Federal legislators are back home this week on a recess and workperiod tied to the Easter and Passover holidays.

But according to Richard Gose, CUNA's senior vice president forpolitical affairs, the lawmakers will hear from small businessleaders and entrepreneurs in their communities who support creditunion efforts to lift the cap on CU member business lending.

“The bottom line is that is not just an issue for credit unionsbut for small businesses that need access to loans,” Gosesaid.

CUNA has been reaching out to the small business community in anumber of areas and Gose said lawmakers would hear from smallbusinesses that were able to get loans from CUs where they couldnot from banks, as well as from small businesses who have not beenhelped by banks and are looking for an alternative.

Also, the association has some numbers to challenge the bankers'claim that very few credit unions are impacted by thecap.

CUNA Chief Economist Bill Hampel said that at least 500 creditunions are impacted by the cap. Roughly 137 CUs have memberbusiness loans worth over 10% of their asserts up to and above the12.25% cap, Hampel said, adding that for these credit unions itwill have become very difficult to make member business loans oreven renew existing lines of credit for the businessmembers.

CUNA terms these CU's “at the cap.” These credit union'sMBL programs are characterized by negative loan growth, Hampel added.

Another 167 credit unions that CUNA termed “approaching the cap”have MBLs of between 7.5% and 10% of their assets and Hampel saidthese credit unions are still making member business loans but havestarted to have to be cautious and strategic about which membersthey will be able to serve. They have seen their member businessloans grow at 9.5% per year.

The lowest tier CUNA termed as under “initial constraint” by thecap. These 207 credit unions had MBL levels of between 5% and 7.5%of their assets and had begun to keep track of the loans with aneye on the cap but still had business loan growth of almost31% last year.

“Member business loans are the fastest-growing segment of creditunion lending,” Hampel said.