Main Street Capital Access Act

Floor Speech

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

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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.

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. 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.

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. 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, 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 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. Meuser is the chair of our Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. He has a strong background in financial services, healthcare, business, and insurance.
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Mr. HILL of Arkansas.

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

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.

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