Doris Matsui: “I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 839, the HAMP…”

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 839, the HAMP Termination Act, that calls on mortgage lenders to continue to publicly report basic home loan modification information. Because of an amendment I offered to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which passed the house unanimously last Congress, mortgage lenders and services participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program are required to report basic loan modification information to the Department of the Treasury. Due to the enactment of my amendment, we now know that 2.5 million Americans have applied to participate in the Home Affordable Modification Program, and well over 600,000 of those applicants began permanent modifications. In the Sacramento region, over 9,000 of the nearly 12,000 homeowners who have applied for permanent modifications have been approved, providing assistance to thousands of homeowners in my district. This information is crucial to accountability and transparency and for this Congress to measure the performance of the mortgage industry. The amendment I offer today requires the same basic home loan modification reporting to continue, such as the number of applications they receive, the number of applications processed, or the number of modifications they approve or deny. In its current form, H.R.…”