J. Hill

Mr. HILL of Arkansas

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, when I think about the ranking member, she knows the respect I have for her, and she has, I am sure, no less than four decades as one of the Nation's most strong and effective advocates for housing and housing solutions in our country. To say she supports a bill is high praise, and we are grateful to her. Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I started what is a modest career in D.C. as a youngster in my twenties, and I was a staffer on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs during the first term of President Ronald Reagan. President Reagan was trying to restart the economy after the grim decade of the 1970s. It was bad. President Carter had struggled with it. We were in two back-to-back recessions. One of his ideas was: What could we do in housing? Interest rates were at 20 percent. It is a little hard to buy a house when interest rates are 20 percent. But he had a commission on housing; and one of his top ideas was to change the building codes, make them more modern, make them more competitive, both in manufactured housing and in modular construction techniques for resiliency and for energy efficiency. Guess what, Mr. Speaker. We are going to do that today, 40 years later. We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't have the hard work of Mike Flood, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance in this Congress, and his partner in this effort, Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Flood), the chair of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), the chair of our Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman yielding time. I agree with her that throughout this process, we have tried to be on the same page and be focused on that. We have heard from a lot of stakeholders, a lot of different companies, and a lot of different business models that provide housing options for Americans. Ms. Waters outlined a number in her comments. These include providers of housing for Active-Duty military families, for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, near-campus student housing, and, of course, the senior market. Also included are providers who are organized as nonprofits, as was noted, community land trusts, or entities engaged in Federal or State affordability programs, like the low-income housing tax credit program. We have also heard from many about tools that we use today to provide for more affordable housing options, like First Look programs, to give current renters a leg up on becoming homeowners. These are all valuable features of our current system that encourage, not reduce, the great availability and affordability of housing. I agree with Ms. Waters that we need to make sure that, in the implementation of this section, these beneficial features are not inadvertently caught up when really they have done nothing to the fundamental problem that we are trying to solve today, which is this institutional investor challenge. Leveling the playing field between individual buyers and large institutional investors is the goal. I think we have achieved it in what we have drafted. These features did not cause the problem that we are here today to solve. I thank the ranking member for working with me to ensure that the build-to-rent industry, particularly, is appropriately exempted in the text that we negotiated and considered today, and I commit to working with the Treasury Department and the ranking member throughout the rulemaking process on these issues.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for this long process. It was a labor of love, I think. When Arkansas and L.A. get together, good things happen. I thank Ms. Waters for her diligence. I thank her staff for their diligence in working with my team, Ed and Shannon, and Cary. They all worked very hard and collaboratively on what we did today. I also thank Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren in the Senate. I think too often we play back and forth work here, but you are actually seeing legislation, Mr. Speaker, going back and forth between the committees. This is regular order. Mr. Speaker, 390 Members came to the House floor a few weeks ago and voted for a housing bill that Ms. Waters and I put forward. That is a pretty big vote in today's time. Likewise, in the Senate, as Chairman Flood referenced, Senators Scott and Warren got 89 Senators to vote for a housing bill. What does that tell us? That tells us that on a bicameral, bipartisan basis, we ought to have a housing bill. President Trump has attempted to spur housing and housing ownership through tax changes in the Working Families Tax Cut Act, lowering regulatory burden so we can do more housing across this country. In his own State of the Union Address, he pointed out that we ought to have moms and dads being able to buy a house without competing on cash against somebody that is some big institutional investor. That is the executive branch and the House and Senate all on the same page. Today, we come to the House floor eager to bring that to fruition, to have a win, as Chairman Flood referenced, for the American people on greater affordability of housing and greater accessibility of housing. