To award a congressional gold medal to Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) summarized well the reasons for voting for this bill. If I had more forbearance, I would simply sit down, but I have a really nicely written speech here and will use a few minutes, hopefully abbreviating it, since so many of its points have already been covered.

Mr. Speaker, I will put into the Record at this point a letter in support of this bill from the National Association of Federal Credit Unions.

National Association

of Federal Credit Unions,

Arlington, VA, April 26, 2005.

Hon. Mike Oxley,

Chairman, House Committee on Financial Services, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Barney Frank,

Ranking Member, House Committee on Financial Services, House

of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Oxley and Ranking Member Frank: On behalf of

the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU),

the only national trade association that exclusively

represents the interests of our nation's federal credit

unions, I want to reiterate our support for the Expanded

Access to Financial Services Act of 2005 (H.R. 749) and urge

the House to bring up and pass this key legislation.

NAFCU fully supports the merits of this bill, since abuses

are rampant in communities where immigrants rely on money

transfer companies to send remittances to family members and

others in their country of origin. Unfortunately, money

transfer companies oftentimes charge exorbitant fees on those

sending remittances, while imposing poor exchange rates. For

example, a $1000 money transfer to Mexico via IRnet would

cost $10, while the same transaction via Western Union would

cost between $30 and $50 depending on the Western Union

location. Also, the credit union providing the transfer may

be successful in converting an un-banked potential member

into a member. In reality, and in far too many cases, the

costs associated with sending such remittances is essentially

nothing more than another form of predatory lending. Many

people do not know that credit unions can provide a lower

cost and better alternative to these predatory practices. As

such, NAFCU is pleased that a number of our member credit

unions currently offer remittance services to their members.

Last year, in testimony before the House Financial Services

Subcommittee on Financial Services and Consumer Credit during

a hearing on the issue of regulatory relief for credit unions

on July 20, 2004, NAFCU Board Secretary and Xerox FCU

President & CEO Bill Cheney testified:

``. . . NAFCU supports efforts to allow federal credit

unions to offer check-cashing and money-transfer services to

anyone within the credit union's field of membership. We

believe this new authority, which would be discretionary and

not mandatory, will allow credit unions to help combat abuses

by non-traditional financial institutions that prey on our

nation's immigrants and others who live and work in

underserved communities.''

That statement remains true today. The credit union

industry continues to work on the front line to combat

financial illiteracy and to teach consumers about sound

financial practices. NAFCU believes that H.R. 749 is a good

step forward in creating an alternative to those who have no

choices in traditional financial services.

Thank you for allowing us this opportunity to share our

support for H.R. 749. We hope that the House is able to bring

up and take action on this legislation in a timely manner. If

you or your staff have any questions regarding remittances

abuses and how credit unions can be used to help address

these problems, please do not hesitate to call on me or

NAFCU's Director of Legislative Affairs, Brad Thaler.

Sincerely,

Fred R. Becker, Jr.,

President and CEO.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 749 would allow credit unions to provide lifeline services; that is to say international remittances, wire transfers, and check-cashing services to nonmembers who are within the credit union's field of membership. Now, a credit union is restricted and serves a restricted number of people. Some credit unions are based on employment, and so you may have a credit union that serves the textile workers of Los Angeles. You might have another credit union geographically based that serves the northeast San Fernando Valley. This bill only allows a credit union to serve those who are within its field of membership, who are eligible to become members of a credit union. And it makes good sense to allow those who fit within the field of membership, but are not yet members of the credit union, to get these lifeline services. These lifeline services are often priced very high, whether it be check-cashing on the one hand, or international remittances on the other. And to instead provide additional competition so that credit unions can bring the price of these services down would be very helpful to those at the very bottom of our economic ladder.

As the gentleman from Delaware points out, it also brings people who do not have a relationship with a financial institution into a financial institution. It gives them a chance to move from nonmembers who are making use of the check cashing and remittance services, to members who have a checking account, and then gradually a savings account, a credit history, and a real piece of the American financial pie, if you will; a chance to participate with all of the services that the financial institutions of this country provide.

