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House Financial Services U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsMaxine Waters
It certainly is not the consumer. There is bipartisan work we should be doing. Americans lost an estimated 148 billion dollars to online scams and crimes in 2025. Committee Democrats support legislation before us today that brings law enforcement, regulators, financial institutions, telecom and tech companies, as well as consumer advocates together to identify ways to stop these scams and protect people's savings. And on crypto, Republicans are asking Congress to codify Trump's strategic Bitcoin reserve and require the government to hold Bitcoin for at least 20 years despite its extraordinary volatility.
Yesterday, the crypto bill, the Clarity Act, failed in the Senate for the same reason this Bitcoin reserve will fail to become law. It does nothing to rein in the crypto corruption of the Trump family. Republicans need to stop ignoring the fact that the Trump family is lining their pockets, including with a Bitcoin mining company that would directly benefit from the bill before us today. Can you believe that? Committee Democrats will support bipartisan legislation that actually protects families, but we will strongly oppose bills that weaken consumer protections, expose families to predatory lending, conceal information in our nation's history.
And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
J. Hill
Gentleman yields back. Pursuant to notice, I call up HR 7030, the Securing Facilities for Mental Health Services Act, introduced by the Republican Whip, Mr. Emmer of Minnesota. The clerk will report the bill, which was distributed in advance.
Speaker 2
HR 7030, to amend section 242 of the National Housing Act to provide parity with respect to access to the mortgage insurance for hospital programs for licensed hospitals and for other purposes.
J. Hill
Without objection, the first reading is dispensed with, and without objection, the bill's considered read and open to amendment at any point. Mr. Emmer has an amendment in the nature of a substitute, copies of which were also distributed in advance, and I invite the clerk to report that amendment.
Speaker 2
Amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 7030, offered by Mr. Emmer of Minnesota, designated as ANS H 7030.
J. Hill
Without objection, the amendment is considered read, will serve as the base text for purposes of amendment. The gentleman from Minnesota, the majority whip of the US House, Mr. Emmer, you're recognized for five minutes to describe your amendment.
Tom Emmer
I thank you, Chairman Hill, and thanks also for bringing this bill to the committee today. I'd like to thank my colleague, Representative Torres, for his continued support on this over the years. For many years, we've been trying to move this forward because nearly one in five Americans living with are living with mental illness. For them, getting treatment isn't as simple as just asking for help.
In fact, nearly half of those in need go without mental health services. According to a 2023 study, the United States has 28 psychiatric beds per every 100,000 individuals, approximately 50% lower than the estimated number that is actually needed. In 1968, Congress enacted the Fair Housing Act, which included Section 242 to help spur the construction of new hospitals and the expansion of existing facilities. For decades, Section 242 has helped eligible hospitals access affordable financing to build, renovate, and modernize their facilities. Unfortunately, when it comes to inpatient psychiatric hospitals, they have been prohibited from accessing mortgage assistance through HUD's Section 242 program since they do not meet the patient day requirement.
In order to qualify, a hospital must devote more than 50% of their patient days to acute care services, such as treatment for short-term illnesses or same-day surgical procedures. Our Securing Facilities for Mental Health Services Act reverses this prohibition, alleviating the inpatient bed shortage across the country and encouraging the expansion of psychiatric inpatient hospitals. Most importantly, our bill does so without changing the standards that every other hospital financed through section the Section 242 program must meet. It upholds HUD's rigorous underwriting criteria and continues to require borrowers to meet all of their financial obligations. In other words, this bill simply extends the same financing opportunities to psychiatric hospitals that are already available to other eligible hospitals.
Investing in psychiatric hospitals not only delivers care to those in need, actually those who need it the most, but it also benefits the broader healthcare system. Modern behavioral health facilities reduce pressure on emergency departments, improve care coordination, shorten days in treatment, and actually help ensure that patients receive the right care in the right setting. Further, modern facilities will help recruit and retain physicians, nurses, therapists, and other behavioral health professionals. Whether you're a patient in Minnesota, Arkansas, or New York, those in need should not be denied care due to outdated laws. This is a common sense, nonpartisan bill that will eliminate barriers to mental health resources for those who need it the most.
It is for this reason that I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this measure. With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Maxine Waters
Thanks, the gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on the ANS, Mr. Emmer? The ranking member.
I move to strike the last word.
You're recognized for five minutes.
Maxine Waters
Thank you very much. This bill would allow psychiatric hospitals, substance abuse treatment centers, and other non-emergency types of hospitals to participate in our federal mortgage financing program. Since the program was created in 1968, psychiatric hospitals have been barred from participating. This restriction was put in place because right before that time, people with severe mental health conditions were locked up in overcrowded institutions and left to be forgotten. Community-based care, where patients could stay at home and get treatment outside institutional walls, finally became the norm.
Today, most experts would agree that we are dealing with a mental health crisis in this nation, and more people need help than we have beds available.
Expanding financing and access to more mental health treatment facilities can serve critical needs for patients and families with few other options. This is particularly needed as President Trump's so-called one big beautiful bill slashed almost one trillion dollars from Medicaid and put hospitals serving low-income patients at risk of closing, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles, where 87 percent of its patients are on Medicaid or uninsured. While the President's bill did include a program to help rural communities harmed by his Medicaid cuts, he did nothing for urban communities like my district. That's why I have drafted a bill, the Urban Health Transformation Act, to provide 50 billion dollars to start making up for his cruel Medicaid cuts and help more families access hospitals in cities like South Los Angeles. So I want to thank my Republican colleagues for working with me to improve this bill, including by adding safeguards to make sure this program is expanded responsibly, temporarily, and with reporting to determine if its safety is safely helping people as we intend.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill and I yield back the balance of my time.
I move to strike the last word.
You're recognized for five minutes.
Mike Flood
I want to stand up in support of this bill from our majority whip Emmer. HR 7030 is a good example of the tenacity of a member to keep working on a good idea until it sees a crack through. Rep Emmer first introduced a version of this bill in and has long championed this change going back to the 117th Congress. The bill comes from a simple question: if the FHA is going to offer mortgage insurance for the affordable financing and refinancing of healthcare facilities, why is that only some kinds of hospitals qualify while others do not? Because that is how Section 242 mortgage insurance for hospitals program currently works.
The program is open only to hospitals where at least 50 percent of patient days each year are attributable to the treatment of short-term conditions. That works for some hospitals, but not for all, like mental healthcare facilities whose patients tend to have longer stays. While that is an artifact of the original 1968 law, it's likely due to the logic back in that day. If you think about it, 1968, most of the severely persistently mentally ill patients were receiving care in state institutions run by their respective states. This was a government service.
That care has moved to the community now after decades of reform. So what this bill would do is amend that 1968 law to remove the patient day requirement to allow more facilities like mental health hospitals to apply for Section 242 mortgage. It's important to note it does not change the underwriting of such insurance, and it does not spend any money, and it does not expose taxpayers to any new risks. HR 7030 is a sensible way to take a look back at a 60-year-old law to help hospitals achieve affordable financing and refinancing and make sure that all hospitals we have and we want today can access the same benefits. And I will end with this.
Recently, Children's Hospital in Omaha opened an inpatient mental health hospital for adolescents, for kids as young as six years old. This service has not existed in the heartland ever before. Law enforcement are telling us, doctors are telling us that it's literally saving lives. We have eight-year-olds that are diagnosed with severe mental health diagnoses. We have schizophrenia in a 12-year-old.
We have conditions that need treatment. That children's behavioral health hospital is a game changer for Middle America, and it should have the same options to use the services that Section 242 currently prohibits. With that, I support the bill and yield back.
J. Hill
Gentleman from Nebraska yields back. The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Garcia.
Sylvia Garcia
You're recognized for five minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would first like to acknowledge that this bill can potentially provide critical services for families and individuals with limited alternatives. And it also helps us, of course, in the care crisis that's facing our country. Medicaid having suffered the largest cuts in its entire Medicaid history, it has made costs higher not just for patients but to hospitals, both urban and rural. So this bill takes a small step in addressing some of those higher costs.
I want to thank Mr. Emmer for visiting and making some changes as a result of his discussions with the ranking member. And I do want to remind us that there are still some risks ahead with this. In 2024, the Government Office shared in a report that when compared to traditional hospitals, psychiatric hospitals are less predictable, increasing risk to the hospital mortgage insurance program. In addition, this committee did not have the opportunity to hear from academic and institutional experts on this topic. That is why I was glad to see the additional safeguards to limit the program to five years so that we can see the effects of expanding this program.
So again, I want to thank the ranking member and Representative Emmer for their hard work on bringing this bill forward. I do plan to support it. I just wanted to caution about some of the risks that we may face ahead and how glad I am that we're going to take a look to make sure how we can make this even better. So thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Pete Sessions
The gentlewoman yields back. Who seeks recognition on Mr. Emmer's bill?
Mr. Chairman.
The gentleman from Texas.
I move to strike.
You're recognized for five minutes.
Pete Sessions
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this is a very interesting discussion that I do agree and support not only what Congressman Emmer's doing, but really the emphasis behind it. The emphasis behind it is a reality that America faces an epidemic problem with schizophrenia and people who are struggling in life, and they do need mental assistance, they do need help. But Mr. Chairman, it is as many psychologists will tell you, it comes from a drug-induced society that's called THC, that is hemp that has been taken advantage of over the last five years. You will see if you look at any law enforcement type activity, hundreds of people who are being pulled over with tens of thousands of dollars and guns and drugs that they are selling and marketing.
They're marketing them in rural areas like that I serve in East Texas. They're in all of the 7-Elevens. They're available, and it's dangerous THC. If you go to any sheriff anywhere in the country, they will tell you that their jails are made up of people who are mentally ill. They are in drug psychosis.
They are involved in this. And I encourage every single member, because this is an issue that faces every single member, to professionally understand and ask their law enforcement and their psychologists about the use of drugs, THC, marijuana, that is causing not just an addiction, that's causing people to sit at home and lose their life and then go crazy. And you can look at the streets of San Francisco and LA and other cities. But if you turn your head on this, you're going to realize we don't need what we've got now, we need ten times this number.
And so I would challenge each and every member of this Financial Services Committee, including many in the audience who are grinning at me like they think it's a joke. This is a ticking time bomb of the ability that the United States has to have employees who can work without being addicted, who suffer from this. And it's the numbers are simply we look at it as a medical issue. It's a legal issue. It's a legal issue where we are addicted to things and we need to see it for what it is.
And the United States government nor any legislative body nor any even city council should understand this issue, that when you legalize or make available or speak well about THC, as much as you think it's cute or funny, a huge number of people become addicted. And that is what they live their life. We see all sorts of episodes of people in airplanes doing silly things and all over public places. There's a reason why Elton John said that of all the things America has done well, the one thing it's done poorly is become focused on legalizing marijuana. Elton John said that.
And Elton John and many other people understand that these are psychosis-inducing drugs that addict people. And that's what you're going to end up with. We need more hospitals. So I encourage us, Mr. Chairman, to be honest about this because we are engaged in an epidemic in this country and the people who don't want it to happen are making money off misery. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
I yield back my time.
J. Hill
Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition on Mr. Emmer's ANS? Seeing no others, I'll recognize myself to strike the last word. I want to appreciate the leadership from Tom Emmer, our whip on the majority side, and his commitment, long commitment as noted by Mr. Flood to this issue. This revises the Federal Housing Administration's eligibility rules for providing mortgage insurance to hospitals for five years to include facilities that specialize in mental health care.
That's the bottom line and that's what this bill does. I appreciate the majority and the majority working together on this bill. It's a step in the right direction for all the reasons that Mr. Sessions just outlined, that we have a healthcare crisis in this country, we have an inadequacy of behavioral health beds in this country, and Emmer recognizes that and has taken a step by suggesting that Section 242's specialized mortgage insurance program could help. And so I appreciate his leadership. Since 1968, the program has helped hospitals obtain nearly 500 privately financed loans.
However, as the program's currently structured, Section 242 mortgage insurance is only available to inpatient hospitals that provide acute care, meaning that at least 50% of those patient days each year must be attributable to treatment of short-term conditions such as surgery or temporary illness. The patient day requirement then effectively excludes hospitals that provide behavioral health, substance use disorder, physical rehabilitation treatment programs from participating.
Mr. Emmer's bill would temporarily remove that 50% patient day requirement and allow a wider variety of hospitals providing intermediate care to qualify for Section 242 mortgage insurance, which would include our mental health and addiction treatment and rehab facilities. Congressman Emmer has long championed this change. I was pleased to see that he worked with the minority on improving this bill. And over the time, former our former committee chair, Patrick McHenry and Mr. Emmer asked the GAO to evaluate the potential effects of eliminating this acute care patient day issue, and GAO identified no barriers to additional hospitals accessing the program. However, increasing the scope of the program would mean few new factors and rules for FHA to consider to properly manage the new risks, and GAO in that study recommended Congress consider adopting practices to help manage the potential risks of this expansion.
Both these things seem like reasonable options for Congress to consider. Modernizing the existing government programs like FHA's Section 242 meet today's healthcare needs, it's a worthwhile goal, and as well as ensuring any new risks are appropriately managed by FHA HUD through this bill also. Thus I commend Mr. Emmer for his work. I thank both sides of the aisle for working together on this, and I urge a yes vote and I yield back the balance of my time. Anybody else seek discussion?
Hearing none, are there any amendments to the ANS? There being no further discussion or amendments to the bill, question now occurs on adoption of amendment in the nature of a substitute. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, signify by saying nay.
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, and the amendment in nature of substitute is adopted. Question now occurs on ordering the bill as amended to be reported to the House with a favorable recommendation. Those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, signify by saying nay.
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. A recorded let's see, does Mr. Sessions?
Mr. Chairman, I'd ask for a recorded vote.
J. Hill
A recorded vote has been requested. A recorded vote is requested. All those in favor, raise your hand. Sufficient number having raised their hand, a recorded vote is so ordered, and pursuant to subsection C5 of Rule 3 of the committee rules, that question is postponed. We'll now move to the next bill.
Pursuant to notice, I call up HR 4396, the Task Force for Recognizing and Averting Payment Scams, the TRAPS Act, which was introduced by the gentleman from Iowa, Representative Zach Nunn. Clerk will report the bill, which was distributed in advance.
Speaker 11
HR 4936, to establish a task force for recognizing and averting payment scams and for other purposes.
J. Hill
Without objection, first reading is dispensed with. Without objection, the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point, and Representative Nunn has an amendment in the nature of a substitute, copies of which were distributed in advance, and the clerk will now report that ANS.
Speaker 2
Amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 4936, offered by Mr. Nunn of Iowa, designated as Nunn 173.
J. Hill
The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Nunn, you're now recognized for without objection, the amendment's considered read and serve as base text for purposes of further amendment, and Mr. Nunn, you're now recognized for five minutes to explain your amendment.
Zachary Nunn
Well, thank you very much, Chairman Hill, and thank you to members on both sides of the aisle here who have worked so diligently in fighting scams and fraud. Look, here's the reality. I think all of us have received that call from a friend, a family member, a community member who has had their life savings ripped away from them, tricked.
The reality is right now in my home state of Iowa, we've had $96 million in financial fraud loss, and this really hits home. I share the story of a farmer from Iowa in Ottumwa who got involved in a scam that bled out $1 million from his farm. By the time he contacted local law enforcement, the money was already gone. But worse, he fell victim to a second predatory lender, one not in Russia, but in Southeast Asia. And this one knew that there was cash in that farmhouse.
They sent three mercenaries from New York City to drive to his farmhouse in the middle of the night and steal the remainder of his money. But for his quick work of locking himself in his barn while he took fire from these mercenaries, local law enforcement was able to respond. But they only caught one of a much larger network. This is why we're working so diligently on scams, not just what happened overseas, but literally happening at the barn doors of farms across our country. Right now, we have seen scams against seniors increase by nearly 100% over the course of the last year.
In my home state, that's a $20 million increase, but nationally, we're talking about a $200 billion loss. To put that in perspective, that's the entire US Army's budget for one year gone due to scams and foreign actors. Or more specifically, it's $550 million a day being taken and given to foreign actors. Not only does this exploit those in foreign countries, it has a direct impact on safety here at home. It is now the number one financial crime in the United States, and it's going directly to fund some of our worst adversaries.
That's why in April of last year, I'm proud to have initiated a bipartisan rule called the GUARD Act. Alongside my Democratic colleague, Mr. Gottheimer, we've given local law enforcement the resources they need to grow, detect, and prevent these level of scams. I'm proud to say that just last night, that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and is ready to be taken up in the Senate. The GUARD Act is an important frontline approach to fighting scams and fraud. But we must also look at a strategic approach, and that's where, Mr. Chair, this TRAPS Act comes in so importantly to bring together all of our federal agencies as well as our private sector knowledge bases, both in the financial institutions as well as our community banking and lenders.
The TRAPS Act creates a Treasury-led task force comprised of leaders from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, the FTC, and many others and take them in a collaborative, data-driven approach to detecting and preventing frauds and scams while working hand in glove with our private sector leads who are dealing with this on a daily basis. If there's one thing my time in the military has taught me, it's that no mission can be successfully completed alone, and this is truly a whole-of-nation approach to go after these very insidious actors. Meeting this threat head-on takes teamwork across the aisle, it takes teamwork with our protective and intelligence services, and it takes teamwork with those who are working in the most cutting-edge technology. These scams continue to advance, whether they be pig butchering schemes to steal from our seniors, whether they be advanced AI manipulation in voice and video, or whether they be good old-fashioned check washing. The technology has expanded beyond where our local law enforcement and, candidly, what our national defenses alone can handle.
Therefore, working through an organized strategy, our nation takes an important step forward to battle these fraudsters with the TRAPS Act. This is another common-sense, bipartisan approach, just like the GUARD Act, and I want to thank my colleague from across the aisle, Mr. Himes, for his incredible service both on this committee and the Intelligence Committee to go after these hard actors. I'm happy to say that our forward-leaning presence on this has already resulted in success. With the US District Attorney as well as the Department of Justice, we've cracked down on operations in places like Southeast Asia, reclaiming nearly a billion dollars in stolen fraud.
I'm also happy to say, Mr. Chair, we've got an incredible collaboration from AARP to the Defense Credit Union, Capital One, Consumer Bankers, and so many others. I'd like to enter into the record their letters of support.
Without objection, they'll be included.
Zachary Nunn
Together we can fight back against this. I would urge my colleagues to pass this bill unanimously, and I yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
J. Hill
Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition? The gentlewoman from Texas, you're recognized.
You're recognized for five minutes.
Sylvia Garcia
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Nunn, for bringing this forward. I recently had the opportunity to meet with financial industry partners in my district, including banks, credit unions, and consumer groups. While we discussed many topics, we probably spent the most time, the most time, Mr. Chairman, on fraud and payment scams. This is an issue that is hitting all, all, all people all across America, especially our seniors who are the most vulnerable targets.
