field between the american swimmer and the issuer has been very unfair and on balance a credit card is basically a contract but as it stands now the that the federal reserve have called unfair deceptive and anti competitive and last fall we took a major step forward in leveling the playing field when the credit card bill of rights  congress overwhelmingly three hundred twelve one hundred twelve with eighty four republicans voting with us in a bipartisan way and this legislation works on the basis that a deal is a deal and would precipitate a penalty increase of an interest rate on an existing balance unless the customer is more than thirty days late deceptive practices such as any time any reason rate increases it bans double cycle billing which is increasing interest rates on balances that already pay bands universal default which is increasing interest rates for totally unrelated activities for example one of my constituents was one day late on her utility bill and her interest rate on her credit card doubled in december of this year we saw a very significant step forward for consumers when the federal reserve the office of thrift supervision and the national credit union administrator received more than sixty thousand comment comment in support of the credit card bill of rights setting a record of any comment period on any rule and this rule from the federal reserve closely tracks the major provisions of the democratic legislation that passed last year protections can be changed they can be altered they can be postponed for these consumer protections we need the reality of the law to have it in place to protect them we have worked in a balanced way we had a roundtable discussion with mr castle and others with major issues and major national consumer groups coming forward with a group of a set of gold standards to move forward we based our bill on these goals standards we have tried to work very closely with the industry and with consumer groups we earned the support of over fifty four editorial boards across this country and we earned the indorsement most of every national consumer group many labor unions civil rights organizations and many of these organizations have made passage of this legislation a top priority and i would like to put their  harmonized to the file rule adopted by the federal reserve office of thrift supervision of the national credit administrator and it is my hope that we will have a very strong support in committee that we can move quickly to the floor momentum is on our side one shred of evidence that we don't have a most competitive market in credit cards that consumers best is a competitive market with a knowledgeable or people who used to have seventeen credit card offers arrive in their mailbox can't get a credit card we already know that's happening out in the marketplace why why would we want to exacerbate that ultimately this is a bill that will restrict the availability of credit to some bars and frankly those who pay their bills on time which is roughly half of america pay their bills at the end of each month it will make those subsidize the people the universe of people who are in that respect one more in a series of independent review estimates were credit tightened by as much as sixty percent new applicants rejected now that's an economy that is fairly similar to our own a piece of legislation not dissimilar to this legislation that attempted to cap late as this particular legislation does it's still a facet of price controls and once the euphoria of placing those price controls wears off inevitably we know what will happen in the marketplace we've got thousands of years of history to tell us what happens when you impose price controls again one of two things either one those who previously had access to credit particularly low income and those with spotty or credit records were going to be denied access they're going to be denied access to credit in that respect maybe the  ought to call this the pawn shop owners and payday lenders relief act of two thousand and nine now i for one believe that those very valuable function in our marketplace but we know that if you take away one credit option from people that they'll have to go to another not knowing the kind of the hierarchy of vilification of creditors that we witness in this committee i don't know why some on the other side of the aisle would want to do that but that's what we see not only look at the experience but our own congressional research service said in a report about the legislation quote credit card issuers could also respond in a variety of ways they may increase loan rates across the board on all borrowers making it more expensive for both good and the link with borrowers to use revolving credit issuers may also increase minimum monthly payments credit lines or reduce the number of credit cards issued to people with a credit why we would want to do this at a time of credit contraction when families are struggling to pay their bills on this can be remed first of all i want to thank all the members of the subcommittee i think we had a a good subcommittee markup on this bill everybody was engaged and i want to thank them thanks pacifically the gentle lady from new york for her t y and protecting consumers specifically around the issue of credit cards i'm looking forward to the day to so great markup and so signing of a bill and to a sense of the congress of the united states beginning with this committee is here to protect consumers i hear the arguments from the other side that if we protect consumers from credit card companies and their most egregious actions against consumers that somehow we're bad somehow the consumer will be punished because we protect them well i think this committee has the authority and has the ability to respond to any reactions of punishment of consumers but the fact is that as we speak today we have a contract people go and take a credit card and they tell them it's eighteen percent before they know it it's thirty percent to tell them that a late charges so much for they know it's late charges even greater than that they change their interest rates and they