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I thank Members from both sides of the aisle for their perseverance and efforts. Let me thank my friends in the Senate for their perseverance and support of the important policy of having more accessible and more affordable housing by cutting red tape and increasing capital availability to housing. I want to think about my own constituency in central Arkansas. The community development officers, Mr. Howard and his team, at the city of Little Rock, have constantly approached me that if we could make reforms to the HOME Program, like Mr. Flood and Mr. Cleaver have proposed, it will lower the cost per square foot of the ability to use that program by the city of Little Rock for new housing construction. They have approached me about CDBG money being more flexible in how it can be used for infrastructure and how that could produce more housing availability in Little Rock. In this bill, we reform the incentives to investment by bank holding companies to directly invest in housing. That is a major, new source of capital that will come to the housing market. Then just think about the reforms we talked about in building codes, Mr. Speaker, that have a nationwide benefit. Some 3,000 zoning agencies will be benefited from those changes. Then, also in Little Rock, there is the importance of HUD oversight. I thank Mr. Torres of New York and Mr. Lawler of New York and their provisions in this bill that talk about HUD's oversight. How do we hold HUD accountable for doing a better job? Finally, Mr. Speaker, I will close by saying that the ranking member and I have included some commonsense, bipartisan reforms to our community banks to make it easier for them to be engaged in their community and delivering for those homebuilders who are building for our families across our communities. It is important because, Mr. Speaker, six out of ten home construction loans in this country--six out of ten of those loans--are made by community banks under $10 billion. That is the heart of America. It is the heart of Main Street, and that is why the ranking member and I have put a modest number of consensus elements to signal to Americans living on Main Street and living in our neighborhoods we want to have a supply side approach: more capital available for the banks, more funding for our homebuilders, and more investment in one- to-four family properties through the provisions of cutting red tape in this bill led by Mr. Flood and Mr. Cleaver. I just insist that that, I believe, is so important, and I believe that has been recognized by policymakers on both sides of the aisle. The White House recently reinforced this principle in an executive order promoting access to mortgage credit which recognized that regulatory changes over the past two decades have made it increase the cost to originate a mortgage and service a mortgage and have distorted the structure of the mortgage market. This executive order specifically emphasized the importance of ensuring that community banks and smaller lenders can continue participating in mortgage lending markets, reducing unnecessary regulatory burden. The executive branch is on the same page with the legislative branch. I think this poses an opportunity for a bicameral success that we can send to President Trump's desk that increases accessibility to housing, increases affordability to housing, and is a real success in economic policy for this country. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 11 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2071) to prohibit Federal funds from being made available to international financial institutions for the purposes of financing foreign shrimp farms, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this bill.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of my friend, Mr. Nehls', bill, the Save Our Shrimpers Act. Across our coastlines, our communities believe it is crucial that we protect our domestic shrimping industry and the hardworking men and women who keep it alive every day, day in and day out. For far too long, U.S. shrimpers along the Gulf and other coastal communities across our country have been put in a serious disadvantage by a wave of cheap, imported shrimp. As the largest shareholder of multilateral lenders like the World Bank, the United States must ensure that these institutions are not financing competing shrimp producers with our domestic family growers. Representative Nehls' bipartisan bill addresses this issue. Mr. Speaker, it requires U.S. representatives at the international financial institutions to oppose financing activities related to shrimp farming, shrimp processing, or the export of shrimp from a foreign country. I thank Mr. Nehls for his leadership on this important issue and for helping ensure that our international financing policy prioritizes a level playing field for our shrimp producers here at home. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Nehls), who is the chairman of the T&I Subcommittee on Aviation, and who is the author of the bill we have before us this afternoon.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I think Mr. Nehls has done good work on behalf of our hardworking men and women in the shrimping industry, particularly in his native Gulf Coast, who get up at the crack of dawn every day to make a living and serve a delicious product to Americans and neighbors alike. Mr. Speaker, I witnessed something so similar 25 years ago in the Mississippi Delta when the Federal Government's policy was to subsidize importation of catfish from Vietnam. It literally put hundreds of family farms in Mississippi and Arkansas out of business and bankrupted the industry because we facilitated--through our trade policy, through our international financial institutions policy, through our import policy--a decision that was in contrast to the very policies of USDA, which were to increase family farms and increase farms diversifying their crop from row crop to domestically produced farm-raised catfish. These policies collided, Mr. Speaker. I think what the gentleman from Texas is arguing is let's have common sense in our policy that supports our producers and our family shrimp growers, support them and put them first in this channel of providing high-quality seafood to the American consumer. Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, and I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Nehls) for this bill. I urge a ``yes'' vote on both sides of the aisle, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4437) to reduce the regulatory burden on certain well managed and well capitalized financial institutions, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this bill.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in enthusiastic support of my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Timmons) and his SMART Act. Community banks and credit unions play a vital role in all of our local communities across our Nation, often serving as the primary source of credit, particularly in rural and underserved communities. These institutions support small businesses and small farms and help hardworking Americans achieve homeownership and long-term financial stability. Too often, well-managed institutions are burdened by duplicative and outdated regulatory requirements. These unnecessary burdens divert time, staff, and resources away from lending and supporting their local economies and toward a check-the-box compliance process that does not make the financial system any safer or any sounder. The SMART Act offers a practical, commonsense solution by streamlining and simplifying limited-scope exams for smaller, well- capitalized, and well-managed institutions, while fully preserving the safety and soundness standards. This targeted supervisory relief reduces unnecessary burden, eliminates duplicative reviews, and frees community banks to focus on lending and those goals of serving their customers. Regulators should recognize that financial institutions with a strong track record should not be subject to the same regulatory scrutiny as institutions that are under financial stress, poorly managed, or quite large and complex. Furthermore, the SMART Act makes further improvements to bank and credit union examinations, encouraging Federal regulators to improve examination practices by assigning experienced examiners, minimizing unnecessary onsite disruptions, and ensuring exams are conducted in a more efficient and predictable manner. Washington should not create unnecessary burdens that make it even harder for small public or privately held community banks and their credit union competitors to try to compete and serve their Main Street customer base. The SMART Act is a practical, bipartisan step that preserves the strength of community institutions, keeps regulators focused on the areas of greatest risk, and supports a healthier, more balanced financial system for all Americans. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the SMART Act, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the CBO estimate for the bill.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Timmons), my friend and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs, and an outstanding, very active member of our House Committee on Financial Services.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster), who is the ranking member of our Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, working hand in glove with my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Timmons) who addressed the House. Together, they show the best of the Congress. They are focused on where the rubber hits the road for most all the customers in America, and that is our community banks. I have said many times on this House floor that if you are concerned about housing, you ought to be concerned about our Main Street community banks because they, Mr. Speaker, deliver. Six out of 10 home construction loans are made by those banks under $10 billion. Today, we are here to talk about providing some examination coordination. Examinations that give very targeted relief to the very best--well-capitalized, well-managed, unblemished, not connected to a merger or acquisition activity--community banks to let them better coordinate their routine exam process. Mr. Speaker, I have worked at banks of that size, and I know the confusion of multiple exams that are uncoordinated between the agencies and come like waves, one after another, from which there is no relief. The same small compliance group dedicated in that bank under $6 billion is avalanched by these requests from the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the State Bank Department, the NASD, now FINRA for a broker dealer, a trust exam, an IT exam. There is no end to it. This kind of coordination is so valuable to these often entrepreneurially owned Main Street banks under $6 billion as described by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Timmons). It is a powerful change, Mr. Speaker, because probably 8 out of 10 banks in the country under $6 billion would meet that test. I am sure there are between 3,000 and 4,000 banks that meet the definitions in this bill. That is real regulatory relief for real bankers who are serving real customers on Main Street in America, and that is what we want. That leads to better outcomes, faster economic growth, and more revenues for our States and for our society. Mr. Speaker, I encourage a strong ``yes'' vote on the work by Congressmen Timmons and Foster, and I yield back the balance of my time of my time.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3709) to amend the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 to establish a Financial Agent Mentor-Protege Program within the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this bill.