Bankers: Agencies are ignoring laws in issuing guidance
Federal regulators are disguising regulations as guidance and are short-circuiting the formal rulemaking process, the American Bankers Association charged this month.
In a letter to banking regulators, ABA President/CEO Rob Nichols charged that regulators are managing to evade the legal requirement that substantial policy changes be opened to public comment before the changes are adopted.
“While the banking industry welcomes guidance that helps banks understand and comply with legal requirements, too often recently, your agencies have characterized as guidance what is in practice a “legislative rule” that Congress requires to go through notice-and-comment rulemaking,” Nichols wrote in his letter to the agencies. “In the most egregious cases, your agencies have issued guidance that exceeds the legal authority Congress provided.”
An ABA white paper cites the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve as the offending agencies. Since the National Credit Union Administration does not supervise ABA member banks, the ABA does not single out that agency for criticism.
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