say well you know what we're just going to charge you that interest rate and we're going to charge  on the highest amount but we get to charge you more interest rate we've heard all of the stories before that and it's time to rein in the credit card industry the profits are there for that we want to make sure that those profits are in line with protection for consumers and that's really all we're doing here today over the last decade the average credit card debt among american households more than double today the average family roughly  eight thousand dollars on their credit card and this debt generated record profit we want to see profits but unfortunately a growing share of the industry's revenues come from deceptive tactics such as default terms spelled out fine print a credit card agreements with terms and conditions which can be changed at any time for any reason with fifteen days notice on the current law penalty fees and higher rates as sometimes triggered by a single let a payment that arise a couple of days even a couple of hours late or a charge that exceeds the credit line by a few dollars these floods of unexpected fees and rate hikes sent to come just when the consumer can least afford them you know we did a great job last year here i believe in this committee unfortunately it wasn't taken up by the other body i think this time it's going to be quite different a credit card reform bill is ready to be moved out of the senate banking committee and fortunately we have a white house that is engaged tomorrow we understand the president will be meeting with the credit card industry and we look forward to the result of that meeting that he has with the credit card industry i think it will make our our bill even better and stronger and more reasonable among the consumer protections that would prohibit unreasonable interest rates by preventing credit card companies from arbitrarily increasing interest rates on existing balance eliminating the double billing the changes that we will soon be putting into law will benefit consumers because they will be able to make better more informed decisions regarding the use of credit and avoid that that t many of today's credit card practices bring an unsuspecting consumer transparent terms also improve the market as i said i think we've had a good markup and i think we improved the bill by adding m i want to thank the chairman for moving the bill with the appropriate speed and look forward to working with all of the members on both sides of this committee and getting this bill signed into law the consumers are waiting for the congress of the united states and today they're waiting for this committee to respond to practices and to abuses that they confront each and every day i think it's time for the congress of the united states to say we're with the american public where with the consumer we're here to protect they place their trust and their trust has been well placed you know back the balance of my time the gentleman have anyone else which concerns me a great deal concerning the charge to consumers by by which charge consumers regardless of how their payments are made and we had a discussion at that time and the discussion was that there were certain costs involved in certain types of payments with respect to how these fees are paid particularly at the last minute cetera and we would consumers what is happening this will give the consumer the opportunity to pay their bill off and go to another card at a lower rate but not happy go into higher interest i think this is all that quickly the point to make is this by the time this bill is finally passed and signed by the president as i believe some version of it will be compromised if you add ninety days to the date of an act and then you look at the date when this is going has pushed for a faster implementation of this bill and i thought we had worked out in the committee that we had decided as a committee that that was not feasible we had the federal reserve folks testify and now we're going to try to do some piecemeal implementation of this bill and i just don't think that it is a good policy and as the chairman just said it's going to be a while before this is this is pas the credit card companies are already in the in the process of implementing many of the changes that the fed has promulgated in their regulation and now we're going to pass a bill that did moves  part of that implementation and i think that is not good policy if that's the will of this committee but don't do piecemeal work here that requires credit card companies to have to go back in important mark up and congressman congresswoman maloney thank you for the hard work that you put into this critical legislation that you've been at the forefront of this is your for a long time long before i came to congress and you've been advocating for these basic changes to be made in the way business is done in the credit card is because i do feel very strongly that for far too long the scales have been tilted in the direction of these companies and unfortunately many of these companies have taken advantage of consumers because of this uneven playing field i've heard time and time again from my constituents in my district who have seen their interest rates increased and some who have seen their credit limits decrease this is an issue that crosses every community i visit rural urban suburban and without fail someone will share a story with me each time i go to any event in the credit card holes holders bill of rights takes important steps to level the playing field the bill provides that customers receive forty five days notice of an interest rate increase it institutes common sense changes such as requiring that every statement to display due date for payment and that companies only use the term fixed rate when terms are actually fixed rate it wisely prohibits issuing cars a person under eighteen it also prevents so called double cycle billing and requires that companies mail statements twenty one calendar days before the  customers are given ample time to submit a payment but most important to my constituents the credit card holders bill