Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Financial Institutions Examination Fairness and Reform Act. As the vice chairman of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee, and as a longtime advocate for examination and review reforms, I commend my colleague, Representative Tipton, for his hard work on this issue. As we all know, our financial regulatory agencies are not without their flaws. From time to time, examiners offer decisions that are misguided, and these decisions deserve to be challenged. Managers of financial institutions that believe that the decisions passed down by their examiners are wrong deserve a chance to challenge those decisions at an independent forum and, if necessary, in the courts. We are all better served by a financial supervisory structure that subjects decisions to the scrutiny of further review. I know community bankers in western Pennsylvania who have struggled with their examiners for years to get flawed determinations changed. In many cases, these individuals were doing the right thing for their companies and their communities. Without the benefit of a clear timeline, this process has been allowed to drag on. Without a truly independent review process and protection against retaliation, these men and women working in our community financial institutions understand that they are facing an uphill battle. The current system is not independent and it is not sufficiently transparent.…”