During floor consideration of H.R. 4498, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, said the measure could lead to unnecessary and harmful loopholes in our securities laws.‎ The measure would roll back a requirement enacted under the JOBS Act for companies selling private offerings to first verify that a purchaser is an accredited investor during sales events sponsored by groups such as colleges, non-profits, trade associations or angel investor gr... Read more

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, today introduced legislation that would remove unfair barriers to obtaining federal housing assistance, such as Public Housing and the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. The proposal – unveiled during National Fair Housing Month and National Reentry Week – would reform eviction and screening policies so that individuals with criminal backgrounds have a second chance and fair shot at housing assistan... Read more

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, applauded an announcement today from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) that it will award $100,000 to the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) through DOJ’s Juvenile Reentry Assistance Program (JRAP). HACLA has partnered with Public Counsel, a non-profit law firm in Los Angeles County and the largest in the country, to administer th... Read more

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, today announced that the State of California has been awarded $169.8 million through a competitive grant under the Hardest Hit Fund, a federal program that provides targeted aid to mortgage borrowers to prevent avoidable foreclosures. In February, the Treasury Department allocated $213.5 million to California under a separate award from the Hardest Hit Fund distributed on a formula basis. The funding an... Read more

Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA) responded to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) rate-setting methods under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the Agency’s progress in ensuring that full-risk rates accurately reflect flood risk. Waters requested the report in 2014 when Congress was working to address the unintended consequences of premium increases under the 2012 Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform ... Read more

During floor consideration of H.R. 3340, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, urged rejection of the bill, which would undermine the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Office of Financial Research (OFR) by subjecting their funding to Congressional appropriations and interfering with their research.‎ The OFR and the FSOC are funded by fees on the largest financial institutions, similar to how the banking regulators set and fu... Read more

In remarks on the House floor today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, led Democrats in opposition to H.R. 3791, which would increase by fivefold the asset threshold under the Small Bank Holding Company Policy Statement, encouraging more consolidation of small community banks and endangering their safety and soundness. In her remarks, Waters noted that this bill reneges on a bipartisan compromise enacted just over a year ago that raised th... Read more

Today, Democrats on the Financial Services Committee voted against Republican attempts to weaken consumer protection and Wall Street reform in effort to produce illusory budget savings as part of the Majority’s failed budget process. The party-line votes were as follows: H.R. 1486, the Taking Account of Bureaucrats’ Spending Act (33-20): The bill would repeal the current independent funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and instead subject the Bureau to the annual Congressio... Read more

At a Financial Services Committee markup of two bills designed to undercut the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, denounced the measures as efforts to disarm our financial regulators and weaken reforms established after the 2008 crisis. Waters criticized both measures as “budget gimmicks to generate illusory savings.” For example, H.R. 1486 would only generate savings if Congr... Read more

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, issued the following statement on the Labor Department’s final rule on investment advice for retirement assets that was released today: “I am pleased that after five years of thoughtful consideration, thousands of letters, and over one hundred meetings the Labor Department has released a final rule to better protect Americans from conflicted retirement advice. I commend Secretary Perez for his exemplary... Read more

Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee led 32 colleagues in a letter calling on Congress to forgive $23 billion in debt at the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) during the fiscal year 2017 appropriations process. “The NFIP’s current debt is the direct result of Congressional design and it is time that Congress takes responsibility for it,” the Members wrote. The NFIP is funded by insurance premiums and fees paid by policyholders.... Read more

Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, introduced landmark legislation that would provide significant resources to end homelessness in America. The measure is a bold effort to declare what is really needed to address this crisis. The legislation provides $13.27 billion in new funding over five years to several programs and initiatives that will help the nearly 600,000 Americans who are currently homeless -- over 170,000 of whom are unshe... Read more

At today’s Financial Services Committee hearing with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA) lauded the efforts of U.S. Treasury officials and Democratic congressional leaders on the recent ratification of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota reform package, after a 5-year delay due to Republican obstruction. Waters delivered these remarks during today’s hearing on “The State of the International Financial System.” Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank Se... Read more

This week, Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, and Carolyn Maloney, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises, led 47 colleagues in urging additional funding for the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) for fiscal year 2017. In a letter to the House Appropriations Committee, the Members requested $1.78 billion for the SEC next year, which would be an 11 percent increase from its current amount. Tha... Read more

This week, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee that oversees federal housing programs, urged her colleagues to meet the housing needs of the country’s most vulnerable populations during the federal appropriations process for fiscal 2017. She proposed funding increases for a variety of federal housing programs, notably the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Grants (McKinney Vento), in fo... Read more

In opening remarks during today’s full Committee hearing with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee, praised the agency’s work to diligently protect consumers and ensure fairness in the financial system, even in the face of Republican efforts to undermine, eliminate and render the agency ineffective. Waters noted in her remarks the agency’s tremendous track record, delivering $11.2 bil... Read more

Leading Democrats today requested that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) update an April 2013 study on diversity in the financial services industry and agencies. In a letter to GAO, House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA), Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and House Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Al Green (D-TX) expressed their concern that the financial services industry has bee... Read more

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, released the following statement in response to the Committee Chairman’s dangerous plan to roll back the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: “This is just another attempt by the majority to gut administration policies that have helped millions of Americans. The Dodd-Frank law was enacted on the heels of the worst financial crisis our generation has seen. In the five-plus years since, our fin... Read more

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, responded to two separate reports released today from the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Emergency Management Agency on flood insurance affordability and options for providing assistance to policyholders. Waters requested the GAO report in 2014 after FEMA failed to complete a congressionally-mandated affordability study. As a result, when FEMA increased premiums pursuant to the 2012 Bi... Read more

In opening remarks during a Financial Services Committee markup today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the Committee’s Ranking Member, both scolded Committee Republicans on their attempts to once again roll back investor protections and also called for the Committee to focus on addressing poverty and homelessness in the United States. Waters noted that while some of the measures under consideration today were brought forward in good faith, concerns remain that Committee Republicans’ ultimate... Read more

Leading Democratic lawmakers today urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to speed up its review of a proposal that would require companies to provide more specific details about the diversity of their corporate boards. The proposal, which nine public pension fund administrators submitted to the SEC almost a year ago, encourages the agency to require companies to disclose board nominees’ gender, racial, and ethnic diversity. In a letter to SEC Chair Mary Jo White, the lawmakers pressed the... Read more

Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter to Julián Castro, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), urging the Department to seriously reconsider the punitive approach outlined in its proposal to ban smoking in all public housing developments across the country. Ranking Member Waters’ letter follows the Department’s solicitation of comments from the public regarding its proposed plan to institute a... Read more

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, today announced that the State of California has been awarded $213.5 million under the Hardest Hit Fund, a federal program that provides targeted aid to mortgage borrowers in order to prevent avoidable foreclosures. Through her leadership role in the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Waters led the effort to secure these funds, which were provided under the government funding bill signed into law in Dece... Read more

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter to Craig Fugate, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), urging him to provide Congress a robust affordability framework in a timely manner so that proposals can be considered ahead of the 2017 reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Ranking Member Waters’ letter comes as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recently completed its affordability s... Read more

In opening remarks during a Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee hearing, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee, associated the hazards of previously unregulated financial products, such as payday lending, to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is preparing regulations for payday lenders, Waters underscored the important role that financial products play in the life of everyday consum... Read more