of rights ensures that companies cannot raise rates on existing balances this is the issue i find most most upsetting and unfair raising rates on preexisting balances means that issuers are raising rates on funds already dispersed to customers not only does this create real challenges for consumers attempting to stay current and pay off their balance it is also simply unfair i am pleased to be a co sponsor of the bill and please to tell my constituents that retroactive rate increases are addressed in it i am proud to be a lead co sponsor of this amendment the federal reserve a serious concerns about issuers ability to comply with changes prior to the july first two thousand and ten deadline and the subcommittee made appropriate change implementation deadline for the bill in its entirety are men it does seek to implement a basic consumer protection earlier now i just can't tell you how many times as comes up in my district one minister a minister in my district reverend aaron overton of the temple baptist church baldwinsville new york has seen his credit card for his church go up to his existing balance to more than thirty six percent even though he has clear evidence that his bill was always paid on time and he and the church obviously show no risk of default or of a lowering of their credit rating quite simply this amendment would require that issuers provide customers with a forty five day notice to reverend overton and people like him for rate increases by the ninety days after an act there are important changes that will prevent credit card holders from having their rates increased on this bill yet these will not go into effect for another year the implementation change will not yet affect a company's ability to increase rates based on payment received one day late or a late payment on an unrelated utility bill for instance we believe in the very least we should ensure that card holders receive notice about this increase mr chairman the credit card companies are taking advantage of people like reverend overton and his church those who are responsible to default but particularly in this recession cannot afford to pay off the principle balance this is unfair and this amendment in this bill will stop it as soon as possible i ask that the entire committee support the malone which would have a different time effect is not a good way to do business and for that reason i think we should not be supportive regardless of whatever the merits of it may be but i was also very interested in your statement about the possible circumstances of  this bill will come up as you know those of us who are concerned about this have argued that the federal reserve with its sixty six thousand comments and its extensive rules in this matter have already acted and this legislation roughly tracks that and that's fine if the times coincide that's fine my concern has always been that we're rushing this and we should allow the federal reserve to do its job and we should come after the fact indeed have the same debate again in a week or so when we mark up the sub prime bill that's another case where we initiated action and the federal reserve then decided to move but i would say this the notion that we should withhold for the federal and didn't exactly say that some of said it i think gets the process of democracy very wrong we're not talking now about the employment taking a policy or an emergency measure we're talking about setting public policy and that ought to be done by the elected bodies secondly it ought to be clear the federal reserve only acted because we were going through and finally and most important what the federal reserve give us the federal reserve take it away or can't take it away and terrible grammar  the fact is that if we pass a law it is the war and only this congress could change it mr greenspan was as a federal reserve and pm and we oppose this sort of action mr bernanke i think has been more responsive and there was no guarantee nor should there be that a future president would appoint a federal reserve chair mr greenspan in which case it could be undone and i will tell you this but i make a prediction if we were not to pass this bill which people are able to act in my judgment in my experience is proportional to their desire to act not one hundred percent but there's a lot of influence the more you don't want to do something the harder it is to get it done i think we are being reasonable  that you don't make changes from one place to the other of course that and then the question is are we breaking this up well there were some parts of this bill which the credit card companies said to us we need to do some studies when it comes to pricing when it comes to whether or not you do retroactive what they're telling us is they need to get experience so they can decide what to how to price things this seems to be prone to that argument even if i am somewhat skeptical of the arguments in the other cont always saying you got to wait forty five days before you tell people are going to raise the rate it doesn't tell you to what you can raise it we are not doing that we are not setting rates here and being told that they will have to within four or five months from now which is  earliest it would be given the speed with which you spoke both thousand and then the effective date that they would have today let people know forty five days before raising rates that doesn't require a great calculation to help your members adopted very careful debate at the subcommittee level certainly the opinions in the actions of the subcommittee are not binding on the full committee but i hope the full committee would take note that this is a subject that was at least thoroughly debated by members of both side of the aisle and i think a very careful and reasonable i was struck i would hope members would at least pay attention to that in their own deliberations with respect to the federal reserve clearly every member reserves the right to ignore their advice ignore their counsel but at least i believe their counsel is relevant i think it's something that members ought to be aware of there are many times i have disagreed