FIRM Act

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

Mr. Speaker, let me start by saying that we all care about community banks and credit unions.

For that reason, I was pleased to work with Chair Hill on a package of community bank provisions included in our landmark housing bill, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

Now, even though Trump refused to sign it, that legislation has become the law of the land. That law not only will get America back in the business of

building housing, but it will help community lenders provide mortgages and other types of financing to support the American Dream of homeownership.

Importantly, that bill did not have handouts. It did not have handouts for megabanks, Big Tech, payday lenders, debt collectors, or credit bureaus. That is not the case for the bill that is before us today.

H.R. 6955 is Wall Street deregulation--that is what it is--hiding as a community bank bill. This package is made up of 24 Republican bills with just two Democratic bills.

Today, we mark the 16th anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act being signed into law. That is the law that bears the name of the late great and former Chairman Barney Frank. Unlike President Trump, President Obama knew when to sign a good bill when he saw it.

That law was passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis when, in case my Republican colleagues have forgotten, millions of Americans lost their jobs, their homes, and their life savings.

Yet, H.R. 6955 ignores these lessons and rolls back a long list of safeguards and oversight of the largest banks. Importantly, the Nation is grappling with an affordability crisis and surge in financial scams and fraud, costing consumers tens of billions of dollars. This was all made worse when Trump shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Voting for H.R. 6955 would add insult to injury by thwarting a future CFPB from issuing rules, such as fixing credit reporting or reining in debt collectors or abusive medical debt practices. Maybe that is the point.

Interestingly, Rules Committee Chairwoman Foxx said the quiet part out loud yesterday. She confessed that Republicans love deregulation. That is what this bill is all about. It is not affordability and not protecting consumers. It is about deregulation for Wall Street's megabanks.

Mr. Speaker, what is more is that this bill ignores lessons from the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and other regional banks just 3 years ago. Those large regional banks failed after Congress rolled back capital, liquidity, and other rules specifically for those banks.

Nevertheless, this bill allows even more of these large banks to escape critical safeguards, which risks even more failures and harm to Americans and small businesses.

If H.R. 6955 were to become law, it would be the most sweeping deregulation of Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis.

Two sections of the bill, sections 203 and 204, amend 15 different banking and consumer protection laws and would increase more than 40 different regulatory thresholds. There are so many laws being rolled back. The committee report for this bill is over 600 pages long, mostly to show how all these different laws are amended.

In fact, the sponsors of this bill were so zealous to raise thresholds that they increased two thresholds that will aid bad actors who commit fraud against a bank or a large financial institution.

You can't make this up. There is a provision that will increase the amount that individuals can defraud a bank or future AIG by and then get government money to buy those failed assets for their own benefit.

The largest labor union in the U.S., the AFL-CIO, and consumer advocates like Americans for Financial Reform and others wrote a letter saying that taken together, these changes would be more damaging than the sum of their parts, leaving the financial system dramatically weaker and more vulnerable to instability and crisis.

Now, Republicans made some technical changes at the request of Trump regulators, but let me give you another example of what they didn't fix.

Wells Fargo, which many of you may remember created millions of fake consumer accounts and has been the subject of countless enforcement actions for consumer harm, like discrimination and anti-money- laundering deficiency, would have a new tool to delay future enforcement actions when consumers have been harmed.

Mr. Speaker, instead of letting Wall Street put Americans and our economy at risk again, we should be addressing the affordability crisis caused by Trump's failed economic policies and endless war with Iran.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the ranking member of the Committee on Small Business.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York.

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

Let me be clear: Dodd-Frank has not led to bank consolidation. That trend began when Congress repealed Glass-Steagall almost 30 years ago. What Dodd-Frank has done is ensure the longest stretch of economic growth in a generation. The threat to community banks is not Dodd- Frank, but it is to repeal it and return to their needless days, reckless days that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

Just last week, we passed my bill as part of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. My bill eased the requirements on new banks. H.R. 6955, however, would set new banks up for failure. In fact, the bill undermines much of what we were trying to accomplish when we worked together in a bipartisan way.

What we have to do at this point in time is understand a provision of the housing bill that was carefully negotiated. Mr. Speaker, I thought we all were supposed to be in support of the housing bill. Everybody raved about the greatness of it. Now, 10 days after it became law, now some on the opposite side of the aisle are already trying to undo the bill.

Now, this bill will actually make it easier for more, not less consolidation. The bill is bad for new banks but great for megabanks.

Let me just say this: We all talk about loving community banks. I want you to know it is not the talk about loving community banks, it is action and what we do for or against them. I want you to know the big megabanks don't even want them in their doors. They don't even want to have those working behind the counter serving us. They have you serving from outside the bank.

When you can get in touch with them, I want you to know, you have got to go through a hell of a menu to try to talk with someone that maybe in a community bank you can talk to.

Do you know why we love community banks? It is because they understand the community. They know the people in the community. They work with you when you have a problem.

The megabanks don't know you, don't care about you, don't do anything to assist you, and hope you can't get through their menus in order to speak with anybody.

I say, it is not a lot of talk about loving community banks. It is action and what you do.

Now, then you come in here talking about how much you love the community banks, yet you know that you can't get the deregulation that you are doing unless you hid behind the community banks. If you love the community banks, all you have got to do is work with us to separate the regulations in a way that it does not undermine the community banks.

If you want to be fair, charge all your big friends and all the big banks everything they should be charged with regulation.

This is about whether or not you are going to use your power to literally undo what we have worked so hard to do to give the average person a decent chance with a bank, and that is community banks.

Mr. Speaker, I am asking for a ``no'' vote on this bill because, in the final analysis, I know that if you get away with these deregulations, we are going to have consolidation. It will only be five banks, almost only five big banks in the country that control everything. I am asking for a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Garcia), who is a big supporter of community banks.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time for each side is remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will mention again one of the atrocities that I have been able to experience working on these issues.

Again, Wells Fargo was fined $3.7 billion just a few years ago for widespread mismanagement of automobile loans and mortgages. Their actions included unlawful fees and even repossession of cars.

Now, someone would say, $3.7 billion, well, I want you to know they make so much money that is just a cost of doing business. They will keep doing it if we keep allowing them to get away with what they are trying to get away with today.

If my friend wants a guarantee that this bill helps Wells Fargo, then he should support Ms. Garcia's amendment that says that megabanks can't benefit from this bill, but I guess he won't.

After all, my friend knows that today is Dodd-Frank's birthday, and he is the skunk at the party. There is so much that we could point out that the average citizen knows in dealing with their banks. The average citizen is tired of being treated in the way that they are treated by their banks.

I tell my friend that he is correct in the support that he did for the big bill that Mr. Hill and I worked so hard on. We have a lot in that bill.

