Blaine Luetkemeyer: “I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), our distinguished chairman of the committee. I want to start by…”

“I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), our distinguished chairman of the committee. I want to start by thanking the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney), who has become a real advocate for small financial institutions and their customers. Escrow requirements are costly and burdensome for community banks and credit unions. Many institutions lack the resources to create and maintain escrow accounts in house, and outsourcing the work is, in many cases, cost prohibitive. But this doesn't mean that these financial institutions shouldn't be in the business of mortgage lending. H.R. 3971 amends the Truth in Lending Act to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to exempt from certain escrow requirements a loan secured by a first lien on a principal dwelling if the loan is held by a creditor with assets of $25 billion or less. Under the bill, the Bureau must also provide either exemptions to or adjustments from the mortgage loan servicing and escrow requirements of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. That relief applies only to servicers of 30,000 or fewer mortgage loans. These aren't high thresholds, nor are the institutions that will benefit large or complex. The gentlewoman's legislation is targeted squarely on the small banks and credit unions servicing Main Street; the financial institutions that have relationships with their customers. This is an important aspect of the bill that isn't delineated in the legislative text.…”