with the opinions of the federal reserve and so again i'm sure members can reserve that right but it is at least is relevant testimony it is expert testimony from people who have studied for many many years and i know that i believe it was sandra bronstein the director of the fed's consumer community affairs in the sub committee was asked about breaking up the various provisions of the maloney bill and having different effect and she testified quote we did look at that and what we found was that pretty much everything in there it's part of the whole package and there's a lot of overlap between what's going to be on the new disclosures versus what would be changed in the pricing models everything kind of ties together and is interconnected and it made more sense to have one effect for everything so that's why we did it we feel that there really is there's a lot of interconnection between the different moving pieces and members are certainly capable of drawing their own conclusions but i hope they would at least think about that testimony and renewing their decision if we go forward and adopt this amendment i'm not sure that we're going to end up frankly with what i believe is one of our goals and there is uniform notices which is been the point under time i'm not sure there will be sufficient time to get guidance from the federal reserve according to t estimony and so i would hope that the amendment would be rejected i think it would be unworkable and again i think the whole underlying legislation is going to exacerbate a bad credit problem this will exacerbate the exacerbation if we have a different effect a date for different parts of the bill and lead to working families having credit lines drawn even more than there was draw amendment we had an amendment in the subcommittee so that we could enact all of this by july first we listened to the testimony from mrs bronson from the federal reserve we took that into consideration that you could not enact many of these changes but look and we can improve the that's the way this place works it's interesting that we take points that are said in the subcommittee and statements from the federal reserve one of the statements that was bronstein made was that c r a didn't cause the credit crisis that we have support this amendment i think it's time that the congress of the united states and such a simple thing is saying if you want to vote against it and you want to say you know what yeah i voted against informing you and giving you for less information for them and less timely information for them and less protection for the in terms of when they're going to be notified god bless you you know if that's what you want to go tell that to the consumers in your district look this is a very balanced bill in terms of points of an act with a small part and it astonishes me because part of the argument in putting the july first was that there were many mechanics put into this bil that that the credit card industry was going to have taken place but they can change your interest rate like that and their computers like that can go from twenty five to thirty and they compute the bills so easily amendment i have had a long long meetings with representatives of the credit card industry and in every one of those meetings i have been billing practice this exemption would ensure that companies have a choice to accept the ban of those particular billing practices and most importantly give consumers a choice on whether or not they want to go with a card that may include provisions for there to ensure that consumers have a genuine choice in the matter the availability of the alternative card must be clearly conspicuously disclosed to consumers at least once a year that language is a standard called for in the use of terms clarify section of the underlying bill and page through eleven and  other provisions of the bill again today as i listen to much of the debate having sat through a number of hearings a number of markups in this congress in the last i still have yet to hear one shred of evidence that we do not have a competitive marketplace let's remember that consumers still have choices although we are attempting to restrict them today on the types of cards that they use  and there is an array of credit cards that have been available to the american people and so when i underline legislation is we're saying well consumers are properly disclosed but you know there's tradeoffs different companies find different ways to price their product they find different ways to risk model i'm not an expert on how they do  haven't had any experience in front of run a credit card company but i don't want to restrict the freedom of a competitive marketplace to respond to what customers want there could clearly be a choice there could clearly be a choice for consumer who says you know i've got two cars in front of one is going to charge me thirteen percent but it's got double cycle billing it's got this thing called universal default in it and there's another car that doesn't have those provisions but they charge understand terms while i don't i don't buy that i don't buy proper disclosure people can't understand the terms of the cards and also some modicum of individual responsibility for finding out what the terms of those cards are now a number of card companies have already dropped this practice fact i think we've had testimony from if i recall right that start saying that consumers were going to take choices away from you you know we've also in another in the mortgage in the home mortgage arena know that for example the right subjective decision it was very objective across the country they had reports written they had a comment period in which sixty six thousand of our constituents americans wrote in in support of the fed rule before this committee mr testified that he testified that disclosure was not enough and the federal reserve and the office of thrift offered by the underlying legislation and the final rule adopted by the federal reserve i would like to point out that we have had over seven hearing on this topic over the last and we have frequently heard and a card