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25–779 PDF 2005

FINANCIAL SERVICES REGULATORY RELIEF:

PRIVATE SECTOR PERSPECTIVES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND CONSUMER CREDIT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

May 19, 2005

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

Serial No. 109–32

(

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio 

SUE W. KELLY, New York, Vice Chair 

RON PAUL, Texas 

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio 

JIM RYUN, Kansas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

VITO FOSSELLA, New York 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

MICHAEL G. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

Robert U. Foster, III, Staff Director 

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND CONSUMER CREDIT

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama, Chairman

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina, 

Vice Chairman 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

SUE W. KELLY, New York 

RON PAUL, Texas 

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio 

JIM RYUN, Kansas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

VITO FOSSELLA, New York 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

AL GREEN, Texas 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

(V)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

May 19, 2005 ..................................................................................................... 1

Appendix: 

May 19, 2005 ..................................................................................................... 35

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2005

Ensweiler, Richard L., President, Texas Credit Union League on behalf of 

Credit Union National Association ..................................................................... 16

Jorde, Terry J., President and CEO, CountryBank USA (ND) on behalf of 

Independent Community Bankers of America ................................................... 9

Keeling, Michael, J. President, The ESOP Association ........................................ 18

Macomber, Mark E., President and CEO, Litchfield Bancorp (CT) on behalf 

of America’s Community Bankers ...................................................................... 12

Marquette, Robert, President and CEO, Members 1st Federal Credit Union 

(PA) on behalf of National Association of Federal Credit Unions .................... 14

Rock, Bradley E., President and CEO, Bank of Smithtown (NY) on behalf 

of American Bankers Association ....................................................................... 11

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Bachus, Hon. Spencer ...................................................................................... 36

Gillmor, Hon. Paul E. ....................................................................................... 39

Hensarling, Hon. Jeb ........................................................................................ 40

Hinojosa, Hon. Ruben ....................................................................................... 41

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B. ................................................................................ 42

Moore, Hon. Dennis .......................................................................................... 43

Royce, Hon. Edward R. .................................................................................... 46

Ryun, Hon. Jim ................................................................................................. 47

Sanders, Hon. Bernard ..................................................................................... 49

Ensweiler, Richard L. ....................................................................................... 51

Jorde, Terry J. .................................................................................................. 97

Keeling, Michael, J. .......................................................................................... 109

Macomber, Mark E. .......................................................................................... 122

Marquette, Robert ............................................................................................ 208

Rock, Bradley E. ............................................................................................... 220

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Hinojosa, Hon. Ruben: 

NCRC report, ′′Credit Unions: True to Their Mission? ................................. 243

Ensweiler, Richard L.: 

′′Claims of NCRC Report Rejected by Large Credit Union Trade Group,′′

news release, CUNA, May 19, 2005 ............................................................ 295

Jorde, Terry J.: .........................................................................................................

Written response to question from Hon. Ruben Hinojosa ............................. 300

(1)

FINANCIAL SERVICES REGULATORY RELIEF: 

PRIVATE SECTOR PERSPECTIVES 

Thursday, May 19, 2005

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

AND CONSUMER CREDIT

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Spencer Bachus [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Bachus, Jones, Royce, Kelly, Ryun, 

Biggert, Hensarling, Brown-Waite, Pearce, Neugebauer, McHenry, 

Sanders, Maloney, Sherman, Moore of Kansas, Carson, Hinojosa, 

Green, Moore of Wisconsin, and Clay. 

Chairman BACHUS. [Presiding.] The Subcommittee on Financial 

Institutions and Consumer Credit is meeting here today on regulatory relief that will provide representatives of the financial services industry with an opportunity to identify regulations that they 

consider outdated or not cost-effective. In addition, the witnesses 

will have a chance to offer their recommendations for alleviating 

the burdens imposed by those regulations. 

At this time, I am going to yield to Mr. Royce for an opening 

statement because he is chairing a committee on international relations, and I want to let him do that so he can appear at that meeting. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for holding 

this hearing to address the issue of regulatory relief for the financial services industry, which is a measure that I believe is constructive and well reasoned and very long overdue. 

For far too long Congress has burdened our country’s federally 

chartered banks and thrifts and credit unions with well intentioned, but onerous and often outdated rules and regulations preventing them from operating as efficiently and competing as effectively as they could. I support the efforts of this subcommittee to 

reduce these unnecessary burdens. 

One week ago, Representative Paul Kanjorski and I introduced 

H.R. 2317, the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act, or 

CURIA, which is an updated version of legislation we first offered 

in the 108th Congress. As of this morning, I am pleased to announce we already have garnered the support of 27 cosponsors for 

this measure from both parties. 

CURIA in the 109th Congress contains significant modifications 

regarding the applicable prompt corrective actions, standards and 

2

net worth requirements for credit unions. The most important 

changes replace the capital reform language contained in Title III 

of H.R. 3579 with a more comprehensive and robust capital provision incorporated into Title I of the new CURIA. 

Title I of the new CURIA now contains the PCA capital reforms 

recently recommended by the National Credit Union Administration, which oversees federally chartered credit unions and administers the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund. The new 

PCA provisions in CURIA are modeled after FDIC capital standards applicable to banks and to thrifts. 

I am pleased to see that the testimony of one of our witnesses 

today will lay out more specifics on our legislation, so in the interests of time I would just ask that as this committee addresses regulatory relief provisions for financial institutions. I hope that the 

chairman and other members strongly consider the needed reforms 

Mr. Kanjorski and I have put forward for credit unions. 

I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to 

speak on behalf of my legislation here for a minute this morning, 

and I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today. 

I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Edward R. Royce can be found 

on page 46 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you. 

I would like to say to our panel of witnesses and to the audience 

that Mr. Royce, Mr. Hensarling, Mr. Ryun, Mr. Kanjorski, and Mr. 

Moore on this side of the aisle all are on legislation to give regulatory relief to our financial institutions. Most of them are here 

today, and they are playing a leading role in the legislative package. 

At this time, I recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Sanders. 

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding 

this important hearing. 

I am delighted to welcome our witnesses to be with us today. 

The focus of this hearing is on providing regulatory relief to financial institutions, which this committee has tried on several occasions to accomplish. 

Mr. Chairman, let me begin by saying that I do believe credit 

unions are one of the most highly regulated and restricted of all depository institutions in this country. 

To ease these regulatory burdens and help credit unions succeed 

in the 21st century, I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the 

Credit Union Regulatory Improvement Act introduced by Congressmen Royce and Kanjorski and the Credit Union Net Worth Amendment Act introduced by the chairman. 

Among other things, CURIA will expand credit union investments in small businesses and create decent-paying jobs. The Credit Union Net Worth Amendment Act will also update statutory language to conform to new accounting practices for mergers of credit 

unions. I look forward to working with everyone on this committee 

to advance these bills. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I do not understand why large banks that 

have been making record-breaking profits for the past 5 consecutive years need further regulatory relief while consumers, who are 

3

over $2 trillion in debt, also a record, are far too often left out of 

the mix. I think we might want to pay attention not only to the 

needs of large banks, but also to the needs of consumers. 

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to work 

with you on regulatory relief legislation if we can also include a 

provision to expand employee ownership in this country, and I 

think we are going to be hearing from Mr. Keeling later on about 

that issue. 

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. 

Last night, I introduced the Employee Ownership Opportunity 

Act, a very bipartisan, tripartisan piece of legislation, with Representatives Don Manzullo, Carolyn Maloney, Dana Rohrabacher 

and Barbara Lee. This legislation would provide a Community Reinvestment Act credit to financial institutions that offer assistance 

to employees to establish employee stock ownership plans, ESOPs, 

or eligible worker-owned cooperatives, EWOCs. 

Mr. Chairman, providing a CRA credit for the expansion of employee ownership is, I believe, a win-win. It will be good for banks 

looking for new ways to fulfill their CRA requirements, and it will 

be good for workers who would like to own their own businesses. 

In addition, Mr. Chairman, workers who are also owners, and 

one of the important points about worker ownership is that people 

who own their own businesses are not going to be going to China; 

they are not going to be going to Mexico. They are going to be reinvesting in decent-paying jobs in their own community. They are 

going to be empowered. Productivity will go up, and it is a direction 

that I would like to see our country go. 

Frankly, I think it makes a lot more sense for the Federal Government to be helping workers own the places that they work in, 

rather than providing huge amounts of corporate welfare to large 

multinationals that are going to China. 

Mr. Chairman, when we are talking about employee ownership, 

we are talking about protecting and creating decent-paying jobs in 

this country. Broad-based employee ownership has proven to increase employment, increase productivity, increase sales, and increase wages in the United States. According to a Rutgers University study, broad-based employee ownership boosts company productivity by 4 percent, shareholder return by 2 percent, and profits 

by 14 percent. Similar studies have shown that ESOP companies 

pay their hourly workers between 5 percent to 12 percent better 

than non-ESOP companies. 

Mr. Chairman, last Congress I thought that one of the most interesting hearings in our subcommittee, and I thank you very 

much for holding that, and your interest in this issue, dealt with 

the issue of employee ownership. I was delighted that we were able 

to work together on that hearing. Another person who remembers 

that hearing will be here with us today, and we are delighted that 

Mr. Keeling is back again. 

This issue, Mr. Chairman, I think is one that can bring conservatives and progressives together. It is absolutely nonpartisan. All 

of us are concerned about lower wages in America, the loss of goodpaying jobs. We want people to participate in their economy. So we 

look forward to working with you and all members of this committee on the issue of employee ownership. 

4

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Bernard Sanders can be found 

on page 49 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you, Mr. Sanders. 

I will say for the record that employee stock ownership plans and 

eligible worker-owned cooperatives, encouraging those, is a win-win 

situation for America. I know your legislation. I believe Dana Rohrabacher and Don Manzullo, who is Chairman of the Small Business 

Committee, have already indicated that they will be supporting 

your legislation. 

Mr. SANDERS. That is right. 

Chairman BACHUS. I am very supportive of that legislation, too. 

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you. 

At this time, I recognize Mr. Hensarling. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this important hearing. Thank you for your leadership in trying 

to help us reduce the regulatory burden on our Nation’s financial 

institutions. 