But let me point out one of the things in that bill that gives us cause to be concerned. Right now, Mr. Speaker, if you find a residence that you would like to buy, particularly if you are in a rural community, or you may be a low-income community, but you work every day and you can afford a house for maybe $90,000 to $100,000, the bank doesn't want to be bothered with you. The bank wants the big loans. The bank wants the million-dollar loans. They want the half-billion-dollar mortgages. They don't want the small mortgages.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker. They don't do them.

As a matter of fact, many communities where there are residents who could afford the houses in their community are sold out to private equity firms and others who come and buy these houses for pennies on the dollar, but they won't sell them to you, Mr. Speaker, because you don't look like a big profitmaker for them.

I am so pleased I worked with Mr. Hill, and we have done something to change that to encourage the banks to pay attention to those who can afford that $90,000 house, that $100,000 house, that $150,000 house, that $200,000 house. They are working every day. They can afford it, but the banks are not interested.

My friend tells me that we should not be concerned about deregulation that puts these banks in a position where they are not only moving toward consolidation, but they are taking over banking in ways that will help them to get richer and richer.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker. They will keep paying the fines, the big banks will, because that is the cost of doing business, and they still make money. This is outrageous. This is ridiculous.

No more deregulation. No more looking at how you can frame it in such a way, Mr. Speaker, that you are saving the community banks. Mr. Speaker, you are not saving the community banks. As a matter of fact, you are putting them out of business.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, proponents say this bill is just for community banks, but here we have another example of the Big Banks sneaking in their rollbacks.

I have four postings from the Bank Policy Institute, which represents all of the largest banks, like Wells Fargo. These postings advocate for indexing regulatory thresholds to nominal GDP instead of inflation. Why? It allows more and more banks to escape regulatory scrutiny.

This bill will give Trump's regulators--and only Trump's regulators-- the opportunity to index 40 different thresholds to let large banks off the hook. Wall Street is making record profits while they are helping them.

Mr. Speaker, for those of us who really care about community banks, we want to keep them because they service their communities in a more profound way. Again, I will repeat: They know and understand when you have a problem, you can call a big bank and you will find nobody. You will go through different menus that they have, but you will not be able to walk into the bank and talk to somebody sitting at a desk who will help you with your problem. Do I have to say more?

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

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

Mr. Speaker, a wide variety of labor, consumer, and civil rights groups are strongly opposed to this bill. Let me read from one of the letters we received: ``The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) and our network of 700+ community organizations urge Members to oppose H.R. 6955, the Main Street Capital Access Act and vote no on the House floor.''

That is what we are being urged to do by our supporters.

``H.R. 6955 is a broad bank deregulation package that would weaken fair lending transparency, community accountability, bank supervision, and merger review. The bill would reduce the tools regulators and communities rely on to detect redlining, monitor access to credit, evaluate bank mergers, prevent harmful consolidation, and hold financial institutions accountable to the people they serve.''

The signers of the letters don't just come from blue States but from all over the United States of America. This includes Build WyCo from the great State of Kansas. We also have Building Neighborhoods Together in Pennsylvania, Fair Housing Center of Northern Alabama, and Freedom Equity in Ohio. More signers include Georgia Advancing Communities Together, the Neighborhood Recovery Community Development Corporation in Texas, and the United States Broadway Corporation in New Mexico.

I could go on and on, but there is no time for that.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the letter from NCRC.

National Community Reinvestment Coalition

July 21, 2026.

Re Oppose H.R. 6955, the Main Street Capital Access Act.

Hon. Hakeem Jeffries,

Democratic Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Katherine Clark,

Democratic Whip, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Pete Aguilar,

Chair, House Democratic Caucus, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Leader Jeffries, Whip Clark, Chair Aguilar, and

Members of Democratic Leadership: The National Community

Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) and our network of 700+

community organizations urge Members to oppose H.R. 6955, the

Main Street Capital Access Act and vote no on the House

floor.

H.R. 6955 is a broad bank deregulation package that would

weaken fair lending transparency, community accountability,

bank supervision and merger review. The bill would reduce the

tools regulators and communities rely on to detect redlining,

monitor access to credit, evaluate bank mergers, prevent

harmful consolidation and hold financial institutions

accountable to the people they serve.

NCRC appreciates the inclusion of CDFI-related provisions,

including CDFI Fund transparency and CDFI Bond Guarantee

Program improvements. However, those revisions do not fix the

bill's core problem: H.R. 6955 moves federal banking policy

in the wrong direction by weakening community accountability,

fair-lending transparency, merger review and supervisory

safeguards.

Earlier this year, NCRC urged a no vote when H.R. 6955 was

considered in committee. All Democratic members who were

present voted no in Committee: We urge you to continue that

opposition and vote no on the House floor.

1. H.R. 6955 would sharply limit monopoly and competition

review for mergers involving roughly 96 percent of all

banks.

Section 601 would prohibit federal banking regulators when

evaluating many mergers resulting in institutions below $10

billion in assets from engaging in a competition review and

thus they cannot consider whether the mergers would create

monopolies or substantially lessen competition. The latest

floor version preserves competition review where a

transaction would leave only one insured depository

institution with a physical presence in the area. This narrow

exception does not solve the problem and protects only

against the most extreme case, while preventing regulators

from reviewing many mergers that could still substantially

reduce competition, reduce branch access, or weaken small-

business, agricultural and consumer credit options in local

markets.

Because roughly 4,129 of the nation's 4,287 insured banks

(or approximately 96 percent) hold under $10 billion in

assets, this carveout would cover a large share of community

and regional bank merger activity. The problem is especially

acute in rural counties and smaller local markets. A merger

between two banks that are not nationally large can still

have significant local consequences. In many communities, the

loss of one local institution can mean fewer branches,

reduced small-business lending, less agricultural credit,

weaker customer service, and fewer banking choices.

NCRC conducted an analysis of every US county to assess the

impact of potential mergers between the two largest banks in

each county, with their combined assets being under $10

billion. NCRC found that 641 counties, predominantly rural,

would shift from competitive markets to highly concentrated

markets. In ten counties, one bank would control 100 percent

of all local deposits. According to the FDIC's Merger

Decisions Annual Report to Congress (2024), regulators

approved 61 regular bank-merger applications in 2023. Of

those, 57 out of the 61 would have resulted in institutions

less than $10 billion. Under H.R. 6955, many comparable

transactions would fall within the bill's competition-review

safe harbor, unless the narrow one-physical-depository-

institution MSA exception applied.