with unfair practices i would like to remind my colleague and members of this committee that one of the most astonishing testimony was from the former head of freddie mac siren where he testified that he and his editorial board two hundred three hundred twelve of our colleagues with their vote on the floor and by the federal reserve very importantly as balanced and fair to both the issuers and the consumers and this amendment would create a subclass of credit card holders who would have little or no right provide a baseline of consumer protections that everyone should enjoy we should not create a subset they have been called unfair deceptive and anti competitive let's support the federal reserve support of the baseline and not exceptions and many of us know consumers i've said enough debated all of this in the subcommittee this is exactly the same amendment one of the same amendments i guess he's going to offer the whole range of them in the full committee now that we debated  chairman barney frank said president obama who plans to meet with industry executives week has expressed support for the bill this bill h r six twenty seven suggested some of them it's frank plans to add on the floor next week that concerns me somewhat that we're having this markup and they're going to be amendments germany old they have to deal well i had always thought that it was a good thing that as chairman i went to the rules committee and said amendments should be an order i got to say this is an interesting day that some credit card companies have fifty page disclosure forms some are short is two or three you know if you believe that the form is too complicated don't have to sign rare because the disinfectant of sunshine in the competitive marketplace of taking them out but again it's the precedent the precedent of saying that somehow we're smarter than the consumers can take away their of the subcommittee that dealt with this bill whatever i say can be counted but i'm wondering if we'll soon see and then that allows a bank that offers you a lower interest rates come to your house once a month i'm wondering if we'll see an amendment in exchange for a lower interest rate let the bank put a lien on your firstborn child we're talking here specifically about retroactive rate increases increase or fundamentally unfair once people understand they don't want the same way they would want to whack in the head and i'm perfectly happy to see this bill accomplish that to eliminate them entirely and i think that anyone who does not worship at the altar of the free market probably feels the same thank you mr chairman is there any other  a record of ok the chair now recognizes maxine waters thank you very much madam chair i have an amendment at the desk i ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read and without objection the amendment will be considered as read and the gentle lady is recognized for five minutes thank you very much  first i'd like to commend you for your dedication and continued leadership on this issue and i certainly would like to thank chairman frank for bringing up h r six twenty seven for markup today i am extremely proud to be an original co sponsor of h r six to seven the credit card holders bill of rights act of two thousand and nine this legislation is well overdue in light of some of the outrageous billing practices that have spread throughout the credit card industry recently contrary to the claims of the credit card banking industry six to seven is a rather measured response to these practices banks in front of this committee and i ask a couple of questions one of the questions i asked was is it true that you're increasing interest rates after we have given you a bailout  when we expected you to unfreeze the credit and to make credit available to our citizens who simply wanted mortgages to buy cars and to have student loans and i asked them to raise their hands and i think i remember that there was silence so no reaction from some and others who denied that they were raising the interest rates in the credit cards  following that meeting in my office was received just many many telephone calls from people documenting that their interest rates had increased but i learned something  else that their credit lines had been reduced so this amendment that i have today will deal with that issue i'm concerned that limiting credit based on where a person shop including the type of store and the neighborhood in which it is located could amount to red lining i've also heard about companies reducing created lines based on the identity of the credit holders mortgage lender or reducing credit if a customer changes their shopping habits by shop at a certain stores and so my amendment directs the federal reserve in consultation with the federal banking regulators to study the extent of these practices and to make recommendations to congress on the need for statutory a regulatory changes that may be needed to restrict or prevent these prac person shops in my opinion has little bearing on whether or not they can pay back the balances on their credit cards by reducing a credit card credit holders credit limit credit card companies are penalized in a consumer based on where they shop for example lowering your credit limit can also laura bars credit score since credit scores are calculated based on the amount of available credit a consumer carries this can affect their ability to buy a car a home refinance a mortgage or even get a job in these hard economic times credit card companies should not be making it harder for hardworking americans to make ends meet let me just say that i did get a letter  from american express explaining that yes they had been doing this but they had stopped they also explained some other things they had been doing they did not admit that confusing to the consumer and so while i would like to prohibit this and i would have liked to have amended this bill to do it i know that a lot of work has gone into this bill over a long period of time members of this congress to protect the consumers of this country and to deal with these banks created by a meltdown to begin with and got