When laws are passed and regulations are promulgated, we just 

cannot walk away from them. Not unlike a ship that picks up barnacles, it has to be cleaned from time to time. The same is true of 

regulations. Many have costs that are passed on to the consumer 

in one form or fashion. Many outlive their purposes. Many have 

unintended consequences. 

The bottom line is that excessive, redundant, and costly regulations can make credit more expensive and less accessible. They can 

keep Americans from purchasing their first home, buying a second 

automobile to go to work, financing their child’s education, or 

maybe launching a small business that creates new jobs in a small 

town. 

I believe with thoughtful regulatory relief, we can free up more 

capital for these valuable purposes without undermining safety and 

soundness. I think, Mr. Chairman, we all know that the Federal 

regulatory burden particularly falls disproportionately on our 

smaller banks and credit unions. These are institutions that typically have branches that are located in rural and more scarcely 

populated areas. Let’s look at just banks for a moment. Assuming that $1 billion 

in assets is the dividing line between small and medium-to-large 

banks, the total number of small banks has declined from roughly 

12,000 at year’s end in 1993 to a little over 8,000 at the end of 

2003. In other words, a decline of almost one-third in just a decade. 

Now, I am sure there are a number of reasons for the mergers 

and consolidations that led to this decline, but from talking to folks 

in my home State Of Texas, I am convinced that the cost and burden of Federal regulation certainly ranks among the top reasons 

and really one of the top challenges to their continued profitability 

and viability. 

This is very worrisome because our smaller financial institutions 

are often the economic lifeblood of these small communities. Let me 

give you one example in my district. First State Bank of Athens, 

Texas, they make almost 100 charitable contributions a year to 

groups like the American Heart Association, Meals on Wheels, DisVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:56 Feb 13, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\109.32 RODNEY
5

abled Veterans. They have funded close to $3 million for a 36-unit 

low-income housing unit for seniors. They fund Texas Ragtime, a 

key employer with 90 employees; Nelson’s Henderson County Door, 

Future Matrix Medical Devices, creating hundreds of jobs in Henderson County, Texas. 

But every dollar they spend on regulatory compliance is a dollar 

they cannot spend on Meals on Wheels or to fund capital improvements at Ragtime to create new jobs. The fact is that this one bank 

in Athens, Texas, spends close to $500,000 annually on BSA compliance, Reg B, Reg E, Reg D, CRA, HMDA, HOPA, Reg O, and the 

list goes on and on and on. 

We must ensure that the banking system, the financial system, 

and the people of Henderson County, Texas, are at least receiving 

$500,000 in value for the regulatory burden. I fear this may not be 

the case. 

For that reason, Mr. Chairman, I applaud you for holding this 

hearing. I thank you for doing it. 

I look forward to working with members of this committee, especially my colleague from Kansas, Mr. Moore, to draft a comprehensive bill that will put more resources into the hands of those on the 

frontlines of community lending and enable more American families to realize their dreams. 

I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jeb Hensarling can be found on 

page 40 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you. 

Mr. Moore, I know you are joining Mr. Hensarling on comprehensive regulatory relief legislation. 

Mr. MOORE OF KANSAS. Yes. 

Chairman BACHUS. I commend both you gentlemen. 

Mr. MOORE OF KANSAS. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for scheduling today’s 

hearing, your leadership in calling this hearing on regulatory relief 

measures for depository institutions in our country. 

I look forward, as Mr. Hensarling just said, to working with him, 

Congressman Hensarling, in the weeks and months ahead, and to 

hearing suggestions from our witnesses today on how we can reduce the regulatory burden on financial institutions. 

This subcommittee and the full committee both passed the regulatory relief bill by voice vote during the 108th Congress, and the 

House passed it 1 year ago by a wide margin. I think it was about 

392 to 25. I hope and believe that we will continue this broad bipartisan cooperation on this legislation that we have enjoyed in the 

past. 

Regulatory relief should not be about Republicans and Democrats. It should be about doing the right thing for the lenders in 

our communities who have played such an important role in expanding homeownership and creating opportunities for businesses 

and for consumers. 

Again, Chairman Bachus, thank you very, very much for convening this hearing. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis Moore can be found on 

page 43 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you. 

6

Mr. Ryun? 

Mr. RYUN. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I appreciate your holding 

this hearing on regulatory relief for our financial institutions. 

I believe the institutions across the spectrum of the financial 

services industry do a remarkable job of serving our communities 

and making our financial services infrastructure the envy of the 

world, and we want to keep it that way. 

I believe that virtually all segments of the industry are in need 

of some form of regulatory relief, which is why I am pleased to see 

this effort to move again forward. I am grateful to my colleagues 

on this committee for spearheading the debate, specifically Mr. 

Hensarling and Mr. Moore for making this issue a priority. 

I am pleased to make a contribution to this debate by sponsoring 

H.R. 2061, the Communities First Act, which will provide targeted 

regulatory relief for community banks and their customers. I 

wholeheartedly supported H.R. 1375 in the last Congress. H.R. 

1375 was a comprehensive regulatory relief bill and provides us a 

good starting point as we again begin to address this issue. 

However, there are additional measures that should be added to 

this communities bank issue and the service to small towns and 

rural communities of America. The Communities First Act is intended to call attention to the needs of the customers who use 

these community banks. Specifically, I believe it is important to 

identify areas where resources can be better used for serving customers than with compliance with burdensome and unnecessary 

regulations. 

As this broader regulatory relief effort moves forward, I encourage the committee to have a similar focus on serving the needs of 

the customers. I also want to say that my intent in introducing 

H.R. 2061 is to supplement the debate we are going to have today. 

I have some concerns that I believe should be addressed and will 

work with those concerned, including in the package a comprehensive package that helps move forward with some more relief. 

I am also certainly supportive of the broader effort as I believe 

the comprehensive approach is appropriate and needed. I look forward to participating in this debate and helping my colleagues 

craft the best bill possible. 

Today, I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panel 

and have had the opportunity to work with almost all of you, all 

the different organizations represented, and I thank each of you for 

joining us today and providing your advice and insight to what we 

should do as we move forward in this process. 

I am confident that we will be able to address many of the concerns of each of the organizations, and again I thank you for being 

here. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Ryun can be found on page 

47 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you. 

Ms. Maloney? 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you so much, Chairman Bachus, for holding this hearing. 

I welcome all of the witnesses. You represent a sector of the financial services industry that is extremely important to the city 

7

that I represent, New York City, and to our Nation as a whole. I 

am glad that we have an opportunity to hear from you today about 

the burdens that regulation and reporting requirements impose on 

our financial institutions, particularly those that are not megalarge, huge institutions, but are more community based. 

Whenever and wherever I go in my district, institutions large 

and small tell me how hard and very costly it is to comply with 

the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act, to file the currency 

transaction reports and the suspicious activity reports, and to comply with the Patriot Act’s know-your-customer requirements. We 

have placed tremendous burdens on our banks, and they are on the 

frontlines of combating terrorism financing, and they have not 

shrunk from this incredibly important role. 

But we must make sure that they receive the necessary support 

from the regulators, both in terms of examinations and guidance, 

and in terms of regulatory requirements. It makes absolutely no 

sense for banks to spend an incredible amount of time and money 

to file SARs, or the suspicious activity reports, at the maximum of 

the regulatory requirement, when Treasury, by the account of its 

own Inspector General, cannot even track properly all of the data 

that is given to them. 

When regulators interpret regulations so as to require compliance at a level that is obviously wasteful because it is beyond what 

has any useful purpose, it undermines the legitimacy of the regulation itself. SARs, CTRS, and know-your-customer all serve a very 

important purpose, but the Administration’s inability to set the reporting requirements at a level that makes sense in terms of the 

data’s usefulness to law enforcement is absolutely counterproductive. 

Not only does the industry suffer the costs for no benefit for society, but even worse, terrorist data is more likely to go unnoticed 

in a huge pile of irrelevant and unnecessary information. More 

SARs are not better. We have to figure out how to use this information and to streamline it better. 

The burdens are particularly heavy on the smaller institutions 

for which the costs of compliance are a much higher proportion of 

their resources. In light of the failure of the Administration to fix 

this problem, Congress is forced to step in. 

In the last Congress, this committee reported regulatory reform 

legislation. The House passed it. It did not move in the other body. 

I expect we will move shortly to advance similar reforms again in 

this House. I look forward to any ideas that can make these programs more effective and less burdensome on the institutions so 

that we can really achieve the goal that is set forth. 

In that vein, I am proud to be a cosponsor of not only the bill 

that passed last year, but three or four other reform bills in the 

regulatory relief area. So I look forward to your testimony, and believe me, I believe both sides of the aisle want to work in any way 

to make the system work better for you and for the public. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney can be 

found on page 42 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. I thank the gentlelady. 

Are there any other members who wish to make opening statements? 

8

I reserved my opening statement because Mr. Royce had to chair 

another committee. So at this time, I am going to make a brief 

opening statement simply to say that the annual cost of regulations 

on our financial institutions, on our banks alone, is $36 billion. 

While some of those are necessary for safety and soundness, to 

comply with consumer protection laws, to comply with, as Ms. 

Maloney mentioned, the Bank Secrecy Act or the Patriot Act or 

money laundering measures, or financial crimes legislation, many 

of them are not necessary, and many of them, even with the Bank 

Secrecy Act or the Patriot Act, seem to be overly burdensome. 

The Chairman of our committee, Chairman Oxley, in 2001 really 

because of additional burdens placed on our financial institutions 

when the Patriot Act was passed into law, indicated at that time 

that as a part of the overall legislation on the Patriot Act that assurances were made to our financial institutions that Congress 

would make a comprehensive review of our bank regulations and 

try to both offset the cost of the Patriot Act to the new costs imposed by the Congress because of those regulations and other regulations of that nature. 

He also indicated at that time that we would look at the Bank 

Secrecy Act and review that. We continue to get indications that 

the Bank Secrecy Act in some cases is being used in ways it was 

not intended by U.S. attorneys and others who simply do not understand the act or its purpose, and in my mind, in fact on certain 

occasions, go against the guidance and counsel of the bank regulators. 

