James A. Leach: “the bill before us, H.R. 2343, would abolish a Federal agency, the Thrift Depositor Protection Board, which was…”

“the bill before us, H.R. 2343, would abolish a Federal agency, the Thrift Depositor Protection Board, which was established to oversee the activities of the now defunct Resolution Trust Corporation and the Resolution Funding Corporation. By background, the oversight board was created in the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, FIRREA, in 1989. FIRREA was the Federal Government's response to the massive financial crisis of the savings and loan industry and its insolvent insurance fund, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. With the enactment of FIRREA, the Resolution Trust Corporation was created to close or sell the failed institutions transferred to it by the industry's new regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision. The RTC was then tasked with selling the assets of failed thrifts. FIRREA also established the Resolution Funding Corporation, REFCORP, a mixed-ownership Government corporation for the purpose of providing financing for the RTC. The oversight board was created to oversee the RTC and its use of taxpayer funds, as well as activities of REFCORP. Today, the oversight board is no longer needed, given that its primary responsibility ceased when the RTC's doors were closed on December 31, 1995.”