Now, consumers who are sending remittances now, sometimes they are paying as much as 15 percent of the amount that they plan to send. So if you are sending $300 back to your parents in Mexico, you may spend $45, and this bill will provide additional competition in the international remittance area, where many credit unions providing services to those who are already members often provide these services for only $14 or less per transaction. By bringing people into credit unions, credit unions can do what they do best, and that is serve those who are within their field of membership and begin the process of providing financial education, combating predatory lending, and bringing people into the financial system.

Today, more than 200 credit unions already provide to their members wire transfer services to almost 650 points of service in 40 countries. So the credit unions are well positioned to provide these wire transfer and international remittance services.

In 2003, the Credit Union National Association adopted a group of principles designed to guide their members when providing these international remittance services. They basically say that credit unions should disclose the cost of the transaction in their advertising and brochures and in dealings with the customer, that the credit unions will provide current exchange rate information before conducting the transaction; that they will tell the customer the exact amount of foreign currency to be received by the recipient; and they will tell the sender when the funds will be available to the recipient. These kinds of high principles are important for those in the international remittance business, and to have credit unions more involved in that business and subject to those principles is an important step forward.

As the gentleman from Delaware pointed out, the size of the international remittance business is quite large. In fact, it is estimated at least at $10 billion annually. It is expected to double by the end of this decade, and there are some estimates that place it well above $10 billion annually now.

I should also mention that nearly half of the Latinos in this country do not have an account with a mainstream financial institution, and that is why it is so important in dealing with that immigrant community, as well as other immigrant communities from elsewhere in the world, that we provide this opportunity for credit unions to provide international remittance services.

I should also take a moment to recognize the work of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) who has been the leader in dealing with all of the various aspects of the remittance, international remittance issues, and to recognize my friend, the gentleman from the Inland Empire (Mr. Baca) who provided a clarifying and perfecting amendment to this legislation. I believe that this legislation will help credit unions provide services to those

who need them, will drive down the price of those services, and will introduce people to our financial institutions. I urge an aye vote.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3505) to provide regulatory relief and improve productivity for insured depository institutions, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today the House will consider H.R. 3505, the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act of 2005. H.R. 3505 is intended to alter or eliminate statutory banking provisions to lessen the growing regulatory burden on insured depository institutions as well as make technical corrections to current law.

The bill contains a broad range of constructive provisions that, taken as a whole, will allow banks, thrifts, and credit unions to devote more resources to the business of providing financial services and less to compliance with outdated and unneeded regulations.

While effective regulation of the financial services industry is central to the preservation of public trust, this legislation will benefit consumers and the economy by lowering costs and improving productivity. I want to congratulate Mr. Hensarling, the lead author of the legislation, along with Mr. Moore, who both introduced H.R. 3505 last July.

The bill included virtually all of H.R. 1375, which passed the House in 2004 by a vote of 392-25, plus a new title addressing Bank Secrecy Act issues and over 20 other new sections. Mrs. Capito also deserves recognition for her longstanding support of regulatory relief legislation. Indeed, it was her legislation that passed in 2004.

Following H.R. 3505's introduction, Chairman Bachus held 2 days of legislative hearings by the Financial Institution Subcommittee, with witnesses

from both Federal and State regulatory authorities, the banking thrift and credit union industries, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Last November, the Committee on Financial Services approved H.R. 3505 by a vote of 67-0. The bill was sequentially referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, which approved it last month by a voice vote.

Mr. Speaker, the financial services industry is laboring under an enormous regulatory burden. While many of the regulations are necessary to protect consumers and meet other worthy public policy objectives, a number are clearly burdensome. For this reason, shortly after I assumed the chairmanship of the committee, I asked the financial regulators and industry trade groups to give us their best advice on how we could ease regulatory requirements faced by insured depositories. The goal was to free depository institutions from unduly burdensome regulations so they can better serve their customers and communities.