Mr. Hensarling and Mr. Moore have taken H.R. 1375, which was 

introduced last year. They have refined that and they have, or you 

are going to introduce in the near future. I think a result of this 

hearing and what you say today will impact that legislation. It is 

their intention, along with others, to introduce comprehensive legislation on reg relief. 

Also, we have two other pieces of legislation which have already 

been introduced, one by Mr. Royce and Mr. Kanjorski, which is regulatory relief for our credit unions. Mr. Royce has mentioned that 

bill, and Mr. Ryun has legislation to try to help our small independent banks. 

Mr. Sanders mentioned that the large banks, he did not note the 

need for relief there, but Mr. Ryun’s bill is particular targeted at 

our small community banks. They do pay a disproportionate share 

of their funds and their resources to comply with regulatory relief. 

So after this hearing, we will be looking at all those legislations 

and, hopefully, moving legislation very quickly. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Spencer Bachus can be found 

on page 36 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS.At this time, I would like to introduce our 

panel. 

Our first panelist is Ms. Terry Jorde, president and CEO of 

CountryBank USA—that is in North Dakota, is that right?—on behalf of the Independent Community Bankers of America; Mr. Bradley Rock, chairman, president, and CEO of the Bank of Smithtown, 

New York, on behalf of the American Bankers Association; Mr. 

Mark Macomber, president and CEO of Litchfield Bancorp, on behalf of the America’s Community Bankers; and Mr. Robert MarVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:56 Feb 13, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\109.32 RODNEY
9

quette, president and CEO of the Members First Federal Credit 

Union in Pennsylvania. 

Where in Pennsylvania is that located? 

Mr. MARQUETTE. Mechanicsburg. 

Chairman BACHUS. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Marquette testifies on behalf of the National Association of 

Federal Credit Unions, and Mr. Richard Ensweiler, president of the 

Texas Credit Union League, on behalf of the Credit Union National 

Association; and finally, Mr. Michael Keeling, president of the 

ESOP Association, employment stock ownership plans. 

Mr. Sanders mentioned legislation dealing with those and the 

CRA credits, so we welcome you. 

At this time, we will start with Ms. Jorde, with your testimony. 

We welcome all of you to the committee and look forward to our 

hearing today. 

STATEMENT OF MS. TERRY J. JORDE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

COUNTRYBANK USA (ND), ON BEHALF OF INDEPENDENT 

COMMUNITY BANKERS OF AMERICA 

Ms. JORDE. Thank you. 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Sanders, and 

members of the committee. My name is Terry Jorde, president and 

CEO of CountryBank USA. I am also chairman-elect of the Independent Community Bankers of America. My bank is located in 

Cando, North Dakota, a town of 1,300 people, where the motto is, 

′′You Can Do Better in Cando.′′ CountryBank has 27 employees and 

$39 million in assets. 

ICBA appreciates this opportunity to testify. We are especially 

pleased that the committee is apparently open to expand on previous regulatory relief bills, since they included very little true relief for community banks. That is one reason why the ICBA worked 

closely with Representative Jim Ryun on his Communities First 

Act. It includes relief critical to community banks and their customers. 

Other financial groups that have been working on the interagency regulatory burden reduction project led by FDIC Vice 

Chairman John Reich endorse virtually all of the regulatory provisions in the bill. ICBA hopes that Representative Hensarling will 

include many of them in the broader bill he is developing. 

Recent studies highlighted in my written statement show that 

community banks are losing market share. I agree with FDIC Vice 

Chairman Reich that the disproportionate impact of the regulatory 

burden on community banks is a leading cause of consolidation in 

our industry. 

It is not just smaller community banks like mine that are feeling 

the pain. Larger community banks as well are drowning in paperwork and regulatory burden. They are hiring two or three full-time 

employees to do nothing but Bank Secrecy Act compliance. They 

have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for Sarbanes-Oxley 

Act compliance. In addition, credits unions, with their tax-exempt 

advantages and loose membership rules, have made inroads into 

small banks’ market segments. That is one reason that ICBA is unalterably opposed to the credit union industry’s new proposal to increase their charter powers, H.R. 2317. 

10

I assure you, community bankers are not crying wolf. If we do 

not get meaningful relief soon, more and more of them will throw 

up their hands and give up their independence. This would hurt 

communities and reduce access to credit by small business, the primary job-creating engine of our economy. Banks with less than $1 

billion in assets make 37 percent of small business loans, almost 

three times their share, 13 percent, of bank industry assets. And 

they account for 64 percent of total bank lending to farms. 

Community banks are particularly attuned to the needs of their 

communities and are uniquely equipped to facilitate local economic 

development. For example, I spend many hours each month on my 

local hospital board and our economic development corporation 

working to bring new business to our community. Branches of large 

mega-banks do not provide the same commitment. 

While we do not offer legislative changes to the Bank Secrecy 

Act, community bankers do have serious concerns about the enforcement. It is topic 1(A) when bankers discuss regulatory burden. 

However, the agencies do have the authority to address most of the 

problems. This committee should continue its oversight to ensure 

that BSA compliance does not impose an unproductive burden on 

the economy and truly achieves its important goals. 

The bank regulatory reduction project led by FDIC Vice Chairman Reich has done an excellent job in identifying those banking 

regulations that are unnecessarily burdensome. Many of them are 

hard-wired into Federal statute. The Communities First Act would 

make key changes, building on the concept of a tiered regulatory 

and supervision system as recommended by Vice Chairman Reich. 

Let me give you a couple of examples that would affect my bank. Section 102 of the act would permit strong banks with assets of $1 

billion or less to file a short call report form in 2 quarters of each 

year. The current call report instructions and schedules fill 458 

pages. A key employee in my bank spends the better part of April, 

July, October, and January working on this report. She never takes 

a vacation during these months and God help us if she would ever 

get sick at those times. 

While expensive and time consuming to produce, these quarterly 

filings by community banks are not essential to the agencies. The 

fact is in banks like mine, the world just does not change that dramatically between March 31 and June 30 of each year. The FDIC 

will not lose track of us if we file a short form every other quarter 

and Mr. Greenspan will still be able to conduct monetary policy 

without our real-time data. 

Let me give you another example. One of the most wasteful provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act has been the requirement 

that financial institutions send annual privacy notices. They must 

be written in impossible-to-understand legalese. Fixing the language is daunting. Section 203 of the Communities First Act would 

at least greatly reduce the number of notices that must be mailed. 

It says that if an institution does not share information, except for 

narrow purposes, and has not changed its policies, it need not send 

out the annual notices. 

While any size institution could take advantage of this provision, 

community bankers are especially interested in having this option. 

I can tell you that my customers and their garbage collectors would 

11

also be grateful. These are just two examples from the Communities First Act. I am sure other community bankers would highlight others. 

ICBA strongly urges this committee to closely examine each of 

the regulatory provisions in the bill and include as many as possible in your broader regulatory relief measure. 

We thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Terry J. Jorde can be found on page 

97 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you. 

Mr. Rock? 

STATEMENT OF BRADLEY E. ROCK, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT 

AND CEO, BANK OF SMITHTOWN (NY), ON BEHALF OF AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION 

Mr. ROCK. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my 

name is Brad Rock. I am chairman, president, and CEO of Bank 

of Smithtown, a $750 million community bank founded in 1910, 

which is located on Long Island in Smithtown, New York. 

I would like to make three key points. First, compliance costs 

drain bank resources, taking away from the needs of our customers 

and our communities. Every new law, regulation or rule means two 

things: more expensive bank credit and less of it. During the past 

decade, banks have shouldered the effects of some of the most imposing legislation of the past 100 years. 

Compliance costs for banks today are between $35 billion and 

$42 billion per year, and these do not include costs associated with 

the USA Patriot Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the SEC, FASB, and 

the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. If we were to reduce the regulatory costs by just 20 percent, the reduction would 

support additional bank lending of up to $84 billion. The impact on 

our economy would be huge. 

Second, regulatory burden is significant for banks of all sizes, but 

small banks struggle the most. There are more than 3,200 banks 

with fewer than 25 employees. Nearly 1,000 banks have fewer than 

10 employees. These banks simply do not have the human resources to implement the thousands of pages of regulations, policy 

statements, and directives they receive every year. 

Countless hours are spent on compliance paperwork at all levels, 

from bank directors and CEOs to managers and tellers. At my 

bank, every person has major compliance responsibilities, and one 

person has a full-time job just to coordinate all the compliance activities. 

I personally spend about 1.5 days per week on compliance issues. 

Some CEOs tell me that they are now spending nearly half their 

time on regulatory issues. This means that bank CEOs spend more 

than 5 million hours each year on compliance, time that could be 

better spent on ways to improve banking in their communities and 

to meet the changing needs of their customers. But the costs do not 

stop there. My bank pays more than $100,000 each year to outside 

firms to help us to comply with regulatory burdens. This one expense alone, if it were used as capital, would support additional $1 

million of lending in my community. 

12

My third point is this: Only the involvement of Congress can result in a reduction of costly regulatory burdens. Bankers have seen 

previous relief efforts come and go without effect, while the overall 

burden has kept rising. In my written testimony, I list some of the 

areas in which ABA is seeking reform. Let me briefly describe two 

which have been particularly costly in recent years. 

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks fill out more than 13 million 

cash transaction reports annually. In my area, many of these reports are filed for small businesses like delis, gas stations, and 

flower shops, which have nothing to do with potentially criminal 

activity. The 35-year-old rules related to cash transaction reports 

have lost their usefulness due to several developments, including 

more extensive suspicious activity reporting. Consider a small bank 

that has 25 employees or less. Many banks of this size have had 

to hire an additional full-time employee for the sole purpose of completing reports related to the Bank Secrecy Act. The cost-benefit 

analysis does not make sense. 

Second, as a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, accountants have 

more than doubled their fees. One community bank in New York 

saw its accounting fees jump from $193,000 in 2003 to more than 

$600,000 in 2004. New accounting standards frequently cause almost complete duplication of bank internal audits without increasing safety and soundness. 

In conclusion, unnecessary paperwork and regulation erodes the 

ability of banks to serve customers and support the economic 

growth of our communities. We look forward to working with you 

to find ways to bring greater balance to the regulatory process. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Bradley E. Rock can be found on 

page 220 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you, Mr. Rock. 

Mr. Macomber? 

