At the House floor, RM Maxine Waters opposes, a Republican bill that would rubber stamp bank mergers

Uh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Uh, yield myself such time as I may consume. I'm so pleased uh that Mr. Bar from Kentucky uh referred to me uh because the big banks hate me. They love him. Uh they support him. They don't support me. So, let's see whose side he's on. Uh, as a matter of fact, he's here talking about uh, you know, big B not being in support of big bank mergers because he's trying so hard uh, to get more community banks. Well, we need more community banks, but he's a long way uh, from getting what he's talking about. Uh, but the fact is we really do need them because of the big bank mergers. One of the things he could do to increase having community banks that relate to the neighborhoods, relate to the people in the communities, is stop uh allowing these big mergers to take place. Well, let me go on. I rise to express my opposition to HJRES 13, a Congressional Review Act resolution that would resend a rule office of the controller of the Conserity uh uh currency has put forth to improve their bank merger application review procedures. Consumer groups, experts, and I have long rung the alarm bell as the federal government rubber stamped bank mergers for decades to the detriment of competition. The result has been a growing number of banking deserts where communities lack even one bank branch. Just let's see what happens after a merger. Mr. bar. I want you to listen to me. I want you to know what happens after these big bank merges. They close branches. They close down branches all throughout the communities. They lay off the workers. Uh they need less workers and so they start laying them off. They raise interest rates and fees on their customers. We lose relationship banking, community involvement, and a personal touch from your neighborhood bank. When these big bank mergers come in, uh you don't have tailor anymore. As a matter of fact, when they close down uh the uh branches, you try and get them on the telephone. Have you tried to talk with a bank manager on the telephone with these menus that they have? they run you around uh from so-called extension to extension to extension. You lose all of these relationships. So, in fact, while thousands of bank mergers were approved, the last few decades, the last bank merger application that regular regulators denied, the last one that was denied in 2003, 22 years ago. Meanwhile, community banks have disappeared as the number of banks declined from more than 18,000 in 1990 to fewer than 5,000 today. Meanwhile, the biggest banks have grown much bigger through mergers and not surprisingly are charging customers more for banking products and services. For example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that the largest banks charge between $400 and $500 every year in additional interest and other fees for their average credit card holders compared to smaller community banks and credit unions. In fact, that negative consumer impact is one of the many reasons I and more than 90% of the public commenters urged regulators to oppose the recent Capital One and Discover merger. I think you supported that which created the largest credit card issuer. But the Trump administration approved it anyway. And I know you did what Trump wanted you to do. We already have enough mega banks with too much corporate power. In mid the mid 1990s, the 20 largest banks held 15% of all bank assets. Today they hold more than 65% of all bank assets. And the four largest mega banks hold more assets than the next 75 largest banks combined. Now these mega banks are just too big to manage. Now take Wells Fargo for example. They grew larger through mergers and then repeatedly violated the law and harmed millions of consumers. It got so bad that the Fed under former Chair Janet Yellen's leadership imposed an asset cap that remains in place to this day. Now, that's not easily done. You don't hear Treasury doing that, placing asset caps, but they did that because of the way that Wells Fargo Bank had just mismanaged and disregarded its customers. So to curb these rubber stamp mergers, former President Biden issued an executive order to encourage the Department of Justice and the banking agencies, including the OC, to strengthen their merger reviews, get more information, find out what they intend to do, how they going to provide more services. And that's what uh President Biden tried to get done with the OC. Get more information. Don't just rubber stamp them and let them merge and do all the things that I've just alluded to. After going through a public notice and comment process, the OC, which oversees most large banks, including the four largest commercial banks in the country, published a final rule last year that made several common sense improvements to its merger review procedures. First, it eliminated a fasttrack procedure where even the largest bank mergers could receive automatic approval of their mergers 15 days after their public notice comment period closed. Second, the OC required merger applicants to file the standard merger application to ensure they had enough information to weed out harmful mergers. And third, the rule provided guidance, something industry often asked for. Specifically, the OC provided guidance on how they would consider statutory factors when reviewing an application, making the process more transparent. Rolling back these reforms is dangerous, especially at a time when Doge is firing staff at the OC and the other bank agencies, making it harder for them to carefully review these mergers. Well, I guess Elon Musk didn't stop with all of the other agencies that they were undermining and firing and laying off. They decided that they would fire staff at the OC and the other bank agencies, making it harder for them to carefully review these mergers. But what Elon Musk was doing is consistent with what he's been doing. And I guess what Trump wants him to do, they want less services. They want to make sure that they're supporting the biggest banks with these mergers. the biggest banks that's going to close down the community relationships that we have with community banks. Moreover, I do not know why Republicans rush this bad bill to the floor. bypassing a committee markup. That would have been prudent. As I would point out, this resolution is actually a giant waste of time as it would resend it would resend a rule that was already rescended by the OC. You heard me right. President Trump's acting controller of the currency rescended this very rule last week when it issued an interim final rule that took effect on May 15th. But I'm not surprised that my Republican colleagues weren't paying attention to this development. Uh maybe they were uh just maybe they think uh that it was something that Trump had said to Elon Musk, go get it done, an executive order. But maybe they felt that this is one of those executive orders uh that would get ruled out uh by the courts when we absolutely oppose them. This bill is only moving because Republicans needed to waste time while they hammer out how best to give $5 trillion in tax breaks to billionaires. They needed more time to figure out if tens of millions of Americans would lose Medicaid, whether millions millions of children would lose access to food stamps, and just how many consumer watchd dogs they would fire at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It doesn't matter that the United States bond ratings are downgraded, that foreign investors are dumping US investments, or that small businesses are struggling to keep their lights on. No, Republicans are instead resending a rule that Trump already rescended. I tried to give you credit uh for why he might be doing this. Uh but uh what uh you have done is you have just disregarded that it's already been done and you came over to waste some time just to make sure uh that that executive order uh perhaps won't work. Well, uh and much later tonight when the rest of Americans is sleeping, Republicans are going to figure out just how many Americans they can squeeze to pay off their billionaire overlords. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad bill being considered under worse circumstances. I don't know why we're wasting time on this floor. I urge members to reject this wasteful, harmful, anti-competition bill. And I reserve the balance of my time.