2. H.R. 6955 would weaken CRA, HMDA and fair lending

accountability

Section 204 would substantially reduce the tools

communities rely on to ensure fair access to credit and hold

banks accountable to local needs. The floor version no longer

uses the same mechanics as the committee-reported bill, but

the core concern remains: Section 204 would create an

automatic increase for statutory thresholds across consumer

and community-focused laws, including the Community

Reinvestment Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.

Beginning in 2031 and every five years after that, Section

204 would require the Federal Reserve to raise the dollar

cutoffs in laws like CRA and HMDA that determine which banks

are subject to stronger reporting, examination and

accountability rules. The Fed would decide whether to base

those increases on nominal GDP or inflation.

That is the wrong test for community accountability.

Nominal GDP measures the size of the overall economy, while

CPI measures inflation. Neither one measures whether banks

are serving communities fairly, the rates of redlining, the

extent of market concentration, have sufficient data to

detect discrimination, and whether credit needs in LMI

communities are being met. A larger economy does not mean

community needs are being met.

The same problem applies to inflation indexing. Adjusting

thresholds for CPI may sound technical or even routine, but

in this context, this approach would still cause fair-lending

transparency to shrink automatically over time without any

finding that communities are being served fairly.

For NCRC and our members, the HMDA and CRA implications are

especially serious. HMDA data is one of the primary tools

used to detect redlining, evaluate whether lenders are

serving borrowers and neighborhoods fairly, and identify gaps

in mortgage access. CRA examinations are one of the few

mechanisms that require banks to demonstrate that they are

meeting the credit needs of their entire communities,

including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

3. H.R. 6955 would compress merger review and sideline

community evidence

Section 604 would set a fixed 120-day clock for certain

applications, beginning at the time of filing even if the

submission is incomplete. If the Federal Reserve fails to act

within that period, the application would be deemed granted.

That is a dangerous standard for complex bank transactions.

Merger review should focus on whether a transaction will

serve the convenience and needs of affected communities,

preserve access to banking services, protect consumers and

avoid harmful concentration. It should not be driven by an

artificial clock that rewards incomplete applications and

pressures regulators to approve deals quickly.

Section 604 would also restrict how regulators treat

information from outside parties when determining whether an

application is complete, potentially discounting community

and consumer evidence that is often essential to

understanding a transaction's

real-world impact. Community groups, local officials, small

businesses and affected residents are often able to identify

branch closure risks, fair lending concerns, weak CRA

performance or service gaps that are not evident from the

applicant's own submission.

4. H.R. 6955 focuses on how long merger approval takes,

instead of whether mergers benefit local economies.

Section 603 directs the Inspector General of each Federal

depository institution regulatory agency to conduct a study

every three years on the ``timeliness and efficiency'' of

merger approvals, including number of days it takes to

process merger applications and the identification of

``sources of delay.'' Merger applications warrant scrutiny to

evaluate their effect on each of the statutorily required

factors of review, including how a proposed combination will

serve the convenience and needs of the affected communities.

Studies show signs of decreased small business lending after

mergers, as well as lower rates paid to customers for

deposits. However, despite this evidence, practically all

merger applications are currently approved. Local economic

needs would be much better served by directing the agencies

to study the actual impacts of mergers and bank

consolidation, instead of counting days to pressure

regulators to make decisions faster.

Furthermore, concerns about the timeliness of merger

reviews appear to be unfounded. NCRC analyzed the approval

times of 18 merger applications submitted to the OCC in 2024.

As shown in the table below, we found that the median days

for approval after receipt of an application was 60 days, and

that the average was 84 days. In other words, about half of

these applications were approved 30 days after the end of a

30-day public comment period.

5. H.R. 6955 would pressure regulators to ignore reputational

risk

Section 304 would pressure federal banking agencies to

remove reputational risk from supervision. This provision is

framed as preventing regulators from using vague concepts to

pressure banks, but the practical effect would be to create

blind spots.

Reputational risk is not simply ``bad press.'' It can be a

warning sign of deeper institutional failures: predatory

lending, discriminatory treatment, abusive fees, money

laundering, fraud, weak compliance systems or repeated

consumer complaints. Regulators should not be forced to

ignore patterns of harm merely because those patterns also

damage a bank's reputation.

Communities often experience these harms before they show

up as capital problems. If regulators are barred from

considering reputational risk, they may lose an important

early-warning tool for identifying conduct that threatens

consumers, communities and the institution itself.

Congress should reject H.R. 6955

The bill's supporters argue that H.R. 6955 will help local

banks. What the bill actually does is weaken fair lending

transparency, reduce CRA and HMDA accountability, make bank

mergers easier, limit meaningful community input, and make

supervision more difficult.

NCRC is especially concerned that fair lending, CRA, HMDA

and consumer protection requirements are recast as regulatory

burdens rather than public accountability tools. These laws

exist because markets have not reliably served all

communities fairly. They help identify discrimination, credit

gaps, support enforcement, and ensure that banks receiving

public benefits meet public obligations.

For these reasons, we urge Members to oppose H.R. 6955 and

vote ``no'' on final passage.

Sincerely,

Jesse Van Tol,

President and CEO,

National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

Sign On Organizations and States

ACHD--Washington, ASIAN, Inc.--California, Brighton Park

Neighborhood Council--Illinois, Build WyCo--Kansas, Building

Neighborhoods Together, Inc.--Pennsylvania, California

Coalition for Rural Housing--California, CASA of Oregon--

Oregon, Ceiba--Pennsylvania, Community Development Network of

Maryland--Maryland, Community Housing Development

Corporation--California, Delaware Community Reinvestment

Action Council Inc.--Delaware, Development Finance Authority

of Summit County--Ohio, Economic Action Maryland Fund--

Maryland, Fair Finance Watch--New York, Fair Housing Center

of Northern Alabama--Alabama, Freedom Equity Inc.--Ohio,

Georgia Advancing Communities Together, Inc.--Georgia.

Help The People Programs, Inc--Georgia, Homes on the Hill

CDC--Ohio, Housing Education and Economic Development

(HEED)--Mississippi, Impact Hub Baltimore Inc.--Maryland,

Long Island Housing Services, Inc.--New York, Neighborhood

Recovery Community Development Corporation--Texas, New Jersey

Citizen Action--New Jersey, People's Opportunity Fund--

California, Philadelphia Association of Community Development

Corporations--Pennsylvania, Proud Ground--Oregon, Rural

Housing Coalition of New York--New York, South Dallas Fair

Park Innercity Community Development Corporation--Texas,

Southwest Community Development Corporation--Pennsylvania,

TCH Development Inc--Texas, United Ballot--Louisiana, United

South Broadway Corporation--New Mexico, Utah Housing

Coalition--Utah, Women's Economic Ventures--California.