This bill addresses a gap that we identified that day, that we really need to bring together public-private partnerships as well as law enforcement and consumer groups together to work on making solutions to address this very pressing problem. As hackers, scammers, and illicit actors get faster and smarter, we must work together to stop them. And I may add, Mr. Chairman, you know, this is not just a USA problem, this is a global issue. As my colleague mentioned, there are many scam centers across Southeast Asia. I had the opportunity to get briefed on this and about other cybersecurity scams in Thailand in a visit recently on a CODEL.
And it is just amazing to me how one little data center, you know, in Cambodia can have such a great impact on many people and consumers in our country and impact consumers globally. So this is a heinous problem, and I thank my colleague for bringing this forward. I plan to vote for it, and I also want to thank, of course, Mr. Himes for his work on the legislation. I urge the committee to support this bill. I certainly intend to do so, and I yield back.
Speaker 17
Gentlewoman yields back. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Davidson, you're recognized.
Warren Davidson
I just want to applaud Mr. Nunn. He's had a strong series of legislation to deal with scams. This continues that, and I'm also encouraged that it's truly bipartisan. I am thankful to work with the ranking member of the National Security, Illicit Finance Subcommittee, Joyce Beatty, and we have ongoing collaboration on other legislation down this vein. So I hope that we can work together to solve this problem, and it's nice to see efforts like this.
So nice work, Mr. Nunn, and I encourage everyone to continue this and spread the word through the conference. It's one of these things that doesn't get covered. There are things we agree on, and sadly it's a problem that we wish would go away, but through our efforts, hopefully we can put an end to it. I yield back.
Stephen Lynch
Thank you. I would like to join in the chorus here just to thank Mr. Nunn. This is a thoughtful and timely piece of legislation. We are seeing the same impact in Massachusetts and across New England as the gentleman is seeing among his constituents in Iowa.
So we are thankful for his vision here. And I do have, especially on behalf of my seniors, they seem to be targeted more frequently than other groups. I've been doing a series of senior town halls and we are continually trying to work with local law enforcement just to inform our seniors about some of the scams that are going on. And it's the scammers are becoming more diabolical and more sophisticated and they are definitely targeting seniors. So I just applaud the gentleman for his thoughtful legislation.
I do have a small friendly amendment, but I do not want that to take away from the superb work that the gentleman has done here. And I'll offer that at the appropriate time. So I yield back, but I thank the gentleman for his good work.
Maxine Waters
I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak in support of HR 4936, the Task Force for Recognizing and Adverting Payment Scams Act, or the TRAPS Act, from Representatives Nunn and Himes. A recent report by the Consumer Federation of America found that in 2025, Americans lost an estimated $148 billion to online scams and crimes, representing a loss of $1,100 per household. This is a shocking number that increases every year and that increased by 25% from 2024. People over 60 years old were the most targeted and suffered the largest losses in 2025. But notably, those under 20 experienced a 200% increase over the previous year in reported losses from cyber-enabled scams.
The TRAPS Act is a first step towards tackling this problem by establishing a Treasury-led task force comprised of government agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as representatives from industry, consumer groups, and scam survivor advocates. The task force will examine trends, coordinate prevention efforts, and importantly, propose solutions to prevent fraud and scams. Committee Democrats have been hard at work on this issue. In May, the committee passed a bill led by Representatives Pettersen and Flood that will help ensure banks, especially small banks, have the technology and tools to identify and combat bank fraud. In June, Representative Gonzalez worked with Representative Kim to advance the Stop Payments Fraud Act, which will allow banks to pause suspicious payments before they are made available to bad actors.
We need to do more to stop this epidemic of fraud. That is why I introduced the Protecting Consumers from Payment Scams Act, which would modernize our laws to better protect consumers who get harmed through these schemes. And yes, we must reverse Trump's unlawful actions and get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau back up and running so consumers have an agency fighting for them.
This committee must also reinstate the Corporate Transparency Act so fraudsters can't hide their scams and proceeds behind anonymous shell companies. That said, I also want to thank Chairman Hill and his staff for working with us on a number of improvements made prior to markup. So I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Thank you and I yield back the balance of my time.
J. Hill
Ranking member yields back. Who seeks recognition? Seeing no additional speakers, I'll recognize myself for five minutes to talk about Zach Nunn's good bill. The comments from our members you've heard, our members are overwhelmed by constituent comments about fraud and scams, both sides of the aisle, from all sorts. And Dan Meuser of our Oversight Subcommittee, Andy Barr on our Financial Institutions Committee, Warren Davidson on our National Security Committee, all have worked with their Democratic colleagues to engage in fighting back against scams and fraud.
I have to say, there's nothing more important than consumer education here. Between banks and broker-dealers and mortgage people and telephone companies and the internet, I mean, it's an avalanche of chaos out there. And we've taken testimony from the big data providers, the telephone companies, and so I want to thank Mr. Nunn for stepping in on this particular matter with his TRAPS Act. And it just continues to, as the ranking member just outlined, some of the things we've done previously, this just adds to that. Meuser's work, our fraud report, really examines the ways how scammers prey on victims and highlight the necessity of a whole-of-government and a whole-of-ecosystem approach if we're going to mitigate this.
Scammers employ so many platforms, using a growth of encrypted online messaging platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp to scam their victims. By concealing their real phone numbers, tracing these bad actors becomes exceedingly difficult. We've heard cases where fraudsters will meet their victims on dating apps and immediately transition the conversation to WhatsApp to focus on getting to know each other better. Take Dennis Jones, for example, a retired 82-year-old who was befriended on social media by a woman named Jesse, and the two exchanged messages for months. At some point in those messages, Jesse told Mr. Jones about an investment opportunity and convinced Mr. Jones to participate.
He ultimately, sadly, sent her his entire life savings. And Jesse disappeared. And unfortunately, and unfortunately, this is what we hear time and time again, Mr. Jones took his own life. So this is a tragic story, but it is one of something that our members on both sides of the aisle hear about routinely. Fraud schemes are growing at an exponential rate using multiple industry platforms to induce victims into turning money over illegally.
And that's exactly what this whole-of-ecosystem approach needs to be. This issue is far too challenging for one bank. I mean, the banks are avalanched with this. They report to us, anecdotally, their losses from fraud on their financial statements are greater than the reserves they put in for loan losses. And just yesterday, I spoke to the Florida Bankers Association, this was the number one thing they wanted to talk about, is how do we get a handle on this.
And the banks are catching check fraud, the banks can sometimes catch this online-type fraud when the person wants to transfer money out of a financial institution.
But we have to bring together all the stakeholders and that's where Zach Nunn has been leading. This bill builds on the work of Congress previously as the ranking member outlined and the Trump administration. Treasury's recent report to Congress emphasizes that they agree that we need a whole of ecosystem approach by bringing together telecommunications and social media stakeholders to come up with solutions. It builds on the important work of the interagency financial literacy and education commission. Increasing awareness and educating our most vulnerable community members as I said at the my opening are the is the most important thing we can be doing and that's why I'm glad AARP for example is involved in supporting this work.
Let's keep working together across all levels of government to have the tools better designed to help fight back against these fraudsters. So I urge a yes vote. I thank Mr. Nunn for his work. Does anybody else seek recognition? If not, I'll call for amendments.
Is there an amendment to Mr. Nunn's bill? The gentleman from Massachusetts.
Speaker 30
We'll pause while it is distributed. Mr. Nunn. Mr. Nunn reserves a point of order. The clerk will now report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 4936 offered by Mr. Lynch of Massachusetts designated as Lynch 075.
J. Hill
Without objection the amendment's considered read and now the gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized to describe his amendment.
Stephen Lynch
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all I want to again once again thank and applaud Mr. Nunn on his thoughtful legislation. As the ranking Democrat on on artificial intelligence and digital assets subcommittee I just want to note that the exploitation of artificial intelligence has become a hallmark of much of this financial crime. So much so that the FBI has recently for the first time included an artificial intelligence section in its internet crime report. My amendment specifically would require the inclusion of at least one representative and Mr. Nunn has set up a task force here to to really do a deep dive on a lot of the the fraud that's going on here which I I fully agree with.
It's the absence of this particular representative who had it would require that the individual have a demonstrated expertise in the application of AI to the detection, prevention, and investigation of the financial crimes that Mr. Nunn has identified.
...now more than ever before with aspects and elements of artificial intelligence. You know, different AI models, and these continue to evolve. So these criminals are keeping pace with the efforts to thwart them. Criminals are using AI to clone familial voices and mimic emergency calls to demand immediate payment for various circumstances. The FBI warned in 2024 that criminals continue to develop the ability to exploit generative AI to create sophisticated fake investments and crypto schemes, generating fake trading platforms and using AI avatars or chatbots or other techniques to pitch guaranteed returns.
In fact, this April, the agency reported that AI-enabled cryptocurrency fraud saw the most significant losses ever, with 181,565 claims totaling more than $11 billion. Cyber-enabled fraud totaled more than $17.7 billion in losses. So it's clear that AI-related crime is a relevant and pressing issue that will only grow and which has led to billions in losses for many victims. This amendment, I believe, is necessary to ensure that the task force considers the ever-evolving nature of AI in relation to fraud and payment scams. And I've reviewed the list of task force members, and I know that the gentleman has tried to be complete in his inclusion of every aspect of it, but this is just one, maybe because I'm on that task force and that subcommittee, I just think that the complexity that we're seeing and the sophistication that we're seeing by the use of AI would really require somebody who has a deep understanding of that technology to assist all those other members that the gentleman has correctly identified to include in his task force.
So again, I don't want this to take away or detract from Mr. Nunn's work. I intend it as a friendly amendment to enhance the great work that he has done already. Thank you, and I'll yield back.
Speaker 24
Thanks, the gentleman, the gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Iowa moves to strike the last word.
Zachary Nunn
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Lynch, for what I do consider a friendly amendment. I think the expertise that needs to be drawn in this field is going to change dramatically as we've seen these threats change dramatically just in the last six months alone. And whether it's in Boston or Bondurant, the threat vector continues to come at an increasingly aggressive rate. The level of AI sophistication in this space changes not only for your beautiful Beantown accent, they can talk to you like your neighbor next door, or they can talk like an Iowa twang farmer up the street to a point where we trust.
And this isn't just seniors, this isn't just veterans who have been identified. We now know that they're aggressively targeting, as the ranking member noted, kids age 20 and under. And they're doing things to these individuals that are not only so threatening, but with the advancement of AI are so believable that even trained education still becomes a challenge to know fact from fiction. So as we look at this, I want to say thank you very much to Mr. Lynch for identifying the role that artificial intelligence plays in this, bringing in the expertise of the technology from the task force that you're working with, and really prioritizing this as the new front line of where scams are going. Whether they be in Burma or Belarus, we've got to be able to go after them and use the technology capable today.
That includes AI, AI identification, blockchain tracing, crypto manipulation. These are the types of experts we need. I appreciate you flagging this. I would fully support the amendment. I think it's common sense, and Mr. Chair, I would yield back.
The gentleman yields back. Just asks to be recognized for a moment.
I just thank the gentleman for his, his courtesy.
Speaker 29
Well, just let me, I'll, I'll give you some time, I'll give you some time.
J. Hill
Anyone else seek comment on the Lynch amendment? I'll recognize myself for five minutes. Let me say to Mr. Lynch, I thank you for your amendment from Cape Cod to Iowa. It's very good. Thank Mr. Nunn for working constructively to accept that amendment.
I think it strengthens the bill and I'll yield some time to Mr. Lynch.
Stephen Lynch
Thank you, Mr. Hill. That was probably the worst Boston accent I've ever heard. But I, I will not denigrate the people of Arkansas. Your parents raised you well. I just want to thank Mr. Nunn for his good work again and, and his courtesy in, in including this, this aspect of it that, that I think is so important.
So again, I congratulate the gentleman and, and I look forward to supporting the, supporting the bill in final passage. Thank you. I yield back.
J. Hill
And I yield back to the chair. Who seeks recognition? All those, if there are no further debate, question now occurs on Mr. Lynch's amendment to the ANS. All those in favor of the amendment shall signify by saying aye. Aye.
All those opposed signify by saying no. Opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The ayes have it and the amendment is adopted. Is there, are there any further amendments to the amendment in the nature of a substitute? Seeing no further amendments, without objection, the previous question on the substitute is ordered and recorded votes on the pending amendments have been postponed.
Once those amendments are taken, the committee will immediately vote on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute and then consider the question to report the measure. We'll now move to the next bill. Pursuant, I'd notice, I call up H.R. 10234, the Consumer-Led Enhancement of Annuity and Insurance Registration Forms Act, or the CLEAR Act. This bill also was authored and introduced by Representative Zach Nunn of Iowa. Clerk will report the bill, which was distributed in advance.
Speaker 2
H.R. 10234 to require the Securities and Exchange Commission to create forms for non-variable registered annuities and life insurance products and for other purposes.
J. Hill
Without objection, the first reading is dispensed with. Without objection, the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Representative Nunn has an amendment in the nature of a substitute, copies of which are distributed in advance. The clerk will report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 10234 offered by Mr. Nunn of Iowa, designated as Nunn 175.
J. Hill
Without objection, the amendment is considered read. It will serve as the base text for purposes of amendment. The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Nunn, is recognized for five minutes.
Zachary Nunn
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd like to discuss H.R. 10234, the CLEAR Forms Act. We have reached an agreement with my colleague on the other side of the aisle here, Representative Pettersen, and her team on the limitations section and extended implementation timeline from 30 months to 36 months. We hope these revisions reflect a genuine commitment to reaching a workable compromise. I will be offering an amendment in the nature of a substitute and an amendment to the nature of a substitute reflecting these changes.
With that, I would yield back.
J. Hill
Gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on the ANS? Anybody seek recognition? I'll recognize myself for five minutes. I want to thank Congressman Nunn and Congresswoman Pettersen from Colorado for their collaboration and bipartisan leadership on what I believe to be a common sense piece of legislation.
We worked with Representative Pettersen to drop limitation section and extend implementation to 36 months, showing good faith to find common ground between the majority and the minority. At its core, this legislation focuses on clarity and transparency. The Clear Forms Act is a disclosure modernization bill. It does not alter the underlying rules governing the marketing or sales of registered index-linked life insurance products, contingent deferred annuities, or other registered non-variable insurance contracts. Companies can already sell these products today.
That's not changing. This bill simply streamlines the registration process so that everyday investors receive, in my view, more clear, tailored, and accessible information directly related to the decision they need to take on considering one of these products. Furthermore, this approach follows a proven bipartisan model, the registration for index-linked annuities, which was passed in 2022. And just like that bill, the Clear Forms Act modernizes outdated forms, focuses on product-specific details, and consumer testing to ensure that final documents are actually useful to, as I said, investor consideration. Further, I'd like to emphasize that robust consumer protections remain entirely intact.
Recommendations regarding these products are already governed by the SEC best interest rule and a fiduciary standard for registered investment advisors. And additionally, FINRA rule 2210, the SEC advertising rules, and the state insurance regulations continue to enforce strict standards against false, exaggerated, or misleading claims. And I would add, in my experience before coming to Congress, I was very involved in managing investment broker-dealer investment management operations for two different businesses in the last three decades. And the selling of annuities, anything that is an annuity contract that's not just a straight fixed annuity, have tremendous sales practice oversight by both state insurance commission rules and by FINRA on behalf of the SEC. And I want to emphasize that paragraph.
That scrutiny of an individual advisor guiding someone through the consideration of one of these products is extremely well-scrutinized. This bill just addresses what's the format of the material they get that they're using to consider that purchase. So the Clear Forms Act leaves every single one of those sales practice protections at FINRA or the SEC or the State Securities Commissions fully in place, but streamlines that disclosure and tries to make it more clear. I think it's a good bill. I think it's carefully written, and I would urge a support of it.
And I yield back the balance of my time. Ranking member seeks recognition.
You're recognized for five minutes.
Maxine Waters
I oppose the so-called Clear Forms Act offered by Mr. Nunn. This bill would direct the SEC to create new opaque registration forms for certain types of insurance products that most investors haven't even heard of. Today, most versions of this insurance products, of all of these insurance products, are regulated under a patchwork of state insurance regulations, but the companies selling them want to go nationwide.
For that reason, they have gone to the SEC to try to register them under federal securities laws. The SEC responded by having them register these products using the standard, time-tested form used for securities offerings. These forms are comprehensive in the information they provide to investors and analysts, which gives investors a full understanding of the inner workings and risk inherent in these complex offerings, and critically, in the issuer behind these products. Despite this, and in a blatant industry giveaway, this bill would create novel forms for these products while placing unreasonable constraints on the Commission. Now, the sponsor revised this bill just this morning to let me address the version in front of us.
The previous version of the bill limited the SEC's ability to require issuer disclosures on the new form. That limitation seems to be gone, but the sponsors kept every other provision that steers the SEC to the same industry-friendly result. The bill still directs the Commission to build a framework, quote, "to the greatest extent possible," unquote, consistent with the forms written for variable annuities and variable life insurance. You know what this means in the real world? If the SEC dares to deviate in any meaningful way from the industry's preferred registration form, then the industry could easily sue the SEC.
And in case SEC misses the unreasonable deadline set in the bill, which the SEC has told us it cannot meet, the bill contains an automatic trigger which allows industry to issue these products on leaner, industry-preferred forms. This is regulation by autopilot, rather than regulation for the sake of investor protection. Finally, I would point out that this committee has not held any oversight hearings on these products. Rushing to curtail SEC authority and critical information for investors would only serve to put investors at further risk. So I urge all of my colleagues to oppose HR 10234, and I yield back the balance of my time.
J. Hill
Gentleman yields back. Is there further recognition on the ANS? We'll turn to amendments. Gentleman from Iowa.
Chairman, I reserve a point of order.
Thank you, point of order by Mr. Davidson has been reserved.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 10234 offered by Mr. Nunn of Iowa designated as Nunn 180.
J. Hill
Without objection, the amendment is considered read and now Mr. Nunn you're recognized to tell us about your amendment to your amendment in the nature of a substitute.
You're recognized for five minutes.
Zachary Nunn
We've reached an agreement that I believe is in good faith with Representative Brittany Pettersen on the other side of the aisle here, but working together to help remove the limitation section and extend the implementation timeline from 30 to 36 months.
Again, I believe that this moves us forward in a genuine commitment to reach a workable compromise. That being said, with this amendment, we're moving forward on the totality of the Clear Forms Act. Now, back in my home state of the Hawkeyes, folks save their hard-earned money and they want to know that they'll have the tools to protect their families when they retire and have peace of mind when doing so. When considering products that could help provide security, I believe they deserve straight, clear-forward information about how these products work, not pages of information that would bury what is most useful. Take a small business in Lamoni, Iowa.
