I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 941
To amend the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to provide for an effective
date and a temporary safe harbor for compliance with certain small
business lending data collection rules, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY4, 2025
Mr. H
ILLof Arkansas (for himself, Mr. MEUSER, Mrs. WAGNER, Mr.
H
UIZENGA, Mr. TIMMONS, Mr. MOOREof North Carolina, and Mr. WIL-
LIAMSof Texas) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Financial Services
A BILL
To amend the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to provide for
an effective date and a temporary safe harbor for compli-
ance with certain small business lending data collection
rules, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Small Lenders Exempt 4
from New Data and Excessive Reporting Act’’ or the 5
‘‘Small LENDER Act’’. 6
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•HR 941 IH
SEC. 2. SMALL BUSINESS LOAN DATA COLLECTION. 1
Section 704B of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act 2
(15 U.S.C. 1691c–2) is amended— 3
(1) in subsection (g), by adding at the end the 4
following: 5
‘‘(4) C
OMPLIANCE WITH COVERED RULE .— 6
‘‘(A) I
N GENERAL.—With respect to the 7
covered rule, the Bureau shall provide a finan-8
cial institution a 3-year period beginning on the 9
date the covered rule was issued to comply with 10
the rule. 11
‘‘(B) S
AFE HARBOR.—After the end of the 12
3-year period described under subparagraph 13
(A), the Bureau shall provide a 2-year safe har-14
bor to a financial institution during which the 15
financial institution is required to comply with 16
the covered rule but is not subject to any pen-17
alties for failure to comply with the covered 18
rule. 19
‘‘(C) C
OVERED RULE DEFINED .—In this 20
paragraph, the term ‘covered rule’ means the 21
final rule of the Bureau titled ‘Small Business 22
Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity 23
Act (Regulation B)’ (88 Fed. Reg. 35150, pub-24
lished May 31, 2023).’’; and 25
(2) in subsection (h)— 26
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(A) by striking paragraph (1) and insert-1
ing the following: 2
‘‘(1) F
INANCIAL INSTITUTION.—The term ‘fi-3
nancial institution’ means— 4
‘‘(A) any partnership, company, corpora-5
tion, association (incorporated or unincor-6
porated), trust, estate, cooperative organization, 7
or other entity that engages in any financial ac-8
tivity; and 9
‘‘(B) in each of the previous 2 calendar 10
years originated not less than 500 credit trans-11
actions for small businesses.’’; and 12
(B) by striking paragraph (2) and insert-13
ing the following: 14
‘‘(2) S
MALL BUSINESS.—The term ‘small busi-15
ness’ means any entity with gross annual revenues 16
of $1,000,000 or less in the most recently completed 17
fiscal year.’’. 18
Æ
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