JD Supra, July 9, 2020: OCC CRA Final Rule – Opposition from Consumer Advocacy Groups and Congress
Over the past six weeks, opposition to the OCC’s Community Reinvestment Act (“CRA”) final rule has hardened on two fronts. The OCC’s decision to hurriedly issue the final rule on May 20, 2020, without achieving consensus with the FDIC, the agency with which the OCC had jointly issued the proposed rule, has drawn the ire of both consumer advocacy groups and Congress.
First, consumer advocates have vigorously opposed the rule. Within hours after the OCC issued its CRA final rule on May 20, a consortium of 15 consumer advocacy and civil rights groups issued a joint statement decrying the rule and calling on President Trump to immediately suspend it. The groups argued that the OCC had “fractured the interagency consensus around CRA enforcement” by acting solo when CRA reform should be uniform for all depository institutions. The groups also argued that the final rule had been hastily issued in the midst of a pandemic that was hitting lower-income communities and communities of color the hardest, which would be harmed by the rule at a time when the racial wealth gap is widening.