They spent decades helping to build this business on Main Street. They helped support their family with this business and they're creating jobs for our local economy. But when that same business owner starts to plan for retirement, he or she wants access to products that will help provide information and comfort and security for their future and the future of that business and the family associated with that going forward. Unfortunately, when they look into these options, it's not uncommon to come across disclosure documents just like this. These forms were designed for mega-corporations, not for individuals who want to be able to get the best product for their retirement.
It requires a corporate team of lawyers to sift through, and a family farmer or a business person has to go out and get an attorney. And Mr. Chair, in the state of Iowa, I checked this out with my good friends at the legal side, it's about 500 bucks an hour for an afternoon's worth of reading. Or to put it in another term, that's 2,500 dollars just to figure out what retirement plan is best for you. The worst part is these forms are often filled with irrelevant operational information like a company's furniture depreciation or its lease commitment at a remote office. These are not the things that help somebody retire with security.
These are the type of things that bleed out your wallet and cause a headache. Iowans are looking for the right retirement products and they ought to be able to receive disclosures that tell them how the product works, what the risk, what the benefits are, and most importantly, whether it's right for them, their business, their farm, their portfolio. So, this is why I introduced the Clear Forms Act. This bill directs the SEC to create a tailored, consumer-tested registration form that provides clear information on various important insurance products. So instead of this showing up in your mailbox, folks back home can review forms that are tailored to them in mind, with the information they need to make an informed decision that's easily accessible.
I'm proud to say this idea came from discussing issues with my local insurance company back in my home state. And I'm proud to highlight Iowa is the home for both corn, hogs, and insurance. This idea came from people who have dealt with this for far too long but want to be able to support and provide successes for families looking to retire. And I will say this is not a new idea. The bipartisan RILA Act, which was signed into law, did the same thing, creating tailored forms for similar products.
And most importantly, we've seen that be successful. The Clear Forms Act extends the successful model across insurance-based investment products. And I'm happy to say that we have a number of teams who have helped not only draft this legislation but fully support its creation. I'd like to enter that into the record, Mr. Chair.
Zachary Nunn
I believe this is a common-sense bipartisan fix. I'm proud to have bipartisan success in drafting it, bipartisan work in delivering it, and most importantly, something that all Americans, Republican or Democrat, recognize this is an advantage for anyone looking for their financial future and their retirement to be successful. I specifically want to thank Representative Pettersen from Colorado for her incredible work in co-leading this effort.
And I urge all of my colleagues to be able to support it and help families back home and across our country. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Speaker 36
The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Ohio insists on his point of order?
J. Hill
I withdraw my point of order.
The gentleman withdraws. Who seeks recognition? The gentlewoman from Missouri, the chair of our Capital Markets Subcommittee, Ms. Wagner.
Ann Wagner
I thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to commend Representative Nunn for his fantastic work on introducing and putting together and drafting the CLEAR Form Act, and for his very thoughtful work with Representative Pettersen on a bipartisan work to strengthen transparency for American investors. When working families sit down to plan their financial futures, they are looking for security and peace of mind. They want to know that their hard-earned savings are protected and that the choices that they make today will support them through retirement. Yet far too often, when everyday investors try to evaluate non-variable annuities or insurance contracts, they are met with dozens and dozens and dozens of pages, as Mr. Representative Nunn has illustrated, of dense, overly technical language.
When key details about terms and features and fees are buried, then true transparency is lost and families are left uncertain about their choices. The CLEAR Forms Act addresses this challenge head-on. By directing the SEC to establish concise, understandable disclosure specifically for retail investors, this bill ensures these products are presented clearly and upfront. Importantly, this legislation requires a simple test before any new forms are finalized. If the average American investor cannot easily review and understand the document, the SEC must go back to the drawing board and refine it.
This legislation does not weaken oversight. Instead, it elevates the standard of disclosure, replacing complex paperwork with meaningful transparency. American investors deserve clear, accessible information so they can make confident decisions about their financial security, and the CLEAR Forms Act delivers precisely that. And I strongly urge my colleagues to support H.R. 10234, and I yield back the remainder of my time.
J. Hill
The gentlewoman yields back. Is there any discussion on Mr. Zach Nunn's amendment to his amendment? If hearing none, is there, all those in favor of Mr. Nunn's amendment to his amendment, please say aye.
J. Hill
All those opposed say no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, the ayes have it, the amendment is adopted. Are there further amendments to the amendment in the, to the amendment of the amendment of the nature of a substitute? The ranking member of the full committee.
You have an amendment at the desk?
I have an amendment at the desk.
J. Hill
Let's pause for a moment, we'll ask the clerk to distribute it to everybody.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 10234 offered by Ms. Waters of California designated as the Clear ANS.
J. Hill
Without objection, the amendment is now considered read and the ranking member is recognized to describe her amendment.
Maxine Waters
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My amendment replaces the bill's mandate with a study. It directs the SEC to examine three critical things about these products before the commission designs a bespoke new form for them. First, what they cost, including the charges buried in the caps and formulas rather than stated as fees. Second, how they are sold, including who sells them, what they are paid, and how often customers are moved from one contract to the next.
And third, who stands behind them, meaning the financial condition of the insurers making these promises, which for these products matters most. Mr. Chairman, the committee has held no hearings on these products. The SEC told us there is not a single registered contingent deferred annuity on file. The bill itself now defines these products as ones that a person seeks to register. When Congress did this for index-linked annuities in 2022, it acted on a decade of sales and a full filing record.
Here, there is neither. And we know what happens in this market when no one looks. Two months ago, Iowa's insurance regulator revoked the license of an agent who had been working the meetings of retired postal workers. She told them to cash out their federal retirement savings and buy index annuities. She inflated their finances on the applications to get the sales approved.
Then she churned them into nearly identical contracts, hid the replacements from the insurer, and left retirees paying tens of thousands of dollars in surrender charges. The amendment does not kill the form. It asks the SEC to find out whether the form is a good idea and to tell us. Under this amendment, the SEC would have the authority to create a new form if it is necessary and actually makes sense for investors. So I urge members to support this amendment and I yield back.
I withdraw my point of order.
J. Hill
Gentleman withdraws. Who seeks recognition? The gentleman from Iowa, you seek to strike the last word? Gentleman is recognized for five minutes.
Zachary Nunn
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Well, I appreciate the intent of the ranking member's desire to perform another study, I would say that this issue's been studied at length. And I don't know an Iowa farmer or a small business owner or a taxpayer who's ever said, "Congress, I want you to go slower on this." This is an issue that directly impacts the success of communities back home. Look, the reality is this issue's already been studied and it has been debated at length.
In fact, we also have the bipartisan RILA Act that shows that this is a good model to follow. Another study would only delay the transparency that investors need today, not months from now. In fact, every month, every year of delay is another month or another year that families working through this level of disclosure are paying out of pocket and are not investing in the future that they want.
Now, I'm glad to continue to work with both the SEC on its implementation, but the case for clearer forms doesn't require more paperwork. I would urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment, and Chair, I would yield back. I will yield.
J. Hill
Appreciate the gentleman's work. I also appreciate the ranking member's example that she gave in her concern about making sure our investors have the right advice when they're taking a decision about annuity, and that that advice comes from two big parts. First is the disclosure and what they see and what they read and understand personally as an investor to make it simple, concise, direct, following on the previous decision by Congress to do that exact same thing just four years ago. So that's point one. Point two is the sales practice responsibilities of the investment management firm or the broker-dealer involved.
And as I said in my opening comments, Rule 2210 of FINRA, our state insurance commission oversight process, and the SEC oversight process, the best interest standard, the fiduciary obligation under investment managers, all those things deal directly with precisely the issue the ranking member argued in her very good example, frankly, of a person who's had their retirement completely messed up by an unscrupulous what? Not form, not disclosure, but sales practice. So I want to thank you for your work. I'd like to urge people to reject the Waters amendment and recognize that those sales practice concerns are deeply embedded in SEC and FINRA and state insurance commission practices today, not being changed, and that what we're trying to do is make a more clear, more direct form for retail consideration for an investor. I yield back to the gentleman from Iowa.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd absolutely concur with you. I think the ranking member, Ms. Waters... No, she... and I agree that you expressed the strong concern about consumer clear investor protection here in annuities, have had that concern over many, many years, and that's why in my judgment the SEC and the financial regulatory body, FINRA, have added so many safeguards for helping investors be better protected. So I thank the gentleman, I yield back to him.
I would just concur and say, but the success story here is also getting clear forms out there so there's not a mistake on the front end and so we can hold unscrupulous sales practices accountable by having clarity in what happens. With that, I yield back to the Chair.
Yields back. Is there further debate on Mrs. Waters' amendment? All those in favor of the amendment shall signify by saying aye. All those opposed signify by saying no. No.
The opinion of the chair, the noes have it. The noes have it. The amendment is not adopted. Are there any other amendments to the amendment in the nature of a substitute? Recorded vote.
The gentlewoman requests a recorded vote. All those in favor of a recorded vote, please raise your hands. A sufficient number having raised their hands, a recorded vote is so ordered pursuant to subsection C5 of Rule 3 of the committee rules. Further proceedings on the amendment are postponed. Any further amendments to the amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute?
Seeing no further amendments, without objection the previous question on the substitute is ordered and recorded votes on the pending amendments have been postponed. Once those votes are taken, the committee will then immediately vote on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute and then will consider the question to report the measure. We now move to the next bill and in that regard, pursuant to notice, I call up HR 7866, the American Lending Fairness Act of 2026. This was introduced by the chair of our National Security Subcommittee, Mr. Davidson of Ohio. Clerk will report the bill.
Speaker 2
HR 7866 to restore and clarify the intent of the federal interest rate exportation parity for state-chartered banks by allowing states to opt out of preemption only with respect to loans made by their own chartered institutions and for other purposes.
J. Hill
Without objection the first reading of the bill is dispensed with. Without objection the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Congressman Davidson has amendment in the nature of a substitute, copies of which were distributed in advance. The clerk will now report that amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 7866 offered by Mr. Davidson of Ohio, designated as Davidson 169.
J. Hill
Without objection the amendment is considered read and will serve as the base text for purposes of amendment. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Davidson, you're now recognized for five minutes to describe your amendment.
Warren Davidson
Thank you, Chairman. The American Lending Fairness Act is a common sense piece of legislation. It protects borrowers' access to capital and restores certainty to our nation's banking system. For that reason, it is bipartisan and supported broadly. It, and I'd like to introduce just a for the record, I ask seek unanimous consent to introduce for the record letters of support for this bill from the American Fintech Council, Lead Bank, American Financial Services Association, Financial Technology Association, and here's a list of acronyms: ABA, ACUA, ACU, AFSA, OLA, AFC, AMBA, BPI, CBA, DCUC, NAIB, and the MBA.
J. Hill
I'm going to put them in the record, but can you imagine trying to transcribe that as our transcriptionist? That's, you left out everything except BYOB, I think.
Warren Davidson
Oh, those are, those will be entered in the record for inclusion. Thank you. As a crusty old soldier, I have lots of acronyms available. But these are some of most of the folks in the industry. And why are they doing this?
Because Congress passed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act, known as DIDMCA. Another acronym, not easy to flow, but DIDMCA for transcription purposes. Congress passed DIDMCA to create fair competition between national banks and state-chartered FDIC-insured banks. The law was built on a simple principle: national banks and state-chartered banks should compete on equal terms. Parity is a key aspect of our dual banking system.
Section 521 of DIDMCA gives state-chartered FDIC-insured banks the ability to charge the interest rate allowed by their home state when they lend across state lines. In other words, a state-chartered bank can export its home state interest rate to borrowers nationwide. Federally-chartered banks have similar authority under Section 85 of the National Bank Act. Section 525 of DIDMCA created a limited exception. It allows a state to opt out of this federal framework for loans made in state.
The question is what Congress meant by the phrase made in state. The answer should be clear and it was for a long time. A loan is made where the bank performs its lending operations. The Supreme Court addressed this principle in Marquette National Bank versus First of Omaha Services Corporation. The court issued that decision two years before Congress enacted DIDMCA.
The Supreme Court unanimously recognized the importance of the lender's location in determining which state usury laws apply. That decision helped establish the modern framework for interstate interstate lending and interest rate exportation. In practice, a bank makes a loan where it carries out the essential parts of the lending process. These functions are approving the credit, dispersing the funds, and forming the lending agreement. A bank performs these functions in the state where it is chartered.
Therefore, the loan is made in that state. That is the straightforward understanding of DIDMCA. The state they're located in regulates the bank. But some states have adopted a different interpretation. Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and New York have sought to apply their own interest rate caps to loans made by banks chartered in other states.
Frankly, they're not content regulating the banks in their own state. They want to try to regulate banks in other states using state regulate state regulation. These states treat the borrower's location as the deciding factor. They argue that a loan is made wherever the borrower resides. That approach is inconsistent with the purpose of DIDMCA.
It's also inconsistent with the traditional understanding of interstate lending. It threatens the parity Congress created between national banks and state chartered banks. Section 525 was never meant to give one state the authority to regulate the interest rates charged by banks chartered in another state. Interest rate exportation was an authority given to all 50 states. One state cannot single-handedly take this authority away from the other 49.
This bill clarifies that a state would be able to cap interest rates charged by institutions in that state charter, but a state would not be able to enforce its own rate limits on out-of-state lenders. They could regulate their banks or their citizens, but they can't regulate banks in other states. So restoring this common sense approach is the purpose of this bill. I encourage all our colleagues to support it and I yield back.
Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition? The gentlewoman from Texas, you're recognized.
Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
You have five minutes, ma'am.
Sylvia Garcia
Mr. Chairman, at a time when the Trump administration and Republicans have weakened consumer protection and shut down the federal watchdog who is supposed to be enforcing the law, states are the last line of defense for consumer protection. This is particularly important because Trump's economic policies have made things so unaffordable that Americans are taking out loans to buy food and using credit cards to buy basic necessities. Nevertheless, this bill purposely makes it harder for states to protect their own residents from high-cost predatory lenders. Currently, states can opt out from a federal law that allows state-chartered banks to export their home state interest rate to another state, even if that other state has stricter laws. Unfortunately, the bill renders this opt-out meaningless.
We have seen for years how some bad actors partner with banks to get around those state usury caps that protect borrowers. We call these rent-a-bank schemes. More than 120 consumer groups, including the National Consumer Law Center and the Center for Responsible Lending, argue that HR 7866 would curb states' ability to stop exploitative and unaffordable predatory lending through these schemes.
These groups contend that a variety of predatory non-bank lenders use rent-a-bank schemes to launder their loans through out-of-state state-chartered banks so they can charge loans with interest rates as high as 200% that would otherwise be illegal in 45 states. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter their statements into the record. This is a letter signed by 121 consumer groups that I ask for unanimous consent to enter the record.
Without objection, it'll be inserted in the record.
So I urge all my colleagues to oppose H.R. 7866 and I yield back the balance of my time.
J. Hill
The gentlewoman yields back. Who seeks recognition? The gentleman from Kentucky, the chair of the Financial Institutions Subcommittee, Mr. Barr, you're recognized.
I move to strike the last word.
You have five minutes.
Andy Barr
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of H.R. 7866, the American Lending Fairness Act of 2026. I'm proud to be a co-sponsor of this legislation. I want to thank my good friend, Congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio, for his leadership on this bipartisan legislation. At its core, this bill is about restoring rules that have governed interstate lending for decades under DIDMCA.
If a state wants to set different interest rate rules for the banks and credit unions that it charters, it should be able to do so. But it should not be able to impose those interest rate limits on banks chartered in other states. If you truly support federalism, this clarification is vital. That was the exact motivation behind Section 521 of DIDMCA to ensure that national banks and state banks have the same set of rules when it comes to how they lend. If we want a state bank or a credit union charter to remain viable, it's critical we ensure state-chartered banks do not have to operate under 50 different sets of rules.
As banks lend to customers across the country, they need to know which rules apply without having to navigate a completely different system in every state. That is exactly why the Conference of State Banking Supervisors supports this legislation because they recognize the need to preserve the viability of the state charter. A patchwork of rules does not just hurt state-chartered banks and credit unions, however, it also hurts consumers. If financial institutions cannot price loans according to the risks, some lenders may decide certain loans aren't profitable enough to offer. This limits access to critical lending for American families and is especially harmful to vulnerable populations who rely on products such as credit cards to bridge gaps in their financial life.
My friend on the other side of the aisle worries about the cost of living. This is going to make it harder for individuals to access credit and that is not what we need to be doing. So this bill, under this bill, we will restore Congress's original intent in DIDMCA to preserve nationwide interest rate exportation parity between state-chartered and national banks. And we're going to eliminate with this legislation the legal uncertainty arising from specifically Colorado's effort to apply its opt-out extraterritoriality. By allowing a state to impose its interest rate laws onto financial institutions chartered by other states, that will severely diminish lending by out-of-state financial institutions to consumers, leading to a large reduction in available credit to all consumers, especially low-income borrowers.
This hurts access to credit for the people who need it most.
Speaker 42
I urge my colleagues to support this common sense bill that promotes parity and financial access, and I yield back.
J. Hill
Gentleman from Kentucky yields back. Who seeks recognition on Mr. Davidson's ANS? Not seeing anyone else, I'll recognize myself for five minutes. I support H.R. 7866, the American Lending Fairness Act of 2024. This is a good, clarifying piece of bipartisan work led by the gentleman from Ohio, along with Chairman Barr, Mr. Gonzalez, Mr. Horsford, Ms. McBride, and Ms. Kim.
That's pretty bipartisan. And it addresses this fundamental question that both Mr. Davidson and Mr. Barr outlined about our dual banking system: when a state-chartered bank makes a loan across state lines, whose interest rate law governs that loan? For more than four decades, federal law has provided a very clear answer. Back in 1980, Congress enacted the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act to modernize banking and promote competition, one of the most important bills of the 20th century. And one of the biggest reforms in that act was to establish competitive parity between state-chartered and national bank charters.
Section 521, a state-chartered bank federally insured by the FDIC generally may charge the interest at the rate permitted by the laws of the state where the bank is located. That's it. That's what they said. Plain English. That allows banks to lend across state lines without navigating a different interest rate regime in every state where they have customers.
And that's important. It enhances interstate commerce. It enhances clarity for business. Subjecting interstate lending to 50 different interest rate regimes would create a regulatory patchwork and a regulatory nightmare for customers and for lenders. Section 525 of the same bill allows states to opt out of this federal preemption.
