WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Senate voted to pass S. 2155, a banking deregulation bill that if enacted would constitute the largest-ever roll back of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The Dodd-Frank law was enacted in response to the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The bill now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration.
Center for Responsible Lending Senior Legislative Counsel Yana Miles issued the following statement:
The U.S. Senate just passed a bill to make it harder to track racial discrimination in the housing market and risk for another financial crisis. This legislation was supposed to be a bill of good faith to help community banks and credit unions, but it was hijacked by bad financial actors in the banking industry who stacked provisions in the bill that would benefit them rather than the institutions that need it the most.
This bill lifts commonsense safeguards, designed to stop banks from again tanking the economy, while also making it easier for financial companies to sell risky mortgages, discriminate against communities of color, and steer manufactured-home owners into more expensive mortgages.
There is no doubt that if passed into law, this bill would encourage the finance industry to engage in the type of reckless lending that pulled Americans into a Great Recession – just under a decade ago.
We urge the House of Representatives to do their part in preventing another financial crisis and stop this bill from moving forward. We can’t afford another recession and risk wiping out our middle class economy because of Wall Street’s greed.
For more information please contact Ricardo Quinto at ricardo.quinto@responsiblelending.org.