The House is scheduled to vote next week to exempt community banks from the Volcker Rule, a key post-crisis regulation meant to prevent banks from speculating for profit with deposits insured by the federal government.
The bill, authored by Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., would match one of the provisions in the Senate-passed bipartisan banking bill, and go a little bit beyond it.
House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling is holding out for negotiations with senators over which of the two chambers’ bills should be sent to President Trump. The Texas Republican wants to add more bipartisan House-passed bills to the mix, while senators, worried that they could lose the 17 Democratic “yes” votes with any more provisions, have pushed for the House to simply approve their bill.
The House Volcker Rule bill would follow the Senate bill in making banks with under $10 billion in assets no longer subject to the Volcker Rule, one of the more onerous post-crisis regulations.
The House bill would go further and make the Federal Reserve the sole authority for writing regulations related to the Volcker Rule, rather than any or all of five financial regulatory agencies. It also would limit Volcker Rule examinations and enforcement to just the one banking agency that is the bank’s main regulator.
It is one example of potential changes that House lawmakers would like to see made to the Senate bill.
The measure, negotiated with Democratic Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois, passed at the committee level in March on a bipartisan 50-10 vote. The panel’s top Democrat, though, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, opposed it.