Members have a choice today. Whose side are you on? Do you want to advance Donald Trump's deregulatory agenda to help out his wealthy friends on Wall Street, or are you on the side of working families, labor unions, consumers, and civil rights groups like those all over the country who just want equal and fair access to affordable financial products and services?

For many of you who have been in this struggle with banks, where you have tried to get help with all kinds of issues, I want you to, again, go to your bank where you have a problem--don't go because they are only available on the phone--and state your problem. See who you can get to talk to. See if you can get an appointment. See if you can get some answers to the questions that you have.

You can't do this with these big mega banks. They don't have time for you. They don't have time to listen to you talking about how you only have $200,000 and you want to buy this House around the corner. They are not interested in that.

They are interested in the big money. They are interested in not only providing the loans for those who are spending a half million or so on a bank that they are trying to use to get a house.

It is clear: The Big Banks are sick and tired of the way that they are being treated. They know they have a lot of power and a lot of friends in the Congress of the United States of America.

They don't know a new day is coming and a new way is coming. People are learning more and more why they have a right to be disturbed about the way that they are being treated.

I tell people: Don't be afraid to confront those Big Banks. Call us. Get your legislator to help you out. That is what we are supposed to do. Sometimes they can't find us.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have another letter that says: ``This dangerous bank deregulation package would undermine core safeguards and supervision, push risk into the shadows, and make the next publicly financed bailout more likely. Further deregulation is especially alarming at a time when financial regulatory agencies are under political attack, pursuing industry-friendly agendas, and starved of resources, and when there is effectively no oversight of financial markets.''

It was signed by the AFL-CIO, Americans for Financial Reform, and dozens of others.

Mr. Speaker, I include this letter in the Record.

July 21, 2026.

Re Oppose bank deregulation package H.R. 6955, the Main

Street Capital Access Act or the Main Street Act.

Hon. Member of Congress,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative: The 28 undersigned labor, civil

rights, democracy, consumer, housing, economic justice, and

public interest advocacy organizations are writing to oppose

H.R. 6955, the Main Street Capital Access Act or the Main

Street Act. This dangerous bank deregulation package would

undermine core safeguards and supervision, push risk into the

shadows, and make the next publicly financed bailout more

likely. Further deregulation is especially alarming at a time

when financial regulatory agencies are under political

attack, pursuing industry-friendly agendas, and starved of

resources, and when there is effectively no oversight of

financial markets.

H.R. 6955 treats bank rules as burdens to be minimized

rather than what they are: essential safeguards that reduce

the likelihood and severity of systemic risk, bank failures,

and publicly financed bailouts, while protecting consumers

from predatory practices, redlining, and other forms of

racial discrimination in lending.

Sections 201-204 would raise statutory thresholds, extend

``tailoring'' well beyond genuinely small and simple banks,

and hard-wire automatic future threshold increases. As a

result, fewer institutions, activities, and risks would

remain within baseline guardrails even as the financial

system grows more complex and interconnected. The combined

effect would be higher leverage and risk-taking, thinner

cushions against losses, and weaker prudential standards. It

would return the financial system to a pre-2008 pattern in

which risk migrates out of view, problems build for years at

midsize and large institutions, and the public is left

holding the bag when those institutions fail.

Sections 201-204 would raise statutory thresholds, expand

``tailoring'' well beyond genuinely small and simple banks,

and hard-wire automatic future threshold increases. As a

result, fewer institutions, activities, and risks would

remain inside baseline guardrails even as the system grows

more complex and interconnected. The combined effect is to

encourage higher leverage and risk-taking, thinner cushions

of safety, and looser prudential standards. It would return

the financial system to a pre-2008 pattern where risk

migrates out of view, problems build for years at midsize and

large institutions, and the public is left holding the bag

when things break.

The supervision and governance provisions in Sections 301-

304 and 401-403 would tie regulators' hands by narrowing what

examiners may consider, slowing supervisory action, and

giving banks more opportunities to appeal, contest, and delay

findings. At the same time, the bill would weaken

transparency and accountability, making it harder to detect

problems early and intervene before they turn into crises.

The competition and merchant banking provisions in Sections

601, 604, and 801 would add new stress points by accelerating

bank-fintech/crypto arrangements, and making it easier to

rubber stamp mergers and concentration--while expanding

merchant banking des that blur the line between banking and

commerce and increase conflicts of interest and complexity.

This radical legislation would compound an already

aggressive deregulatory spree at the Federal Reserve and

other banking agencies. Taken together, these changes would

be more damaging than the sum of their parts, leaving the

financial system dramatically weaker and more vulnerable to

instability and crisis. The provisions discussed below show

how H.R. 6955 would magnify ongoing agency deregulation and

dismantle safeguards needed to identify and contain risks

before they harm families, the financial system, and the

broader economy.

Section by section concerns

Sec. 201. Taking Account of Institutions with Low Operation

Risk.

This section would significantly weaken financial

regulation by mandating that agencies prioritize reducing

compliance costs for financial institutions over protecting

consumers and ensuring financial stability. The section would

create fertile ground for even large banks to challenge

regulations in court by claiming undue burden, potentially

overturning existing Dodd-Frank rules and hindering future

regulatory actions. Regulators already tailor rules based on

institution size and risk, which makes this legislation

unnecessary and potentially harmful by creating additional

legal and procedural barriers to effective oversight.

Sec. 202. Small Bank Holding Company Relief.

This section would double title consolidated asset

threshold under the Small Bank Holding Company and Savings

and Loan Holding Company Policy Statement from $3 billion to

$6 billion, posing risks to subsidiary small banks and the

financial system. This change would allow a broader range of

bank holding companies to operate with higher levels of debt

and be exempt from certain capital and leverage requirements,

particularly in order to facilitate mergers. The Federal

Reserve has long recognized that bank holding companies

should ``serve as a source of strength for their subsidiary

banks.'' Allowing parent holding companies to operate with

higher levels of debt would undermine that principle and,

instead of ``a source of strength,'' holding companies may

even drain the resources of the subsidiary banks in order to

service excessive debt. By allowing larger institutions to

operate under looser standards, this section could

dangerously incentivize increased leverage, reduce bank

safety and soundness, and accelerate bank consolidation.

Additionally, this threshold has already been eroded over the

past decade, raising it from $500 million to $1 billion in

2014, and again to $3 billion in 2018.

Sec. 203. Tailoring and Indexing Enhanced Regulations.

This section would establish automatic increases to asset

thresholds for enhanced prudential oversight every five

years, allowing problems to fester unaddressed in

increasingly large institutions that could have significant

systemic implications. The failures of Silicon Valley Bank

and First Republic demonstrate the danger of mechanically

raising asset thresholds--the last round of tailoring reduced

scrutiny of institutions whose failures ultimately required

extraordinary government intervention.