STATEMENT OF MARK E. MACOMBER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

LITCHFIELD BANCORP (CT), ON BEHALF OF AMERICA’S 

COMMUNITY BANKERS 

Mr. MACOMBER. Good morning, Chairman Bachus, Congressman 

Sanders, and members of the committee. I am Mark Macomber, 

president and CEO of Litchfield Bancorp in Litchfield, Connecticut. 

Litchfield Bancorp is a $175 million State-chartered community 

bank, and is part of a two-bank mutual holding company that operates as a mutual savings bank. I am here this morning representing America’s Community Bankers. I serve on ACB’s board 

of directors and its executive committee and am ACB’s second vice 

chairman. 

I want to thank Chairman Bachus, Congressman Hensarling, 

and Congressman Moore of Kansas for their leadership in addressing the impact of outdated and unnecessary regulations on community banks and the communities they serve. ACB is pleased to discuss ways to reduce the burden of unnecessary regulations on community banks. 

Many of ACB’s specific recommendations have been included in 

past regulatory relief legislation adopted by the Financial Services 

Committee and the House, including the Financial Services ReguVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:56 Feb 13, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\109.32 RODNEY
13

latory Relief Act of 2004, H.R. 1375. The House adopted H.R. 1375 

by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 392 to 25. We greatly appreciate the past support of the Financial Institutions Subcommittee 

and the Financial Services Committee, and we hope members of 

the committee will support the recommendations that we will discuss today. 

This hearing and this topic are important and timely. Ten years 

ago, there were 12,000 banks in the United States. Today, there 

are only 9,000 of us left. ACB is concerned that community banks 

are significantly hindered in their ability to compete because of the 

costs and burden of unnecessary and outdated regulations. We are 

particularly concerned about how laws intended to prevent money 

laundering and to promote corporate governance are being implemented by regulatory agencies. 

Community bankers fully support the goals of the laws against 

money laundering, and we are resolute participants in the fight 

against crime and terrorism. Yet we face an atmosphere of uncertainty and confusion because regulatory staff in the field, region, 

and in Washington are giving banks inconsistent messages. Community bankers also support the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. 

However, the implementation of the act by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight 

Board, together with the way accounting firms interpret the regulations, have led to unintended consequences that are costly and burdensome. That is true for all community banks, including those 

that are privately held stock institutions and mutual community 

banks like mine. 

ACB has provided concrete suggestions to the banking agencies 

and other regulators on ways to cut the cost of compliance. We 

commend the banking agency in FinCEN on their recent guidance 

on money services businesses and the SEC and the PCAOB on the 

recent guidance on internal controls. We hope these efforts will 

bring greater certainty and lower compliance costs. Yet more needs 

to be done. ACB will continue to work with Government agencies 

to improve the regulation of our anti-money laundering and corporate governance laws. 

A new concern that has been raised by our members is that the 

Federal Housing Finance Board may be contemplating imposing on 

the community bank members of the Federal Home Loan Bank system a third layer of predatory lending regulations. State and Federal banking regulators already oversee the banking system for unscrupulous lending practices. However, our members see no value 

in adding another regulator to duplicate what others are already 

doing. This can only lead to conflicting requirements and more and 

higher costs to the system and its borrowers. 

Our written statements endorse 31 amendments to current laws 

that will reduce unnecessary regulations on community banks. Let 

me mention three. First, a modest increase in the lending limit for 

savings associations is a high priority for ACB members. In recent 

years, community banks have experienced an increased demand for 

small business loans. 

To meet this demand, ACB wants to eliminate the lending limit 

restriction on small business loans. We would increase the lending 

limit on other commercial loans to 20 percent of assets. This exVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:56 Feb 13, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\109.32 RODNEY
14

panded authority would enable savings associations to make more 

loans to small-and medium-size businesses. That would enhance 

their role as community-based lenders. It would promote community development and contribute to economic growth and job creation. 

Second, ACB vigorously believes that savings associations should 

have parity with banks under the Securities Exchange Act and the 

Investment Advisers Act. Savings associations and banks should 

operate under the same basic regulatory requirements when engaged in identical trust, brokerage, and other activities. As more 

savings associations engage in trust activities, there is no substantive reason to subject them to different requirements. They 

should be subject to the same regulations as banks engaged in the 

same services. 

Third, ACB urges that unnecessary restrictions on the ability of 

national and State banks to engage in interstate branching be removed. Currently, national and State banks may only engage in de 

novo interstate banking if State law expressly permits. This restriction should be eliminated. 

These recommendations, along with those in our written statement, will make it easier and less costly for us to help our communities grow and prosper and create new jobs. On behalf of America’s Community Bankers, I want to thank you for your invitation 

to testify. We look forward to working with you and your staff to 

accomplish this goal. 

I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Mark E. Macomber can be found on 

page 122 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you, Mr. Macomber. 

Mr. Marquette? 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT MARQUETTE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

MEMBERS 1ST FEDERAL CREDIT UNION (PA), ON BEHALF OF 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FEDERAL CREDIT UNIONS 

Mr. MARQUETTE. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Sanders, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Bob 

Marquette. I am the president and CEO of Members 1st Federal 

Credit Union, located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. I am here 

today on behalf of the National Association of Federal Credit 

Unions to express our views on the need for regulatory relief and 

reform for credit unions. 

As with all credit unions, Members 1st is a not-for-profit financial cooperative governed by a volunteer board of directors who are 

elected by our member-owners. We were founded in 1950 by nine 

members putting $5 in a hat, and from those humble beginnings, 

and solely through the support of our member-owners and their 

funds, we have grown to our current size, meeting their everyday 

financial needs. 

America’s credit unions have always remained true to their original mission of promoting thrift and providing a source of credit for 

provident or productive purposes. A 2004 Filene Research Institute 

study entitled, ′′Who Uses Credit Unions?′′ found that the average 

household income of those who hold accounts solely at a credit 

15

union was less than $43,000, while this average for those who solely hold accounts at a bank was almost $77,000. 

Because of our cooperative not-for-profit structure, our members 

find that our product service offerings remain widely available to 

them irrespective of economic or stock market conditions. Such dependability means we are not in a particular market or product offering today, but out of that area tomorrow simply to bolster our 

net income growth. Such a long-term view is only possible because 

of our not-for-profit mutual ownership structure, which benefits not 

only our members, but also our economy and our local businesses 

as well. 

I am pleased to report to you today that America’s credit unions 

are vibrant and healthy and that membership in credit unions continues to grow, now serving over 86 million Americans. At the 

same time, according to data obtained from the Federal Reserve 

Board, credit unions have the same market share today in terms 

of financial assets as they did in 1980, 1.4 percent, and as a consequence provide little competitive threat to other financial institutions. 

Mr. Chairman, as your subcommittee considers regulatory relief, 

we hope that you will look at the credit union provisions included 

in last year’s House-passed Financial Services Regulatory Relief 

Act. We believe these provisions are a positive step in addressing 

many of the regulatory burdens and restrictions on Federal credit 

unions. The facts confirm that credit unions are more heavily regulated than other consumer financial services providers. 

We also hope that you will consider including additional provisions from the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act of 2005. 

I would like to thank Congressmen Royce and Kanjorski for taking 

the lead in introducing this vital legislation. 

NAFCU urges the subcommittee to include language in any regulatory relief bill to modernize credit union capital requirements by 

redefining the net worth ratio to include risk assets as proposed by 

the NCUA and included in the CURIA bill. This would result in a 

new, more appropriate measurement to determine the relative risk 

of a credit union’s balance sheet and also improve the safety and 

soundness of credit unions and our share insurance fund. 

NAFCU also asks the subcommittee to refine the member business loan cap established as part of the Credit Union Membership 

Access Act in 1998, replacing the current formula with a flat rate 

of 20 percent of the total assets of a credit union. We support revising the definition of a member business loan by giving NCUA authority to exclude loans of $100,000 or less from counting against 

the cap. 

There is a lot of rhetoric out there on this issue, but I must note 

that a 2001 Treasury Department study entitled ′′Credit Union 

Member Business Lending′′ concluded that credit unions’ business 

lending currently has no effect on the viability and profitability of 

other insured depository institutions. 

Finally, we urge the subcommittee to also include language that 

would address the strain that could be placed on merging credit 

unions when FASB changes merger accounting rules from the pooling method to the purchase method. This subcommittee held a 

hearing on April 13 of this year, and legislation to address this 

16

issue in the form of the Net Worth Amendment for Credit Unions 

Act is moving through the House. We thank you for your leadership on this issue, Mr. Chairman, and we hope that this issue will 

also be included in any regulatory relief package. 

In conclusion, the state of the credit union community is strong, 

and the safety and soundness of credit unions is unquestionable. 

Nevertheless, there is a clear need to ease the regulatory burden 

on credit unions as we move forward in the 21st century financial 

services marketplace. NAFCU urges the subcommittee to consider 

the important credit union provisions we have outlined in this testimony for inclusion in any regulatory relief bill. 

We look forward to working with you on this important matter 

and would welcome your comments or questions, and we appreciate 

the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Robert Marquette can be found on 

page 208 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you, Mr. Marquette. 

Mr. Ensweiler? 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD L. ENSWEILER, PRESIDENT, TEXAS 

CREDIT UNION LEAGUE, ON BEHALF OF CREDIT UNION NATIONAL ASSOCIATION 

Mr. ENSWEILER. Chairman Bachus, Ranking Member Sanders, 

and members of the subcommittee, on behalf of the Credit Union 

National Association, I appreciate this opportunity to express the 

association’s view on legislation to help alleviate the regulatory 

burden under which all financial institutions operate today. I am 

Richard Ensweiler, president and CEO of the Texas Credit Union 

League and chairman of the Credit Union National Association. 

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, credit unions are 

clearly distinguishable from other depository institutions in their 

structure and operational characteristics and have more limited 

powers than national banks and Federal savings associations. 

Given the limited time available, I will devote my statement to describing a few exceptionally important issues for these credit 

unions. Most of these are addressed in the recently introduced H.R. 

2317, the Credit Union Regulatory Improvement Act of 2005, or 

CURIA. 

