Weekly Column: Smart Banking Regulations Benefit South Dakota Families

The 115th Congress hasn’t taken an extended break since swearing-in day on January 3, and while much of our time these first six weeks have been focused on confirming President Trump’s Cabinet nominees, we have also been busy introducing legislation to provide regulatory relief for South Dakota families and businesses. Most recently I introduced two pieces of legislation that seek to ease the regulatory burden on banks and other financial institutions, so they can more easily provide loans and other services to South Dakotans.

Many of the regulations hindering our financial institutions today are a result of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. Dodd-Frank was an ill-advised attempt to correct the mistakes of the 2008 recession and collapse of the housing market. Unfortunately, the end result was more than 2,300 pages of new rules and regulations on our local banks and credit unions, despite having nothing to do with the housing collapse.

I recently reintroduced the Taking Account of Institutions with Low Operation Risk (TAILOR) Act to correct Dodd-Franks “one-size-fits-all” approach to regulating. The TAILOR Act would ease the regulatory burden on smaller financial institutions by requiring regulatory agencies to take into consideration the risk profile and business models of individual financial institutions and tailor those regulations accordingly. Additionally, it requires the regulatory agencies to provide an annual report to Congress outlining the steps they have taken to tailor their regulations. This will allow the local banks and credit unions to focus their resources on taking care of their customers, rather than spending time and money on compliance, the costs of which are ultimately passed onto the consumer in South Dakota.

I also recently introduced legislation that would dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB, a product of Dodd-Frank, is yet another regulatory agency with the power to promulgate sweeping new rules on financial institutions, the cost of which has been handed down to families looking to do business with their local banks and credit unions. Even more alarming, the CFPB is an unchecked, unaccountable regulatory agency with no oversight from Congress. My bill would bar the transfer of funds from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to the CFPB. The bill also requires the CFPB to turn over all penalty funding and other money it has received to the Treasury.

As a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, one of my top priorities has been to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions so that South Dakota families can have better access to loans and capital – capital that can be used to purchase a home, buy a new car or invest in a new business that will bring economic activity to our state. I will continue to seek policies that allow our financial institutions to better serve their customers and strengthen our communities.

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