And until recently, that provision was understood to mean what Congress intended: a state could opt out with respect to institutions chartered by that state, meaning they could have a different interest rate law for operating in their state. A recent legal dispute in Colorado has created significant uncertainty about that distinction, hence the reason for Mr. Davidson bringing this bill. And that's why Congress should act. Congress wrote DIDMCA and Congress should clarify the law when its meaning has become uncertain. Mr. Davidson's bill does precisely that.
It does not eliminate the opt-out or prevent states from establishing interest rate limits on their banks operating in their states. That remains. But it does not prevent Colorado or any other state from regulating the financial institutions that it actually chartered, but it makes clear that a state's opt-out applies to only loans made by institutions chartered by the state. States should be able to regulate institutions they charter, but a customer should not lose access to credit simply because the bank willing to serve them is headquartered across a state line. This is also about competitive parity.
Congress intended state and national banks to compete on equal ground. If a state-chartered bank faces a different interest rate regime because its customer lives across a border while a national bank does not, we undermine that competitive balance. And I think about in my home state: Memphis, Tennessee; West Memphis, Arkansas; Texarkana, Arkansas; Texarkana, Texas. That's clearly a real restraint in trade and fair balance. We need a banking system where institutions can compete across state lines and where rules of interstate commerce are predictable.
This bill restores that clarity, promotes access to affordable credit, preserves competition, and protects the functioning of our national credit market. I urge everybody to support Mr. Davidson's bill. Does anyone else seek recognition on his amendment in the nature of a substitute? Hearing none, we'll move to amendments. Are there amendments to Mr. Davidson's amendment in the nature of a substitute?
There being no further discussion or amendments to the bill, the question now occurs on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, signify by saying nay. No.
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, and the amendment is adopted. Question now occurs on ordering the bill as amended to be reported to the House with a favorable recommendation. Those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, signify by saying nay.
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. What does the gentleman from Ohio seek recognition?
Chairman, I ask for a recorded vote.
J. Hill
Gentleman requests a recorded vote. All those in favor of a recorded vote, raise your hands. A sufficient number having raised their hands, a recorded vote is ordered. Pursuant to subsection C5 of Rule 3 of the committee rules, a vote on the question is postponed. We'll now move to the next bill.
And in that regard, pursuant to notice, I call up HR 1653, the Civil Investigative Demand Reform Act of 2025, which... Let me suspend just a moment. We're looking for Mr. Barr. The clerk will now report Mr. Barr's bill, which was distributed in advance.
Speaker 2
HR 1653, to reform the civil investigative demand process of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
J. Hill
Without objection, first reading is dispensed with. Without objection, the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Representative Barr has an amendment in the nature of a substitute, and copies of that also have been distributed in advance. Clerk will report that amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 1653, offered by Mr. Barr of Kentucky, designated as BARR 153.
J. Hill
Without objection, the amendment is considered read and will serve as base text for the purpose of amendment. The gentleman from Kentucky, the chair of our Financial Institutions Subcommittee, the author of the bill, is now recognized for five minutes.
Andy Barr
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of my bill, HR 1653, the Civil Investigative Demand Reform Act. Since the passage of Dodd-Frank, individuals and businesses have been subject to the CFPB's seemingly boundless investigatory powers through what is known as civil investigative demands. Under Director Chopra in particular, the CFPB forced law-abiding financial services providers to sift through thousands of pages of business documents and sit for hours of oral testimony without specifying alleged wrongdoing. Let me repeat that: without specifying alleged wrongdoing, just hoping to find something.
This is the textbook definition of a fishing expedition. And these fishing expeditions were designed to litigate companies into bankruptcy or destroy their reputations with no evidence of wrongdoing or no communication as to what they alleged to be the problem. Instead of protecting consumers, these tactics ended up harming consumers by eliminating the products and services that Americans need from the marketplace.
Director Chopra in these investigations acted as judge, jury, and executioner in each case, rejecting even the appearance of due process. At some point, an investigation must be about finding facts, not searching until you can find something to use. That regulatory overreach was totally out of control, and it was not accountability. This bipartisan bill will help alleviate some of these issues by making the civil investigative demand process clearer and fairer while protecting the CFPB's ability to investigate legitimate violations of the law. This does not, this bill would not end the CFPB's ability to investigate wrongdoing.
It just simply makes the process consistent with due process. So, let's talk about what the bill does specifically. First, the bill will put a modest cap of six years on how long after an alleged violation the CFPB can issue a civil investigative demand. Also, it would require the CFPB to provide specific reference to particular facts regarding the violation. Seems pretty darn reasonable to me.
These are common sense guidelines that simply promote clarity in civil investigative demands. If the CFPB is going to demand information and answers from a company that it regulates, it should be able to tell that company in a timely manner what violation it's investigating. Second, this bill will allow advising attorneys to submit questions related to the scope or the breadth of the demand on behalf of those who are being investigated. This provision will increase transparency by creating an open line of communication between the attorneys and the bureau for the companies who are subject to the demand. Notably, the provision includes a timeframe in which the CFPB must respond.
Most importantly, this bill strengthens the ability of companies to challenge demands through judicial review that are legally deficient, overburdensome, duplicative, or otherwise outside of the scope of the CFPB's review power. Due process is a hallmark of our country, and the CFPB deserves to be held to that standard. These issues have played out in real time during the Chopra era, and it is time to restore accountability and fair treatment by giving companies a meaningful route to challenge the CFPB when it oversteps its authority. Overall, these are not radical reforms. They are basic principles of due process and responsible government oversight.
Frankly, this will enhance the reputation of the bureau. It will give the bureau more integrity, more accountability, and more credibility. The CFPB should have the authority to help protect consumers and enforce the law. It should have the authority to investigate, but changes need to be made to ensure that the CFPB has clear and reasonable limits when it comes to their civil investigative demand process. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1653.
I'm happy to answer any questions that any of my colleagues may have about what I'm proposing to do here, and I yield back.
Speaker 43
The gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on the ANS? Gentleman's recognized.
Stephen Lynch
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I read this bill, there's one section that just jumps right out at me and causes great concern. And I just, I will yield to the gentleman to answer my question. I just want to identify it. So at page 26 of the gentleman's bill, going down to, well, go to paragraph G, small G, the authority to declare an act unlawful based on discrimination or service as government contractors.
It states that the bureau may not, the bureau may not interpret the authority of the bureau, the CFPB, relating to unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices.
We're on a different bill.
Oh, are we?
Yeah, that's the next bill.
Speaker 44
1653. Right seat, wrong ballpark. That's okay. 16, we'll talk about that one in the next bill, but 1653 is this one. Yep.
Well, that's a warning shot for the next bill. Okay, I got you. That's a preview of coming attractions. I yield back. Thanks.
Yeah, this one you got right. Okay, I'll let that go. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.
Every so often I'll get one right, so.
The gentleman yields, the gentlelady is recognized.
Speaker 46
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we look forward to the rest of those shots on the next bill. I move to strike the last word.
The gentlelady is recognized.
Sylvia Garcia
I strongly oppose H.R. 1653, which makes a number of changes to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's civil investigative demand process, including adding new steps that could tip off a wrongdoer, tip off a wrongdoer to key facts before an investigation even begins. As we know, Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau following the 2008 global financial crisis, which was fueled by rampant predatory lending in the mortgage market. Congress gave the CFPB investigative authority similar to other civil law enforcement agencies. While the Trump administration has halted practically all federal enforcement of consumer protection law, this bill would make it even harder for a future CFPB to hold bad actors accountable. The CID process, the civil investigative demand process, is used by the agency to gather information as part of an investigation of any financial institution that may be violating consumer financial protection laws.
This bill limits all CFPB claims to six years, even though many of the consumer protection statutes already have discovery deadlines. While parts of this bill focus on how the CID process works for smaller companies, these reforms would apply to CFPB's investigations of all financial companies, including big banks, big tech companies, nationwide credit bureaus, debt collectors, and more. This runs the risk of impairing CFPB's ability to help consumers harmed in long-running schemes. Establishing new bureaucratic hurdles and requirements will undermine the Bureau's ability to enforce the law in a timely manner and provide consumer relief when institutions engage in unlawful activity. And that is exactly why the Republicans want to pass this bill.
Mr. Chairman, I also want to ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from 80 community, civil rights, and consumer groups opposed to this bill.
Without objection.
Sylvia Garcia
And that includes many of the folks like the Alliance for Justice, the American Friends Service Committee, CLEAR, the National Employment Law, and many others. I strongly urge all my colleagues to vote no, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Speaker 47
The gentlelady yields. Does anyone else seek recognition of the ANS? The gentleman from Ohio is recognized.
Thank you, Chairman. I move to strike the last word.
The gentleman's recognized.
Warren Davidson
You know, the gentlelady points out opposition to reasonable limits and due process. I mean, these are things that we put on the Department of Justice for all kinds of crimes, and we see kind of free-range activity at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is a common-sense bill. I applaud Chairman Barr for his work to draft it.
I encourage all of our colleagues to support it. I'd yield the balance of the time to Mr. Barr.
Andy Barr
I thank my friend for his support. And let me address no doubt the good faith concerns that my colleague from Texas has expressed. And maybe I can demystify the legislation and correct the record a little bit. So the gentlelady states that the bill would quote tip off unquote a wrongdoer. That is not what the bill does.
To be clear, what the bill simply requires is what justice requires, which is what due process requires. That if the government is alleging a business or an American citizen is doing something wrong, knowingly or unknowingly, they should identify what the alleged violation is. That's not tipping off a wrongdoer so that the wrongdoer can escape accountability. It's identifying what the violation is. The problem with the bureau is that so often with these CIDs, a law-abiding business owner that is providing an in-demand service or product to the American people is then approached by the bureau with no allegation, no idea what they're looking for, no clue as to what alleged wrongdoing is being investigated, and is simply demanded to turn over files or submit to depositions or interviews.
That is not America. That is not consistent with the way our system works, where it is the consent of the governed that is supposed to rule in this country, not an authoritarian system where bureaucrats can come in, disrupt your business, and just look for something that they don't know has happened. That is not the system that we live in. So it's not about tipping off a wrongdoer. It's about putting basic guardrails in so that the government has to identify what wrongdoing do they suspect here, what are they looking for.
Secondly, the gentlelady says that the information-gathering authorities of the bureau that Congress has given the bureau allegedly, that they would be impaired. Wrong again. This does not impair the ability of the bureau to conduct lawful investigations. It does not. It simply puts rules around how those investigations are to be carried out.
And finally, the gentlelady says that this would impair the bureau's ability to enforce the law in a timely manner. Wrong again. In fact, by giving a statute of limitations, which is in every area of the law, we have statutes of limitations in every area of the law. This is not foreign. And by the way, six years.
It's not like we're impeding the ability of the bureau to, but we're putting, imposing on a very basic requirement of a statute of limitations that actually would expedite the enforcement of the law. So quite to the contrary, this would enhance the timeliness of these investigations and enforcement actions. And it would require the bureau to actually know what it is that they're looking for in advance if they suspect wrongful activity. No more fishing expeditions, no more violations of due process, no more roving investigations that look like something in Cuba or in Russia or in Beijing as opposed to the United States of America. In closing, I would like to submit for the record letters of endorsement of this legislation from the Mortgage Bankers Association, the American Financial Services Association, the Consumers Bankers Association, and the Defense Credit Union Council.
Speaker 48
Without objection, I'd like to enter those endorsement letters into the record.
Andy Barr
Thank you. And with that, I am grateful for the bipartisan support of this legislation. Again, this is not about impeding the work of the Bureau, it's about enhancing the credibility of that work. And with that, I yield back.
Speaker 45
The gentleman yields back. Is anyone else seek recognition on the ANS? Hearing none, we move on to amendments. Does anyone wish to offer an amendment to the ANS? There being no further discussion or amendments to the bill, the question is now, the question now occurs on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute.
All those in favor shall signify by saying aye. Those opposed signify by saying no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment is adopted. The question now occurs on ordering the bill as amended to be reported to the House with a favorable recommendation. Those in favor shall signify by saying aye.
Those opposed shall signify by saying nay. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. For what purpose does the gentleman from Kentucky seek recognition?
Speaker 45
The gentleman from Kentucky requests a recorded vote. All those in favor of a recorded vote, raise your hand. A sufficient number having raised their hand, a recorded vote is ordered pursuant to subsection C5 of rule 3. The committee rules the vote on this question is postponed. We now move on to the next bill.
The committee will briefly suspend. Without objection, I'd like to make clear that the version of the ANS to HR 7030 which was debated and agreed to is the amendment offered by Mr. Emmer, ANS 7030, timestamp September 15, 2026 at 2:03 PM. It is being distributed. Pursuant to notice, I call up HR 10184, the Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Reform Act of 2026, which was introduced by Representative Barr. The clerk will report the bill, which was distributed in advance.
Speaker 51
HR 10184, to make reforms to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and for other purposes.
Speaker 45
Without objection, the first reading is dispensed with. Without objection, the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Representative Barr has an amendment in the nature of a substitute, copies of which have been distributed in advance. The clerk will report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 10184, offered by Mr. Barr of Kentucky, designated as Barr 154.
Speaker 45
Without objection, the amendment is considered read and will serve as the base text for purposes of amendment. The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Barr, is recognized for five minutes.
Andy Barr
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I proudly support HR 10184, the Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Reform Act of 2026. I am a proud sponsor of this legislation and I want to thank my good friend Chairman Hill for his hard work in helping to put together this package. A lot of thanks also to staff who worked really, really hard on putting together a really thoughtful set of reforms that I think deserve bipartisan support. I don't know if we're going to get bipartisan support, but these are reforms about professionalizing the CFPB.
It's not about doing away with the CFPB, it's about actually giving greater credibility to the agency. For too long, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has operated with vague rules, limited accountability, and the ability to change the law through enforcement actions after the fact. This is a broken system. This is not how government is supposed to work. American businesses deserve clear rules of the road.
If a regulator wants to tell a bank, a credit union, a small business, or any other company what the rules are, it should have to put those rules in writing. It should have to tell the public what the rules are going to cost, how they will affect access to credit, and whether working families and small businesses will ultimately pay the price. And then it should have to live by those rules too. The Trump administration and the CFPB's current leadership have taken important steps to correct this approach. But administrative actions can be reversed by a future director too easily.
Only Congress can make these reforms durable by writing them into law. That's exactly what the reform package before us today is all about. It's time for accountability at the CFPB. This agency has spent far too much time acting as prosecutor, judge, and jury. We are putting real guardrails around vague standards like abusive conduct, so businesses cannot be punished for violating a rule that nobody knew existed until the government filed a lawsuit or took the action.
We are strengthening due process by giving financial institutions and firms credit for self-reporting and adequate time to remediate. If you really want to fix consumer protection problems, you should encourage good actors to come forward and correct their mistakes. We're demanding real economic analysis before the CFPB imposes any major new regulations, ensuring adequate consideration of factors such as competition and access for underserved and lower-income consumers. And importantly, this bill recognizes that consumer protection and access to financial services are not opposing goals. They're not mutually exclusive, they're complementary.
A rule that sounds good in Washington but causes a bank to stop making a small-dollar loan does not help the Kentucky family who suddenly has nowhere to borrow a thousand dollars to get a new refrigerator. A regulation that makes credit cards, mortgages, or checking accounts more expensive is not protecting consumers when we have seen time and time again those costs ultimately get passed on along to them. Now I want to be very clear. Consumers deserve a place to turn when they are actually harmed. Fraud should be prosecuted.
Bad actors should be punished. But Americans simply deserve to know what the rules are before the government enforces those rules or attempts to punish wrongdoers.
That principle should not be controversial. This package restores a basic balance. It protects consumers. It preserves access to credit. It respects the role of the states and other prudential regulators and most importantly, it puts an extraordinarily powerful federal agency back under democratic accountability.
Now look, I get it. This is a hot topic. It has been since the passage of Dodd-Frank. I've been here and I've seen those hot hearings with Richard Cordray and Kathy Kraninger and Chopra and now with Vought. It this is a this is a pendulum swing.
It is a ping-pong. Let's end the ping-pong. Let's end the whiplash. Let's professionalize the agency in a bipartisan way so that no matter who is in charge, Republicans, Democrats, red or blue, whatever jersey, whatever flavor you have, that this agency actually has credibility with all of the American people because it seems like it never has credibility. It doesn't matter who's in charge, nobody is happy with the with the status quo.
Let's make this a professional, nonpartisan organization that is governed by the rule of law, not one man, not one woman, not one director politicized. Let's end that. And we can we have the chance to do that right now. We are the lawmaking branch, Article 1, Section 1. We make the laws, not unelected dictators, not unelected bureaucrats in in these remote agencies in Washington, D.C.
We should make the rules today. And with that, I believe these reforms are worth fighting for and I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this legislation. I yield back.
Speaker 45
The gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on the ANS? The gentleman's recognized.
Bill Foster
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I oppose H.R. 10184, the Consumer Protection Accountability and Reform Act, because it will further undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's ability to protect American consumers from abusive and predatory lending practices. I was one of the few members still serving on this committee who were here during the global financial crisis, which was caused in large part by abusive lending practices that would later cause dramatic failure across financial markets. Lenders made loans that were impossible to repay with hidden fees, exploding adjustable interest rates, things like double-cycle billing, and these were all issued with little or no evaluation of the borrower's ability to repay. And in the aftermath of that crisis, Congress created the CFPB to address exactly the type of predatory lending practices that led to the '08 crisis.
Today, the only federal agency with a direct mandate to enforce consumer financial protection laws and prevent scams and frauds that far too often target vulnerable Americans. In public surveys, the CFPB receives bipartisan support from Americans across the political spectrum, but unfortunately, that widespread support is not reflected by the actions of this administration. Despite returning more than $20 billion in relief to harmed consumers and helping to address millions in of consumer complaints, the CFPB has come under unprecedented assault by the Trump administration. In one of the first acts of the second Trump administration, the President appointed Russell Vought as the acting acting director of the CFPB because he could never get through the Senate, but he immediately attempted to shut it down. Then Acting Director Vought, enabled by Republicans, first attempted to completely defund the agency and cut 90% of its staff while giving Elon Musk's DOGE's un un well, his untrained personnel would be a polite way to to refer to them, giving them unprecedented access to sensitive data on market participants.
This was an egregious breach of privacy that to this day remains completely uninvestigated by Republicans on this committee. Rules meant to curb lending discrimination, protect data privacy and establish protections for the largest payment providers were weakened, delayed or rolled back entirely. Attempting to defund the CFPB, ordering staff to cease all work, overturning enforcement actions and this bill send the wrong signal to bad actors that are looking to take advantage of Americans and who have been deterred by having the CFPB as the cop on the beat. And now with the CFPB eviscerated, it's no wonder that fraud against consumers has reached record levels. This bill would also move the CFPB under the appropriations process despite the clear intent of Dodd-Frank to preserve its funding and isolate it from political ebbs and flows for exactly the same reasons that the Federal Reserve itself is similarly insulated.
