Category: US Senate

Source: United States Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV)

In A Recent Letter, Senator Rosen Had Called On Administration To Extend TPS Protections For Immigrants From El Salvador And Honduras

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) applauded news that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for El Salvador and Honduras following a push from Senator Rosen and colleagues. Over 400,000 people with TPS live in communities across the United States — where they fill essential jobs in local economies and contribute billions of dollars every year in taxes. Nevada is home to over 6,000 TPS recipients, most of whom are from El Salvador or Honduras.

“TPS recipients came to the United States seeking safety and fleeing dangerous situations, which is why I called for an extension of the TPS designation for El Salvador and Honduras,” said Senator Rosen. “I’m glad the Administration listened and extended these protections, giving TPS recipients and their families peace of mind. While this is a positive step forward, we must continue working to pass comprehensive immigration reform.”

The TPS for both El Salvador and Honduras was originally jeopardized because of actions by the Trump administration that Senator Rosen strongly opposed. Redesignating El Salvador and Honduras for TPS ensures that current TPS recipients and those eligible for TPS from these countries receive needed protection.

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Source: United States Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV)

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) announced $11,975,000 in funding for the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe to build “Indian Route 35,” also known as Wadsworth Bypass Road, through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Nationally Significant Federal Lands and Tribal Projects (NSFLTP) program. This road will help create a means for through-traffic to bypass Wadsworth, Nevada, and provide a safer and more efficient route for everyone.

“I’m proud to announce that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that I helped write and pass is continuing to deliver for Nevadans by connecting our state,” said Senator Rosen. “This new funding will build a new road to better connect the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe with communities in northern Nevada.”

“Building ‘Indian Route 35’ will make a big difference for the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe by improving safety and reducing traffic congestion in a critical corridor in Tribal territory,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “I will always work to make sure Native communities in Nevada get the federal support they need, and I will continue working to bring in resources to rebuild our roads and bridges and create more good-paying jobs in Nevada.”

The Wadsworth Bypass Road is a singular, continuous federally-owned Tribal transportation facility proposed as a two-lane 2.91 mile long rural road with grading and drainage, asphalt pavement, and intersection improvements. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Senators Rosen and Cortez Masto championed required at least 50 percent of federal program funding go toward Tribal transportation projects, and it increased the Federal share for Tribal transportation projects to 100 percent.

Senators Rosen and Cortez Masto have been strong advocates on behalf of Tribes in Nevada and across the country. Senator Rosen has consistently advocated for robust federal funding to benefit tribal families and children in Nevada. In the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that they both helped pass, Senator Rosen helped write the bill’s broadband section and ensured communities across Nevada would receive the resources to increase access to high-speed internet. Senators Rosen and Cortez Masto recently sent a letter urging the Biden Administration to support a national monument designation at Bahsahwahbee, which holds sacred and spiritual significance for several Tribes.  

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Source: United States Senator John Kennedy (Louisiana)

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) rule to implement Dodd Frank Section 1071, which amends the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).

Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) has introduced the resolution in the House of Representatives.

“By collecting and publishing personal demographic and other information, the CFPB is putting small business owners at risk of having their private financial affairs exposed to a watching world. Reporting these personal details is an invasion of privacy and a waste of resources aimed at furthering the woke agenda. The practical impact of this rule could hamstring lending to Main Street,” Kennedy said.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) new rule is a continued attack on Main Street America. Each day, small businesses struggle with rising costs, increasing interest rates, and ongoing labor shortages, and this new rule only builds on those issues. We cannot allow the CFPB to continue to add burdensome requirements without any consideration of their impact on small businesses and lenders. I am proud to stand by my commitment to protect Main Street America from costly over-regulation by unelected bureaucrats,” said Williams.

Kennedy’s CRA would ensure that the CFPB’s final rule on Dodd-Frank Section 1071 does not go into effect. 

