Texas 2013 - 83rd Regular

Texas House Bill HCR26 Compare Versions

The same version is selected twice. Please select two different versions to compare.

Version 1 (Old)

Version 2 (New)

Old	New	Differences
1	1	83R1156 BPG-D
2	2	By: Flynn, Keffer, Taylor, Creighton, H.C.R. No. 26
3	3	Bonnen of Brazoria, et al.
4	4
5	5
6	6	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
7	7	WHEREAS, The banking and insurance industries are essential
8	8	to the continued growth and well-being of Texas, serving as
9	9	important hubs of economic activity for communities throughout the
10	10	state; the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection
11	11	Act not only poses a major threat to these businesses, but will
12	12	serve as a destructive influence on the entire state; and
13	13	WHEREAS, The Dodd-Frank Act, which was passed by the United
14	14	States Congress on July 21, 2010, consists of 2,300 pages of new
15	15	statutory language and increases the size of the federal government
16	16	by creating 13 new regulatory agencies; supporters of the
17	17	legislation claim that it will equip federal regulators with powers
18	18	to prevent another financial debacle like the country experienced
19	19	from 2007 through 2009, but in reality, the bill sets up a
20	20	regulatory regime that allows "Too Big to Fail" banks and Wall
21	21	Street to continue to avoid adequate scrutiny while it punishes
22	22	traditional Texas banks that had nothing to do with the recent
23	23	crisis; and
24	24	WHEREAS, Established to regulate all consumer financial
25	25	services in the United States, the new Consumer Financial
26	26	Protection Bureau will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in
27	27	annual funding from the Federal Reserve System and is not subject to
28	28	congressional oversight through the appropriations process; it has
29	29	been granted the power to decide what types of financial products
30	30	can and cannot be offered, as well as the power to set prices for
31	31	consumer loans, mortgages, and small business loans; and
32	32	WHEREAS, If this new agency becomes what its advocates have
33	33	envisioned, it will be at least as large as the Internal Revenue
34	34	Service; Texas banks will have fewer and more expensive products to
35	35	offer to their customers, and the credit needs of rural and urban
36	36	Texans will be determined by an agency in Washington; and
37	37	WHEREAS, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will also
38	38	greatly increase compliance costs for Texas community banks;
39	39	smaller banks will see their compliance and employee costs increase
40	40	by tens of thousands of dollars on an annual basis, resulting in
41	41	millions of dollars in loans lost to area communities; furthermore,
42	42	these new costs will drive down profitability and lead to the
43	43	consolidation of the banking industry; fewer banks mean less credit
44	44	and fewer choices for borrowers across the state; and
45	45	WHEREAS, Even before the effective date of the Dodd-Frank
46	46	Act, federal bank regulators began examining banks and imposing
47	47	sanctions that have harmed credit availability all over Texas; in
48	48	the name of consumer protection and fair lending, the federal
49	49	agencies have curtailed services, such as overdraft protection,
50	50	that are wanted by Texas bank customers; the limitation on bank
51	51	service fees will increase costs for all consumer services and lead
52	52	to the end of offerings such as free checking; during fair lending
53	53	examinations, banks are being told that discrepancies of a few
54	54	cents in the charging of interest rates can lead to referrals to the
55	55	U.S. Department of Justice; this has led to a chilling effect and a
56	56	reluctance by community banks to make small consumer and business
57	57	loans; and
58	58	WHEREAS, Another example of federal intervention in the
59	59	pricing of financial products is the rate caps placed on
60	60	interchange fees for debit cards; the Dodd-Frank Act takes the
61	61	pricing of these services from the marketplace and places it in the
62	62	hands of the Federal Reserve; severe restrictions on interchange
63	63	fees could leave banks and credit unions unable to cover the full
64	64	costs associated with providing checking accounts and debit cards
65	65	and force them to cease offering some debit and checking products
66	66	and to increase fees on those they continue to provide; lower income
67	67	Texans who have obtained greater access to affordable retail
68	68	banking, partly because of interchange fees, would have less access
69	69	to traditional institutions and be forced to go back to the less
70	70	regulated "shadow" banking system with its increased costs; now,
71	71	therefore, be it
72	72	RESOLVED, That the 83rd Legislature of the State of Texas
73	73	hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to
74	74	repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection
75	75	Act; and, be it further
76	76	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
77	77	copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
78	78	the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
79	79	Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
80	80	members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
81	81	this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
82	82	memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.