We are very grateful to Representatives Royce and Kanjorski, as 

well as Representatives LaTourette, Sanders, Maloney, and other 

cosponsors for reintroducing this important bill. As part of our mission, credit unions are devoted to providing affordable financial 

services to all our members, including those of modest means. One 

provision that this committee and the House have already passed, 

thanks to Representatives Gerlach and Sherman, would better enable us to meet the goal. I am referring to H.R. 749, legislation to 

permit credit unions to provide broader check-cashing and remittance services. 

Accomplishing our mission can also be greatly enhanced by revisiting two major components of the 1998-passed Credit Union Membership Access Act. With 7 years of experience, we have learned 

that what was thought to be good policy at the time has actually 

17

created new problems that need to be resolved to assure that credit 

unions can continue to meet their mission. 

The first of these is the current cap on member business lending. 

There was no safety or soundness reason to impose these limits as 

the historical record is clear that such loans are even safer than 

other types of credit union loans. In fact, public policy argues 

strongly in favor of eliminating altogether or increasing the limits 

that credit unions can lend to their small business members from 

the current 12.25 percent of total assets to the 20 percent suggested in CURIA. 

Small business is the backbone of our economy and is responsible 

for the vast majority of new jobs in America. Yet recent SBA and 

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta studies reveal that small businesses are having greater difficulty in getting loans in areas where 

bank consolidation has taken hold. The 1998-passed law severely 

restricts small business access to credit and impedes economic 

growth in America. Although few credit unions are currently bumping up against the cap, in a few years that is likely to change. 

Then there is the case of many small credit unions. Investing in 

the expertise required to run a member business lending operation 

is a very expensive proposition. With the 12.25 percent of assets 

cap, they could not make up the costs necessary to engage in such 

an operation. Their members want the credit union option for this 

service, too. 

Furthermore, the National Credit Union Administration should 

be given the authority to increase the $50,000 threshold as proposed in CURIA to $100,000. This would be especially helpful to 

small credit unions as they would then be able to provide the 

smallest of these loans without the expense of setting up a formal 

program. 

Another critical issue addressed in CURIA is prompt corrective 

action regulations governing credit unions. Credit unions have 

higher statutory capital requirements than banks, but credit 

unions’s cooperative structure creates a systemic incentive against 

excessive risk-taking, so since there is no profit motive to take excessive risks, there may be actually less capital required to meet 

potential losses than at other depository institutions. 

And because of their conservative management style, credit 

unions generally seek to always be classified as well, rather than 

adequately, capitalized. To do so, they must maintain a significant 

cushion above the 7 percent of assets reserve level. CUNA believes 

that the best way to reform PCA would be to transform the system 

in to one that is much more explicitly based on risk measurement 

as outlined in CURIA. It would place much greater emphasis on 

ensuring that adequate net worth in relation to risk at a particular 

credit union as it undertakes this operation. 

At the same time, CUNA believes credit union PCA could incorporate a meaningful leverage requirement comparable to that in effect for other federally insured institutions. CUNA strongly supports CURIA’s new rigorous safety and soundness regulatory regime for credit unions, which is anchored by meaningful net worth 

requirements and are at least comparable to bank PCA. 

And credit unions agree that any credit union with net worth ratios well below those required to be adequately capitalized should 

18

be subject to prompt and stringent corrective action. There is no 

desire to shield credit unions from PCA. They are indeed the appropriate targets of PCA. Because of the cooperative funding structure 

of the national credit union share insurance fund, credit unions are 

keenly aware that it is they who pay when a credit union fails. 

Reforming PCA along these lines would preserve and strengthen 

the fund. It would more closely tie a credit union’s net worth requirements to its risk exposure. It would also free up more capital 

for making loans to members and putting resources into the economy. 

Finally, we thank you, Chairman Bachus and others for introducing and moving H.R. 1042 to address a pending issue before 

FASB that would cause undue hardship to credit unions by forcing 

them to change from the pooling method of accounting for reserves 

in the event of mergers. 

In summary, Mr. Chairman, we are grateful to the subcommittee 

for holding this important hearing. We strongly urge the subcommittee to act on this very important issue this year and to 

make sure that CURIA is a part of any congressional action to provide financial institutions regulatory relief. CURIA is our future. 

Without CURIA, more credit unions will feel forced to consider converting to a thrift or a bank, and millions of Americans will be deprived of a not-for-profit, member-owned financial cooperative, or a 

credit union, as an option to respond to their financial needs. 

Thank you for this opportunity this morning. 

[The prepared statement of Richard L. Ensweiler can be found on 

page 51 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. Thank you. 

Mr. Keeling? 

STATEMENT OF J. MICHAEL KEELING, PRESIDENT, THE ESOP 

ASSOCIATION 

Mr. KEELING. Chairman Bachus, Ranking Member Sanders, 

members of the subcommittee, my name is J. Michael Keeling. I 

am president of the ESOP Association. Our primary members are 

U.S. corporations that are owned by their employees through an 

employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP. 

Approximately 97 percent of our 1,400 ESOP company members 

are private, small-to mid-size businesses. Our member demographics pretty much represent business as a whole in America. I 

have served as the chief staff officer of the Association since April 

1991 and first began work with the ESOP group in early 1982, 

shortly after leaving a position as Chief of Staff for 10 years with 

former Congressman J. J. Pickle. 

You may wonder what someone who works for companies that 

are employee-owned through ESOP has to say to you as you examine ways to ease and improve the regulation of our nation’s financial institutions. Before I finish, I would hope that you would conclude that discussions of creating employee ownership should be 

before your full committee and your subcommittee more so than 

the tax and labor committees of Congress. 

Let me explain. An ESOP is similar to any other defined contribution plan such as a 401(k) plan, except for two statutory distinguishing characteristics. Unlike other defined contribution 

19

plans, an ESOP must be primarily invested in employer stock and 

may borrow money to obtain its asset, the stock of the plan sponsor. Attachment A summarizes the research that ESOPs are good 

for America, for the ESOP companies, and the employee-owners in 

the vast majority of instances. Note the words I used, ′′borrow 

money,′′ which clearly means you should have an interest in the 

approximately 11,000 ESOP companies in America. 

But let’s dig a little deeper. First, a big picture statement as to 

why your subcommittee should be involved with ESOPs as you 

work with your primary concern, our Nation’s financial institutions. Ninety percent of ownership is created in a free enterprise 

society by financing. The idea that one can work hard and save a 

few pennies and then start their own business and succeed, but 

never be financed, is a Pollyanna pipedream. Entrepreneurs get financed, and as they pay off their debts or line of credit, they own 

more and as what they own grows, they become wealthier. 

ESOPs borrow money to enable average-paid persons, the employees, to be owners. The ESOP method of financing cuts the employees in on the ownership of what makes people truly financially 

secure in a capitalistic system: productive assets. The sources of 

ESOP financing are generally from the institutions you oversee. So 

ESOPs are intertwined with financial institutions in economic theory and in practicality. 

Let’s climb down from the skies a bit. As Mr. Sanders mentioned, 

yesterday he introduced H.R. 2547 and was joined by his colleagues 

Manzullo, Rohrabacher, Maloney, and Lee. Last Congress, Mr. 

Sanders introduced H.R. 2969, which would have established a 

lending program in the United States Treasury to facilitate employees buying their plants under conditions and to operate them 

as ESOP companies or employee-owned cooperatives, or EWOCs, as 

they are called. 

In today’s climate of tight budgets, it will take more work by the 

employee ownership community to make the case to you that you 

and your colleagues should move forward the H.R. 2969 package. 

But as ESOP experts reviewed H.R. 2969, one provision of Mr. 

Sanders’s bill jumped off the page as a modest but meaningful first 

step in accomplishing several worthy goals. This was the provision 

that is now H.R. 2547. 

H.R. 2547 provides that the appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency assessing a financial institution’s record of meeting 

the credit needs of its entire community should also include as a 

factor the institution’s capital investment loans to support or enable manufacturing employees to establish ESOPs or EWOCs that 

are at least 51 percent owners of the companies where they work. 

Please note the language of H.R. 2547 is very modest. It does not 

automatically mean that the agency gives a CRA. The loan has to 

be for employees of a manufacturing facility that ends up with at 

least 51 percent ownership. In the real world, we are looking at 

about 100 to 150 situations like this. In 2003, Congressman Sanders had hearings on H.R. 2969 and we learned of many plants 

where the union and management, or nonunion employees and 

management could, make a good case that the plant could succeed 

as an employee owned company, but yet they did not get financing. 

20

Still today, too many banks and lending institutions do not understand the mechanisms in how employee-owned companies work. 

I think of Mrs. Maloney in the 1980s and the work she was doing 

for her people in the Bronx. Perhaps we would have saved that 

Bronx Brass facility, Mrs. Maloney, if we had had this provision in 

law. 

We come to the win-win situation here. What Mr. Sanders is saying is, listen, banks, help expand employee ownership and you will 

get a little easing of your regulatory burden. So it is a modest step. 

Indulge me one thought, and I quote a speech: ′′In America’s idea 

of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the 

broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act.′′ ′′To give every American a stake in the promise and future, we 

will build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of 

homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance, 

preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By 

making every citizen an agenda of his or her own destiny, we will 

give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear and 

make our society more prosperous and just and equal.′′ President 

George W. Bush, inauguration speech, January 20, 2005. 

Mr. Chairman and subcommittee, there should be legitimate debate over the specifics of how to build a more prosperous, just, and 

equal society, but I submit H.R. 2547 can be a small, meaningful, 

reasonable specific step that will move us towards an ownership society, while at the same time easing a regulatory burden for the 

financial institutions. 

I appreciate your invitation to be here today. 

[The prepared statement of J. Michael Keeling can be found on 

page 109 in the appendix.] 

Chairman BACHUS. I thank you, Mr. Keeling. 

At this time, I am going to yield my time to Mr. Pearce for questions. 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that yielding of your 

time. 

Many years ago, I read a statement that I still have yet to find 

fault with that said there are really no Third World economies, 

there are just overregulated economies, and ours appears to be 

moving that way very fast. 

The district that I represent is built of small communities, small 

businesses, and small banks. Some of our communities have, Ms. 

Jorde, as their economic development plan the hope to get to the 

size of the community that you are in, maybe the third stage up 

from where we are. The community I grew up in actually had no 

post office. It did have a crossroads. The crossroads are still there 

and the post office is still not. So I am like you, from a very small 

area. We depend on the small banks, so I appreciate the quandary 

that we find ourselves in. 

