H.R. 1737 clears House committee as Congress moves to curb regulator overreach into auto financing
Yesterday, July 30, 2015, legislation that is critically important to Americaês auto dealers and their consumer lending partners successfully passed out of the House Financial Services Committee that would rein in overly aggressive federal regulators who have been on a mission to curtail auto dealer credit arranging in financed vehicle sales. Impressively, the bipartisan vote on H.R. 1737 was 47 to 10, which bodes well for the prospect of the Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act passing successfully out of the full House, where it now goes, before heading to the U.S. Senate.
Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) a Washington area member of Congress who was on the Committee, voted in favor of H.R. 1737. Correspondingly, Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) is one of the 127
co-sponsors of the bill in the House. WANADA applauds both these lawmakers for their support of this dealer initiative.
The timing of the success of H.R. 1737 out of the House Committee is no coincidence, coming as it did hot-on-the-heels of last weekês Summer Conference of the Automotive Trade Associations network (ATAE) in Detroit (see WANADA Bulletin 29-15 of July 24 for the full report). There, NADA in conjunction with NAMAD and AIADA briefed dealer associations from the states and major metro areas across the U.S., including WANADA, on the importance of an all-out dealer grass roots effort with House members to support H.R. 1737.
As has been well publicized, the dealer advocated legislation in the House was necessary to curb the Obama administrationês Consumer Finance Protection Agencyês pressure on finance institutions it regulates to limit or eliminate the role of auto dealers as credit arrangers in financed vehicle purchases. CFPBês rationale, which the agency has yet to substantiate, is based upon its allegation that dealersê discriminate against minority auto buyers who regularly get less favorable rate offers from dealers than non-minorities.
NADA through WANADA and other dealer associations in the ATAE network continues to urge dealers nationwide to contact their House members in Congress to thank them, in the case of Reps. Delaney and Connolly, or urge their support of H.R. 1737 if they havenêt yet become
co-sponsors. Click here for a list of co-sponsors and here for NADAês issue brief on H.R. 1737, or visit www.nada.org/CFPB.
WANADA salutes NADA, NAMAD and AIADA for their leadership on this critically important matter to dealers everywhere!
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