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 WEEKLY ROUNDUP
COVID-19 Edition
August 2, 2020

        

Committee Holds Hybrid Hearing with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director

On Thursday, the full Committee held a hybrid hearing entitled, “Protecting Consumers During the Pandemic? An Examination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” with testimony from Kathy Kraninger, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Read Chairwoman Waters’ opening statement at the hearing here.

Watch the full hearing here:


Chairwoman Waters, Nadler and Clay Slam Trump Administration Decision to Terminate Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule

On Monday, Chairwoman Maxine Waters, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay (D-MO), Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance, issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s announcement that it is terminating the Obama Administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule.

“It is deeply shameful that as families across the nation suffer during this ongoing pandemic crisis, HUD Secretary Ben Carson is focused on undermining fair housing protections by terminating the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule,” said the Chairs.

See the full text of the statement here.

 

Chairwoman Waters, Clay, and Heck Request Housing Finance Regulator Pause Rulemaking Increasing Capital for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

On Wednesday, Chairwoman Maxine Waters, Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay (D-MO), Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance, and Congressman Denny Heck (D-WA), sent a letter to Dr. Mark Calabria, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), urging the agency to prioritize economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by pausing a rulemaking that would set new capital requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (collectively “the Enterprises”) until after the pandemic. The letter also urges FHFA to provide better analysis on how the rule would impact borrowers of color. In May, FHFA announced the 424-page rule that would establish a new, complex regulatory capital framework for the Enterprises.

“As the August 31st deadline for comment on this 424-page rule quickly approaches, advocates are raising serious concerns that this rule would have harmful impacts on access to credit for underserved borrowers, including borrowers of color and lower income borrowers... Further, we are concerned that the people this rule would hurt the most are people of color, who bore the brunt of the foreclosure crisis that hit in the aftermath of 2008 due in no small part to discriminatory and predatory lending practices,” the Members wrote. “We cannot afford to backslide on what little progress we have made by rushing through this capital rule without sufficiently understanding the impacts on people of color. FHFA must provide sufficient analysis for the public to fully understand how this rule would impact borrowers of color and correspondingly extend the amount of time for public comment.”

See the full text of the statement here.
Tweet of the Week

 
Member Spotlight

Congresswoman Cindy Axne (D-IA)

This week, Congresswoman Cindy Axne (D-IA), followed up with Director Kraninger on the Consumer Bureau’s information sharing agreement with the Department of Education on student loan servicers at the House Financial Services Committee hearing entitled, “Protecting Consumers During the Pandemic? An Examination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.” She asked for clarification on how the $1.6 trillion of student debt is being handled, and why the CFPB is not properly supervising student loan servicers.

Watch her Q&A portion of the hearing here.


Weekend Reads


Chairwoman Waters’ Statement on Amendments Offered to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2021

On Friday, Chairwoman Maxine Waters, released a statement urging the House of Representatives to approve amendments offered by her to the Defense, Commerce, Justice, Science, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2021. The amendments offered by Waters include provisions to prevent the Securities and Exchange Commission from using funds from this bill to implement a new rule to weaken investor protections, to provide additional funding for critical health priorities, and prevent the Trump administration from implementing harmful rules that undermine COVID-19 data collection and weaken infection control standards.

See the full text of her remarks here.


Chairwoman’s Corner

Chairwoman Waters’ Statements on the Republican Senate’s COVID-19 Inaction and the HEALS Act: On Monday Chairwoman Maxine Waters, issued a statement regarding the Senate’s inaction on the expiration of the federal eviction moratorium.

On Wednesday, Chairwoman Waters, gave remarks at a virtual press conference on the impending eviction crisis brought on by COVID-19 and the Republican Senate’s failure to act.

Additionally Chairwoman Waters gave a statement regarding the potential inclusion of legislation to weaken capital requirements for big banks in the Senate Republicans’ HEALS Act:

“Senate Republicans have been asleep at the wheel for months while this crisis continued to balloon in scale. Now, they have put forth half-baked legislation which does absolutely nothing to avert the impending eviction crisis, prevent homelessness, or provide urgently-needed relief to renters who are struggling to make rental payments. This legislation once again shows that Republicans are willfully ignoring the reality of the crisis that is going on across the nation.

“Now that Republicans have finally come out with a proposal, there are credible reports that they plan to load it up with giveaways for Wall Street. Specifically, it appears that Senate Republicans are planning to weaken capital requirements that were put in place in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This is nothing short of a Christmas in July gift for the big banks. It is unconscionable that Senate Republicans and big banks are teaming up to use this pandemic as cover to roll back important financial regulations. How dare you!...”

See the full text of the statement here.
Sent from the Committee on Financial Services

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