It requires the CFPB to undertake a rulemaking process that far exceeds the process required for other agencies under the Administrative Procedure Act. Further, it would allow all banks but G-SIBs to opt out of CFPB supervision altogether. You know, our former colleague Barney Frank, whose picture is up there, may rest in peace, was very fond of remarking that whoever it was that made the decision to put bank prudential regulators like the Fed or OCC in charge of consumer protection must have had a tremendous sense of humor. So apparently the sense of humor has returned to Congress. Republicans are also very much on the wrong side of this issue politically and, you know, it's one of the many lessons that they're likely to learn in the coming election.
The CFPB is widely popular with Americans and it has dedicated workflows to support financial education, offices dedicated to helping older Americans and offices dedicated to helping service members, all of which have been gutted. This has been at the forefront of research on emerging consumer lending practices like buy now pay later and new technologies like artificial intelligence that have everybody on high alert. This legislation would further undermine that important work and I encourage my colleagues to oppose this legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back.
The gentleman's recognized.
Warren Davidson
Thus far, the history of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been one of partisanship, Democrat partisanship. They structured it with no input from Republicans. They continue to resist bipartisan effort to reform it and instead of accepting any level of reform, they treat the original Dodd-Frank charter as if it was handed down to Moses on tablets. It's so sacred it can't be changed. But the reality is the charter as initially established has been found not just by Congress, not just by Republicans, but by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutionally structured.
There have been remedies in court, but our job is to support and defend the Constitution as well. This agency needs to be constitutionally structured and if we refuse to govern in accordance with our Constitution, we're effectively governed by brute force. That's what the CFPB's wielded under essentially unchecked authority. They've got the authority to prohibit unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices, UDAAP. It's become a blanket authority with an unlimited scope.
In fact, they've extended their scope into things that the statute originally prohibited, things like used cars, for example. So the CFPB's been weaponized against not just the American people, but the American economy. This is hurting consumers.
So, Mr. Barr's got a thoughtful approach. I don't think he's saying, hey, there's no possible way to improve it. There could be amendments that would be designed to improve it. Instead, Democrats are fixated so far on undermining any effort to provide any constitutional check for this. And the kinds of reforms that we've insisted upon with all sorts of agencies, that you follow the Administrative Procedures Act, that you give notice of proposed rulemakings, that you don't regulate through enforcement, you regulate through clear rules.
You don't just give vague guidance and then refuse to be held accountable to your own communication to industry. You provide clear rules of the road. You don't just sue and settle, you provide justice. And this provides certainty for the American consumer and it provides a clear framework that protects their access to functioning capital markets. Privacy, for example, is in desperate need of regulation, but instead of following that process, Director Chopra sort of shortcutted it to deliver what Elizabeth Warren wanted.
I had hoped that he was going to have some clear thinking and break free from Elizabeth Warren's regime. Sadly, we were disappointed by that. You look at the open banking rule in 1033. The idea that there would be an umpire at CFPB to call balls and strikes. Yeah, consumers should have access to their data.
I think we desperately need a privacy law that updates GLBA. But the idea that because you have access to your data, that you have access to the bank's payment rails with no charge, how do you broker that? We need to finish the rulemaking on that. There are things like that that we can work together on if we can provide legal clarity to it, if we can have Republicans to finally have a say other than the occasional times that we have a Republican director at CFPB. Congress really has a duty to take action.
That's why the jurisdiction falls within this committee. And Democrats designed CFPB so that the only role of the director was to come here and answer questions. We didn't have to be happy with the answers. Mick Mulvaney, when he was the director of OMB, came and made that point very effectively when he was the acting director of the CFPB. He's like, yeah, and I could do whatever I want.
You don't even have to like my answers. And I can ask for all the money I want from the Federal Reserve. That's not constitutional accountability. And I think it's time for us to provide it. I thank Mr. Barr for his efforts here.
I look forward to continuing to make this a more effective agency. And I yield the balance of my time to Mr. Barr.
Yield to me real quick.
I apologize.
Andy Barr
That's okay. Real quick, Mr. Chairman, I'll take the remainder of the time to ask for inclusion in the record a series of endorsements of this legislation from the American Bankers Association, the Independent Community Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, Kentucky Bankers Association, Arkansas Bankers Association, the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Fintech Council, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, the Defense Credit Union Council, the American Land Title Association, the American Financial Services Association, and the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association.
Without objection.
Gentlelady from Texas recognized.
Move to strike the last word, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlelady's recognized for five minutes.
Sylvia Garcia
Well, here we go again. I strongly oppose HR 10184, which is another ill-entire attempt to weaken and tear down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Specifically, this sweeping and partisan bill does the bidding of Wall Street and predatory lenders to undermine the bureau's independence, limit its ability to supervise its financial marketplace, make enforcement more difficult, and make it harder for consumers to report misconduct and receive restitution.
Since its founding, the Bureau has fought for consumers by holding bad actors accountable and putting a stop to fraud and abuse. Before Trump shut it down, the Bureau returned more than $21 billion, let me repeat that, returned more than $21 billion in relief to millions of harmed consumers. This bill will give opponents of the Bureau more and new opportunities to shrink the agency's budget further, if not zero it out altogether, by subjecting it to the congressional appropriation process. And despite the claims of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, such a move has nothing to do with accountability. If they cared about accountability, then why don't they propose turning the Federal Reserve or the FDIC into appropriated agencies?
And better yet, if they cared about accountability, why did they drag their feet for 18 months to follow the law and have former acting director Russell Vought every six months? No, this is not about, this is about trying to eliminate the Bureau. We know that, they know that. This legislation would also make it substantially more difficult for the Bureau to hold financial institutions accountable when they break the law by narrowing the Bureau's authority to address unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices, and the Republicans know that too. It also creates hurdles when enforcing the law or writing rules meant to protect consumers.
The bill shortens how long the Bureau has to find bad actors and provide other opportunities for financial institutions to delay or challenge the Bureau's corrective actions. This bill will also create an unusually broad safe harbor for certain small-dollar lending products that could shield financial institutions from liability under a range of consumer protection laws. Even more troubling, this legislation would make it harder for consumers to get relief when they are harmed by restricting the Bureau's ability to use its civil penalty fund to compensate consumers when companies cannot pay. It also makes it more difficult for consumers to submit complaints and discourages people from coming forward when they're harmed. Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to enter the record statements we have from the National Treasury Employees Union that represents the Bureau's public servants and a group of consumer community and civil rights groups led by the American for Financial Reform that are strongly, strongly, strongly opposed to this harmful bill.
The ultimate question at hand is whether or not Congress should make it easier or harder for Americans to get help when financial institutions rip them off. This bill clearly makes it harder, so I strongly urge all my colleagues to vote no. I yield back the balance of my time.
Bryan Steil
Without objection, the documents are put in the record and the gentlelady yields back. For what purpose does the gentleman from Wisconsin seek?
I move to strike the last word.
The gentleman's recognized for five minutes.
Bryan Steil
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can't discuss reforming how we regulate consumer financial protection without discussing how technology is changing how all of us interact with financial products. Technology is giving consumers faster, cheaper payments, flexible access to earned income, and new ways to manage everyday purchases. These innovations have the potential to improve Americans' financial well-being by making their day-to-day finances more practical, predictable, and affordable. It's why I'm pleased to see the important CFPB reforms before us today, including important measures to guide the CFPB's consideration of new consumer financial products.
I also want to thank Chairman Barr for including my Earned Wage Access Consumer Protection Act in this package. Historically, workers were paid when they earned wages. Yet today, many workers in our economy go home without their earnings. Holding an employee's pay until the end of a payroll cycle is actually a relatively modern practice. Earned wage access helps restore this link between work and pay by allowing workers the flexibility to access their wages as they're earned.
I'm proud that EWA Consumer Protection Act received bipartisan support at a markup earlier this year, and I applaud its inclusion in today's package. The bill before us also includes an important measure to update our understanding of buy now, pay later products. These flexible payment options coexist with traditional finance products, and the study this bill requires would make sure we have the complete picture of how Americans are using buy now, pay later. Taken together, not only does this bill bring important needed reforms to the CFPB, but it also helps modernize the Bureau's approach to innovative financial products. We shouldn't fear financial innovation and new financial products.
These products can make meaningful impacts to everyday Americans' finances and money management. And as these products are increasingly adopted, it's critical that our regulators keep pace and understand what these products actually are, what they do, and treat them appropriately rather than attempting to squash them and push them into simply existing frameworks. So I appreciate the Chairman's time, appreciate Chairman Barr for his leadership on these important reforms, and I yield back.
Speaker 45
The gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on the ANS? For what purpose does Representative Lynch...?
Stephen Lynch
Thank you. This bill just continues the longer-term effort by the Trump administration to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. So it's been a consistent and relentless drumbeat that we've seen from this administration the minute they came into office in January of 2025. The administration started primarily through Acting Director Russell Vought and the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, by implementing an aggressive effort to undermine the legislative priorities and mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They started with mass layoffs and operational halts.
Move to strike the last word.
Stephen Lynch
They instituted immediately upon taking control in early 2025, the administration issued a stop-work order that temporarily froze ongoing investigations, any probes, any litigation, or public communications. Then they moved to shrink head count. Administration issued a reduction in force notice targeting 90%, 90%, nine out of ten people at the CFPB were notified that they were going to be laid off. Of course, we went to court over that, and those positions had already been funded and passed by Congress, but they wanted to further shrink the agency from 1,700 positions down to 200 positions. And thankfully, the Litigation Task Force that I'm a member of, we filed suit along with Democracy Forward, and the federal court agreed that they had to reverse those layoffs.
But it has severely crippled employee morale and agency functioning because so many people thought they were going to be laid off and they began to leave voluntarily.
Then the administration required a humility pledge, a so-called humility pledge where supervisory staff at the CFPB were required to sign a humility pledge which, you know, basically required them to be less aggressive on auditing and also signaled to examiners that leadership would prioritize a much softer touch and less prosecution and enforcement of the laws. The administration then stepped in independently and tried to cut off the federal funding that the Federal Reserve provides to the CFPB. The Trump administration declared that the independent funding was unlawful and refused to draw its regular round of funding citing an excessive internal clash between the agency and justifying a pause. Then there was an effort at legislative overhaul. The administration supported efforts like the Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Reform Act like right here, which aims to permanently place the CFPB under congressional appropriation, exposing its budget to routine political pushback.
It also required the CFPB to systematically dismiss or roll back dozens of active public enforcement actions and pending lawsuits. This included dropping cases against major institutions like Capital One and Zelle and others over alleged interference and interest fraud and predatory overdraft fees. They've also slashed existing restitutions. So in cases where settlements had already been agreed to by guilty parties and the consent orders remained active, the president reduced corporate penalties. In one instance, a multi-million dollar fintech civil penalty was reduced to 45,000 bucks.
So rolling back key consumer protection rules, they've rolled back late fee caps, overdraft fee limitations, medical debt reporting, data privacy regulations, and they've dismantled the consumer complaint and advisory infrastructure that actually allows consumers to complain about unfair treatment. So they've, this is just another effort at that going further down that road. It's disgraceful that the one agency that's charged with by this government, by this Congress, with protecting consumers is being dismantled by my Republican colleagues. I've got some amendments that will try to fix some of those problems and I yield back.
Speaker 45
The gentleman yields. Does anyone else seek recognition on the ANS? Hearing none, we'll move on to amendments. Does anyone wish to offer an amendment to the ANS? For what purpose does the gentleman seek recognition?
Speaker 54
Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment, I think it's amendment number three at the desk.
Speaker 57
The point of order has been reserved, the clerk will report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 10184 offered by Mr. Lynch of Massachusetts designated as Lynch 078.
Speaker 45
Without objection the amendment is considered read, the gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized on his amendment.
Stephen Lynch
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So let's do it this way, I'm going to point out, I'm going to read out the offensive language and then I'm going to read out what what my amendment would do to correct that offensive language. So at page 26 of this bill, the well this is the amendment in the nature of substitute to HR 10184 offered by Mr. Barr of Kentucky. At page 26 it states that and this is the section G, that paragraph G, small G, authority to declare an act unlawful based on discrimination. And states that in relevant part, the Bureau, which is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, may not interpret the authority of the Bureau relating to unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices to include discrimination.
Include discrimination. So they may not that that would no longer be in their purview to go after discrimination based on the changes in this law. And just to be clear, since the outset, since the creation of this this agency, the and I was there at the at the creation. We we we debated this way back then in Dodd-Frank and we said this this agency, there's so much discrimination going on, racial discrimination, religious discrimination, age discrimination, that in and especially in credit and other financial dealings, that we need to we need to create an agency that will actually go after the bad actors to protect people. One because it was so unfair, but two because the nature of discrimination, by denying someone opportunity because of the color of their skin or their age or their gender, immutable characteristics, characteristics that those consumers cannot change, because of the insidious nature of that discrimination that was so hard to to identify but we could see was consistently being perpetrated against people of color, against people who are older, against women who were denied credit.
We put that in this bill. We wanted CFPB to go after those people that were that were practicing illegal, impermissible, insidious discrimination against consumers. And that's in this bill. And the CFPB's been doing a great job with that every step of the way until now, until this threat that says we're not we're not going to any and I my earlier statement I I talked about all the things that that this administration has been doing to undermine the the protections that are afforded to consumers under this bill. Laying off people, making them take a humility pledge.
So my bill would correct that flaw. It would basically say that the authority of the Bureau under this section relating to unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices applies to discriminatory practices, okay? It also has a sense of Congress that relating to unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts and practices and citing the fact it's always applied to discriminatory practices. So that is, that is basically it. We want to make sure that discrimination remains illegal, unlike this bill wants to create a big loophole, an exemption.
You can still discriminate. No, no, you can't. They want to downgrade the offense so this agency can no longer go after it. This is shameful with all the problems we got going on in this world today. And that's, this is what we're up to.
This is what my Republican colleagues see as their priority. We got a war in Iran. We got a president making billions of dollars. We got Russian oligarchs paying for the president's kid's wedding. No, none of that gets a hearing.
We got to have a hearing, we have to have a markup on a bill to take protections away from people of color, from seniors, from women in financial transactions. That's what we're up to here today. My amendment will change that. I ask people to support the amendment. I yield back.
Thank you.
What person's and gentleman seek recognition?
Gentleman's recognized.
Andy Barr
Let me, I appreciate the gentleman's passion and I know he is earnest in his concern here. But let me disabuse him of the concern that somehow the laws of this country prohibiting discrimination will somehow not be enforced as a result of our bill. The fact of the matter is, well, let me back up. So Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines red herring as this: something that diverts attention from the issue at hand or an unimportant misleading clue used to stop people from noticing or thinking about something important. All of this you just heard is a red herring because the laws against discrimination will remain on the books after this bill is passed, full stop.
And a whole collection of federal agencies will still have the power to enforce the laws prohibiting discrimination. The FTC, the FDIC, the OCC, the Fed, the NCUA, HUD, all of these agencies will have full authority to enforce laws that prohibit discrimination. And oh, by the way, the CFPB will have that authority under what? The Equal Credit Opportunity Act. They will have the authority to do that because the Equal Credit Opportunity Act is the statute that prohibits discrimination.
UDAAP does not. That's what we're talking about here. UDAAP is a separate statute that is about unfair, deceptive, abusive acts or practices, not discrimination. We have another statute for that. It's called ECOA.
It's called the Fair Housing Act. So all of this is a red herring. All of it. None of it applies to this bill, these objections. Consumers have protection against discrimination from the underlying federal consumer financial protection statutes.
Discriminatory conduct covered by those laws remains subject to their own remedies and discrimination remains illegal. This provision simply adds clarity that discriminatory conduct should be covered by the clear laws Congress enacted to regulate it, like ECOA, like the Fair Housing Act. It is not an open-ended UDAP statute that future CFPB directors can use as a means to assert powers Congress did not grant. The CFPB's UDAP authority should not be a boundless power that allows them to change expectations from underlying consumer financial protection statutes that Congress enacted. UDAP is for certain prohibited acts and practices.
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act is about discrimination. Nobody is proposing to do away with anti-discrimination laws. We are just clarifying what the authorities actually are. And all of these regulators will continue to have the ability to enforce these laws and prohibit discrimination. All of this.
All of that. And maybe it was just an honest misunderstanding of what we're trying to do. But if it's not, it's what we call a red herring. And with that I yield back and this is why I oppose the amendment.
Speaker 62
The gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on the amendment? The gentlewoman's recognized.
I move to strike the last word.
The gentlewoman's recognized.
Sylvia Garcia
Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Lynch for his amendment and I agree with you. That portion of this bill is shameful and I don't think it's a red herring. He's simply raising the red flag that this change will be made because we're talking about discrimination for consumers. A lot of the agencies that the author of this bill has mentioned have nothing to do with the general concept of consumer protection and that is a very, very, very difference in what we're talking about. Mr. Lynch's amendment will fight back Trump administration's efforts to undermine basic protections to ensure all Americans, all Americans have equal access to credit and are not discriminated against.
Through this bill, Republicans are trying to undermine the bureau's most important tools, which is to combat unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices in the consumer financial marketplace. I do not know what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to do, but no one should dare to try to convince us that discriminating against borrowers is not patently unfair. If you believe in fairness and equal opportunity for all, then I invite you to join us in voting yes on Mr. Lynch's amendment. Mr. Chairman, with that I yield the balance of my time to Mr. Lynch for any other response that he may have.
The gentleman's recognized.
Stephen Lynch
I thank the gentlelady for her kind words and for her relentless support for those who may be discriminated under this bill. This is not some misunderstanding. The gentleman's bill is pretty clear. It says the bureau, meaning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, may not interpret the authority of the bureau relating to unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices to include discrimination. It simply reads that right out.
There's no, look, it's not a red herring, it's black and white in this bill.
This is exactly what they're doing. Now, just so the gentleman talks about what discrimination is. Merriam-Webster: discrimination is the act, practice, or instance of unfairly treating a person or group differently from other people or groups on a class or categorical basis, such as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation. So that's what they're doing here. They're saying that that type of unfairness, that type of discrimination may not be enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The gentleman is correct that the narrow area of credit, creditworthiness, that one area has a separate provision against discrimination. However, the CFPB deals with discriminatory treatment, and that could be the denial of opportunity, discriminatory advertising so that opportunities are redlined away from communities of color. Opportunities are denied people living in a certain area populated by people of color. It's the treatment of those people unfairly that amounts to the discrimination. And that's what they are narrowing here today.
They're saying if there's not a specific statutory authorization under another statute, that the CFPB doesn't have the ability to enforce laws to prevent discrimination. This is shameful. This is shameful. There's no reason on God's good earth that we should be narrowing or expanding people's ability to discriminate, giving them freer rein to discriminate. Since when has that become an American initiative, that we got to free people up, that we want to protect companies that discriminate from the reputational damage that they would incur because they're discriminating on the basis of race or gender or religion?