us into this economic  crisis respecting the fact that we ask that we don't ask the taxpayers we simply took the taxpayers money and we are lending it to them and they don't respect that and i want this study done because i want  page two line nine overbuilt if i could hear just one more time to what the gentle lady is trying to achieve with respect to the identity of the mortgage creditor which extended or holds the mortgage gentleman is recognized for five minutes thank you mr chairman since the subject of commissioning of federal reserve study is already on the table i believe there is one more i don't that we should request that they study and that is the impact of the underlying legislation the impact of the amendments made by this act now again throughout the deliberations on the house many of us believe that ultimately this underlying legislation will end up restricting credit to many low income believe that this underlying legislation will take us back to turn back the clock to an era where third fewer people had access to credit than otherwise would have that they would be subjected to their dreaded fees that many of the consumer perks like the airline miles matching funds to charity cash back a lot of that would disappear many on the other side of the aisle have bills on time bailing out those who don't pay their bills on time and so all this is saying is as long as we're going to commission the federal reserve to undertake a study in again as always we can ignore whatever outcome or results of that study is but we ought to at least ask them to take a look and see if there's an impact on the credit markets of this legislation if it comes back and there's no adverse consequences and i sing the committee won't do anything that comes back and perhaps there adverse consequences perhaps the committee the committee may not choose to act but at least we would commission a study with i suppose many members believe the federal agency most qualified to undertake such i know in the past i would i would hope i would hope that this would be fairly non controversial since all we're asking for is a study here but i think it's an important study in those who have confidence those who have confidence that there will be no adverse consequences in the marketplace struggling families trying to pay their bills credit cards to do it then i would hope you would support  time frame in the secondary member you know i think that's a good idea and i think the time frame if you want to do that too short so that's that is reasonable but i would not particularly in my judgment doesn't want to miss a moment but i would hope it would be defeated in any form because it also i think is frankly a kind of a soft way of approaching the whole bill i guess that's the best way to put it perfectly straightforward it's an honorable way to do it but it's a way to try and do that and what we hope will happen with this bill as with any other there will be very straightforward and stick a small percentage of the users but we penalize a larger number of users that have been satisfied with the relationship that they have with their credit card company they're using their credit card responsibly  and now we are going down a road where we are going to make some fairly substantial changes to that business model and i think there are going to be some unintended consequences of those actions so what is the what is the what is it hurt for the regulatory agency that in this very legislation we're impairing to be responsible for what does it hurt for them to come back and say you know what  we implemented some of these things and here's what's happened in the marketplace we think congress ought to be aware of those and we want to make sure that we're monitoring that what  i think a lot of people think that some of us here are defending the credit card companies what i think i am a many my colleagues are trying to do is make sure that the large universe of people that use credit cards as a part of the limits a little bit but by a large thousands and thousands of issuers there is plenty of opportunity that if you don't lock the card you've got you have the opportunity to get another card and use that card responsibly so we're not themselves what we're asking to do is to use some common sense and the federal reserve and ever been to their website a lot of if we start to see some trends in the credit markets that are penalizing the people up here that we're all  yield i would like to speak in stronger favor of her amendment my colleague from california has been steadfast and one of the strongest supporters from the first day this legislation was put into the hopper was one of the first to come forward to support it has attended seven hearings and many meetings all of which have worked hard to more support from industry and member and if i didn't support that i have a little bit of trouble supporting his what i meant but if you're going to support this i would definitely support his memo to the amendment but my concern is that this may be  giving i agree completely with a sponsor the member i think she's absolutely correct redlining is going on we need to study it we need to stop in some way or another if people are just being taken away that needs to be addressed but i i'm concerned that this amendment may highlight to credit card companies with things that they can't report on in terms of doing this and they'll be able to work around that in terms of people's credit ratings or something else which they'll be able to determine so i'm bill that would cause the credit card companies to change their procedures at this time but i think we ought to want to know the information and understand the extent of it and then we can make a decision  methodology for not issuing the credit card or taking away the credit card or reducing the credit limits or whatever it may be and that's the that's the part that concerns me perhaps we need a broader study than than just that the points that are being made here  what are you scared of what are you scared of if you believe that the underlying act will not have an adverse impact upon credit lines  interest