On November 7, 2023, the Federal Housing Finance Agency proposed a series of significant regulatory and legislative reforms for the Federal Home Loan Bank System in a much-anticipated report, “FHLBank System at 100: Focusing on the Future”, containing the results of a year-long comprehensive review of the FLHB System. This Legal Update provides an overview
Andrew J. Olmem
Congress Prepares to Invalidate OCC’s True Lender Rule
On Thursday (March 26, 2021), Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval to invalidate the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) true lender rule. The resolution is co-sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Catherine Cortez-Masto (NV), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) participated in the introduction of the resolution, signaling support for the resolution by House Democrats. The Biden Administration has not yet stated its support for the resolution, though President Biden is likely to sign the resolution into law if Congress passes it.
With the statutory deadline for Congress to take up the resolution of disapproval quickly approaching in approximately mid-May, Congress will have to either pass the resolution when it returns in April from its two week recess, or effectively defer to President Biden’s future Comptroller of the Currency to determine the future of the rule. Given the Democrats’ narrow majorities in both houses of Congress, the vote on the resolution is expected to be close with possible defections on both sides of the aisle. If Congress does not pass the resolution by the statutory deadline, the new Comptroller of the Currency could still seek to repeal or modify the rule at a later date. President Biden has not yet announced a nominee for Comptroller.
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Will the CFPB Freeze the GSE QM Patch?
Since the Inauguration on January 20th, the Biden Administration has busily issued orders to reverse certain policies of the prior administration. In customary fashion upon a change in political parties in the White House, President Biden’s Chief of Staff also sent a memorandum to executive departments and agencies to consider postponing pending rulemakings to allow review by the new slate of policymakers. Among those rules are two Qualified Mortgage (“QM”) Rules of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”).
New White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain’s memorandum specifies that for rules that have already been published or issued but have not yet taken effect, the agencies must consider postponing the rules’ effective dates for 60 days from the date of the memorandum (i.e., until March 21, 2021). If the agency postpones the effective date, the agency must consider opening a 30-day period for interested parties to provide more comments. The memorandum then instructs those agencies to consider whether even further delays are appropriate.
Speaking of engaging interested parties, the CFPB has been reconsidering QM issues for years. The agency has been spurred by a statutory requirement to assess and report on the 2013 QM Final Rule, as well as the January 10, 2021 expiration date of the special QM category for loans eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (the so-called “GSE Patch”). In all, over the course of several years, the CFPB has reportedly received more than 680 comments on QMs from creditors, industry groups, consumer advocacy groups, elected officials, and others. In response to that input, the CFPB issued a final rule extending the GSE Patch until the “mandatory compliance date” of a separate final rule that would revise the general QM category (or until the GSEs emerge from conservatorship), essentially erasing that looming GSE Patch expiration date. Then the CFPB issued two other final QM rules – one to revise the general QM definition and establish that mandatory compliance date, and one to create a seasoned QM category for certain mortgage loans that experience a period of timely payments.
In comparing the effective dates of those rulemakings to the White House’s January 20th memorandum, one can see that the CFPB successfully eliminated the January 2021 GSE Patch expiration date, because that rule became effective before the memorandum. However, the other two rules – which establish the Patch’s new expiration date/Mandatory Compliance Date (July 1, 2021), the new definition of QMs, and the seasoned QM – could get caught in the Biden Freeze.
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