Sec. 204. Community Bank Regulatory Tailoring.

Under the pretext of relief for community banks, this

section would rewrite a wide swath of federal banking,

consumer financial protection, and fair lending laws by

mandating automatic increases of a broad range of statutory

thresholds every five years based on inflation or nominal

economic growth. The practical effect would be to steadily

and broadly expand the number and size of banks that are

excluded from regulatory oversight. The threshold increases

would inappropriately reduce compliance under statutes that

were designed for genuinely smaller and simpler banking

institutions with limited systemic footprint, and would

happen without any determination as to whether the affected

exemptions remain appropriate, whether the institutions have

become more complex or interconnected, or whether raising the

thresholds would create new supervisory gaps. Over time, this

section would reduce the number of institutions and

activities subject to baseline guardrails, weaken

transparency, increase conflicts of interest, and blunt early

warning and accountability tools embedded in the Federal

Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) framework. At a time of

overlapping risks, this kind of across-the-board threshold

inflation is likely to lead to supervisory and regulatory

gaps and obscure risk from view until it is too late--all

simply because the economy has grown or prices increased. The

result would be a banking system that is more opaque and less

resilient when conditions worsen--increasing financial

fragility and the probability that losses will need to be

socialized through emergency interventions or outright

bailouts.

Importantly, the automatic increases of supervisory

thresholds would include--and thus periodically erode--Home

Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) coverage and Community

Reinvestment Act (CRA) applicability, undermining fair

lending accountability and weakening critical tools that help

detect and deter redlining and other forms of racial

discrimination in mortgage and small business lending.

Sec. 301. Halting Uncertain Methods and Practices in

Supervision.

This section would undermine effective bank supervision by

restricting the CAMELS rating system to ``objective''

criteria only, sidelining important qualitative factors like

management quality and reputational risk. These factors are

essential in identifying and deterring harmful practices,

such as predatory lending, money laundering, and risky

environmental exposures. While not easily quantifiable, sound

management and public confidence have repeatedly proven vital

to bank stability, as evidenced by failures like Riggs Bank,

SVB, and Credit Suisse. The proposed changes would not

eliminate risk but would instead conceal real risks from

regulators, making supervision more mechanical and increasing

the likelihood of future financial crises.

Sec. 302. Fair Audits and Inspections for Regulators' Exams.

This section would significantly weaken bank supervision by

allowing bank to appeal any supervisory determination to a

new external ``Office of Independent Examination Review,''

which would conduct a de novo review without deference to the

original findings. This additional appeals process, layered

atop existing mechanisms, would enable banks, especially

large banks, to challenge numerous supervisory findings,

thereby impeding effective oversight. Such changes would

undermine the post-2008 financial crisis regulatory

framework, increasing systemic risks and exposing the public

to potential abuses. Robust supervision is necessary to

maintain financial stability and protect consumers, and this

section undermines it.

Addidonally, this section now includes new language that

would also allow banks, credit unions, executives, and other

institution-affiliated parties to move certain enforcement

and civil penalty proceedings from the appropriate regulator

to federal district court. This would give regulated firms

another avenue to delay and complicate enforcement,

increasing litigation costs and weakening regulators' ability

to address misconduct and unsafe practices promptly.

Sec. 304. Financial Integrity and Regulation Management.

This section would open the door and pressure regulators to

remove reputational risk considerations when assessing a

bank's safety and soundness. Reputational damage has

historically contributed to instability in major banks.

Eliminating consideration of reputational risk would hinder

regulators' ability to identify and mitigate risks,

potentially increasing the incidence of money laundering,

financial fraud and exploitation, national security threats,

and bank failures. Please also see this letter signed by 25

public interest organizations opposing the FIRM Act (H.R.

2702).

Sec. 401. FDIC Board Accountability.

This section would alter the criteria for serving on the

FDIC, reduce the consideration of consumer protection and

enforcement of consumer protection and consideration of

regulatory compliance.

Sec. 402. Stop Agency Fiat Enforcement of Guidance.

This section would require financial regulators to

emphasize that supervisory guidance is not legally binding

and that failure to follow guidance does not itself establish

a violation of law. Guidance is an important tool for

communicating supervisory expectations, identifying emerging

risks, and encouraging institutions to correct unsafe

practices before they become violations or crises. The

mandated disclaimer could encourage regulated firms to

disregard prudent supervisory expectations unless every

standard is first imposed through a lengthy formal rulemaking

or enforcement action, weakening regulators' ability to

respond quickly to developing risks.

Sec. 403. Regulatory Efficiency, Verification, Itemization,

and Enhanced Workflow.

This section would require financial regulators to conduct

more frequent reviews of existing rules and place greater

emphasis on cumulative compliance costs and regulatory

burdens. This would still institutionalize a recurring

deregulatory process that treats longstanding safeguards as

burdens to be minimized. These reviews could divert limited

agency resources from supervision and enforcement while

creating repeated opportunities for industry to weaken or

eliminate protections that remain necessary.

Sec. 601. Bank Competition Modernization.

This section would weaken scrutiny of bank mergers

involving institutions with less than $10 billion in assets

by directing regulators not to consider whether qualifying

transactions would substantially reduce competition or

restrain trade. This would permit greater consolidation in

many local and rural markets without a meaningful assessment

of the effects on prices, service quality, branch access, or

the availability of small-business and agricultural credit.

These anticompetitive problems will be more acute for those

with limited transportation and for services that are more

commonly received at community banks, like small business

loans and farm loans.

Sec. 604. Bank Failure Prevention.

This section would weaken oversight of bank mergers by

imposing a strict 120-day deadline--running from initial

submission, regardless of whether the record was complete--

for regulators to approve or deny applications, regardless of

whether the application is complete or all necessary

information has been provided. This would limit regulators'

ability to consider input from affected stakeholders and

properly evaluate the risks of consolidation. Bank merger

scrutiny needs to become more robust, and this section would

move in the opposite direction--further enabling a pattern of

rubber-stamping mergers, increasing costs for depositors,

customers, and small businesses as well as heightening

systemic risk.

Sec. 801. Merchant Banking Modernization.

This section would extend the alliance between the

megabanks and merchant banking that can create

anticompetitive problems and complex combinations of banking

and commerce, as happened when JPMorgan was charged with

manipulating aluminum prices through its merchant bank

affiliates' ownership of an aluminum warehouse. These

merchant banking partnerships are more likely to run afoul of

the mixing of banking and commerce and primarily benefit the

biggest banks. There is no need to extend this by 50 percent.

Moreover, it is deceptive to suggest that banks need merchant

banks to make affordable housing and small business

investments, because most banks can and do extend commercial

credit for these purposes already.

