The American Bankers Association and 52 state bankers associations are urging President-elect Trump to halt work on all open regulatory actions during his first day in office and conduct a comprehensive review of regulations created in the past four years, pointing to what they said has been an onslaught of “questionable and unnecessary policy actions.”
In a joint letter to Trump, the associations asked for the regulatory pause and for the president-elect to extend the effective dates for finalized regulations until his administration has time to review and assess the policies. They also requested a review of agency guidance and pending agency litigation. The groups urged Trump to direct the Treasury secretary to initiate a comprehensive review of the current regulatory rulebook, paying particular attention to the changes enacted over the past four years “to assess the cumulative impact of these rules and how they are suppressing access to capital and credit across the country”
For the past few years, the federal banking agencies, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and capital markets regulators “have pursued an aggressive and misguided regulatory agenda, upending longstanding, tested banking practices with questionable and unnecessary policy actions that undermine our members’ ability to provide capital and credit to Main Street,” the associations said. They cited examples ranging the CFPB’s attempts further restrict bank fees to bank merger guidance from multiple agencies “designed to freeze and disincentivize transactions.”
“ABA and our member banks have participated in good faith in the regulatory process, offering data-driven feedback through comment letters and hundreds of banker meetings in an effort to shape reasonable, economically grounded regulatory outcomes,” ABA and the associations said. “But all too often, the input from 4,500 banks was ignored, and in some cases, regulators made decisions to overshoot their legal authority altogether. This has led ABA and some state associations to file an unprecedented seven lawsuits challenging statutory overreach and process failures.”
The associations said they appreciated Trump’s commitment to reducing burdensome regulations and promoting policies that will create economic growth. “The process of amending or withdrawing agency actions can be slow, but these are steps you can take on day one to prevent further harmful regulations from taking root,” they said.
