|
|
|
|
House Passes Bipartisan Bill Providing Greater Certainty for American Job Creators
Washington,
June 12, 2013 -
The House of Representatives today passed a bipartisan Financial Services Committee bill to provide greater certainty for America’s job creators so they can invest more in our struggling economy and create desperately needed jobs.
H.R. 634, the Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act of 2013, introduced by Reps. Michael Grimm (R-NY), Gary Peters (D-MI), Austin Scott (R-GA) and Mike McIntyre (D-NY), would exempt manufacturers, ranchers and small companies that buy and sell derivatives to hedge against business risk from burdensome margin and capital requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act. H.R. 634 passed the House 411-12.
“This bipartisan bill before us today is needed to protect manufacturers, ranchers and thousands of Main Street businesses across the nation from unnecessary and burdensome red tape – red tape that would divert their resources and their time away from job-creating activities,” said Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) during floor consideration of H.R. 634.
“Americans want and deserve a healthy economy and a more secure future. But when Washington piles mountains of unnecessary red tape on top of our job creators, Washington makes it that much harder to achieve this goal for the American people,” Chairman Hensarling said.
The bill also previously received overwhelming bipartisan support during committee action, passing the Financial Services Committee 59-0 and the Agriculture Committee on a voice vote.
The House also today passed H.R. 2167, the Reverse Mortgage Stabilization Act, introduced by Reps. Denny Heck (D-WA) and Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA). H.R. 2167 passed the House by voice vote.
H.R. 2167 provides authority to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to make changes to the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) “reverse mortgage” insurance program – the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program. Under the bill, the HUD Secretary could make administrative and policy changes to the program through a mortgagee letter rather than a protracted 18-month regulatory process. The bill sets conditions that allow the FHA to use this new authority only when immediate changes are necessary to improve the fiscal safety and soundness of the program.
“Immediate changes that improve the fiscal safety and soundness of this program are exactly what’s needed,” said Chairman Hensarling, noting that an actuarial study released seven months ago found both the FHA’s single-family mortgage insurance fund and the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program with negative economic values.
“H.R. 2167, which has strong bipartisan support, is a first step in stemming substantial losses from FHA. It provides the tools needed to allow the agency to immediately address serious and significant flaws with its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program that threaten hardworking taxpayers with being forced to fund another Washington bailout,” Chairman Hensarling added.
|
Print version of this document
|
