Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, gave the following statement at a full Committee markup.

Today, this Committee comes together for a markup of nine bills. These bills exemplify the hard work that each one of our members have dedicated to addressing urgent housing needs, protecting consumers, and taking other steps to help improve the world we live in.

Specifically, this markup includes a slate of bills to strengthen oversight of our country’s affordable housing and give communities the tools they need to address the homeless crisis.

H.R. 2965, the “Naomi Schwartz Safe Parking Act,” a bill led by Representatives Carbajal and Vargas, will allow communities to use federal homelessness funds to create safe parking lots where individuals experiencing homelessness can legally and safely park their cars overnight and be connected to supportive services and housing. Representative Sylvia Garcia’s bill, H.R. 7123, the “Studying Barriers to Housing Act” will require a study to identify barriers that public housing authorities face in coordinating with local homeless service providers to help those experiencing homelessness.

And then there’s H.R. 8476, the “Housing Inspections Accountability Act of 2022,” led by Representative Ocasio-Cortez will improve the oversight of federally assisted housing by requiring HUD and USDA to publicly report information about properties with failed inspection scores annually to Congress.

Committee Democrats are also working to protect and empower consumers by putting them in charge of their own financial future.

As such, we will markup Representative Maloney’s bill, H.R. 4277, the “Overdraft Protection Act of 2021,” which will crack down on predatory overdraft fees. Representative Williams’ bill, H.R. 8485, the “Expanding Access to Credit through Consumer-Permissioned Data Act,” gives consumers with little or no information on their credit files the power to leverage their own financial data not typically included in their credit report, to demonstrate creditworthiness and expand access to affordable credit. Representative Pressley’s bill, H.R. 8478, the “Credit Reporting Accuracy After a Legal Name Change Act,” will ensure that transgender and non-binary individuals do not lose their credit history after legally changing their names and prevents an individual’s former name from being shared with a creditor.

We are also marking up bipartisan bills to simplify bureaucratic processes.

Rep. Vargas’ bill, H.R. 6889, the “Credit Union Board Modernization Act,” will apply reforms that California and other states have adopted for state-chartered credit unions by reducing the monthly meeting requirement to be bi-monthly for Federal credit union boards. H.R. 4865, the “Registration for Index-Linked Annuities Act,” led by Representative Adams, will help to harmonize registration requirements for registered index-linked annuities with those of other annuities products and ensure that resulting forms are subject to investor testing.

And lastly, we will be marking up my bill, H.R. 8484, the “Aligning SEC Regulations for the World Bank's International Development Association Act," which will provide the International Development Association, or IDA, which provides assistance to the world’s poorest countries, with the same exemption from securities regulations that other multilateral development banks have, thereby expanding its ability to support people around the world.

So, I am very pleased that each of the bills we are marking up today will work to further protect our communities and better address some of our nation’s most pressing needs.

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