consumer benefits what do you have to fear from a study this committee is not bound by the study but again i reserve the right to disagree with the federal reserve but i at least acknowledge that their opinion is relevant in that they have expertise in the matter of consumer credit through the consumer credit card mechanism and i'm just my colleague's attention to page nineteen of the bill section five which strengthens credit card information collection we do in doing the research on this legislation there is a very little collection of data out there so we have a whole section that would require the federal reserve to collect a report to congress specific data collected from the credit card industry and this data includes the number of credit card accounts total transaction amount and am handling supportive of the underlying amendment it is well crafted and well drafted and addresses a specific set of concerns of this legislation mr amendment on the other hand is a prospect of amendment talking about what happens after the implementation i'm concerned about mr insulin's amendment because number one covers an entirely different period of time and number is really not well crafted like ms waters amendment is i actually if this bill is going to have a so i guess my position is a little bit somewhere between where celing is and where the chairman is if we could work towards some language for a separate study that really  really gets to because i think all of us i certainly am concerned about that but i don't think this is the amendment that ought to be taken for that purpose and if you're going to be companies have done leading up to the legislation and perhaps there is a separate concern that mr handling is raising that is a legitimate concern that i i'm concerned about if if if we're drying up credit to people that is a prospect thing is not the same period of time that ms waters amendment people we need to know that and i think that would be a constructive thing to know i'll yield to mr hanson learning if he has any interest in pursuing that i think the gentleman for yielding but seeing the and i think that we may be able to come to some agreement on the consequences of an amendment or looking at of more specific amendment i wonder if they gentle lady from california would think about i'm not going to offer the amendment but i would think about whether or not adding plans based on credit worthiness or credit risk or those kinds of things in the report at some point might be something to consider i'll yield to the gel in texas but if you if you would consider that and and and you may want to comment on it but i'm pleased my friend from texas i thank the gentleman from georgia for yielding i want to answer some of the charges of heard from the other side i believe i heard the distinguished chairman say th that is rather selective well isn't the first degree and then also selective i listened carefully to the gentle lady from california i believe her minute based upon the alleged illegal practices of one particular company so it seems to me the first degree and then the rather selective second of all i think i have to distinguish chairman say that this type of a minute is used to oppose saucily underlying don't understand why people fear the results of this study you know if i look at the federal reserve and i look at their underlying come very close to mirroring the underlying legislation mentioned my dear my dear friend mr watt has offered to work with you in a very constructive way on your amendment i think that's very important he just made the point it doesn't belong on this particular amendment class action liability created by the legislation that we're considering today let me make it clear that this amendment in no way prevents an individual from being able to gain redress for grievances under the bill he or she would still be able to have the ability to seek reparations individually in court but it would restrict lawsuits to individual claims so that we may ensure that the system is not abused the restriction i believe to be necessary because we've seen an unfortunate trend in our country where people are herded into massive class action lawsuits that benefit the attorneys more than the individuals in the class there was a class action settlement a few years ago where chase cardholders  our ten cent rebate card statements when the actual settlement total twenty two million dollars the ten cents was hardly relief for the card holders so this amendment will i believe stop these abuses and ensure that when someone brings suits to court the focus is on his or individual concerns and not getting inflated settled but for class action attorneys offered this amendment subcommittee and there was some question of that time regarding the scope of the amendment and i just wan make it clear to to members that the amendment clearly states nonaligned nine that this just applies to the provisions of this section so i would urge my colleagues to adopt this commonsense amendment i think it is a significant step in the right direction for consumer protections and we can limit costs like class action lawsuits that may drive up the cost for doing business in the united states so i urge adoption and you know back general north carolina different individual claims that raise the same issue is more effective than having one class action litigated common provisions that apply to everybody i think would be a terrible amendment for the for the industry to have to go and litigate each one of the ours hence the reason for the met but i would ask the gentleman if he believes that it's appropriate to have a ten cent rebate for credit card holders who won't say anything that is a and irrelevant non amendment and hopefully all my colleagues were accepted every time somebody made that statement we ended up with a twenty minute debate anyway mr chairman to ensure consumers are aware of their options regarding over the limit transactions i believe it's best to print the disclosures and notices in clear language and on the one document that consumers would definitely read their monthly statement currently the