Don Nickles: “first, I compliment my colleague from Alabama for bringing this amendment because it is a really good, commonsense…”

“first, I compliment my colleague from Alabama for bringing this amendment because it is a really good, commonsense amendment. I might mention to our colleagues, yesterday we voted to exempt credit unions from the Community Reinvestment Act. Most of us support that amendment. I supported that amendment. I mentioned to somebody that said I am not sure we should do that because banks have to comply, and I said we have the Shelby amendment that will at least exempt small banks. Most of my banks in the State of Oklahoma are small banks. They don't need the Federal Government to tell them to invest in their community-- they do it anyway. If you have a meeting with your bankers in your State, particularly your small bankers, they will tell you the Community Reinvestment Act is one of the most bureaucratic messes they deal with. They really don't have to have the Federal Government to tell them to invest in their own community. So now we are going to say we will exempt credit unions from the CRA, but we will not exempt small banks? That is not fair. That is not equitable. Senator Shelby's amendment would correct that for the small banks. I compliment him for doing it. I think now is the time to do it. We are going to create greater inequities between credit unions and banks; I don't think that is fair. So Senator Shelby's amendment would at least provide relief for small banks. That is the right thing to do. It is the timely thing to do.”