Volcker Rule Regulatory Harmonization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LOUDERMILK. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) for yielding time and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill) for bringing this bill, a very important bill, to the floor for a vote today. Mr. Hill's bill will simplify and streamline one of the most complicated regulations from Dodd-Frank, the Volcker rule.

The Volcker rule is intended to prevent banks from engaging in risky investments that do not benefit their customers, also known as proprietary trading. There are currently five Federal regulatory agencies implementing the Volcker rule. This has caused overlap, duplication, and confusion among regulated companies.

The bill on the floor today will ensure that one Federal agency, the Federal Reserve, is responsible for writing this regulation and that each bank's primary regulator will have the sole enforcement authority for that bank. This will streamline and simplify this overly complicated rule so financial institutions can spend more of their time making loans to consumers and businesses and less time on regulatory compliance.

This bill will also fully exempt our small community banks that maintain less than $10 billion in assets from the Volcker rule rather than requiring them to prove a negative.

There are currently 176 banks headquartered in my home State of Georgia, and all but three of them have less than $10 billion in assets. This bill will go a long way toward relieving small community banks in Georgia from unnecessary, complicated, and burdensome regulation.

This bipartisan bill passed out of committee by a vote of 50-10 with the support of all the Republicans and the majority of the Democrats. I urge all my colleagues to support this bill.

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