Dan Kildee: “I thank Ranking Member Waters for yielding. I know she understands the danger in yielding to me as much time as I may…”

“I thank Ranking Member Waters for yielding. I know she understands the danger in yielding to me as much time as I may consume. I will just take a couple of minute on this. I rise in opposition to H.R. 4771, the Small Bank Holding Company Relief Act. There are unaddressed concerns as to the effect this bill will have on community banks that serve so many of our constituents, whether it be through more bank consolidation or whether it will encourage small banks to take on more unsustainable debt. The Federal Reserve has a small bank holding company policy statement that outlines ownership transfer of small community banks and savings associations ``by allowing their holding companies to operate with higher levels of debt than would normally be permitted.'' The holding companies that qualify for the policy statement can have up to $1 billion in assets, a limit that was reached, in a bipartisan effort, in the 113th Congress. Yet, even though this new threshold was enacted just at the end of 2014, we have seen multiple efforts to raise the limit even higher. According to data from the Federal Reserve, under the current $1 billion threshold, 87 percent of all bank holding companies and 72 percent of savings and loan holding companies are holding nearly $1 trillion in assets under that billion-dollar threshold. It is too soon to know the effects of increasing the threshold to $1 billion.…”