It was clear then, as it is today, that there also needs to be a counterbalance to the significant compliance responsibilities placed on depository institutions by the USA PATRIOT Act as well as other government efforts to counterterrorist financing. Excessive regulation affects all sectors of the financial services industry and presents the greatest burden for smaller institutions. For small banks to continue to serve their historic role as a financial lifeline for local communities, they must be free to operate in a regulatory environment that does not constrain them with arduous requirements.

H.R. 3505, for instance, includes the following provisions: national banks could more easily operate as subchapter S corporations to avoid double tax on a bank's earnings, as well as choose among different forms of business organizations. Thrift institutions are given some of the same investment, lending and business organization flexibility available to banks. Credit unions would have wider options for investments, lending, mergers and conversions. Regulators are given more latitude in scheduling exams, sharing data, retaining records, and streamlining reports of condition. And clerical and technical amendments are made to several banking statutes.

The bill's title VII, Bank Secrecy Act Compliance Burden Reduction, addresses financial institutions' concerns that some of the work they are being asked to do in the fight against financial crimes is unnecessary or duplicative.

I would like to thank former FinCEN Director Fox, Mr. Hensarling, and Chairman Bachus, as well as Mr. Frank and Mr. Gutierrez, for their efforts in creating this title which balances law enforcement's needs with the industry's very real concerns about excessive burdens.

The first section of title VII focuses on reducing the number of currency transaction reports, or CTRs, that must be filed by institutions on transactions involving large sums of cash, reports that can be extraordinarily useful to law enforcement but which often are filed on obviously unremarkable transactions, such as a deposit by a large discount store. It streamlines the process for exempting institutions from reporting such transactions. Other sections of title VII seek to eliminate inconsistencies or duplicative requirements in conjunction with the filing of suspicious activity reports, or SARS.

Mr. Speaker, the financial services industry spends a great deal of money every year complying with outdated and ineffective regulations. That is money that could instead be lent for new homes, new cars, and new projects, fueling job growth in local communities. The sooner we enact this legislation, the sooner we will provide needed relief to depository institutions and increase financial opportunities for both consumers and businesses. So I urge Members to support passage of H.R. 3505.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly), the chairwoman of the Oversight Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), the author of this legislation.

(Mr. HENSARLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I again reiterate my thanks to the members of the committee for a strong bipartisan vote and a very good effort. We are encouraged now on the other side of the Capitol that they have had their hearing, and Senator Crapo and others are working towards the same goal as the House is, and we expect that bill to pass today.

I particularly thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor) for crafting a very key compromise amendment with the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), dealing with the ILCs, one of the tougher issues that the committee has had to deal with over some time, and yet that compromise has stood the test of time, and I congratulate particularly Mr. Gillmor and Mr. Frank for their diligence on that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank Chairman Oxley for his great commitment to this legislation and his critical leadership in tackling this important topic lo these many years. And I also want to thank Chairman Bachus for his outstanding leadership on the subcommittee level. And finally, I want to thank the ranking member (Mr. Frank of Massaschusetts) and the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore) for their bipartisan efforts in ensuring that we help reduce the regulatory burden on our Nation's financial institutions.

With thoughtful regulatory relief, Congress can free up more capital for small businesses and families. Excessive, redundant, costly regulations can make credit more expensive and less accessible. These regulations can keep Americans from obtaining their first mortgage, buying their first car, financing a child's education, or starting a small business that creates needed new jobs.

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Federal regulatory burden falls particularly disproportionately on our smaller banks and credit unions. For example, the total number of small community banks has declined by almost a third in just one decade. Now, I am sure there are a number of reasons for all of these consolidations and mergers that have taken place, but from speaking to folks in my home State of Texas, certainly the burden and cost of Federal regulation rank among the top reasons, and certainly one of the top challenges to their continued profitability and their continued viability.