We're giving them greater license to do exactly that in this bill. This is not a red herring. This is black and white. All you got to do is read the language of the bill. It's quite clear that that is the purpose of this bill, and I ask my colleagues to support my amendment.
I yield back, and I thank the gentlelady, and I thank her for her time.
Speaker 65
Gentlelady's time has expired. Gentlelady yields back. Is there further debate on the amendment? If there's no further debate on the amendment, the gentleman is recognized for five minutes.
Gentleman strikes the last word.
William Timmons
Urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and support H.R. 10184, Chairman Barr and Chairman Hill's Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Reform Act, which I am an original cosponsor. This package includes several reforms that establish clear, consistent rules for our financial system, encourage innovation, and establishes a more predictable, risk-based approach to federal regulation. One of these reforms is my Save Guidance Act, which takes a simple, common-sense step to prevent future regulatory overreach at financial regulators. This has been a significant problem where guidance letters were sent out over a four-year period and they were acted upon as if they were law, or they were attempted to be enforced as if they were law. So during the Biden administration, we saw way too often how unelected bureaucrats quietly used informal tools like guidance to force banks into cutting off lawful industries, from crypto firms, firearm dealers, and energy companies.
It's outrageous. The result of this was a chilling effect throughout the financial system and this committee's oversight and investigation subcommittee brought those tactics to light. Thankfully, during the Trump administration, much of that guidance was withdrawn, but permanent change is needed to ensure future administrations cannot intimidate and drive lawful businesses out of financial systems simply because they don't like them. My bill requires financial regulators to include a guidance clarity statement on their documents, making clear that on one page that agency guidance is not binding, does not have the force of law, and that non-compliance alone does not create a legal violation. It's Congress, not unelected regulators, that are responsible for making laws, and my bill and other provisions included in the package we are considering today make that clear.
I'd like to again thank Chair Hill and Chair Barr for their long-standing efforts to ensure transparency and accountability at the CFPB, and I encourage my colleagues to oppose this amendment and support this important legislation. I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. If seeing any further debate, if there's no further debate, the question now occurs on the amendment. All in favor of the amendment shall signify by saying aye.
Speaker 65
In the opinion of the chair, the nays have it and... Request a recorded vote, Mr. Chairman. Gentleman requests a recorded vote. A recorded vote is requested and all those in favor of recorded vote raise your hand. A sufficient number having raised their hand, a recorded vote is ordered pursuant to subsection C5 of rule three of the committee rules.
Further proceedings on the amendment are postponed. Are there further amendments to the amendment? What purpose does the gentleman seek recognition?
Speaker 67
Mr. Chairman, I believe I have another amendment, amendment number two at the desk.
Speaker 69
We'll pause while the amendment is being distributed. Thank you. Gentleman reserves a point of order on this amendment. The chair would note a point of order has been reserved.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 10184 offered by Mr. Lynch of Massachusetts, designated as Lynch 077.
Speaker 65
Without objection, the amendment is considered read and the gentleman is recognized for his or her amendment.
Stephen Lynch
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, Mr. Chairman, I'll start by describing the offensive language that's in this bill. This bill as introduced seeks to add a new and definitive bar on every state's ability to enforce the Consumer Financial Protection Act. In fact, under the bill as introduced, a state attorney cannot bring or continue a case to enforce this act once the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sends a written notice that it has brought or merely intends to bring an action against an entity for the same conduct. As written, the CFPB doesn't even need to win or pursue the enforcement action to conclusion.
Just sending a letter will submarine any state action to protect those consumers. This amendment strikes this language and ensures that the states are authorized to act alongside the federal government to uphold consumer protections. Now, four years ago in May, the CFPB understood the importance of state-level enforcement and amended section 1042 to authorize states to enforce the CFPB. There's just so much fraud and abuse and unfair treatment being done that it's it overwhelms the federal government. So having the state resources and the state law enforcement also available to enforce the act was a greater protection for residents of those states.
So we wrote section 1042 into the Dodd-Frank Act for a specific reason. We gave states, and we debated this, we gave states independent enforcement authority under the act so that a change in leadership or priorities at the bureau would not leave consumers exposed, would not leave a gap that bad actors could exploit. So state officials have described that authority as their tool to pick up the slack when the CFPB is led by less enthusiastic leadership in terms of protecting consumers. And to pick up the slack when the federal government fails to act, like now, like when they try to lay off 90% of the people at the CFPB. This is the perfect example of why 1042 was put in the Dodd-Frank Act, because we felt that some administration might be so pro-business and anti-consumer that they would just gut all the protections that Dodd-Frank was providing for consumers.
State attorneys general are often the first to hear from consumers. That's an important part of this. It's our local people. Those are the first people that are going to get the phone call, the attorney general's office, from consumers in their states when a lender or a servicer is doing them harm.
And they know their own state's laws and courts. The proximity of the attorney general to the people in the states is is paramount in terms of the efficiency of the enforcement of this this law. A rule that lets a single notice, a single letter, all they got to do is send off a little email and that takes down all the state enforcement across the country. A little just one little letter to to each state says that that that prosecution is no longer valid. It ends the it ends the state's case and removes a check that has worked as Congress intended for 15 years.
So I hope we we understand. This is another one of those cases where it's it's building in federal preemption. It it takes the state police off the off the beat. It removes a layer of law enforcement so that bad actors will be able to do what they need to do to make money. So I say let's let's adopt my amendment.
It would allow state attorneys general to continue to prosecute bad actors and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and I yield back the balance of my time.
I move to strike the last word.
Gentleman's recognized for five minutes.
Andy Barr
I rise in opposition to the amendment and I do so because the the author of the amendment laments federal preemption. Well, it was the Congress that put into place federal consumer protection law. It was Congress that created intervened at a federal level with the Dodd-Frank law. It was Congress that intervened at a federal level to create a federal agency to enforce federal consumer protection law. Despite what the gentleman says, there are no gaps, there are no gaps with the the the legislation we're proposing.
Federal consumer protection law is the province of the federal regulatory agency that has been created, the CFPB. State consumer protection law is the province of state regulators. Nothing in this legislation prevents states from bringing actions in state courts alleging violations of state law. If there is some concern out there among a state, maybe Massachusetts, maybe Illinois, maybe California, that their that the federal consumer protection laws are not good enough, those are sovereign states and they can pass their own laws and they can enforce them. Federalism honored, period.
This amendment would allow two governmental entities, however, in contrast to that idea, this amendment would allow two governmental entities to enforce the same violations of federal consumer protection law against the same entities. This creates a serious risk of duplicative investigations, inconsistent interpretations, and multiple penalties arising from the same conduct and that is fundamentally unfair. That is what section 503 of our legislation does. It clarifies that states may not initiate enforcement proceedings against an entity if the CFPB intends to bring or is already bringing an enforcement proceeding against the same entity. And what we're trying to do is prevent multiple different sovereigns from enforcing the same law inconsistently.
Allowing multiple sovereigns to enforce will serve only to substantially increase litigation costs of regulated entities without providing any additional consumer protection.
It will increase confusion, it risks, it risk inconsistency, and it will certainly raise the cost of credit and further pinch the ability of consumers to obtain loans. Before I yield back, I want to address one other argument that has been offered here today by several of my colleagues on the other side, and that is that somehow this whole package of reforms is actually designed to, to eliminate the Bureau. That is actually not what this bill does. The plain language of the bill does not abolish the Bureau, it doesn't eliminate it. In fact, what it does is it substantially improves it, it improves it.
In fact, it increases the likelihood that the Bureau will stick around, frankly. There are, there are proposals in this Congress and previous Congresses to abolish the Bureau. In fact, one of our colleagues, the gentleman from South Carolina, I think, has championed that cause. That's not what this bill does. If anybody is wondering if there is a bill to eliminate the Bureau or abolish the Bureau, there have been those proposals.
I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, had one at one point in time. Mr. Donalds may have had one, Mr. Norman may have had one, but that's not what this bill is. This bill actually enhances the reputation and improves the professionalism and enhances the accountability of this agency. And so I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment and I hope I was able to clear up that confusion. I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Does anyone else seek recognition? Mr. Foster recognized for... Move to strike the last word. Gentleman's recognized for five minutes.
Bill Foster
I want to thank Representative Lynch for offering this important amendment. It's unfortunately that our Republican colleagues seem to want to limit consumer protection just about every place that it can be enforced. If they're not supporting Trump's shutdown of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or slashing its budget in half, then they're often trying to just even stop state governments from protecting their constituents from being ripped off by bad actors. Mr. Lynch's amendment would address some of the harms of this underlying bill, so I urge members to support this amendment and yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Does any other member seek recognition? Is there further debate on the amendment? If there's no further debate on the amendment, the question now occurs on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment shall signify by saying yea.
Speaker 65
In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. The noes have it, the amendment is not adopted. Are there further amendments to... Request a recorded vote. For what purpose does the gentleman seek recognition?
Speaker 65
A recorded vote is requested, and all those in favor of a recorded vote raise your hand. A sufficient number having raised their hand, a recorded vote is ordered pursuant to subsection C5 of rule three of the committee rules. Further proceedings on the amendment are postponed. Are there further amendments to the amendment in the nature of a substitute?
Speaker 72
I have an amendment at the desk, number 104. You have to recognize me, I guess.
Speaker 65
We'll pause while the amendment is being distributed.
For what purpose does the gentleman seek recognition for a point of order?
Reserve.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 10184 offered by Mr. Foster of Illinois, designated as Foster 104.
Speaker 65
Without objection, the amendment's considered read and the gentleman is recognized for his amendment.
Bill Foster
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This amendment asks the Department of the Treasury to determine whether changes made by this legislation will expose older Americans to more scams, more fraud, and other financial abuses. An April 2026 report found that four in ten older Americans have had money stolen due to fraud or sensitive information that was obtained and used fraudulently. But instead of taking action to protect the elderly from scammers, Republicans are doing exactly the opposite. The CFPB's Office for Older Americans works to protect consumers ages 62 and older from financial harm, and it has, or at least it had, a long track record of showing its effectiveness.
In 2021, the Bureau returned $53.8 million to victims of Brightspeed Solutions, a privately owned third-party payment processor and its founder. Brightspeed's client companies claimed to offer antivirus software and technical support services to consumers, particularly older adults, but they instead scammed consumers into purchasing unnecessary and expensive consumer software and services for amounts as high as $2,000. The client companies sold their products and services through fraudulent telemarketing schemes and received payments through remotely created checks that were processed by Brightspeed. Brightspeed continued to process these checks for years in some cases, despite being aware of nearly a thousand consumer complaints, inquiries from law enforcement, and concerns raised by multiple financial institutions. And in 2024, the CFPB returned $11 million to reverse mortgage borrowers of Sutherland Global.
Despite having over 150,000 borrowers, Sutherland Global had a team of only eight staff to handle all communication with borrowers, leaving their questions unanswered and allowing problems to snowball out of control. In some cases, the company sent false repayment letters to homeowners incorrectly stating that the reverse mortgage loans were due in 30 days. Provisions of this bill will weaken the tools available to deter this type of activity. It will make it more difficult to spot and make it harder for the CFPB to take action. Many enforcement actions start when consumers submit complaints to the CFPB's consumer complaint database.
This bill will chill reporting by threatening average Americans with the crime of perjury if they get some details wrong in their complaint. It also gives the company in question the ability to disregard the complaint if they deem it frivolous, while requiring consumers to notify the company 60 days before filing a complaint with the Bureau. If the Treasury Department, after consulting with consumer protection experts, determines that the provisions of this bill will increase scams, will increase fraud, or other abusive practices for older Americans, the bill should simply not go into effect. So my amendment requires that that determination take place, and I encourage the committee to support it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on the amendment?
The gentleman from Kentucky seeks recognition.
Gentleman's recognized for five minutes.
Andy Barr
I appreciate the gentleman's amendment and I appreciate his focus on elder scams and frauds, elder Americans' susceptibility to frauds and scams. We know this is an issue. That's why this Congress has been focused on a number of anti-fraud measures. Mr. Meuser's subcommittee has devoted considerable amount of attention on this, and I'm happy to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on a study on fraud. Unfortunately, though, this amendment would actually stop the bill from taking effect.
It would do nothing to help prevent fraud or scams. It would delay the date in which our reforms to the abusiveness prong of UDAAP would go into effect. I would note that earlier in this markup, we did pass the TRAPS Act to investigate and issue reports on fraud and scams, and this includes representation for the CFPB. In previous markups, we've marked up a number of other anti-fraud bills as well, and those bills were designed to address the exact concerns that the gentleman is raising. Furthermore, this legislation, the Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Reform Act, would make the CFPB much more likely to focus on core consumer harms such as fighting fraud and scams rather than engage in the kind of political theater that we saw from the former director.
I will note that the language that the gentleman seems to be concerned about, section 201, which clarifies what UDAAP actually is, states that if there is a risk of substantial injury to the consumer, which counter-failing benefits do not outweigh, the Bureau is able to pursue that abusive practice, which would include fraud or scams. So I just don't see the need for this amendment. We should not be delaying the needed reforms to UDAAP. And again, we should stay focused on fraud and scams and not go down any kind of political theater. With that, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment and I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. The chair inquires, are there further debate on the amendment? If there's no further debate, the question now occurs on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment shall signify so by saying aye, yea. All those opposed, signify by saying no.
In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. Request a recorded vote. The ayes and noes have it, or the yeas have it. A recorded vote is requested and all those in favor of a recorded vote raise your hand. A sufficient number having raised their hand, a recorded vote is ordered.
Pursuant to subsection C5 of rule 3 of the committee rules, further proceedings on the amendment are postponed. Are there further amendments to the amendment in the nature of a substitute? Gentleman from Illinois seeks recognition.
Speaker 65
We'll pause while the amendment is distributed. Gentleman reserves a point of order. The clerk will report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 10184 offered by Mr. Foster of Illinois, designated as Foster 105.
Speaker 65
Without objection the amendment is considered as read and the gentleman is recognized to explain his amendment.
Bill Foster
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CFPB's Office of Servicemember Affairs helps service members, veterans, and military families navigate the unique financial challenges of service to our country through financial resources, by monitoring complaints and by holding companies accountable. This is important because when a military family is the target of predatory lending, as they unfortunately frequently are, or it struggles to access an account, or it faces debt collection, those problems follow them through their deployments and through their transfers and increases the stresses that they already face in the service to our country. This can affect a military family's well-being, it can affect the service member's morale and his training, and ultimately, the readiness of our military. Scams and frauds can also affect our military veterans, with scammers in some cases even posing as members of the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
AARP's Fraud Watch Network reports that veterans, active duty service members, and their families are nearly 40% more likely than civilians to lose money from frauds and scams. So apparently this is not a concern of the Republicans. Undermining the ability of the CFPB to help service members, help veterans and their families avoid financial abuse is counterproductive, and this amendment aims to ensure that this legislation does not go into effect if it would increase the threat of scams, fraud, or other abuses to those who serve our country. Those concerns are real and the CFPB's work shows that. In 2014, the Bureau and 13 states' attorneys general obtained roughly $92 million in debt relief for about 17,000 service members and others harmed by the company's predatory lending.
Rome Finance was found to have lured service members with the promise of no money down and instant financing, but then masked expensive finance charges by inflating the disclosed price of the goods being sold. They also withheld information on billing statements and illegally collected on loans that were void. Since the CFPB was created, US service members, veterans, and their families have submitted over 400,000 complaints seeking assistance with financial products, frauds, and scams. Overall, the Bureau has taken 42 enforcement actions involving harm to service members and veterans and returned over $183 million. This legislation would reduce penalties for wrongdoers, limit the CFPB's ability to crack down on abusive practices, and make it harder for the folks serving our country and armed forces to seek help with financial products.
My amendment simply requires the Treasury, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veteran Affairs to determine whether this legislation negatively affects military readiness or the stability of military families or would subject our service members, veterans, or their families to increased risk of financial abuse before making the bill's provisions effective. So I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, yield back.
I move to strike the last word.
Andy Barr
Mr. Chairman, I also oppose this amendment. I am more than happy to work with my colleagues across the aisle to continue to support military families. I do, and certainly we want to continue to make sure that our military families are not the victims of fraud or scams. But this once again, this amendment is once again a red herring because after this legislation becomes law, the CFPB will retain, fully retain its UDAAP enforcement authorities. And in fact, if it finds a predatory practice against a military family, the Bureau could ensure that that act or practice is deemed abusive if there is a substantial injury to the consumer, which countervailing benefits do not outweigh.
That will be the law after this legislation is enacted, and that will allow the Bureau to continue to protect military families if necessary. This amendment is the exact copy of the last amendment. I urge my colleagues to vote no. What ultimately will help military families is competition and innovation and access to financial services. And a CFPB that is focused on consumer harm, such as fraud and scams, will protect military families, but a CFPB that outlaws in-demand services and products that military families need and want, that is not protecting military families.
I urge my colleagues to vote no. And I yield.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on this amendment? If there's no further debate, the question now occurs on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment shall signify by saying aye.
Speaker 65
In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. The noes have it, and the amendment is not adopted.
Speaker 69
We'll pause while the amendment is distributed. The gentleman from Wisconsin reserves a point of order. The clerk will report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 10184 offered by Mr. Foster of Illinois, designated as Foster 106.
Speaker 75
Without objection, the amendment is considered read, and the gentleman from Illinois is recognized on his amendment.
Bill Foster
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies hold enormous promise for the financial sector and the American economy, including consumer protection. However, these same technologies can also create new risks for consumers.
I think that we all look forward to a brave new world where consumers will fall in love with their chatbots and then maybe in pillow talk afterwards, the chatbot suggests that there's this very interesting mutual fund, or maybe a payday loan that the consumer might consider. Automated underwriting tools may discriminate against borrowers, and a financial chatbot could give misleading information about the true cost of a product, and companies could use sensitive consumer data in ways that people neither understand nor expect. When these issues arise, we need a CFPB that can recognize the harms and address them effectively. Prior to this administration halting its work, the CFPB was actively examining the very sort of issues I just described. Continuing that work requires the ability to monitor a changing marketplace, to ask questions, to gather information, and examine how new technologies affect consumers.
Several provisions of this bill raise concerns about whether the CFPB would retain that ability. The bill restricts how certain market monitoring information can be used in supervision and in enforcement. It changes the standards and scope of non-bank supervision and creates additional requirements for consumers seeking to submit complaints. We should ensure that these restrictions do not inhibit our top consumer financial watchdog's ability to address risks to consumers, especially when those technologies are rapidly developing. My amendment is straightforward.
