InfoBytes Blog
House to Consider Financial CHOICE Act of 2017 the Week of June 5
On May 26, the House announced that the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017 is scheduled to hit the House floor the week of June 5. House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), drafted a Substitute Amendment and a corresponding summary of changes, which clarify that “rules promulgated under provisions of law repealed by H.R. 10 are no longer in effect.” Notably Hensarling agreed to strike Section 735, which would repeal the Durbin Amendment from the second discussion draft of the Act. The Durbin Amendment—an amendment to the EFTA added by section 1075 of the Dodd-Frank Act—requires the Federal Reserve Board to cap interchange fees that banks with assets of $10 billion or more may receive from payment card networks in debt card transactions. The decision to strike the Durbin Amendment happened despite bank support for the repeal.
Changes to the bill also include the following, among others: (i) Section 341 will be amended to clarify that “gaps or ambiguities found by a reviewing court in a statutory or regulatory provision are not to be construed as a delegation of rule-making authority to an agency, and that a reviewing court is not to use such a gap or ambiguity as grounds for expansively interpreting the agency’s authority or deferring to the agency’s interpretation of law;” and (ii) Section 571’s amendment will suspend HMDA data reporting requirements until January 1, 2019. Looking ahead, the House Rules Committee set a June 2 deadline for lawmakers to file amendments.