bill states that notifications must be a separate document i know when i go home and i  through my mail i go for the main parts everything else goes right into the garbage so i think that consumers refer to monthly statements when they have to make a payment so an individual take notice that they have exceeded their limit the gentleman would yield amendment would add to those exceptions and that is a notification of the increases provided to the consumer in writing in clear in conspicuous language at least ninety days before the increase is scheduled to take effect provided that the applicability of this exaction is fully described to the consumer in their contract at least once in your leader after a complete conspicuous manner much of that language comes from the underlying bill  another context there's been much discussion in describing the nature of credit card transactions we've had testimony before this committee that roughly half of all americans who them are rather the few of them are burdened with annual fees and many enjoyed a lower interest rates than they could have received years ago before the advent of risk pricing now in fortunately the local plant shut down laid off well that's a job for the federal government to provide an adequate safety net it's not necessarily the job of reasonable amount of time for people to settle their accounts but again pricing brought of millions of americans to have credit who were previously denied credit strongly with the chairman's statement amendment to add additional reasons and issue or can raise the interest rate retroactively cardholders existing balance and allowing issuers to raise rates there and deceptive and in our mortgage reforms that we're working on we're trying to mitigate losses by making sure bars can repay their loans retroactive rate increases do exactly the opposite they slam additionally nothing in this bill prohibits an issue or from lowering the credit line or cancelling the card if they're worried that the credit card holder will not repay what it what they're doing is they're allowing them to raise interest rates on cardholders who have played by the rules paid on time and never gone over the limit that is absolutely totally unfair and wrong and i urge a very strong no vote and i  r my time thank you i thank the chairman look the underlying bill clearly and one of the basic principles of consumer protection is it banned retroactive rate increases and this amendment would allow resurrect increases as long as the credit card issuer tells you ninety days of the ninety day bailout or consumer protection in other words all the work we've done comes down to credit card companies  saying in ninety days i'm going to do this and we can make everything the bill it isn't i believe the purpose that we have worked many times on both sides of the aisle to protect consumers here today and let me just suggest to  that that the entities that are providing the credit have to be able to cover that increase risk at the very beginning without being able to modify it along the way then they will the initial rate has to of necessity increase because the financial institution of credit card company might be able to to to cover that happen to my friend from texas well i think the gentleman from georgia for gilding when i listen to the distinguished chairman say how terrible it would be that if one was laid off that a credit card company may raise their interest rate perhaps it would be even more terrible if they took away their credit card and that's precisely  existing or not and again there i believe the latest information i saw fourteen thousand fourteen thousand years of credit cards in the us much of the fears that i hear from my friends on  losing my credit card i would probably like the higher interest rate and we can have the debate probably later this afternoon on the floor understand the motion to instruct con capital gains tax a third at a time where we desperately need capital formation and there's no greater social safety net than a job most of which are created by small businesses to work with my friends on the other side of  economic growth policies to assure that these people aren't laid off in the first place since that's a different debate for different time but again you look at the consequences of taking away risk based pricing it was done  h the three biggest impose new annual fees on their card holders nineteen of twenty raised interest rates sixty percent of new applicants were being rejected from the congressional research service what will happen we had testimony of individual creditors to tell us what is going to happen i believe it is inevitable we have an opportunity to protect consumers with risk based pricing by adopting this minute and i twenty seven and i'm very pleased to be offered this memo today with another carolyn colleague of mine new york congresswoman mccarthy and shelley moore capital from west virginia judy biggert from illinois the purpose of our amendment is to address a potential implementation problem for small credit card issuers while many large credit card issuers utilize online banking technology and notification systems there are some small issuers that currently do not maintain web sites especially for smaller more rural institutions that communicate with their customers in person by mail or over the phone tower and then that would give smaller currently defined as creditors with fewer than fifty thousand accounts the option of providing a toll free number or internet web site to meet the important consumer notification requirements in the bill it's important member that in some cases customer service follow issuers may be in markets with very limited internet access and these issuers may be forced to spend significant resources to maintain a presence on the internet that would not be used by their customers are men that provides the flexibility small ratios issuers reasonably need while ensuring larger issuers have the resources to provide multiple lines of communication to their customers fully complying with the new law the amendment is supported by the independent community bankers