Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I rise to talk about the Hutchison- Klobuchar amendment, which will be in order after votes on the Merkley and Corker…”

“I rise to talk about the Hutchison- Klobuchar amendment, which will be in order after votes on the Merkley and Corker amendments. The votes will come tomorrow, but my colleague, Senator Klobuchar, and I are very concerned about the underlying bill only putting Fed supervision over bank holding companies that are $50 billion and above. One of the key parts of regulatory reform in this financial arena is that nobody wants too big to fail anymore. My colleague, the cosponsor of this amendment, and I wish to assure there is no indication in any way that only bank holding companies that are $50 billion and above would be having supervision of and access to the Fed. We want to make sure of two things. First, that there is a level playing field, that everyone who wants to be a member of the Fed, who wants to have access to the Fed, will be able to do that, including State banks. The underlying bill would prohibit State banks from being able to be members of the Fed. That is a real concern for community bankers all over America. The second concern is that we have regional Feds. When the Federal Reserve was established, there was a debate about whether we would have regional offices or whether there would just be the Federal Reserve Board sitting in Washington. The decision was made to have Federal banks in key parts all over the country that would be regional banks.…”