Senate is likely to follow the House in passing Finance Reform next week

Senate is likely to follow the House in passing Finance Reform next week

The odyssey that has been the long and circuitous route of Finance Reform in Congress, which first passed the House last November, is all but at an end with the Senate expected to follow the House in adopting the Conference Committee Report, thereby passing the legislation, perhaps as soon as next week. Americas dealers, who argued tenaciously and successfully to lawmakers that they didnt belong in legislation directed at banks, ultimately prevailed by being affirmatively excluded from it.

This was no small feat, given the intense political pressure to include dealers in the proposed law and its draconian regulatory scheme that was put in motion by President Obama himself, and powerful congressional allies, such as Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

NADA orchestrated the hard won victory for dealers with a masterfully executed grass roots effort through the Automotive Trade Associations network (ATAE), with the full support and assistance of AIADA and NAMAD. This involved countless conference calls with NADAs directors, ATAE dealer association leaders and dealer fly in visitations to Washington for Capitol Hill meetings with members of Congress. These efforts, systematically bolstered with repeated dealer phone calls and emails to congressional offices, caused lawmakers to fairly reflect and finally recognize that dealer F&I operations, which simply arrange consumer credit, are not the same as banks and finance companies which extend it. And while additional scrutiny of dealership F&I departments by the Federal Trade Commission is provided under the legislation, there will be no oversight by the proposed Bureau of Consumer Finance Protection that will proceed with unprecedented regulatory authority, under the Federal Reserve Board, over banks and finance companies.

Members of Congress in the House and Senate who represent WANADA dealers around the Capital Beltway were all responsive to hearing the dealer position on exclusion from Finance Reform and most were supportive, either directly or by operating behind the scenes.

Specifically, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) were especially helpful. Correspondingly, Reps. Jim Moran (D-Va.), Frank Wolf (R-Va.), Gerry Connelly (D-Va.) and Donna Edwards (D-Md.) were also helpful. On the Senate side, both Maryland senators Ben Cardin (D) and Barbara Mikulski (D) voted in favor of the motion to instruct Senate conferees to support legislation excluding dealers. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) didnt oppose the motion-to-instruct.

This result regionally came about with a lot of hard work and follow up by WANADA dealers. The overall success of the dealer exclusion, correspondingly, was assisted by the coordinated and effective working relationship WANADA has with MADA and VADA, a regional scenario repeated over and over again by and between state and metro dealer associations in the Automotive Trade Associations network across the U.S.

WANADA salutes NADA on a job well done and urges members to appropriately thank their congressman or senator who supported the dealer exemption in the Finance Reform legislation.