The CUNA Legislative Update, by Ryan Donovan

Week of November 28, 2011

The House and Senate come back from the Thanksgiving Day District Work Period to try to get one week closer to the adjournment of the First Session of the 112th Congress.

Floor Schedule

The Senate comes back today and will consider a judicial nomination.  The Senate is expected to consider the Department of Defense Authorization Act for the remainder of the week.

The House comes back tomorrow and will consider bills under suspension of the rules.  On Wednesday, the House will consider H.R. 3094, the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act.  On Thursday, the House will consider legislation to eliminate taxpayer funding of presidential campaigns, the political party conventions and the Election Assistance Commission.  The House is also expected to consider H.R. 527, the Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act, and H.R. 3010, the Regulatory Accountability Act.  It is also possible that H.R. 10, the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act (REINS Act), may be considered by the House either later this week or next week.

CUNA supports H.R. 3010, which would substantially revise the Administrative Procedure Act to require agencies to consider the costs and benefits of new rules and other actions (including the potential benefits from not doing anything).  The bill would require agencies to conduct public hearings for most rules estimated to have an aggregate impact on industry of over $1 billion, and it sets new data quality standards for agency fact finding in the rulemaking process.  Finally, the legislation would require agencies to consult with Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) about guidance documents before issuing them, and clarifies that guidance documents are not legally binding.  A copy of our letter of support for H.R. 3010 can be found on CUNA’s website.

We are evaluating the other bills before the House of Representatives to determine the extent to which they impact credit unions.

Committee Schedule

We are following a couple of committee meetings this week.

On Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee will mark-up H.R.3213, the "Small Company Job Growth and Regulatory Relief Act of 2011"; H.R.2682, the "Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act of 2011"; H.R. 2779, to exempt inter-affiliate swaps from certain regulatory requirements put in place by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; and H.R.2586, the "Swap Execution Facility Clarification Act."

On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing on “Oversight of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.” 

On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on capital formation.  Among other things, this hearing may focus on legislation, which recently passed the House of Representatives, to increase the shareholder threshold for SEC registration from 500 to 2,000 shareholders.

Looking Forward

The government is operating under a continuing resolution which funds the government until December 16.  We expect that much of this work period will be spent focused on a long term funding mechanism, as well as legislation to extend expiring tax provisions.  We do not expect Congress to remain in session after a funding solution is enacted.