Furthermore, since 1989, bank regulators have promulgated over 850 new regulations. That is about 50 new regulations a year. Can we really expect our small, community-based financial institutions to keep up with this pace? I do not believe we can, and I do not believe we should.

This is worrisome because I believe it is these small, independent financial institutions that continue to be the economic lifeblood of many of our rural communities and a number of our inner-city neighborhoods. Let me offer one example from my home congressional district, First State Bank of Athens, Texas. This bank makes 50 to 75 charitable contributions each year to community groups in Henderson County, Texas, the American Heart Association, Meals on Wheels, Disabled

American Veterans, and the East Texas Arboretum, to name a few. This bank has funded a local employer, Texas Ragtime, that has 90 employees, not to mention the jobs that they helped create at Nelson's Henderson County Door and Futurematrix Medical Devices. Last year they made 503 small business loans and an additional 314 small agricultural loans.

Yet we need to know that with burdensome regulatory compliance, every dollar they spend on regulatory compliance is a dollar they cannot spend on Meals on Wheels or to create new jobs at Ragtime. The same is true for every other small financial institution across our Nation. We in Congress can never lose sight of this fact.

This same bank in Athens, Texas, like thousands across the Nation, spends close to half a million dollars a year combined each year on BSA compliance, Reg B, Reg E, Reg D, CRA, HMDA, HOEPA, Reg O, Reg X, and Reg Z, just to name a few.

If Congress cannot determine a compelling reason for any existing regulation in a modern marketplace, I believe we have a duty to modify or eliminate that regulation.

Now, I am particularly pleased about the relief this bill offers for currency transaction reports. Unfortunately, the environment we are in today has led many banks to file their CTRs, cash transaction reports, and their suspicious activity reports in a highly defensive manner. Under this legislation I believe the majority of the 13 million-plus CTRs filed annually would stop, saving many, many hours and many, many thousands of dollars in savings in filling out these forms. This would also, perhaps more importantly, allow our law enforcement officials to better direct resources and help properly evaluate the suspicious activity reports, and thus better fight crime and terrorist financing.

Mr. Speaker, finally, this bill has received rare unanimous support when it was reported out of the Committee on Financial Services. It represents the hard work of Members on both sides of the aisle. I do believe that this bill will provide substantive regulatory relief for our financial institutions, and that will put more money, more capital, in the hands of those on the front lines of community lending and help American families realize their dreams.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 749, the Expanded Access to Financial Services Act of 2005. I do so as the proud representative of Hawai`i's Second District, in which our nation's credit unions have a long and rich history, and as one of my Hawai`i's 742,000 credit union members.

H.R. 749 will allow credit unions to provide expanded services to both members and non-members otherwise eligible for membership. These expanded services include the issuance of travelers' checks and money orders, and electronic funds transfers.

Most specifically, this bill, if signed into law, will in part enable many more of our citizens to transfer money overseas to family members and others with greater ease, thereby assisting our personal and financial interests. For it is a fact that our country is facing its highest level of immigration since the Depression era, with over 28.4 million foreign-born individuals residing in the United States.

My Hawai`i is no exception. According to the most recent Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Hawai`i, with 17.9 percent, has the fourth-largest percentage of foreign-born residents in the United States.

An overwhelming majority of Hawai`i's foreign-born population is from Asia. According to the Susannah Wesley Community Center, a private, nonprofit agency contracted by the State of Hawai`i to provide immigrant services, Hawai`i's largest immigrant population--fifty percent of all incoming immigrants--hails from the Philippines. It is crucial to these populations and others that our financial institutions provide quick, efficient, and economical means by which monies may be transferred to their countries of origin and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, our nation's financial infrastructure has been slow to offer such services, especially in the less urbanized and rural parts of our country such as my district where our credit unions have long filled an important community-based financial services function. As a result, there is a growing population of ``unbanked'' individuals, particularly immigrants, and a costly and inefficient money transfer process.

