they had found some interest among lawmakers in an amendment that would let the NCUA preempt any law that "prevents or significantly interferes" with the ability of a credit union to operate. This would give credit unions parity with what coverage the banks have in the bill.
CUNA Vice President of Legislative Affairs Ryan Donovan said they will be working to encourage lawmakers to change the legislation to give the new consumer regulator, which will be housed in the Federal Reserve under the bill, the right to delegate the authority to examine the three credit unions with assets of more than $10 billion to the NCUA. They and NAFCU are also pushing to raise the threshold to $50 billion, indexed for inflation, thus exempting all credit unions.
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NAFCU President/CEO Fred Becker said he wants lawmakers to do something stronger than just give the new regulator the option to delegate examination authority over the three largest credit unions.
"Just because you have it, doesn't mean you'll use it," he said.
While there have been 400 amendments to the legislation, lobbyists for CUNA and NAFCU said some of those probably won't be dealt with during the mark up and much of the additional negotiation could take place after the committee votes and before or during floor debate.
The markup is scheduled to begin at 5:00 p.m. and will be webcast at: http://banking.senate.gov.
To read the bill, go to: http://banking.senate.gov/public/_files/ChairmansMark31510AYO10306_xmlFinancialReformLegislationBill.pdf
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