For the reasons above, we urge you to oppose this dangerous

deregulatory package and protect borrowers, small investors,

retirees, and the integrity and stability of our financial

system.

Sincerely,

African Community Housing & Development (ACHD), AFL-CIO,

Americans for Financial Reform, ASIAN. Inc., Communications

Workers of America (CWA), Community Housing Development

Corporation, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer

Reports, Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council Inc.,

Fair Finance Watch, Freedom Equity Inc., Georgia Advancing

Communities Together, Inc., Indivisible, National Association

of Consumer Advocates.

National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), National

Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients),

New Yorkers for Responsible Lending, Oregon Consumer Justice,

Oregon Consumer League, Proud Ground, Public Citizen, Rise

Economy, South Dallas Fair Park Innercity Community

Development Corporation, Strong Economy For All Coalition,

TCH Development, Inc, Transparency Task Force, Utah Housing

Coalition, Virginia Citizens Consumer Council.

Mr. Speaker, we know how to support community banks and credit unions. We just did that with our landmark housing bill, and I was pleased to work with the chairman of that committee, Mr. Hill. It became law just a few days ago and included five Republican bills and four Democratic ones that were focused on supporting community banks.

Now, here come Republicans to push for what they and their allies want: financial deregulation. This bill has 24 Republican provisions compared to just 2 from Democrats.

In fact, I am disappointed that my friends on the other side of the aisle are advancing provisions that even contradict our carefully crafted bipartisan agreement in the housing bill.

There is a provision in this bill on de novo banks that goes beyond our bipartisan deal, allowing regulators to decide whether to make permanent reforms that really should be for Congress to decide.

We struck a compromise in passing the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, and I think everyone who voted for that should honor that compromise.

Ultimately, Mr. Speaker, this bill is a distraction from what Congress should be focusing on: ending the affordability crisis caused by Trump's failed policies.

Nothing in this bill will help consumers afford groceries or pay for gas. Do you know who is not suffering during the affordability crisis? Wall Street. This bill would loosen the guardrails on Wall Street mega banks even as they report record profits.

Even Chairwoman Foxx admitted that this bill is all about deregulation and rolling back Dodd-Frank, a law she said she strongly dislikes. Chairman Hill said they received drafting assistance from Trump's regulators and banks, but not from organizations that represent workers or consumers.

Mr. Speaker, we are not stupid. We understand that Trump controls all of his so-called organizations that are independent. He tells them what to do. We get that. He is in control. He is running this country. Those people who are selected to run these so-called independent agencies are those who will do nothing but what they are told to do.

That is probably because the groups who represent actual people oppose this bill. That is what they are told to do. That is the leadership they have.

Now is not the time to plant new seeds for the next crisis. Now is not the time to juice the mega banks' profit margins. Now is not the time to legitimize Trump's efforts to gut the CFPB, fair lending, and other consumer protections.

Again, I am so proud and pleased with the work we did in a bipartisan manner. I am so proud and pleased that we were able to negotiate through some very tough times. I am so proud to announce that we had to give some, and we took some. They gave some, and we worked it out.

I don't know exactly what they are being told by Trump, but I know Trump is in charge, and he is charging a lot of what is going on.

I urge my colleagues to please vote ``no'' on this bill, and support the citizens, support their constituents, not Wall Street.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1438, I call up the bill (H.R. 6955) and ask for its immediate consideration by the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Main Street Capital Access Act.

As a former community bank founder and CEO in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, I have seen firsthand the important role that our community banks and credit unions play to drive the economic engine of America and help Main Street grow and thrive.

During the financial crisis, they were there. During the COVID pandemic, they were there, staying up all night to close emergency paycheck protection loans.

Every Member of this body knows this and knows it well. They have their own story from their own town about how that local financial institution was there for a customer, for a family, to help a startup, to help a business or restaurant cope with the pandemic.

Community banks and hometown credit unions know their customers. They understand the needs of their communities, and they keep capital flowing where it is needed most.

When a family is trying to buy their first home, they often walk into the offices of a community bank where that lender knows them, recognizes their goals, and is invested in their success.

Mr. Speaker, as I have said on this House floor many times this year, our banks under $10 billion make 6 out of 10 home construction loans.

When a local farmer or entrepreneur needs the capital to expand or initiate their crop for the year, they need someone who understands their particular business and is committed to seeing them succeed and, thereby, their communities succeed.

I loved my role as a hometown Main Street community banker and investor. Even to this day, almost three decades later, I smile driving by that restaurant location that I helped grow or driving by a building or a shopping center or a doctor's practice that our small bank helped finance--finance its construction, finance its future, finance its home for those employees.

Community banks make that possible, and this bipartisan Main Street Capital Access Act gives them the tools they need to keep capital flowing where it is needed most up and down our main streets in our beautiful country.

For decades, Washington has made it harder for community banks to thrive and operate efficiently. The Dodd-Frank Act, passed in the heat and horror of the global financial crisis, took the approach that many community and midsize banks across our Nation were faced with the same rules and the same level of scrutiny of the largest, most systemically important institutions. It was just too much, Mr. Speaker.

That approach, that overkill, has stifled local lending, constrained economic growth, accelerated industry consolidation--something I hear about from Members on both sides of the aisle all the time--and pushed important financing activity for both families and businesses out of the regulated financial sector. Again, I don't believe that was a goal by the proponents of Dodd-Frank after the financial crisis.

Our local lenders, Mr. Speaker, too often now spend more time on check-the-box compliance requirements rather than serving their communities.

When I made my presentation to our party here in the House to chair our Committee on Financial Services, I said that the impact of Dodd- Frank and other rules had focused Main Street bank presidents staying up all night worrying, not about their loan pipeline, not about where to get their next lending officer. Instead, they are up all night wondering how they can afford another compliance officer to try to meet this standard that is, in my judgment, unreasonable for a small, straightforward, local bank.

Our committee Republicans, with their great leadership from our subcommittee chair, Andy Barr of Kentucky, have worked mightily over the years to find a bipartisan set of solutions to exactly the problem I outline today.

Recently, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law, contained nine community banking provisions that provided this sort of thematic, clear, needed relief to America's local lenders and expanded financing for both residential mortgages and housing construction and development. These measures that we are debating today in the Main Street Capital Access Act were in that same philosophy of what we just overwhelmingly passed in both Chambers just a few days ago.

Mr. Speaker, I say today that we are building on the success of our 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with Main Street Capital Access Act. We are expanding access to capital, supporting American businesses, and ensuring our financial system remains the most dynamic and diverse in the world.

This bill delivers on those goals. It spurs formation of new banks. It brings this commonsense tailoring back to regulation. It restores fairness and transparency in bank supervision. It helps banks attract, retain, and diversify important funding sources from sources of deposits, and it removes unnecessary barriers that have limited lending in communities across this country.

