Congress has beenbusy. In addition to the entertaining but inconsequential 'splainyourself hearings with various agency honchos, the House FinancialServices Committee and others advanced some legislation. Some billswere relatively new while others had been gathering dust foryears.

Don't get too excited about this. It's not as if Congress wasself-motivated to take action. They just want to get enoughaccomplished so they can bring new talking points home to thoseChamber of Commerce pancake breakfasts they have scheduled over theupcoming Easter break.

Truth be told, credit unions have more going for them in thiscongress than the last one. The nine regulatory relief bills thatpassed the HFS committee aren't necessarily sentenced to a slow andpainful death in the Senate. With Republicans in charge, some ofthese bills might actually make it all the way to a President Obamaveto.

See? Progress!

Snark aside, I really do think some of these bills could pass,especially the bipartisan legislation that should have passed years ago.

For example, the Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Act onceagain passed committee Thursday morning. It would eliminate theneed to mail an annual privacy notice to members unless the policychanges. You might remember this bill as one that passedthe entire House in 2013 and 2012. Maybe the third time's a charm.

The Capital Access for Small Community Financial InstitutionsAct would allow privately insured credit unions to join a FederalHome Loan Bank. If the FHLB is fine with it, why not? Pass this onealready.

Some interesting new CFPB bills passed committee. One wouldcodify the Credit Union Advisory Council and another would requirethe CFPB to open those meetings to the public. I support these twobills enthusiastically, because the CFPB initially told CreditUnion Advisory Board members they were prohibited from telling thepress the meetings even existed.

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), who introduced the bill, explainedthat the CFPB has been claiming it's exempt from federal agencytransparency laws because of its affiliation with the FederalReserve.

I'm not crazy about the idea of exempting Open Market Committeemeetings from public scrutiny, but at least the subject matter isarguably sensitive. If the Credit Union Advisory Council discussesof topics that compromise national security, that's all the morereason CU Times should be there.

Credit unions also won a small victory with the committee'spassage of the Mortgage Servicing Asset Capital Requirements Act,which would require the NCUA to conduct a study of mortgage capitalrequirements. Boiled down to what that means for credit unions,this bill would conceivably slow the progress of the NCUA'srisk-based capital proposal. It sounds good, but the NCUA said it'sbeen pressured to provide Basel-ish parity to other agencies. Iftrue, there's no way the President would sign that bill, even if itmade it through the Senate. I'm not holding my breath here.

Same goes for GSE reform, which seemed dead in the water thisyear until the FHFA Inspector General released a report that saidFannie and Freddie are on a fast track another bailout thatcould cost taxpayers as much as $180 billion. This facepalm-worthyrevelation countered the well worn message that the GSEs wereprofitable and on their way out of conservatorship.

What gives? According to the OIG, Fannie and Freddie'sconservatorship agreement requires them to reduce the size of theirinvestment portfolios and prevents them from building adequatecapital. And if that wasn't bad enough, the majority of Fannie andFreddie's core earnings aren't being generated from their mortgagebusiness, but rather, lawsuit settlements against bad apples in themortgage meltdown.

The situation is so dire, the OIG said, it requiresCongressional action.

That's pretty desperate, folks. But maybe not desperate enough.It's a weighty vote I can't imagine many members want to make.Dodd-Frank is still pretty divisive almost five years later.

Finally, closer to home, the NCUA is starting to post comment letters on the second risk-basedlending proposal. Some of these are pretty good reads. A tip ofthe hat goes to CU*Answers CEO Randy Karnes, who does such a goodjob of leveraging his CUSO membership beyond basic products andeconomy of scale savings. Comment letters aren't due until April27, but so far CU*Answers dominates the pack.