The World Council of Credit Unions, along with the Credit Union National Association, offer credit unions a remittance product called the International Remittance Network (IRnet). IRnet is an electronic funds transfer service providing credit union members a safe and inexpensive way to send money overseas and domestically, and provides service to over 40 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe, including the Philippines, Mexico, and Australia.

IRnet significantly decreases the costs for individuals to transfer funds overseas. Over the past four years, the advent of IRnet and enhanced competition among our financial institutions offering money transfer services has driven down remittance costs for consumers. The average cost today of sending $300 to Mexico is between $13 and $14, or 4-5 percent of the amount sent, compared to the average cost four years ago, which was between $30 and $32, or 10-11 percent.

This legislation will expand the range and number of people eligible for the use of IRnet and thereby lower the costs paid by the consumer for these services through increased competition within the marketplace. In the process, it will also encourage a larger number of our newly-arrived citizens and residents to utilize our credit unions and other financial services.

H.R. 749 will not harm or otherwise risk our country's financial or monetary security, as IRnet utilizes real-time monitoring of transactions against the Specially Designated Names, SDN, list from the Office of Foreign Asset Control. What this bill will do again is to help more people in our communities with more and better ways to provide for their personal and economic needs and obligations overseas while preserving basic homeland security protections.

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague from Pennsylvania, Mr. Gerlach, for introducing this bill. I look forward to working with him and our nation's invaluable credit unions to see this measure through into law.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman Oxley and Ranking Member Frank for supporting H.R. 3505 and ensuring its consideration on the House floor today. I would also like to thank Congressman Hensarling for working with me to introduce the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act. The Financial Services Committee has a strong record of bipartisanship, and I am glad that has extended to this bill. Regulatory relief should not be about Republicans or Democrats; it should be about doing the right thing for the lenders in our communities who play such an important part in expanding home ownership and creating opportunities for businesses and for consumers.

Our committee passed this legislation November by a vote of 67-0, and with this being the last year of his chairmanship, I wish to thank particularly Chairman Mike Oxley for working across party lines and forging the kind of consensus that led to a unanimous vote in our committee. This is really the model for how Congress should operate and demonstrates that bipartisan efforts on behalf of our constituents can yield positive results. During the 108th Congress, the House passed a very similar reg-relief bill by a vote of 392-25. I hope the House will pass this bill by a similarly wide margin.

Mr. Speaker, small lenders in our communities particularly feel the burden of duplicative and unnecessary regulations. Whenever Congress or the regulatory agencies impose a new burden on industry, small institutions must devote a large percentage of their staffs' time to review the new law or regulation to determine if it can and how it will affect them. Compliance with new laws and regulations, while necessary, nearly always takes a large amount of time that businesses can't devote to serving their customers and our constituents.

Strong regulation of our country's financial system is absolutely essential, but Congress and the financial regulators have a responsibility to strike the right balance in this area, and I believe H.R. 3505 is an important step in the right direction. Since coming to Congress, I have heard from many depository institutions in my district and throughout Kansas. I have tried to address in H.R. 3505 some of the concerns that I have heard about.

According to the Office of the State Bank Commissioner in Kansas, assets for four State-chartered banks, thrifts and mortgage lenders have reached an all-time high of approximately $29 billion. As these businesses have prospered, so too have they faced increasing requirements to comply with both old and new regulatory burdens, including some created by the Bank Secrecy Act.

H.R. 3505, Mr. Speaker, seeks to provide relief from some of these new burdens to our financial institutions in a way that preserves our ability to effectively track terrorist financing and build upon our successes in freezing the funds of terrorists. Representative Hensarling and I, together with the bill's 39 bipartisan cosponsors and 67 supporters on the Financial Services Committee, agree that waging a strong war on terror and providing some reg relief to our financial institutions are not incompatible goals.

Additionally, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3505 provides two new sections of reg relief for our credit unions that were not included in the previous version of this measure, H.R. 1375.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I want to thank Mr. Hensarling, who was not here when I thanked Members, and I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to work with him.

I also would like to thank the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Bachus, and thank the chairman of the full committee, Chairman Oxley.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.