Before this bill goes into effect, the Treasury Department must determine whether this bill will inhibit the CFPB's ability to monitor emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, for unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices. This committee and the American public should know whether this legislation is hamstringing consumer protection during a time of unprecedented financial innovation. Consumers deserve confidence that when a financial decision is automated or derived from a novel system, that someone is ensuring that the process is treating them fairly. So I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Is there further debate on this amendment? Gentleman from Kentucky is recognized to strike the last word.
Andy Barr
Strike the last word is recognized for five minutes. Okay, on the market monitoring, just to be clear what the bill does, it does not eliminate the ability of the Bureau to engage in these market monitoring activities and address genuine market risks. With this legislation, the CFPB will retain the authority to supervise non-banks within statutory categories and may address genuine real market risks with AI or anything else. The reforms do require the CFPB to articulate the basis for exercising exceptional supervisory authority rather than just allowing open-ended jurisdiction based on an undefined conception of risk. Extraordinary authority should require basic due diligence and evidentiary basis.
But because the legislation would not eliminate the CFPB's ability to investigate risks, because it would not eliminate its UDAAP authorities, it would just simply require a showing of substantial risk outweighing the benefits, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment and I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Is there additional debate on the amendment? If there is no further debate, the question now occurs on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment shall signify by saying aye.
Speaker 66
In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it, and the noes have it, and the amendment is not adopted. For what purpose?
Request a recorded vote.
Speaker 65
Gentleman seeks recognition for a recorded vote. A recorded vote is requested. All of those in favor of a recorded vote raise your hand. A sufficient number having raised their hand, a recorded vote is ordered pursuant to subsection C5 of rule 3 of the committee rules. Further proceedings on the amendment are postponed.
Are there any further amendments to the amendment in the nature of a substitute?
Seeing no further amendments, without objection, the previous question on the substitute is ordered, and recorded votes on the pending amendments have been postponed. Once those votes are taken, the committee will immediately vote on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute and then will consider the question to report the measure. We will now move on to the next bill. Pursuant to notice, I call up HR 8957, the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026, which was introduced by Representative Begich, and the clerk will report the bill, which was distributed in advance.
Speaker 2
HR 8957 to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve and other programs to ensure the transparent management of Bitcoin holdings of the federal government to offset costs utilizing certain resources of the Federal Reserve system and for other purposes.
Speaker 65
Without objection, the first reading of the bill, the reading is dispensed with, and without objection, the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Representative Steil has an amendment in the nature of a substitute, copies of which have been distributed in advance. The clerk will report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 8957 offered by Mr. Steil of Wisconsin, designated as ANS HR 8957.
Speaker 65
Without objection, the amendment is considered read and will serve as base text for the purpose of amendment. The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Steil, is recognized for five minutes.
Bryan Steil
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Today we consider legislation to bring greater transparency, accountability, and sound stewardship to our federal government's digital asset holdings. For nearly a decade, the federal government's been seizing Bitcoin and other digital assets from criminals, terrorists, fraudsters, and scammers. We've developed some of the most sophisticated tools to trace, track, and recover these assets and return them to victims of crimes and scams. But when we seize digital assets from some of the most complex and largest criminal operations, these assets can remain in government custody.
Same happens with non-digital assets. When we seize cars from drug dealers or guns from traffickers, we have well-established procedures at the federal level for custody of and selling those tangible assets. Seized digital assets, on the other hand, are often spread across agencies without a centralized system for custody, accounting, oversight, or a system for divesting of these assets. It's not good enough. Bitcoin has demonstrated resilience, finite scarcity, and a long track record as a store of value.
We cannot allow Bitcoin to be held by the federal government to languish in fragmented, inconsistent custody. It poses unacceptable cybersecurity risks and fails to give an adequate accounting of what the federal government actually owns. This bill addresses these issues head-on. It directs the Treasury Department to centralize the custody of all Bitcoin and other digital assets seized through the final criminal and civil forfeiture. It mandates comprehensive accounting and ongoing oversight of federally held digital assets.
It mandates strong safeguards to protect these assets from cyberattacks, along with transparency requirements to ensure the American people understand what the government holds.
And to ensure stability and strengthening of our reserves, Bitcoin will be held for 20 years within the reserve. At the same time, the bill provides the Treasury with the flexibility to liquidate or convert Bitcoin and other digital assets holdings to pay down the national debt. This is a smart financial strategy that will increase our reserve strength while also reducing our deficit. The digital assets continue to transform the global market. We must modernize our strategic reserves to maintain American dominance and financial stability.
Retaining these assets strengthens our national balance sheet and gives the United States another tool to navigate an increasingly digital global economy. It also reinforces the position of the dollar against other currencies who are aggressively building their own digital asset reserves. I also want to take a moment to thank our colleague not on committee, Representative Begich from Alaska, for his leadership on this legislation. I encourage all of my colleagues to support this important bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Gentleman's recognized for five minutes.
Bill Foster
Well, I strongly oppose HR 8957, which would codify part of President Trump's executive order establishing a so-called strategic Bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile. Among other directives, this bill requires the Treasury to hold and not sell all Bitcoin acquired by the US for at least 20 years, making the US federal government a long-term Bitcoin investor. Well, you know, I'm a PhD physicist, I spent a certain amount of time studying the state of play of quantum computing. And 20 years from now, it is more than an even money bet that quantum computing will be able to break the cryptography behind Bitcoin and the Bitcoin will become worthless. This is not a good 20-year investment for anyone that understands this technology.
And again, well, Bitcoin and digital assets, they're just risky assets and historically volatile, even without the technological risk. We know when a government holds strategic reserves, it does so for a resource that actually powers the US economy and helps day-to-day life for families across the country. This includes oil, includes medical equipment, you remember PPE and all that, other resources that are necessary for our national defense that must be responsibly managed for times of crisis. I don't think anyone believes that Bitcoin is critical to the US economy. This bill instead would use taxpayer resources to boost the price of Bitcoin and other digital assets, which may be great for crypto billionaires as well as for President Trump and his family.
In fact, a 2025 analysis found that the White House officials owned up to $2.35 million in assets that Trump had proposed for the reserve and stockpile. How convenient. Moreover, this bill would boost the value of the Trump family company American Bitcoin, a Bitcoin mining company. Instead of helping Trump and his family make even more money off of his presidency, we should be focusing on actual assets of strategic importance, like oil, that is now nearly emptied its reserve because of the war of choice in Iran. Last week, oil stocks in the US strategic petroleum reserve fell to their lowest level since 1982, a 44-year low.
As the strategic petroleum reserve is strained, Americans are paying even more at the pump. It's been over six months since Trump initiated his illegal war in Iran and despite drawing down our oil reserves, gasoline prices are way up, or maybe because they're being drawn down. Gas prices are now average 4.32 a gallon and diesel prices are higher than they've ever been, making groceries and other goods even more unaffordable for ordinary Americans. Americans don't care about Bitcoin reserves. They want to know that when gas prices will come down and when the war with Iran will end.
So I urge members to reject further efforts to line the Trump family's pockets and I oppose this bill. I thank you and yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Does anyone else seek recognition on the amendment as in the nature of a substitute? Gentleman from Kentucky seeks recognition.
Move to strike the last word.
Gentleman's recognized for five minutes.
Bryan Steil
I thank my colleague, Mr. Barr. Mr. Chairman, if I can, I want to speak slightly out of, out of turn here. As we know, this institution is benefited by great staff members, men and women who dedicate their career to the art of policy, who dig into the weeds on behalf of all of us here, but on behalf of the American people. And I'd be remiss not to mention Nick Rockwell, whose last week is with us today. Mr. Chairman, Nick Rockwell started his career like many people on the Hill do as an intern for our friend GT Thompson over at the Ag Committee and worked his way up.
As we know on the Hill, cream often rises to the top and that would define Nick Rockwell, literally climbing every rank over with GT Thompson at the Ag Committee all the way up to professional staff member where he then came and joined the Financial Services Committee, which we could get into a debate why I think it's a better committee, but that's neither here nor there, but joined the Financial Services Committee and has been staff director of the Digital Assets Subcommittee this Congress, moving through incredibly important legislation, one bill that we're debating today, but in addition to that, in particular the work he's done on stablecoin with Genius and Stable, which would ultimately be signed into law, as well as leading the charge here on the Financial Services Committee from the staff level on clarity, really critical digital assets legislation which we passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House and I believe we will ultimately get across the line in the United States Senate. And so Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to take a moment to thank Nick Rockwell for his hard work, his dedication, and wish him Godspeed in the future.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Yield back. Does anyone else seek recognition on the amendment in the nature of a substitute? Hearing none, we will move to the amendments. Does anyone wish to offer an amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute?
The ranking member seeks recognition.
Speaker 69
We'll pause while the amendment is distributed. Gentleman reserves a point of order. The clerk will report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 8957 offered by Ms. Waters of California, designated as HR, HR 8957 amendment one.
Speaker 65
Without objection, the amendment is considered read and the gentlelady is recognized to discuss her amendment when she's prepared.
Maxine Waters
Thank you very much.
My amendment would address my concerns about the President of the United States of America, Trump, lining his pocket by adding my bill, HR 3573, the Stop Trump in Crypto Act. My legislation, among other provisions, prohibits the President of the United States of America and his immediate family from receiving any direct or indirect compensation for the mining of any digital asset in the United States. For example, this would address the Trump family Bitcoin mining company, American Bitcom. What I think it is important for the people of this country to understand is, we're talking about the President, his wife, Melania, we're talking about Junior, Eric, and Barron Trump. We're talking about the family of the United States of America who have decided to enrich themselves at the expense of the American people.
This is a President of the United States of America who is in control of regulators, in control of all of the cabinet, who is in control of all of the oversight agencies that have responsibility with crypto. And so for him to be in control and to use it to enrich himself and his family is something that is absolutely unbelievable that it could be taking place. So I have many problems with HR 8957. For starters, this bill is a huge handout to crypto billionaires, including again, the President and his family and their crypto buddies, by requiring government intervention to boost Bitcoin prices. It is clear that the people who will benefit the most from HR 8957 are the Trump insiders already holding Bitcoin and other digital assets that will be included in the reserve and the stockpile, not the average person.
Trump insiders already holding large amounts of Bitcoin would benefit from such a strategic reserve because the price of their Bitcoin would skyrocket initially and they could soon sell and cash out. We saw yesterday how the Clarity Act failed to pass the Senate, largely because the legislation did nothing to stop the Trump family crypto corruption. This legislation will suffer the same fate so long as it doesn't stop Trump and his family from owning crypto. It is very important for the people of this country to understand that crypto may be inevitable, but not without handrails, guardrails, without the opportunity for the people of the United States of America not to have a President who is using his office to enrich himself. And so, you will hear this over and over and over again.
If we're going to have crypto eventually and it doesn't have any guardrails on it, we will suffer. People will lose billions of dollars. Trump will get richer and richer and Melania will get rich and the sons will get rich and Barron already at 300 million, give me a break. I will not let up on this. I know there are others who will join me and for the people on the opposite side of the aisle, I think it's time to stand up.
Stand up, speak out, and join with what the American people eventually will be saying to everybody. Stop him. Stop Trump from enriching himself on crypto.
Do everything that you can to have guardrails if it's ever going to be operative. I don't think that's too much to ask and so I use this opportunity to do what I will be doing over and over and over again, pointing out the corruption in the White House led by the President of the United States of America. I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentlelady yields back. Is there further debate on this amendment? The gentleman from Wisconsin seeks recognition.
Bryan Steil
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I encourage my colleagues to vote no on this amendment. The underlying bill of course is not about any, any person, any elected individual in Congress or otherwise. Legislation is about the prudent management of federally held assets. Establishes rules for custody, accounting, security, transparency and oversight of digital assets already held by the federal government.
Doesn't, it's not an ethics bill, it doesn't establish rules for particular people, individuals. It's about what, what happens when the federal government owns an asset. Existing federal law already provides a framework governing conflicts of interest, financial disclosure, campaign finance, etc. Those apply. The rules should be applied consistently.
If the concern is about an elected individual, feel free to bring legislation on that point. This bill though is focused in on the management of government-owned assets. As we know, we have substantive rules for physical and tangible assets. We discussed that earlier. What occurs if the federal government obtains cash, a car, a gun?
There is not a good framework in the digital asset space and what we're trying to do is provide good governance in this space. This bill, the, the amendment as offered is not relevant to the underlying bill and I'd encourage my colleagues to vote no. I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentleman yields back. Is there any further amen, debate on this amendment? If there is no further debate, the question now appears on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment signify by saying aye.
Speaker 65
All those opposed signify by saying no. In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it, the noes have it and... A recorded vote is requested. All those in favor of a recorded vote raise your hand. A sufficient number having raised their hand, a recorded vote is ordered.
Pursuant to subsection C5 of rule 3 of the committee rules, further proceedings on the amendment are postponed. Are there further amendments to the amendment in the nature of a substitute? Seeing no further amendments, without objection, the previous question on the substitute is ordered and recorded votes on the pending amendments have been postponed. Once those votes are taken, the committee will immediately vote on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute and then will consider the question to report the measure. We shall now move on to the next bill.
Pursuant to notice, I call up HR 5889, the Eviction Helpline Act, which was introduced by Representative Pressley.
The clerk will report the bill, which was distributed in advance.
Speaker 65
Without objection, the first reading is dispensed with, and without objection, the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Representative Pressley has an amendment in the nature of a substitute, copies of which have been distributed in advance. The clerk will report the amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 5889, offered by Ms. Pressley of Massachusetts, designated as Pressley 090.
Speaker 65
Without objection, the amendment is considered read and will serve as base text for the purpose of the amendment. The gentlewoman from Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley, is recognized for five minutes.
Ayanna Pressley
Thank you. My bill, the Eviction Helpline Act, creates a seven-year pilot program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to create and promote a national hotline for people facing eviction. I want to thank Chairman Hill for including this legislation in today's markup, and Ranking Member Waters for her continued support and partnership over the years on this priority. In my district, the Massachusetts 7th, and throughout the nation, evictions can be destabilizing life events. Evictions impact everyone: children, women, people of color, veterans, and the elderly.
Pregnant women facing low birth weights due to housing instability, children in school at increased risk of illness due to unhealthy living conditions, parents missing work to negotiate with their landlord in the court hallway, and even our elders, who are part of the growing gray wave simply because they cannot find an affordable place to live. Housing is a human right. It is health. It is dignity. It is stability and community.
Every single person needs access to a quality home that they can actually afford. No matter if you are a Republican or Democrat, you likely know someone that struggled with paying rent because a corporation hiked up the cost unfairly. A 2024 Federal Reserve report found that corporate investors increased rates 60% higher than the average rate. That's why this eviction hotline is so important, so that these families know they are not fighting alone and can know their rights as tenants and get help even before an eviction is filed. I serve as vice chair of the Renters Caucus, which I like to think of as the pathway to homeownership caucus.
Renting is an essential part of the housing journey for millions of adults throughout the country, and my bill, the Eviction Helpline Act, can help tenants achieve their dream of homeownership. This national hotline serves as a one-stop shop to ensure people know what resources are available to help them so that an eviction does not become a stain on their future tenant screening reports or credit history. As the daughter of a tenants' rights organizer, this bill is near and dear to my heart, and I've been fighting for this type of eviction-related assistance since I was first elected to Congress and introduced the HELP Act to support renters. This bill, the Eviction Helpline Act, is important for families, whether they are in red or blue states, whether they are white or black, young or old. As housing prices continue to climb, renters desperately need a place they can turn to, to know their rights and know what local and federal resources may already be available to them to help.
Thank you again for considering this bill today. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan priority.
Please vote yes. I yield back.
Speaker 65
Gentlelady yields back. Is there further debate on the amendment in the nature of a substitute? The ranking member is recognized for five minutes.
Ranking member's recognized for five minutes.
Maxine Waters
I rise in support of HR 5889. No family should lose their home over a paperwork error, but that's the risk facing households living in federally assisted housing today. Recertification mistakes, rent calculations are common in these programs. And instead of fixing the program, the Trump administration is making it worse. In March, Trump's HUD proposed a rule that would fast-track evictions by scrapping the requirement that public housing agencies and project-based rental assistance program properties give tenants a 30-day notice of eviction for non-payment.
That 30-day notice isn't red tape. It's a lifeline. Housing experts recognize it as the best practice because it works. It gives tenants time to understand what is happening, fix the issue, seek help, or find another place before they're out on the street. And the numbers back this up.
Under the Biden administration, HUD estimated that 30-day notices for non-payment alone prevented up to 4,900 evictions every year. Stripping these notices away, as Trump and Republicans want to do, means that more families will get unnecessarily evicted and end up homeless. We must move in the opposite direction towards stronger renter protections, not fewer. That's exactly what HR 5889 does. This bill requires HUD to create a national eviction hotline, one clear point of contact for households facing eviction.
Call it and get real answers. The stakes are high. Eviction doesn't just cost families their housing. It puts their income, health, and educational stability at risk, often for years afterwards. And so I want to thank Ms. Pressley for this important bill.
And I want to thank all of the members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who will support this bill. Because I know that any member of the House of Representatives, whether it's Democrat or Republican, know that it is only fair that given the mistakes that are made, given bureaucracy, which we all complain about, etc., etc., mistakes can be made and without 30-day notice, people could be evicted and put on the street. While we're putting money into homelessness, if you get rid of 30-day notice, you are increasing homelessness by evicting people, evicting them because a mistake has been made. Even if they were not able to pay and they wanted to talk with someone about how to work it out, that would be fair. But to just say that you're prepared to kick people out, kick families out because a mistake has been made or because you hit hard times and not give them an opportunity to talk about, number one, if a mistake was made, how it's going to be corrected, number two, if the family has a real problem, how they're going to maybe pay every week until they make up the payment that has not been made.
The President of the United States should be trying to do everything that can be done to make American families feel safe and secure and to help them grow and survive and be successful. Not how you can make them less successful, not how you can make them more homeless, not how you can not do what even we sometimes do for other countries in helping people to have a decent place to live. I want to tell you, it is heartbreaking to see HUD falling prey to the President of the United States and using the power of HUD to evict people, to put them out on the street and say, "Well, you know, if it's a mistake, we don't know about it and you're out, you're going to get kicked out." I want to tell you, we've got a lot to say, we better start saying it. We've got a lot to undo that this President is doing and it's time for us to stand up on both sides of the aisle.
It is time for those who have been maybe a little bit afraid of the President of the United States, who are acting as if they're puppets, etc., etc., to stop it. Just stop it and be the person that you say you are, the person that you want to be. Stand up for what is right. Stand up for what is good. Don't have prayer meetings around here talking about you're praying for good, you're Christians, you're Muslims, you're whatever you are.
If you are not protecting the people of the United States of America in a very simple and plain way, don't call yourself a religious person in any shape, form, or fashion.