Mr. Rock, you were pretty definitive on some of your regulatory 

suggestions. Do we run any risk in many of the regulations if we 

back them out first of all? And secondly, is there any reason that 

the regulators just cannot go in and begin to take pages of regulations out that no longer mean anything? Is it technically possible, 

even if it is not probable? 

21

Mr. ROCK. Well, let me respond to the first part. Certainly the 

purposes of many of these regulations, for example the Bank Secrecy Act, they are laudable purposes. Banks want to help identify 

terrorists and any terrorist financing. But we think that the way 

that these are being done by the regulators amounts to overreaching. I think that the regulators can make some changes and 

I think we are moving in that direction. We have had some discussions with folks from FinCEN. We have had discussions with the 

folks from Treasury, for example, on bank secrecy. 

We think that they have communicated through their examination process that they have a zero tolerance level. The problem is 

that banks then take on a posture where they are trying to defend 

themselves, and they file defensively. And they file then reams of 

paper in order to not be penalized by the regulators. As Mrs. 

Maloney referred to earlier, it is really very counterproductive to 

the process. I think it not only hurt banks, but I think it hurts all 

of us. 

I have a bank secrecy officer in my bank who has 30 years of experience at identifying what suspicious activity is. If the regulators 

weren’t to push us so hard to file everything, then she would file 

fewer and she would file not whenever anything comes to her attention that might even be remotely at risk. 

Mr. PEARCE. Do you ever get any follow-up? Do you ever get follow-up? 

Mr. ROCK. No, we have never. 

Mr. PEARCE. So no one ever calls back. You send in the reports 

and no one ever calls back and says, could you call that person up 

and see if they are really valid. 

Mr. ROCK. We have never had any follow-up. I will say that we 

have never had any follow-up to situations that we have considered 

serious. We have had to go out of our way to make the call to law 

enforcement to try to have them pull that one out of the pile. 

Mr. PEARCE. Did anything happen when you made those calls? 

Mr. ROCK. Yes. I think after we made that call, law enforcement 

did pull it out of the pile and follow up. 

Mr. PEARCE. Which if you were not filing piles of paperwork, you 

probably would have made that call anyway and you probably 

would have gotten the same results. 

Mr. ROCK. That is right. I reckon that we would have only filed 

that one suspicious activity report. 

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Keeling, you mention on page five about the 

failure of ESOPs to get financing. Do you think that is systemic or 

do you think that that may reflect risk and sometimes lack of management expertise in some of the ESOPs? In other words, do you 

think that ESOPs are targeted or is it a risk-reward-type question 

that the institutions are asking that causes some ESOPs not to get 

funded? 

Mr. KEELING. I think it is 50-50. 

Mr. PEARCE. Okay. 

Mr. KEELING. I think that there are examples, and this came out 

in the hearing last year, where you can make a good case that the 

plant, like the one in Baltimore that I refer to in the testimony in 

an attachment where Governor Ehrlich played a major role in savVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:56 Feb 13, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\109.32 RODNEY
22

ing those 300 inner-city jobs and made a very strong feasibility 

case. The state of Maryland had to step in to finance it. 

Mr. PEARCE. What percent of ESOPs would you say go belly up 

during a period of time? 

Mr. KEELING. About 2 percent, 1 percent. Keep in mind, we are 

dealing with a subset of ESOP companies when we talk about the 

ones that Mr. Sanders is targeting. The vast majority of ESOP 

companies involve an exiting shareholder. Here, we are discussing 

specifically manufacturing plants. And let me say in defense of U.S. 

corporation, many times they slate a business or firm for shutdown. It is not because it was not profitable. It just did not fit into 

the picture with that corporation. 

Mr. PEARCE. I understand. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. 

Mr. HENSARLING. [Presiding.] The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Clearly, I am not Chairman Bachus. He had to excuse himself to 

deliver a speech, but he wanted to thank each and every one of the 

panelists and share his view that he thought the testimony was incredibly valuable. 

At this time, the Chair will recognize the ranking minority member, the gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Sanders. 

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Let me mention to all of our guests today that I understand all 

of the issues out there are important, but I would like to focus a 

little bit on the ESOP issue with Mr. Keeling. Mr. Keeling, I had 

a wonderful experience, and I wanted to mention it to the members 

of this committee. Just a few months ago, I went to a company in 

the southern part of the State of Vermont in a town called Bellows 

Falls, which has had some economic difficulties. 

There is a company there called Chroma. I do not know, Mr. 

Keeling, if you are familiar with the Chroma Company. It is a 

worker-owned industry. The spirit of the people there was just extraordinary. It is a high-tech company. They make lenses for microscopes. Wages are high. The whole decision-making process is very 

cooperative. People feel involved. There is almost no turnover. People get that job; they do not want to leave. It was just an amazing 

and wonderful thing to see. 

Mr. Keeling, let me ask you this. I know that in Vermont, and 

I expect all over this country, there are a lot of people, businessmen who have started companies, worked to see those companies 

grow for 30 years, are fond of their employees, but probably do not 

have the information available or the resources available to be able 

to say to those workers, look, thank you for 20 years of work for 

me; I want to see you and your fellow workers own this company, 

and so forth and so on. 

Do you think that there is a general lack of information out there 

to those types of people? Often we see the headlines, companies 

shut down; workers look to worker-ownership. And sometimes, it is 

too late to move in that direction. But I have the feeling that there 

are probably thousands of businessmen out there, if they knew the 

options, if it was financially feasible, would love to see their employees own and control the work that they had done. Do you believe that is true? 

23

Mr. KEELING. I believe that you are generally correct. Oddly 

enough, when you get up in years of experience I have had around 

employee ownership, you start looking at the glass being half full 

when it is half empty. It is so much better than it was in the 1970s 

and the early 1980s. But having said that, we still find that the 

primary advisers to small-and mid-businesses, which is more often 

than not someone who is an accountant because small businesses 

need to keep their books, the advisor is not familiar with the advantages and the plusses of creating employee ownership. And thus 

that business owner’s head is often turned in another direction 

where he or she may not hear about this opportunity. 

There are some systematic issues, too, in terms of the price that 

can be paid for ESOP shares that might not be attractive to the 

owner. So I agree with you that the glass, at best, is half empty, 

but, of course, I can say it is half full. 

Mr. SANDERS. Might that also be true of a lot of banks who simply may not be making those loans, not because they are prejudiced, but because simply of it is a new idea. It is a concept that 

they are not familiar with. 

Mr. KEELING. I agree with you, and I particularly agree with 

that with the smaller lending institutions, that would be not 

staffed in a manner to be up to speed on all the different methods 

of financing an exiting shareholder or a company that might be viable with an ESOP loan. Keep in mind, no one is asking that an 

unviable economic unit be financed and kept in business. They 

have to meet the underwriting standards. 

Mr. SANDERS. I gather that what you are saying is that it would 

be a very positive idea to provide a CRA credit to financial institutions which provide assistance to employees in order to establish 

ESOPs or EWOCs. 

Mr. KEELING. I endorse that 100 percent and I am going to make 

one little statement. If you could save 200 jobs, 100 jobs, and that 

was the extent of the advantage; if we had saved the factory in 

Mrs. Maloney’s city council district, it would have made it worthwhile because I do not see the downside for the financial institutions. 

Mr. SANDERS. Well, I just want to thank, Mr. Bachus is not here 

right now, but he just indicated to me that he wants to come on 

board this bill. We have Mr. Rohrabacher on board and Mr. Manzullo, who is chairman of the Small Business Committee. We are 

going to make this a real tripartisan effort and I hope that we can 

move this important legislation this year. 

I want to thank you, Mr. Keeling for your support, and I would 

hope that our other panelists will join in support of this concept. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. HENSARLING. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 

Kansas, Mr. Ryun. 

Mr. RYUN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

First of all, let me thank all the panelists for coming today, and 

then make a point of personal privilege, if I may. Prior to entering 

office 9 years ago, as a small businessman, two things that frustrated me were the ever-increasing taxes and the number of unnecessary regulations that it caused in terms of compliance. It was one 

of those things that drove me to run for office. 

24

Having said that, I would like to address a question, if I may, 

to Mr. Rock and Mr. Macomber. I have countless of your members 

in my district who helped in the drafting of H.R. 2061. I am not 

necessarily asking for an endorsement, although that would be 

nice, of my bill, but rather for you to make an observation of what 

provisions in that particular bill that you feel you could strongly 

support. 

Mr. MACOMBER. Well, certainly elements of it. I am not sure of 

all the details on it, but certainly anything that results in regulatory relief for small banks is a very, very positive thing. I am not 

sure that particular act as it is currently drafted, while excellently 

drafted, is the bill we would support 100 percent, but there are certainly things in that act that I think all the banking agencies, the 

trade groups would support. 

Regulation is crushing banks. Small banks are going out of business. They are withdrawing from public ownership. They are merging themselves out of existence. In Rhode Island, there is a bank 

that is merging for the main reason being an inability to maintain 

the regulatory burden. One of the primary reasons that I formed 

a holding company with another bank was so we could share the 

costs of regulatory burden, which are extraordinary. 

If we had a more reasonable burden of regulations, we feel we 

could probably open another branch or two without spending any 

more. It would certainly enhance the services to the communities 

that depend on us. So anything that would help in reducing regulatory burden and in some areas expanding the powers of banks is 

certainly in our best interest. 

Mr. RYUN. Mr. Rock? 

Mr. ROCK. Yes. We think that many of the provisions of that bill 

are very worthwhile and would provide significant regulatory relief 

for smaller banks. If the committee would like to move in the direction as put forth in that bill, we would certainly work with you in 

that regard. 

Mr. RYUN. If I may, I have a little more time. I want to have a 

little bit of a follow-up question which I could address to anyone 

that is actually willing to respond to it, especially regarding the 

banking industry. 

The record profitability has caused a lot of people to say there 

is not a need for regulatory relief, and yet if I am correct at what 

is called return on assets, small bank profitability has lagged significantly behind larger banks, which could be possibly attributable 

to the difficulty that small institutions have in handling the sheer 

volume of regulatory mandates. 