Mr. Speaker, with all of this effort, we have seen solid bipartisan support, input, and leadership in developing this bill. Expanding access to capital strengthens our local economies. It gives entrepreneurs the confidence to invest, businesses the ability to grow, and families the opportunity to build long-term wealth through that most abundant of American dreams: owning their own home.

When Main Street banks succeed, our communities thrive. I thank my colleague again, my friend, the chairman of our Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr), for his tireless efforts in developing this bill and his commitment to strengthening community banking, not only in Kentucky but across our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I also thank his hardworking colleague who has spent hours tirelessly thinking through the best approach to these provisions, and that is the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster) of Chicago.

Their collaboration will benefit our country, and I hope that we see a strong, bipartisan vote on this bill in this Chamber today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, our next speaker has worked tirelessly to assemble this package of bills that will help our Main Street banks and credit unions thrive, grow, better serve their customers, and, in turn, be able to see their local economies benefit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions.

Mr. Speaker, our next speaker has worked in this House for over a decade, speaking on behalf of Main Street Michigan. From that real estate community, from his own background, his own business entrepreneurship and that of his family, he knows the value of how our local financial institutions help grow an economy and have more opportunities.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), the vice chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me address that comment that the ranking member has articulated, which is that somehow this bill reduces the power of community banks to compete with the big, globally systemic banks that she described.

I would really argue just the contrast. This bill tailors the regulatory compliance so that a bank with a straightforward, simple business plan that is well managed, that is well capitalized can have a lower tailored compliance cost compared to the one-size-fits-all approach that was a part of Dodd-Frank aimed at those big, Wall Street globally systemic banks.

Secondly, if you don't want them to grow, then you want community banks to have access to more capital. That is offered in this bill. You want them to be more successful. That is offered in this bill.

You want them to be able to buy a failing bank on their own or with partners to compete with the biggest banks in the country who are just simply given banks that need resolution at the FDIC. If a small bank fails in some State, they just let the big banks bid on them.

This bill creates competition. Chairman Barr walked through that. This actually increases the chance for entrepreneurs to acquire, unfortunately at the demise of a local bank, so that it is not sold to some big Wall Street lender.

I could go on with all the benefits of this bill that is tailored and focused on the growth and success of our Main Street institutions, but I can think of no better person to help me make that case than the next speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Loudermilk), the vice chairman of our Financial Institutions Subcommittee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Loudermilk who spoke a moment ago. The vice chairman of our Subcommittee on Financial Institutions made a very good point also about how this bill strengthens competition.

Chairman Andy Barr of Kentucky, Ranking Member Waters of California, and Mr. Loudermilk all mentioned the importance of encouraging de novo banks, meaning start-up banks, particularly in our fast-growing communities that have seen disproportionate business and population growth, like south Florida or other places across the Nation.

All three of those Members have something in common, which is they support greater de novo provisions. We had Ms. Waters in the housing bill, and we have two in this bill that encourage start-up banks and encourage the regulators to work and have a better strategy for start- up financial institutions because that means that they can meet the growth.

What does that do, Mr. Speaker?

It increases competition for the biggest companies because they are close to customers, they have a business strategy, and they are unique to the marketplace. That is another example of how this bill is, in fact, counter to the assertion that it is only geared towards Wall Street institutions.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), who understands finance from both the point of view of one of our biggest and most industrial States, Pennsylvania, having been a statewide officer as well as a highly successful manufacturer and entrepreneur. Mr. Meuser is the chair of our Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the beautiful territory of Guam (Mr. Moylan). He has a strong background in financial services, healthcare, business, and insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Knott).

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, first, before I start, I thank the ranking member and the committee members on her side of the aisle for their work with us on developing this bill over many months.

Mr. Speaker, two-thirds of the bills in this package that we are voting on, the Main Street Capital Access Act, are supported by Members on the Democratic side of the aisle. This is a truly bipartisan package of bills.

We have significant work and support from individual Members on the Democratic side of the aisle in partnership with House Republicans.

I also thank Maura Woosley, who is the majority staff director, Jae Jang, and their entire team in the majority working with the minority staff, and the minority staff to craft this package. In Congress, you can't put together the kinds of successful legislative packages that the House Financial Services Committee has done in this Congress without a very hardworking and competent staff. I thank them on both sides of the aisle.

I thanked Andy Barr, our majority subcommittee chair, a few minutes ago, but I will also thank Dr. Bill Foster of Illinois, who serves as the ranking member on our Subcommittee on Financial Institutions for his collaboration with Mr. Barr on this succesful bill.

Mr. Speaker, I heard a lot of charges about this bill, that somehow this bill benefits Wall Street versus Main Street, and I just couldn't disagree more. I noted that two-thirds of these bills have strong Democratic support, along with our Republicans.

Secondly, there is nothing in this bill that weakens consumer compliance. The fair lending laws, the fair housing laws, and the equal credit opportunity laws, all those consumer statutes are upheld in this text. They are not really affected by this text.

Banks have to comply with those laws. They had to comply with those

laws before Dodd-Frank, and they comply with them since Dodd-Frank. I reject the idea that somehow we are limiting or curtailing or blocking or making ineffective consumer compliance.

Secondly, it is our hometown banks, both rural banks and urban banks in our towns and cities, that benefit from this banking set of provisions. As the ranking member noted, in our housing bill that we collaborated on successfully--that we got passed and it became law on July 10--banks had some provisions there that helped them.

This is the same theme continuing in this bill. If you are a small, well-managed bank under $6 billion, you get some relief, Mr. Speaker. If you are well-managed, have good capital, you can help schedule your exams.

I was with a community banker in North Carolina this week. The bank is smaller than $500 million, and I said, how are things going? He said, it is going great except when I have five exams in a row and then the loan pipeline goes to zero. Because, guess what, I am the chief loan officer and the chief compliance officer in this small bank, and when my community bank is filled with bank examiners for an IT exam, a trust exam, an investment exam, an AML, anti-money laundering, and Bank Secrecy Act exam, a loan quality exam, a consumer compliance exam, I can't make loans.

If you are well-managed and have high capital, you get some relief in this bill. That is who this bill, Mr. Speaker, is aimed at. If you have a concern that your exam was unfair, we return some fairness in the exam process. You can go and actually question, was my exam fair or not? Whose idea was that, Mr. Speaker? Democrat from Michigan Don Riegle, U.S. Senator, 1995. Was it ever implemented? No, but it will be implemented when this bill becomes law.

This bill is focused on more capital, more deposits, more business, more success for our community banks, which in turn helps every one of our towns in this country.

