The House of Representatives is considering adding changes to bipartisan Dodd-Frank reform legislation (S. 2155) passed last week by the Senate that includes a Roundtable-supported measure to reform the Basel III High Volatility Commercial Real Estate (HVCRE) Rule.  (Roundtable Weekly, March 16)

House Republicans and Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) are motivated to push for more changes to the Senate bill in an effort to rollback more financial industry rules in the Dodd-Frank Act.

House Republicans, led by Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, (R-TX) are motivated to push for more changes to the Senate bill in an effort to rollback more financial industry rules in the Dodd-Frank Act.

Proposals approved by the committee on Wednesday include a change to the Volcker Rule that would put the Federal Reserve in charge of enforcing the Dodd-Frank Act ban on proprietary trading – instead of the five agencies now assigned to the task.  (BNA, March 21)

Substantive changes to the “Volcker Rule” and other provisions by the House would likely send an amended bill back to the Senate, which could threaten support by Senate moderates and require a legislative conference between the two chambers.  (NREI, March 21)

The HVCRE measure included in the Senate-passed Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act originally was introduced in the House as the Clarifying Commercial Real Estate Loans bill (H.R. 2148).  An identical HVCRE measure was then included in the Senate bill (S. 2405) that passed March 14.  

The Roundtable-supported HVCRE text would modify the current, overly broad Rule by providing bank lenders with more specific requirements for acquisition, development, or construction (ADC) loans. These reforms to HVCRE loan definitions would provide greater assurances for performing loan portfolios with low risk, bolster credit capacity and preserve economically responsible commercial real estate lending. (Roundtable Weekly, Jan. 12).

HVCRE reform has been a top policy priority of The Real Estate Roundtable and its industry coalition partners, who have submitted numerous policy comment letters to policymakers since 2015. The Roundtable's HVCRE Working Group has also played a key role in advancing these specific reforms. (Roundtable letter, March 2)