Any comment any of you would like to make on that? 

Mr. ROCK. Well, I think it is true, Congressman, that smaller 

banks carry a disproportionate burden because of the amount of 

the cost. A larger bank can spread the cost of compliance with 

some of these regulations over a larger income base, over a larger 

asset base. So I think it is true that smaller banks carry a disproportionate amount of the regulatory burden, and I think that is 

why it is reflected in those ROA numbers that you have quoted. 

Ms. JORDE. I would just add to that and to echo Mr. Rock and 

his comments earlier that a lot of times in a smaller bank the most 

senior level of managers are the ones that are also responsible for 

25

compliance because of the very large stick that lack of compliance 

carries. So it is not only that it is a disproportionate impact, but 

it also takes the key employees of the bank to deal with those 

issues, and that takes them away from their probably more important responsibilities of planning for the future, growing the bank, 

coming up with new customer initiatives. All of that affects the 

bank’s ability to grow and to return profitability on their assets. 

Mr. MACOMBER. I would just add that regulatory burden is involved in every decision we make in our bank, at my level on down 

to the newest teller we have. The regulations we work under have 

an impact on every individual in that bank, and it is a very, very 

significant burden. 

Mr. RYUN. A final observation, if I may. I know one of the 

charges I have and we have as Members of Congress is to serve 

our constituents, which we do and enjoy that opportunity. One of 

your obligations or one of your purposes is to serve your customers. 

I am hoping that we can continue to push forward with good regulatory relief so you will have fewer responsibilities and better opportunities to serve. 

I return my balance of time. 

Mr. HENSARLING. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from 

New York, Ms. Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. 

And I want to thank all of the panelists for your excellent testimony and to give a special welcome to Mr. Keeling with whom I 

have worked in trying to save manufacturing jobs in the district I 

am honored to represent. Truly, if we had gotten access to capital, 

maybe we could have saved those jobs. So I am a strong supporter 

of the bill and any effort to get capital into our communities. 

This country lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs in the past four 

years. That is an astonishing number. Possibly, if we had been able 

to inspire our employees and help them with the financing of it, we 

might have been able to save those companies. I agree with Mr. 

Ryun. Our first priority is to serve our constituents. Therefore, I 

am very sympathetic to credit unions. 

I used to represent one of the poorest neighborhoods in the entire 

United States. Literally, it was rated the poorest neighborhood on 

the census tract at East Harlem and South Bronx. Many of the financial institutions left. I respect their opportunity in a free market system to move, but the credit unions stayed and continued to 

provide services to the people in the community. I am very, very 

appreciative. 

I have a question on the overburden of regulation. I would like 

to address it to Ms. Jorde of the Independent Bankers, Mr. Rock 

of the American Bankers, and Mr. Macomber of the Community 

Bankers, if any of you would like to comment on it. Recently, the 

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board suggested that auditors should exercise more discretion in reviewing compliance with 

Sarbanes-Oxley standards. I hear from my constituents, small businesses, financial institutions, that the standards are just overpowering. 

That is, they can use a ′′reasonableness′′ standard that considers 

such things as the size of the entity and other factors. Does this 

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26

cising judgment as the PCAOB has advised? Because particularly 

for smaller institutions, I would say for large institutions, the 

standards have been very heavy. Would any of the three of you representing the industry like to reply? 

Mr. ROCK. Well, I think that the guidance that the PCAOB put 

out on Monday, May 16, I think it is very, very useful. We met 

with them about 30 days ago ourselves, and representatives of 

other groups met with them to try to talk about what we thought 

some of the remedies could be that would not necessarily have to 

be included in legislation. They listened to us, and I think that the 

May 16 guidance is—

Mrs. MALONEY. What were some of those remedies? 

Mr. ROCK. For example, the audit standard number two issued 

by the PCAOB said that independent auditors must use primary 

evidence in finding that the internal controls of the company are 

sufficient. The independent auditors tell us that they were afraid. 

What independent auditors would typically do is they would selectively test various internal controls and if they were satisfied with 

the selective testing, then they would give a clean opinion. 

The auditors said that they were afraid that this standard of primary evidence said that they could not selectively test. They could 

not use the work papers of the internal auditors and the bank’s 

management testing, that they had to do all of the testing all over 

again themselves. And that is the kind of thing that resulted in 

massive duplication of testing of internal controls and hugely increased costs for banks of all sizes. 

The PCAOB listened to that. Mr. McDonough, the Chairman of 

the PCAOB, said that that was not the intention and that that 

would be included in guidance and that is one of the items in the 

May 16 guidance that we think will be very helpful for independent 

audit firms and also for banks of all sizes, and especially smaller 

banks. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Would anyone else like to comment? 

Mr. MACOMBER. I think the real concern, and I certainly agree 

that the May 16 statement was very helpful conceptually. The 

issue is the implementation and how audit firms in the field will 

react to it. If you talk to people at the OTS or FDIC about some 

of their regulations, BSA being one of them and the Patriot Act, 

their statements are a lot more reasonable than when it is being 

interpreted in the field. I think that is a real danger, that accounting firms themselves will be very afraid to go too far with that 

judgment standard because they may be second-guessed down the 

road. So it is an implementation issue. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to also go to the CTRs that some of 

you spoke about. How do you think we could change that? 

One of you mentioned that that law went into effect 35 years 

ago. It is so broad. No one is looking at it. 

How would you create a standard that would, as you said earlier, 

Mr. Rock, you have an experienced person who can really figure 

out what is going on. It would be helpful to the Treasury Department, too, because they are almost overwhelmed with all the paper 

coming at them. 

How do you think the CTR could be more useful in helping 

Treasury find these terrorists and the whole purpose of it, as opVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:56 Feb 13, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\109.32 RODNEY
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posed to having absolutely every document? What is it, over $5,000 

or over $10,000? 

Mr. ROCK. Over $10,000. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Over $10,000. 

Mr. ROCK. But because of the restructuring requirements, there 

are many that are filed for cash transactions under $10,000 also. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So that is a huge filing. 

Mr. ROCK. A huge filing. 

Mrs. MALONEY. It is monumental. 

Mr. ROCK. For absolutely ordinary businesses like pizza parlors 

in New York, if you do business with pizza parlors, you have to file 

CTRs for them all the time because they deal in large amount of 

cash. I think that the answer would be to eliminate the requirement of filing CTRs for seasoned customers. 

If you have customers that you have been doing business with 

for a long period of time, in the ordinary course of business you 

should not have to file CTRs for them anymore. I would point out 

that 35 years ago when the CTR requirement was adopted, we did 

not have the extensive SAR reporting, suspicious activity reporting, 

that we have now. 

I think that rather than file reams of paper for absolutely ordinary activity by pizza parlors and delis and flower shops, I think 

what we should do is for seasoned customers, the CTR requirement 

should be eliminated and we should focus more upon the suspicious 

activity reporting. I think that that would be a large step in the 

right direction. 

Ms. JORDE. I would maybe add to that that if you were to adjust 

the $10,000 for inflation, that would be $50,000 in today’s terms. 

So we have proposed that that threshold level be increased to 

$30,000. 

Mr. HENSARLING. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The Chair will now recognize himself. 

Recently, Federal banking and financial institution regulators 

have increased the threshold for a streamlined CRA exam. I sponsored legislation in the last Congress to raise that threshold to $1 

billion. It became a moot point once the regulators chose to do that 

on their own. There are those who believe, though, that this somehow will imperil future community lending. 

My question, first to you, Mr. Jorde, and perhaps your bank was 

not subject to the more extensive CRA exam, but certainly some of 

your members may be. If you were not making loans in Cando, 

North Dakota, and the surrounding area and serving that community, would your bank be viable? 

Ms. JORDE. Absolutely not. That was the reason that we were 

chartered by local shareholders within the community is that they 

needed a bank that was going to lend to the community. If it were 

not for our loans to the community, our community would not exist 

and we would not either. 

I would just add to that, although we are under the streamlined 

CRA exam, we have a CRA exam. It is a true exam, and we spend 

the better part of a week with one examiner just going through the 

process of determining our loan-to-deposit ratios, our lending in the 

community, our assessment areas, our complaint file, which there 

28

weren’t any. So it is not that we are exempt from CRA and we very 

much do go through a CRA exam. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Rock, simply because I like your name, I 

would like to ask you the same question. In a slight wrinkle, I suppose, and that is can a streamlined CRA actually enhance a bank’s 

ability to serve its community? 

Mr. ROCK. I think so, and I think my bank is a good example of that and a good example of what the problem is. My bank has $750 

million in assets, so we fall between that $250 million number and 

the $1 billion number. Yet when my bank is examined pursuant to 

the big bank CRA standards, which is what has happened for us 

in the recent past, we get irrational results. 

We have in my community a small builder who is a Native 

American. He builds small homes on small lots that are less than 

one-quarter acre. He then sells those homes at modest prices in a 

low-to moderate-income area. He sells them mostly to minority 

buyers who are mostly black and Hispanic. We are the only bank 

in our area which funds that activity for this Native American 

builder, and yet we get no CRA credit for it and we never have. 

It is because when the big bank rules are applied to banks that are 

my company’s size, we get irrational results. 

We do not at all want to be exempted from CRA. We just want 

to have a set of rules applied to us that make more sense for our 

circumstances. 

Mr. HENSARLING. A follow-up question: I heard you say in your 

testimony, and I guess this is somewhat anecdotal, that a number 

of bank CEOs, I believe you said this, are now spending over half 

of their time on regulatory compliance. 

I find that to be a staggering figure and certainly can make a 

prima facie case that when you are spending more time working 

for the Government than you are yourself, that that is a significant 

loss of freedom. 

You mentioned that the regulatory burden is reduced by only 20 

percent. 

Mr. ROCK. Yes. 

Mr. HENSARLING. My time is starting to draw to a close, but do 

you have any idea how many new small businesses and jobs might 

be launched with that additional capitalization? 

Mr. ROCK. Well, we have never tried to have our economic staff 

count the number of businesses because it would depend upon the 

size of each business, but we think that it would be a huge positive 

impact for the economy if those funds were freed up and allowed 

to be used as capital to support additional small business lending. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Ensweiler, let’s turn to you. I would like 

the record to show that you, although not a native Texan, I know 

that you got there as soon as you could, and we appreciate that. 

