adminLast night, House Financial Services and General Government approved its 2018 budget, but both of the credit union amendments were offered and then withdrawn at the request of the sponsor.
At the marathon markup, which lasted until 11:40 p.m., Rep. Mark Amodei proposed two amendments of interest to credit unions:
- to remove NCUA from the Appropriations process (an idea that is contained in the CHOICE Act but is not current law), and
- to create a five-member CFPB commission.
According to Committee staff, Republicans were “unwilling to buck Hensarling in this bill.” Hensarling had spoken to Appropriations Chairman Freylingheusen and Rep. Amodei against passage of both provisions.
League sources report that Hensarling and a sizable number of Republicans who are not on the Appropriations Committee consider having the CFPB under its oversight a key provision, but feel the need to include all independent financial regulators, including NCUA, for “optical reasons.”
In other words, NCUA was collateral damage.
As to the CFPB commission idea, Hensarling was able to prevail on Freylingheusen and Amodei that passing it would weaken the House hand in negotiating CHOICE with the Senate.
The Committee also defeated an amendment that would have restored complete funding to CDFI. The funding amount approved by the Committee stands at $190 million proposed in Subcommittee, down from $250 million.
