On the recordMay 25, 2017
Mr. President, I wish to introduce the Community Bank Sensible Regulation Act of 2017, a bill that would allow financial regulators to exempt community banks from unnecessary and unduly burdensome requirements, if doing so is in the public interest. My bill would provide this authority to the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve and would apply to financial institutions with less than $10 billion in assets. The aim of my legislation is to allow the financial regulators to exempt community banks from highly complex regulations designed to protect our financial system from systemic risks that would arise from the failure of larger banks. All banks, large and small, should be well-capitalized and properly regulated, but that does not mean that our financial regulators must impose a ``one size fits all'' regulatory regime across the board without regard to the risks posed to the financial system by banks with fundamentally different business models and of vastly different sizes. Some regulations that are appropriate or essential for larger banks may make no sense when applied to community banks. For example, current law requires community banks to demonstrate that they are in compliance with the Volcker Rule--which restricts proprietary trading and hedge fund investments by banks--even though community banks rarely engage in such trading. Even so, community banks must shoulder the burden of complying with this complex regulation.…
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