In Case You Missed It

House Committee on Financial Services Chairman French Hill (AR-02) joined IntraFi's Banking with Interest podcast this week to preview the Committee's fall agenda. Topics included the status of the Chairman's "Make Community Banking Great Again" initiative and digital asset market structure legislation, as well as next steps to advance housing priorities—and more. 

Listen to the Chairman’s full interview here. Key excerpts:

On the Chairman's "Make Community Banking Great Again" Agenda:

"I recognize that tailoring regulations according to complexity, size, and the nature of the business is so important. When I campaigned to become Chairman of the Committee, I wanted to focus on tailoring federal supervision regulation for community banks who are simpler and more straightforward. That was also a theme in the Trump administration back in 2018 when we signed S. 2155 into law, and in this new Trump administration 2.0."

"We've marked up 27 bills that have passed the Committee, most on a strong, bipartisan record, and we're now working with Chairman Tim Scott on how we can collaborate on those in the Senate, and see those go to President Trump's desk."

On the Status of the CLARITY Act:

"We had spent so much time in the last three Congresses working on both market [structure] framework and stablecoins, and we developed consensus because we looked for Democrats that are pro-innovation, pro-capital formation, pro-American competitiveness. They know that we can have good anti-money laundering/Bank Secrecy Act protections, good consumer protections, and advance the goal of America being a lead innovator - we can do all that."

"My assessment is that Chairman Tim Scott, Senator Cynthia Lummis, and my good friend from my home state of Arkansas, Chairman John Boozman, all want to get to a good place on market [structure] framework, and the CLARITY Act provides them with an excellent roadmap for that, given we got those 78 Democratic votes in the House." 

On the Committee's Housing Priorities:

"October is an important month for us. We're going to have a Committee hearing broadly on housing and are going to ask members for ideas. Our Housing Subcommittee Chairman, Mike Flood, working with Ranking Member Emanuel Cleaver, have worked hard, particularly on reforming one of HUD's largest housing construction programs called the HOME program, and they have some bipartisan reforms that would make it less costly and more successful around the country."

"On the housing at-large agenda, we want to work effectively with Treasury Secretary Bessent as he thinks through - as every Treasury Secretary since 2010 has - an appropriate course of action to make sure we have a stable, effective secondary mortgage market system, as he considers possible changes to the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)."

On Goals for Capital Markets Legislation:

"We want to take a page from the bipartisan success over the last decade of the JOBS Act. We want to make it easier for investors to access investments, both in the public and private markets... We'll also look at what we can do to improve equity market structure and the Treasury market structure in this Congress."

"I've worked the last decade I've been in Congress to amend the definition of an accredited investor... My bill is very simple. If you have experience and expertise, then you should be accredited... We have three bills that would expand the ability for Americans to participate through changing the accredited investor standard."

"Over on the public side, we want to lower the cost of being a public company, lower the SEC costs, lower the cost of the proxy system, and reduce litigation risk in the public markets."