J. Hill
Gentlelady's time has expired. Who seeks recognition? Not seeing others, I'll recognize myself for five minutes. It has been noted the bill we're debating today is part of the House version of our 21st Century Road to Housing Act when it was reported out of this committee last December 17th. That provision, which was section 406 of the first version of HR 6644, was included in the version of the bill passed by the House 390 votes to 9 on February 9th.
The provision was not included in the bill that was sent to the President. I want to provide some clarity regarding the provision and what it did. Simply put, Ms. Pressley's text calls for HUD to operate a helpline and I quote, open quote, "provide tenants of covered federally assisted rental dwelling units with counseling, resources, and referrals to available assistance related to eviction-related matters," close quote. These individuals are receiving federal rental assistance, which means they are by definition already low-income and likely particularly vulnerable to economic shocks like job loss or sickness or birth of a child or divorce or just a general downturn in the economy. These events could end up putting people out on the street and thus in need of government assistance, which no one wants when an existing set of resources might be already available to them to help avoid that outcome.
This bill says HUD should do what it can, where it can, under its current authorities to help its clients fulfill their obligations so they can stay housed and their landlords can be fully paid for the service they provide. I don't see that as a bad outcome. And I think that's why we should always look for ways to connect individuals in need with the existing resources that government is supposed to be providing to help address those needs. HR 5889 is a step in a positive direction and I appreciate Ms. Pressley's persistence in working to get it headed to becoming law. In Little Rock, many of you have heard me talk about challenges with HUD in Little Rock, the Metropolitan Housing Authority in Little Rock, the voucher program as implemented by Pulaski County, City of Little Rock, and vouchers associated with some of the HUD lending programs and all the problems that we're having.
I mean, it's just one after another. And one of those is a assignment of the Pulaski County voucher system to apparently an underfunded, ill-considered, not appropriate administrator. And that group went out of business. And all those tenants relying on that voucher assistance from Pulaski County, Arkansas, were essentially to be evicted. City of Little Rock stepped in to try to be helpful.
You know, I hope we can work to get them reimbursed. They were just doing, you know, sort of a leadership assignment to try to help those families. But you can imagine these are people who are already receiving voucher assistance in the rent that they're incurring and the house that they have, and this kind of enhanced availability of this quote eviction hotline would have been very, I think, helpful to those people in their moment of need. So I urge a yes vote on this bill. Does anyone else seek recognition on Ms. Pressley's amendment in the nature of a substitute?
Hearing none, we'll move to amendments. Are there any amendments to Ms. Pressley's bill? There being no further discussion or amendments to the bill, the question now occurs on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye.
All those opposed, signify by saying nay. The chair, the ayes have it, and the amendment is adopted. Question now occurs on ordering the bill as amended to be reported to the House with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye.
All those opposed, signify by saying nay. The chair, the ayes have it.
J. Hill
The gentlewoman from Massachusetts requests a recorded vote. A recorded vote has been requested. All those in favor of a recorded vote, raise your hands. A sufficient number having raised their hands, a recorded vote is ordered. Pursuant to subsection C5 of Rule 3 of the committee rules, the vote on this item is postponed.
We'll now move to our next measure. Pursuant to notice, I call up H.R. 10325, which was introduced by the ranking member, Ms. Waters. The clerk will report the bill, which was distributed in advance.
Speaker 2
H.R. 10325, to increase the mandatory contribution amount of Federal Home Loan Banks to the Affordable Housing Program and for other purposes.
J. Hill
Without objection, the first reading is dispensed with. Without objection, the bill is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Ranking Member Waters has an amendment in the nature of a substitute, copies of which were also distributed in advance. Clerk will report that amendment.
Speaker 2
An amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 10325, offered by Ms. Waters of California, designated as H.R. 10325 ANS.
J. Hill
Without objection, the amendment is considered read and will serve as base text for purposes of amendment. Gentlewoman from California, Ms. Waters, you're now recognized for five minutes to describe your bill.
Maxine Waters
Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much. H.R. 10325, the Affordable Housing Finance Act, is an impactful step that Congress can take to begin to dig out of this affordable housing crisis and to get housing back to the center of the Federal Home Loan Banks' mission. My bill would increase the mandatory contributions the Federal Home Loan Banks make to the Affordable Housing Program from 10 to 15 percent of their profits. As a result of this bill, an additional 300 million will go towards affordable housing annually that Congress could deliver on now without needing an appropriations bill.
Today, American families are being crushed by a worsening housing crisis. Home prices have climbed 50% since before the pandemic, and 23 million families now spend more than they can afford each month on rent. We just passed a broadly bipartisan manner the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. But that bill, while making important regulatory changes to existing programs and creating new ways to build housing, lacked one crucial thing: funding. We can fix that by passing this bill.
The Federal Home Loan Banks were created by Congress and given incredible privileges with their status as government-sponsored entities, or GSEs. Their mission is simple and clear: provide low-cost financing to financial institutions so they can boost affordable housing. Instead, the Federal Home Loan Banks have allowed roughly 7 billion in annual federal subsidies to turn into record profits for the banks, insurance companies, and other Wall Street firms. Congress explicitly established this system to increase access to mortgages and help more Americans achieve homeownership affordably. When the banks previously drifted from that mission, Congress reaffirmed it and created the Affordable Housing Program in 1989, requiring them to annually contribute 10% of their net income.
But the banks' retained earnings have since ballooned. Dividends for just the largest financial institutions surged to 3.5 billion for member institutions in 2025 alone. That's three times as much as what they contributed to affordable housing that year. On top of that, reports show that nearly half of Federal Home Loan Bank members haven't originated a single mortgage in the past five years. Today's housing crisis demands that the banks return to their core mission.
These are GSEs; they have a public obligation, a sole purpose to ensure access to affordable mortgages, and they are missing the mark. Congress already has a solution to tackling this housing crisis, and it's sitting right in front of us. It's our role, our role to ensure that the billions in taxpayer subsidies are used as intended to support working families' access homes, not to prioritize the dividends and profit margins of the Federal Home Loan Banks. It's time for the Federal Home Loan Banks to put home back in their name and do their job. HR 10325 does just that.
I would urge my colleagues to support the bill. I yield back.
Ranking member yields back. Who seeks recognition?
Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mike Flood
I rise in reluctant opposition of the bill Ranking Member Representative Waters has shared.
HR 10325 would amend the current law that requires each Federal Home Loan Bank to contribute 10% of its preceding year's net income to a special Affordable Housing Program, or AHP. These AHPs are designed to provide grants to assist low and moderate income individuals with their affordable rental housing needs. As we heard back in July at the oversight of the Federal Home Loan Bank system subcommittee hearing that I chaired, the AHP has been highly successful in this format, with the FHLBs contributing more than $8 billion and assisting more than 1 million households since 1990. In addition to their required contributions, over the last several years, these Federal Home Loan Banks have also been contributing an additional 5% for a total of 15% of their net income to other affordable housing efforts outside of the limited AHP framework. This additional voluntary contribution level from all of the home loan banks have funded other noteworthy projects like providing mortgage down payment assistance for families seeking workforce housing, helping disaster victims acquire housing after large storms, and grants to help seniors and individuals with disabilities adapt to their homes and their special needs.
In my own district, West Point, Nebraska, Cuming County, Nebraska, the Economic Development Agency in the last two years has gotten over $800,000 in a small rural county. That money has gone to rehab, restore homes. So you have a 72-year-old female living alone, widowed, and she needs a new picture window because her furnace is leaking too much of that warm air out into the cold or the cold air's coming in. Next thing you know, that new picture window goes in, the neighbors across the street see it, they step to the plate, they increase the aesthetics of their home. This is how that money's being used.
There's no federal program out there that's as flexible as the Federal Home Loan Bank system's programs. We need, if anything, to take off some of the chains from the 10% statutory requirement so they can move at the speed of business like we've seen happen in other jurisdictions in concert with what we did in the 21st Century Road to Housing bill that is now law. That's why I reluctantly am able to support the ranking member's bill to increase the mandatory contributions of the FHLBs to the AHP from 10 to 15%. Flexibility. Have you ever tried to use the weatherization money that comes from the Department of Energy?
Alice, the 72-year-old widow, doesn't have time to fill out 110 pages to get some weatherization money to put a better set of windows in her house. These Federal Home Loan Bank programs are working. While I respect the ranking member's position here and desire to increase funding for affordable projects, the reality is that the most likely effect of setting such a change in statute would be to decrease funding for those voluntary efforts I just mentioned to increase contributions to the AHP. Lowering funding from one form of housing assistance to increase funding for a different form of housing assistance just doesn't make sense to me. Now, I would commit my entire effort next Congress, if Nebraskans sent me back here, to reforming the way they can use the money to make it easier to invest in resilience, to make it easier to invest in impact-resistant shingles so that they can afford the hail or better structures to avoid the fires.
If anything, we ought to be encouraging the FHLBs to seek out or create more voluntary housing programs to supplement the fine work of the AHP so we have more tools in our housing toolkit, not fewer ones. While I appreciate the spirit in which the ranking member has offered her bill and give her tremendous credit for standing up for the prerogatives of the House of Representatives, for working so well with our chairman, for encouraging her members, all of the Democrats that voted for our housing bill, this committee has done what no one thought this Congress could do, and a lot of it was thanks to our ranking member and our chairman who carried the ball through some really choppy waters and did some really good work.
So I appreciate the spirit with which she is doing this. She's right to identify this fund as something that could help Americans. I would be honored to work to take the handcuffs off the Federal Home Loan Bank system and let them go to work in each one of our communities because I believe we've got a gem here and we need to support it. So with that, I yield back.
J. Hill
Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition on Mrs. Waters' measure? Seeing no other members to do so, I'll recognize myself for five minutes. I appreciate the ranking member raising this issue and calling attention to this distinction, and I find myself in a similar position that Chairman Flood in sense of how I analyzed it once I read the bill and considered it. The purpose of Federal Home Loan Bank system dating back to the 1930s, of course, is to ensure liquidity for the loans that our banks make across the country to make sure they have liquidity for those portfolio housing loans, and that line of credit is a critical component to bank liquidity across the country.
Typical banks would have, and in the old days, the big thrift industry would have a liquidity line secured by home mortgages at the Federal Home Loan Bank and a liquidity line for emergency purposes secured by commercial industrial loans at their district Federal Reserve Bank. So the principal mission of those Federal Home Loan Banks is to provide that emergency liquidity line of credit in case of any kind of challenge to funding in the banking system, and they do, you know, a very high quality job there. But over the years, Congress has also asked them to make this mandatory commitment to a congressionally directed AHP process, affordable housing program, on the other side. So as noted by the ranking member and Mr. Flood, 10% of that net income is directed into those permitted AHP programs. And they're very narrow and they have rules and they're they're key.
So if you think about it now big picture, they have two obligations. They've got this strict liquidity obligation for all the banking system in the country, very important. And secondly, they have a statutory direction that they are to devote 10% of their net income to the AHP list of programmatic affordable housing. But as the ranking member noted and Mr. Flood, they have for the most part had the option, had the ability to flex up to another 5% of net income to participate in other forms of housing assistance. And Mike Flood just gave an example of some weatherization that is not per se in the AHP list of topics, but is absolutely helping low-income people have access to housing improvements or things for disabilities or for better access.
And that distinction between what's required and done by the statute versus that flexibility allows those local Federal Home Loan Banks to work with the banks in their region to flex based on needs, like what are they seeing.
And when I was a banker, I had a very rural part of the state of Arkansas in the Mississippi Delta, where the only real public housing that we had, or multi-family housing even, was USDA-provided multi-family housing. And so these grants were really helpful at building new affordable housing for families in the Mississippi Delta. And we used the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas in partnership with our lending at our bank. So I know the value of that flexibility. I know the value of the Federal Home Loan Bank's commitment to helping in this space.
But when I look at it, I put the same valuation on what Mike Flood said, which is many of the banks have the ability to flex up to that 15%. But if we statutorily require it to be 15% in AHP, you reduce the flexibility. And so we're trading out the priorities that they're already doing to help affordable housing, help affordable housing access across the country. So I too reluctantly am opposed to this bill, but that doesn't change the work ahead that we can do to see if we can provide more flexibility in the AHP portion of the requirement. So I thank the ranking member for offering it.
Thank Mike Flood for working on it. And I yield back. Are there other comments? Hearing none, we'll move to amendments. Are there amendments offered?
There being no further discussion or amendments, the bill, the question now occurs on adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. All those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed, signify by saying nay. Nay. In the opinion of the chair, the nays... I'm sorry, say again.
Okay. The ANS, yeah. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, and the amendment is adopted. Question now occurs on ordering the bill as amended to be reported to the House with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
All those opposed, signify by saying nay. Nay. In the opinion of the chair, the nays have it. For what purpose does the gentlewoman seek recognition? The gentlewoman requests a recorded vote.
All those in favor of a recorded vote, raise your hands. A sufficient number having raised their hand, a recorded vote is ordered pursuant to subsection C5 of Rule 3, Committee Rules. The vote on the question is postponed. Pursuant to the previous order, the chair declares the committee in recess subject to the call of the chair. We will reconvene at 4:15, 4:15 to vote on today's measures.
The committee stands in recess.
Committee will reconvene. Pursuant to the chair's previous order, we will now take the vote pending on ordering HR 7030 as amended, favorably reported. Members will vote electronically. Clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote?
Clerk will close and report.
J. Hill
Majority having voted in favor of HR 7030 as amended, the bill is ordered favorably reported to the House. Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. We will now proceed to take the postponed vote on the pending amendment to HR 4936, the TRAPS Act. Question is on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute as amended. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye. All those opposed signify by saying no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The ayes have it, and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted. Question now occurs on ordering the bill as amended, reported to the House with a favorable recommendation.
Those in favor shall signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed signify by saying no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. For what purpose does the gentleman from Iowa seek recognition?
J. Hill
A recorded vote has indeed been requested. All those in favor, raise your hands. Sufficient number having raised their hands, a recorded vote is so ordered. We will now take that vote on ordering the bill as amended, favorably reported. The clerk will open the vote.
Is there any member who hasn't voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close the vote and report.
Mr. Chairman, on this vote, the ayes are 20 and the noes are 28.
A majority having voted against the amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. Question now occurs on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute as amended. All those in favor shall signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed signify by saying no.
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who hasn't voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
A majority having voted against the amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. Question now occurs on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute as amended. All those in favor shall signify by saying aye, aye. All those opposed shall signify by saying no. In the opinion of the chair the ayes have it, the ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted.
The question now occurs on ordering the bill as amended reported to the house with a favorable recommendation. Those in favor shall signify by saying aye, aye. All those opposed signify by saying no. Opinion of the chair the ayes have it. For what purpose does the gentleman from Iowa seek recognition?
Speaker 90
A recorded vote is requested. All those in favor of a recorded vote raise your hands, a sufficient number having raised their hand a recorded vote is so ordered. We'll now take that vote on ordering the bill as amended favorably reported. The clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote?
The clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
A majority having voted in favor of HR 10 234 as amended, the bill is ordered favorably reported to the house without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. We'll now take the vote pending on ordering HR 7866, the American Lending Fairness Act as amended favorably reported. Members will vote electronically, the clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote? A majority having voted in, I'm sorry, the clerk will close and report.
J. Hill
A majority having voted in favor of HR 7866 as amended, the bill is ordered favorably reported to the house without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. We'll now take the vote pending on ordering HR 1653, the Civil Investigative Demand Reform Act of 2025 as amended favorably reported. Members will vote electronically, the clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close the vote and report.
Mr. Chairman, on this vote the yeas are 29 and the nays are 20.
A majority having voted in favor of HR 1653 as amended, the bill is ordered favorably reported to the house without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. We'll now take the postponed votes on the pending amendments to HR 10 184, the Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Reform Act.
The question's on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch. This is Lynch 078. The clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who hasn't voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close the vote and report.
Speaker 90
A majority having voted against the amendment, the amendment's not agreed to. The question's now on the third amendment offered by Representative Lynch. This is Lynch 077. Clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote?
Clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
A majority having voted against the amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. The question's now on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois, Representative Foster. This is Foster 104. The clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who hasn't voted or would like to change their vote?
Clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
A majority having voted against the amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. The question's now on the second amendment offered by Representative Foster. This is Foster 105. Clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote?
Clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
A majority having voted against the amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. The question's now on the third amendment offered by Representative Foster. This is Foster 106. Clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote?
Clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted. The question now occurs on ordering the bill, as amended, reported to the House with a favorable recommendation. Those in favor shall signify by saying aye. Aye.
Those, all those opposed shall signify by saying no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it.
Mr. Barr.
Speaker 90
The gentleman from Kentucky requests a recorded vote. All those in favor of a recorded vote raise your hands. A sufficient number having raised their hand a recorded vote is ordered. We will now take that recorded vote on ordering the bill as amended favorably reported. The clerk will open the vote.
Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
A majority having voted in favor of H.R. 10184 as amended bill is ordered favorably reported to the House. Without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. We will now take the postponed votes pending on the amendments to H.R. 8957 the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026. Question is on the second amendment offered by Ranking Member Waters. This is H.R. 8957 amendment 1.
Clerk will open the vote. Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
In the opinion of the chair the ayes have it. The ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted. Question now occurs on ordering the bill as amended reported to the House with a favorable recommendation. Those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.
All those opposed signify by saying no. In the opinion of the chair the ayes have it. For what purpose does the gentleman from Wisconsin rise?
Mr. Chairman I request a recorded vote.
Speaker 90
Gentleman from Wisconsin requests a recorded vote. All those in favor of a recorded vote raise your hands. A sufficient number having raised their hands a recorded vote is ordered. We will now take that vote on ordering the bill as amended favorably reported. The clerk will open the vote.
Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close the vote and report.
J. Hill
Majority having voted in favor of H.R. 8957 as amended the bill is ordered favorably reported to the House. Without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. We will now take the vote pending on ordering H.R. 5889 as amended favorably reported. Members will vote electronically.
Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close and report.
J. Hill
A majority having voted in favor of H.R. 5889 as amended, the bill is ordered favorably reported to the House. Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. We'll now take the vote pending on ordering H.R. 10325 as amended favorably reported. Members will vote electronically. The clerk will open the vote.
Is there any member who has not voted or would like to change their vote? Clerk will close the vote and report. A majority having voted against H.R. 10325 as amended, the bill is not ordered reported to the House. Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. Without objection, the staff are authorized to make necessary and conforming changes to bills considered today.
And pursuant to House Rule 11, clause 2L, I give notice that all members will have the requisite number of days to file supplemental, minority, additional, or dissenting views. There being no further business pending before the committee, the committee stands adjourned.