Congressional Hearings |
Printable Version |
Statement of Debbie Stabenow
U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
"Consideration of Regulatory Relief Proposals"
March 01, 2006
|
|
Mr. Chairman, thank you for scheduling this hearing, it certainly is timely.
In the last few months, I have heard from a number of organizations in my state about
regulatory relief. The message is always
the same – they need our help to ensure that their time and money is spent on
what they do best, running their businesses.
|
Just this morning, I spent some time
with CPAs in my state of Michigan. Their most pressing issue over the last few years has been the burdensome
regulations that have hindered their ability to focus on their business.
|
As an example, CPAs have their own
strict policies through state licensing and regulations. The state regulations for CPAs are stronger
and the penalties are more severe than what is required under the federal GLB
laws. Yet, they are required to abide by
GLB regulations even though this doesn’t add any more protection for
consumers. In fact, the duplicative
requirements weaken both regulations and penalties for CPAs. It just doesn’t make sense.
|
It is these types of issues that we need to address. We need to make sure that the regulations do what they were intended to
do - protect consumers, provide intelligence, and ensure the integrity of
financial transactions. Ultimately, we need to make sure that regulations pass the common sense test.
|
I believe we can accomplish this by
working with the panelists today and their organizations in the future to adopt
a regulatory structure that is sound and successful in protecting consumers and
bringing relief to banks, credit unions, and all other financial institutions
who have faced increasing costs of regulation.
|
I look forward to hearing more about seasoned customers. Specifically, I am very interested in hearing
about improvements to our disclosure requirements that allow for better
intelligence and consumer protection as well as mitigate any unnecessary
information that distorts our ability to analyze transactions.
|
Thank you again for being here today and working with us to improve current
regulations for all stakeholders.
|
