Community Banker Alert

The last week has been fast and furious with regard to Senator Dodd's financial regulatory reform bill, S. 3217. At this time last week, a contingent of community bankers from Pennsylania teamed up with nearly a thousand community bankers from across the nation to advocate for changes to the current bill that would protect community banking. We met with Senator Casey, Congressman Paul Kanjorski, Congressman Jim Gerlach, Congressman Jason Altmire, Congressman Bill Shuster, and the offices of Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz and Senator Arlen Specter. Every elected official and legislative staffer we met with was well-informed on the issues, and very open to community bank input.

Specifically, we asked for several key changes to the Senate bill (S.3217), some of which include:

• Make the FDIC assessment base change mandated in the statute to reflect the language in the House version. The current language in the Senate bill leaves the discretion to the FDIC. CLICK HERE to support the Tester/Hutchinson Amendment.
• Extend the community bank exemption to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to include "ride-along" examinations. Currently, community banks are exempt from CFPB enforcement, and we are looking for the same exemption for examinations.
• Protect the Federal Home Loan Bank system and prevent any unintended consequences that would lead to reduced liquidity.
• Protect regulatory choice by allowing the over 800 community banks that are currently under the Federal Reserve's supervision to remain under the Fed. CLICK HERE to support restoring the Fed's authority to examine state chartered banks.
• Remove the language in the bill that eliminates new thrift charters.
• Eliminate the exemptions for the Farm Credit System.

In addition to S. 3217, we also discussed the issue of interchange with Senator Specter's office as a follow up to our meeting on March 11. We were pleased to hear that at this junction, Senator Specter is going to focus primarily on S. 3217 and its passage. While he is still interested in the interchange issue, we were informed that the Senator is not planning on introducing legislation or amendments at this time.

Thank you for your commitment to community banking, and please be on the look-out for more information as it comes out of Washington. And thank you in advance for all of your calls, letters, and emails to Senators Casey and Specter in support of community banking.