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Bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate this week would make it easier for consumers to secure financing to purchase manufactured housing.
March 13 -
WASHINGTON House Republicans reintroduced several hot-button bills this week, helping to set the stage for some of the political fights to come later in the year.
March 5 -
Republican lawmakers will head the banking committees in both chambers next year raising the prospects for deals on key legislation but getting to the negotiating table is still the biggest hurdle for the next Congress.
December 1
WASHINGTON House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, announced a vote for Thursday of 11 bills aimed at lessening regulatory burden on banks by changing aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act and associated regulations.
Speaking before the American Bankers Association annual summit on Wednesday, Hensarling said the Dodd-Frank Act has effectively limited underprivileged Americans' access to banking services. In the spirit of correcting that error, he said, the bills would clear the way for greater access to those services.
"I remain optimistic that we will succeed in helping low- and moderate-income people to have access to banking. We will never, ever stop trying," Hensarling said. "That is why tomorrow the House Financial Services Committee will be voting on 11 bipartisan regulatory relief bills."
The bills include measures to reform the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to ease lending rules for manufactured housing, to revise the capital requirements for mortgage servicing assets and to allow private credit unions access to the Federal Home Loan Bank system. Hensarling noted that each of the bills on the docket either passed the entire House or cleared his committee in the last Congress "with a strong bipartisan sometimes unanimous vote."
Whether the measures have a future beyond the House is unclear. Hensarling and his fellow Republican Senate counterpart, Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., do not always see eye-to-eye on how to amend Dodd-Frank and face different realities in their respective chambers. At least some of the bills slated for a vote in the House have counterparts in the Senate, though none have been scheduled for a vote.
