Warren, 20 Senate Colleagues Urge OCC, FDIC to Rescind Rule That Would Gut the Community Reinvestment Act and Backtrack on Bipartisan Progress on Housing

Warren, 20 Senate Colleagues Urge OCC, FDIC to Rescind Rule That Would Gut the Community Reinvestment Act and Backtrack on Bipartisan Progress on Housing

"Your agencies should be working with Congress and stakeholders to strengthen and incentivize investments in communities, not advancing proposals that would reduce private-sector investments in community development and affordable housing."

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, alongside all Democrats on the Committee, Senators Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Mary.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Mary.), and Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (D-Ver.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), wrote to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Comptroller Jonathan Gould and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Travis Hill regarding their agencies' proposed rule to gut enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a 1977 law designed to tackle discriminatory lending practices like redlining. The proposal would weaken the OCC's and FDIC's existing CRA rules, reducing private-sector investment in affordable housing and community development across the United States.

Since its passage, the CRA has helped promote investment in affordable housing and community development. In 2024 alone, the law was responsible for over $430 billion in lending and investments in low- and moderate-income communities.

"This proposal undermines the recently-passed bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act-the most comprehensive law passed in over three decades to address the nation's housing crisis. Your agencies should be working with Congress and stakeholders to strengthen and incentivize investments in communities, not advancing proposals that would reduce private-sector investments in community development and affordable housing," wrote the Senators. "We urge the OCC and FDIC to immediately withdraw this proposed rule."

"Congress passed the CRA in 1977 to redress unlawful discriminatory lending practices, such as

redlining that systematically denied loans and other financial services to communities based on Race," the Senators continued. "The law requires federal banking regulators to assess whether banks are meeting the credit needs of the entire communities they serve, including low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods, on fair and equal terms."

"The proposal would raise the threshold for a 'large bank' from roughly $1.65 billion to $10 billion in assets, exempting more than 1,500 banks, or 36 percent of banks nationwide, from the CRA's more rigorous examination, data reporting, and community development requirements," wrote the Senators. "This means hundreds of banks will no longer be subject to CRA requirements, likely reducing investments and lending in community development and affordable housing."

The Senators asked for answers to questions about this concerning proposal from the OCC and FDIC by October 22, 2026.

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