[Laughter.] 

In your testimony, you spoke about two recent credit union conversions in Texas. I would like for you to elaborate upon what you 

see as the reasons for those conversions. What could be done to ensure that financial institutions’s consumers continue to have the 

option of credit unions? 

Mr. ENSWEILER. The two cases are ones that I am very familiar 

with. They are both located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex 

29

area. They are both in fast growing communities. In both cases, the 

credit unions have enormous opportunity, opportunities that cause 

them to generate enough business that they are outgrowing their 

capital requirements. With credit unions being so heavily capitalized by law, they find that it would be much less restrictive if they 

could convert to a mutual savings bank. 

So in our testimony today, we talked about the opportunity to 

make our requirements more risk-rated and more in line with 

other depository financial institutions. If that were the case, that 

would take a big step towards helping credit unions stay within 

their charter. 

One other point that both of these institutions point to is the fact 

that they have an opportunity to serve small businesses. They are 

bumping up against the cap in both cases. They are looking for relief so that they can stay credit unions and help their members as 

their members have small business needs. So those two provisions 

would go a long way to keeping credit unions within their charter. 

Mr. HENSARLING. My time is expired. 

Mr. Keeling, I was going to ask you the question of why I do not 

see a small green lapel pin pickle knowing that you had worked for 

a Texas legend and a great man, but I am sure there is a reason 

that pickle lapel pin is not here today. 

Mr. KEELING. I would have brought several squeaky, but I also 

would let the record show I grew up in Kilgore, Texas, and was 

under Friday night lights many times in Athens, Texas. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. HENSARLING. My time having expired, the Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hinojosa. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to also thank all the members of this distinguished panel 

for your testimony. It has been very informative, and we appreciate 

very much that you would come and share with us your thoughts. 

I have a comment to make and then would ask two of today’s 

witnesses to respond to a proposal that I am going to mention. Mr. 

Ensweiler, I want to extend a warm welcome to you as a fellow 

Texan. I hope you enjoy your stay here in Washington. As you are 

likely aware, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition is 

releasing a comprehensive study today that appears to have found 

that large mainstream credit unions fail in their mission to serve 

people of modest means. You mentioned some of that in your remarks. 

The study finds that credit unions make a lower portion of their 

home loans and more loan denials than banks make to minorities, 

women, and low-and moderate-income borrowers. NCRC is now 

asking that the Community Reinvestment Act be applied to these 

larger credit unions to ensure and to enforce their original commitment to serve people of lower means. I would like to have your response to that. 

Mr. ENSWEILER. Thank you, Congressman. 

We just became aware that they were going to have that press 

conference today to indicate their feelings. We certainly disagree 

with that. 

Credit unions are still member-owned. They only serve the people in their community. That is the only opportunity they have. 

30

They do not send money to money centers in other cities and take 

the money out of a community and use it for investments or loans 

in other communities. Credit unions have always only been able to 

serve their members, so they are serving everybody in their own 

community. 

We also find that some of the methodology to that study might 

be flawed, at least in our view. So I would like to file with the committee our response to that report today because we do not think 

that it measures up to what credit unions really do. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Could you give us your response in writing? 

Mr. ENSWEILER. Yes. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Okay. I would like to have the response by the 

Independent Community Bankers of America representative, the 

President and CEO of CountryBank, Terry Jorde. May I have your 

response? 

Ms. JORDE. Sure, I would be glad to. Obviously the study that 

you have seen, we have seen also and we agree with that. In response to Mr. Ensweiler’s comment, credit unions continue to serve 

their members because the membership base continues to grow. In 

North Dakota, we have mostly community-based credit unions and 

the one that is in my town covers about a 90-to 100-mile radius. 

So as long as the membership base continues to grow and the geographic restrictions continue to be lifted, then credit unions are 

going to continue to have more members. Obviously, they are serving more members because the pie is getting bigger. 

We feel very strongly that small credit unions, people that are 

serving those of modest means, that they should continue to be 

supported and regulatory relief is certainly important for them. But 

we are very much opposed to expanding powers to credit unions, 

multi-billion dollar credit unions that are using their tax-favored 

advantages to grow and to continue to grow profits, which increase 

their capital levels and is part of the reason why they have capital 

issues right now. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. I appreciate your response and would ask you if 

you would put that in writing also and let us have it. 

Ms. JORDE. Certainly. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield back the balance of my time because the vote has already started, and I do not 

want to make anybody late. With that, I yield back. 

Mr. HENSARLING. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 

North Carolina, Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Mr. Ensweiler, I think you wanted to respond to that previous 

statement. I will yield you 1 minute of my time because I only have 

3. So if you want to respond? 

Mr. ENSWEILER. Thank you very much, Congressman. 

I just wanted to say that in the information we will file, it shows 

that in 2003, credit unions approved 72.2 percent of home mortgage 

loans to low-income borrowers. By contrast, non-credit union lenders approved only 47.8 percent. Our denial rates were 15.6 percent 

compared to non-credit union lenders of 27.7 percent. So we really 

are reaching out and serving mortgage opportunities in low-income 

areas. Thank you. 

31

Mr. JONES. Well, I want Ms. Jorde to know I was just being fair. 

I have not made my mind up on this issue yet. 

But, Ms. Jorde, let me ask you, and I am very serious when I 

ask you this question. I first want to say that we are here today 

because we do want to reduce the regulatory burden on you so you 

can better serve the consumers and the customers that are in your 

banks and credit unions and ESOPs. 

I am very serious when I ask you this question. In Cando, North 

Dakota, you have a unique situation, a small community, what 

would you say is the biggest concern of the customers who come 

into your bank? I am not talking just about credit cards. What do 

they tell you they are concerned about in America? 

Ms. JORDE. I would say the biggest concern of my customers and 

people in my community is economic growth, is the viability of 

rural communities and our ability to retain young people who are 

educated in our State and in our communities. We need to continue 

to have ways to bring capital into those communities so that we 

can invest in businesses and offer good paying jobs that are competitive with what the larger cities are offering. 

Mr. JONES. I appreciate that. 

Mr. Chairman, I am going to make a statement, then I am going 

to close. 

I am very impressed with this panel. I look forward to studying 

in detail what you have said today so I can be better informed and 

make my decisions. 

This is my last point. I am not sure I want anybody to answer, 

but I am a conservative who is concerned about the debt and the 

deficit of this Nation, which will eventually impact on your business. This country right now is over $7.9 trillion in debt. You cannot operate in debt. The deficit is about $418 billion. Foreign governments own 30 percent of the U.S. public debt. 

I share that with you because you are so important to the economic future of this country. I hope you will watch carefully what 

we are doing here in Washington because you will not be able to 

operate if this country continues to go down the road it is going 

right now. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. HENSARLING. The Chair would observe that there are approximately 10 minutes left in this series of votes that have been 

called. So if members either wish to be brief or submit their questions for the record, they certainly have that option. 

Otherwise, the Chair will yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 

Green. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, members of the panel, for coming in. 

Mr. Chairman, I will try to be as pithy and concise as possible. 

I will make every effort to cause the panelists not to be superfluous, nor will I try to cause them to be redundant in any way, 

given that we have 10 minutes left. 

Members of the panel, I am concerned about the CRA. While 

there are always reasons to challenge studies, one of the things 

that I have found to be consistent in all of these studies is that 

they all show that when minorities attempt to make loans, and this 

is with testing, this is not a circumstance where you have persons 

32

who some have higher education, some have more money, some are 

better qualified, but when you have capable, competent and qualified minorities who apply for loans. You have capable, competent, 

qualified persons who are not minorities to apply, and every single 

test indicates that the minority persons do not get the loans to the 

same extent that the others do. 

Now, this is no disrespect to you. I believe you all to be honorable people. But that CRA, the Community Reinvestment Act, was 

put there to give us empirical data so that we could come to some 

intelligent conclusion as to what is happening in the business. If 

we start to limit the CRA for some banks, I am not sure where it 

ends. I have great consternation about changing the formula as it 

relates to reporting these lending patterns and habits. 

With that said, I will welcome anyone to give me a terse and laconic response. 

Mr. MACOMBER. No one here is looking to drop CRA. We just 

want to have a more reasonable approach to the regulation. We 

have two banks in our holding company. One is about $270 million. 

My bank is about $175 million. We fall under different CRA regulations under the FDIC, and yet there is certainly no less commitment by my bank to the community on the CRA basis than by my 

sister bank in the holding company. 

CRA is what we do. The CRA exam that we do go through reviews all the statistics you are talking about, so that is all laid out. 

And we are concerned about what the burden is on smaller companies. Again, two banks, same holding company, two different ways 

of doing CRA. 

Mr. GREEN. I want to thank you for your response because the 

chairman has indicated that our time is limited. 

Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Green, without objection, the rest of the 

panelists could insert their answers to the record. 

At this time, the Chair would recognize the gentlelady from New 

York, Ms. Kelly. 

Mrs. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have questions for this panel. Next week, I am holding a panel 

in my own subcommittee on the effect of the Bank Secrecy Act. I 

would like to have my questions answered by this panel as soon 

as possible, so perhaps they would be of influence in what we do 

with my own hearing next week. 

Thank you very much for holding the hearing, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HENSARLING. With approximately between 6 and 7 minutes 

left in this vote, the Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Wisconsin, Ms. Moore. 

Ms. MOORE OF WISCONSIN. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I will reserve the right to make inquiries of this panel in writing, 

in respect to our time. 

I certainly think that there has got to be a balance between regulatory reform and really providing services to the community. The 

home mortgage loan disclosures are extremely telling about the 

persistent lack of opportunity for women and minorities in lending. 

Of course, homeownership is one of the most stabilizing economic 

decisions that people can make. In a time when we are faced with 

terrorism and money laundering, I think we have to be very careful 

about how we make those balances. 

33

I would yield back. 

Mr. HENSARLING. The Chair wishes to thank all of the panelists 

for their insightful testimony. We hate to question and run, but unfortunately we must. 

The Chair notes that some members may have additional questions for the panel which they may wish to submit in writing. 

Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 30 days 

for members to submit written questions to these witnesses and 

place their responses in the record. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(35)

A P P E N D I X

May 19, 2005

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