Who is for it? Community development financial institutions, our CDFIs, have bipartisan support. They are for this bill. Our community development officials across the Nation are for this bill, as they were for the housing bill. The National Bankers Association, our national association for African-American bankers, wrote a letter for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, this bill has overwhelming support to increase competition and help our community banks thrive and succeed, which means our towns will thrive and succeed.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone on both sides of the aisle to support this bill. Echo Alexander Hamilton, our first Secretary of the Treasury, when he said that our banks in this early founding of our Nation are the nurseries of our national wealth.

Mr. Speaker, today, 250 years later, long after the adoption of our government, our community banks, our credit unions, they are the nurseries of the national wealth that help our families and our businesses succeed.

I urge a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by applauding my good friend from Arkansas, Chairman French Hill, for his leadership on this critical legislation. Great job working across the aisle for bipartisan support for this legislation that will help strengthen Main Street America.

The Main Street Capital Access Act is exactly the kind of reform needed to advance this committee's goal of making community banking great again. Over the past 18 months, we have worked hard to develop over two dozen banking reform bills--many of them with strong bipartisan support--and combined them into one multifaceted package designed to strengthen our community financial institutions, not big banks, like the ranking member is referring to, community banks, Main Street banks, midsize banks.

If we want to help hold big banks accountable, then what we need is competition. Competition and choice are good for America, good for consumers, and good for financial stability.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a link to 14 letters of support from the Consumer Bankers Association, the American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute, the Independent Community Bankers of America, the National Association of Home Builders, and others: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:4c869bbb-74d2-4d1e- befb-1b3aba1a0be3

Community banks and credit unions are the financial backbone of this country. They finance farms, factories, first-time home buyers, and the local entrepreneurs who create jobs in every corner of America. These institutions don't just serve communities. They are part of the community.

Here is the hard truth: Community banks have suffered under a regulatory framework that forgot who the system should serve. For too long, Washington has been writing rules as if every bank and credit union in America is a trillion-dollar global institution. They are not. They are our hometown banks and community financial institutions.

These guardrails that the ranking member talks about rolling back, we are not rolling back guardrails for big, multitrillion-dollar banks. We are talking about small community financial institutions.

The goal is simple: Regulation should follow the risk, not the ZIP Code or the political fashion. A $500 million community bank in rural Kentucky, rural Arkansas, or rural Michigan should not be regulated under the same framework built for a trillion-dollar institution operating around the globe. That means higher costs, fewer loans, more forced consolidation. This hurts everyday Americans by reducing both access to credit and opportunities for small business growth.

The Main Street Capital Access Act is about changing that. It is about rightsizing this regulatory framework to ensure that community lenders get back to what they do best: serving their customers and their communities.

Main Street opens the door for new bank formation, improving transparency in the chartering process, making applications more predictable, and ensuring rural and underserved communities can once again see new institutions formed instead of watching their local banks disappear.

You want to hold big banks accountable? Allow new banks to form.

It also restores proportionality to regulation, updating capital leverage and enhanced prudential standards to actually reflect a bank's risk profile, not just an arbitrary static asset threshold. That means less money spent on regulatory gymnastics and more money available for loans in your communities.

We are also bringing fairness and due process back to the supervision process. Banks and credit unions should not

be governed by opaque examiner preferences. They should be governed by clear risk-based and transparent standards that focus on core financial performance rather than foot faults and check-the-box compliance.

Main Street also addresses the structural problems that are driving consolidation. This legislation requires regulators to ensure clarity and predictability in the merger process so that healthy banks can grow and troubled banks can find partners before they fail. It ensures that when banks do fail, like Silicon Valley Bank, community banks aren't shut out of the resolution process by design.

Finally, this legislation recognizes reality: Innovation is happening. The question is whether it happens inside the banking system, where it is supervised and safe, or outside, where it isn't. This bill lets banks partner, modernize, and compete.

Community banks, Mr. Speaker, are the financial infrastructure of America--rural America, suburban America, urban America. When they thrive, small towns thrive. When they are regulated out of existence, capital dries up and opportunity for local ownership disappears.

The Main Street Capital Access Act is a critical step toward restoring the financial backbone of this country.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 6955, the Main Street Capital Access Act.

For the vast majority of our Nation's history, community banks were the primary artery into progress for all Americans. That reality is being threatened today by sloppy and ineffective policies that originate right here in Washington, D.C.

Whether it is the Dodd-Frank regulatory structure or the millions of rules and regulations that are in existence today, community banks have been choked out by these all-encompassing regulations.

With administrative costs rising every year, local banks simply cannot afford to operate. We can see this most clearly in 1980 where there were more than 14,000 community banks in the United States. Now because of the regulatory structure of the current market, there are roughly 4,000 community banks. This stifles lending, reduces competition, and makes it harder for Americans, especially in rural communities, to access capital. Put plainly, the current regulatory climate punishes community banks, and it benefits larger international banks.

My home State of North Carolina has long had a proud history of vibrant community banks. Today, there are very few exceptions to this, but there are really only two choices for community banks in today's market if they want to survive. That is to grow large enough to be acquired or to merge with another institution. Whether it was Wachovia, First Citizens, BB&T, or Bank of America, each of these began in North Carolina as a local community bank before growing and becoming a key player in our economy through a merge or an acquisition.

It is time to restore a market that welcomes and protects community banks, a market that encourages competition, and most importantly, one that serves the American citizen. H.R. 6955 does just that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Hill for his important work on this legislation, and I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Committee for his hard work on this and for including several of my provisions in this bill that is designed for the small guy.

I obviously rise in support of H.R. 6955 not only because it is a good bill, but also because I recognize the need to rightsize Federal regulations and gain more transparency into the financial regulatory process.

For too long, Federal financial regulators have taken this one-size- fits-all approach. If we applied that same status to ourselves, then let's just issue every Member of Congress one suit of clothes so that we all wear the same suit of clothes. Now, we wouldn't accept that because we would only have clothes to fit the largest Member of Congress.

What we are saying is that is what we have in the financial services industry right now. We need to tailor the regulations to fit the business model of the business, especially the small business. That is why I am proud that my TAILOR Act has been included in this package.

I can't stress enough the importance of the TAILOR Act because it is for the little guy. It is important because it requires all future regulations to be tailored to the risk of the regulated institution. It rewards institutions that adopt sound risk management practices with fewer regulations and punishes those who take an unhealthy amount of risk.

I also wish to highlight my New BANK Act, which requires Federal financial regulators to publish annual reports on applications received for creating new financial institutions. These reports will help give critical insights to the current de novo chartering process and how Congress can reduce complexities and redundancies in the system.

To conclude, Mr. Speaker, I believe this legislative package with my bills included is much more aligned with the goal of a safe and sound financial system that works for all the American people, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.