Category Archives: Letters to Congress

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Letter to Congress: AFR, 37 Organizations Oppose HR 766, Urge Congress Not to Give Banks a Free Pass on Fraud

“The undersigned community, consumer and civil rights organizations strongly oppose H.R. 766, the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015, introduced by Representative Luetkemeyer. The bill will hamper critical Department of Justice and banking regulator efforts to detect fraud and money laundering, putting consumers and financial institutions at risk of serious financial loss.”

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Letter to Congress: AFR, 268 Groups Call On You To Oppose HR 4018 and Support a Strong Payday Rule

“The undersigned civil rights, consumer, labor, faith, veterans, seniors, and community organizations, strongly urge you to oppose H.R. 4018, the “Consumer Protection and Choice Act.” This harmful bill would limit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) ability to protect all consumers against high-cost payday, car title, and installment loans… H.R. 4018 would allow the payday industry to avoid federal regulation altogether by pushing an industry-backed proposal based on a Florida law that has proven ineffective at stopping the payday loan debt trap.”

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Letter to Congress: AFR, 88 Organizations Oppose Changing the Leadership Structure of the CFPB

“Those who backed the CFPB’s creation and support its work overwhelmingly agree that one director is the preferred structure. Those who push hardest for a change to a commission opposed the creation of a consumer protection agency at the outset. Consumer advocates are united in their support for the current structure. This is not a case of the public demanding “reform.” Rather, it is a campaign manufactured by the very Wall Street banks, payday lenders, and other financial firms the CFPB was created to regulate. We urge you to defend a strong CFPB and to reject proposals to change the leadership structure, weaken the funding, narrow the authority, or otherwise hobble the effectiveness of this crucially important agency.”

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Letter to Congress: AFR and Consumer Federation of America Urge Congress Not to Undermine Investor Protections

“We are writing in advance of this week’s mark-up to express our concerns regarding two of the bills scheduled for consideration – H.R. 2187, the Fair Investment Opportunities for Professional Experts Act and H.R. 3784, the SEC Small Business Advocate Act. Both bills require significant amendments, described below, to ensure that they do not undermine essential investor protections. Unless those changes are adopted, we urge you to oppose these bills.”

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Letter to Congress: Delaying the DoL Fiduciary Rule Would Cripple It

“We are writing to urge you to tell both your leadership and appropriators that you strongly oppose any rider that will directly or indirectly defund, delay or otherwise interfere with the Department of Labor’s ability to finalize its rule requiring retirement investment advice to be in the best interest of investors…. Every additional day of delay adds to the losses that working families and retirees suffer because of financial advice that is not in their best interests. We urge you to let both your leadership and appropriators know that you stand with your hard-working constituents who are doing their best to save for retirement—and against any rider that would diminish their efforts. “

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Memo: Who Really Benefits From Senator Shelby’s Financial Deregulation Proposal?

“Earlier this year, Senate Banking Chair Richard Shelby introduced the “Financial Regulatory Improvement Act of 2015” — a massive bill that gives a preview of the kind of regulatory rollbacks the financial industry will try to attach to end-of-year funding bills. In fact, Senator Shelby has already placed the entire bill into appropriations legislation that passed the relevant committee earlier this year.”

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Letters to Congress: AFR, 30 Consumer Advocacy Groups Oppose Harmful Changes to Dodd-Frank, Oppose HR 1210

“The undersigned organizations write to urge you to oppose H.R. 1210 (the “Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act”). This bill makes two harmful changes to the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) and its implementing regulations: It takes a special exemption designed for more trustworthy small and rural banks and extends it to all banks, regardless of size or trustworthiness and it substantially weakens the Act’s ban on loan steering—a practice that supports predatory lending and racial discrimination.”

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Letter to Congress: AFR, 65 Organizations Urge Congress to Stand Against Discriminatory Auto Lending and Reject HR 1737

“On behalf of the undersigned organizations, we urge you to oppose H.R. 1737, the so-called “Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act.” This legislation is simply an effort to stop the CFPB from enforcing laws against discrimination… H.R. 1737 hides its intent behind a smokescreen of claims about process and regulatory jurisdiction. However, the bill is really about the unfair and discriminatory impact of car dealer interest rate markups. The bill is a misguided attack on the CFPB’s enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.”

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Letter to Congress: AFR Opposes HR 2209 and HR 3857

“…we are writing to express our opposition to HR 2209 and HR 3857. HR 3857 is a poorly drafted message bill that contains an overly vague mandate to the Federal Reserve and FSOC that would be difficult to interpret and could increase financial risk. HR 2209 mandates that banking regulators classify investment grade, readily marketable municipal debt obligations as level 2A liquid assets under the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) rule, the strongest liquidity category under the rule outside of cash and government debt.”