Background: 

On March 30, the CFPB promulgated the final rule implementing Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which amends the ECOA. The rule was published in the Federal Register on May 31, 2023.

Section 1071 requires covered financial institutions to collect and report certain personal information on small business loan applicants and report that to the CFPB. The CFPB may then make certain parts of that information public, including data that could publicly identify the small business credit applicant.

In order to comply with the Biden CFPB rule, financial institutions would have to collect information about applicants, including the applicant’s census tract, North American Industry Classification System and years in business, among other information. Further, banks are required to report the owner’s race, ethnicity and sex; and whether the business is minority-owned, women-owned or LGBT-owned.

• The rule applies to financial institutions that originated at least 100 small business loans in each of the two preceding calendar years. 
• Based on the number of credit transactions for small businesses, covered financial institutions must comply with the final rule beginning October 1, 2024; April 1, 2025; or January 1, 2026.
• A small business is defined as a company with $5 million or less in revenue from the previous fiscal year.

Among the many concerns about the CFPB’s collecting and storing such personal information is that the agency recently experienced a data breach including the personally identifiable information of 256,000 consumers and failed to properly inform them for two months. 

The implementation of this rule may reduce the availability and accessibility of small business credit by increasing compliance costs of lenders.

Text of the resolution is here.

Source: United States Senator John Kennedy (Louisiana)

Watch Kennedy’s exchange here.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, today questioned Rohit Chopra, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on its rule to implement Dodd Frank Section 1071. The Biden administration rule would require banks to collect data on small business owners when they seek a loan. 

Key excerpts from the exchange are below.

Kennedy: “Is your rule going to require banks to ask the customer about their race?”

Chopra: “So, that is in the statute—”

. . . 

Kennedy: “Your rule would require a bank to ask the question of a small business person, ‘What’s your race? What’s your ethnicity? What’s your sexual preference? Are you gay? Are you a woman?’

“Now, that’s—you can bubble-wrap this all you want, but that’s what your rule does.

“Now, the customer—particularly in a small town—is going to go, ‘Woah, what’s my sexual preference have to do with a loan?’

“And the customer can say, ‘I don’t want to answer,’ but then the bank has got—you’re requiring the bank to tell you that they wouldn’t answer, and all of this data is going to go to your agency, and, we don’t have the slightest idea how you’re going to use it, except you say you’re going to publish it.”

Chopra: “Well, we will not get any names at all . . . ”

Kennedy: “Yeah, but you’re going to have data sets, so that it’s possible—you can’t tell me it’s not possible to have this information known. Why do you want all this information?” 

Chopra: “I don’t—”

Kennedy: “Why do you want to know what a small business woman’s sexual preference is?”

Chopra: “Okay, that’s a mischaracterization of it.”

Kennedy: “No, it’s not.”

. . .

Kennedy: “Why do you want to know what a small business woman—let’s say in a town of 20,000 people, going to her local bank [to] borrow money—why do you want to know what her sexual preference is? What business is that of yours?”

Chopra: “We sought to implement what the congressional requirements are—” 

Kennedy: “What business is that of yours, what a small business woman does in her bedroom?” 

Chopra: “Again—”

Kennedy: “Who appointed you pope?”

Chopra: “Again, people are able to self-identify, if they wish.”

Kennedy: “You’re making them.”

Chopra: “We are not making them.”

Kennedy: “Yes, you are . . . and we have no idea how you’re going to use this information.”

Background:

• Kennedy today introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to the CFPB rule to implement Dodd Frank Section 1071, which amends the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).
• Kennedy introduced the Transparency in CFPB Cost-Benefit Analysis Act to ensure that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) does not establish regulations that would foist unreasonable costs or harms onto taxpayers, financial entities or consumers.
• Kennedy introduced the Small LENDER Act to block the Biden administration’s CFPB from requiring community banks and lenders to collect and report social data—such as race, gender and ethnicity—from borrowers.

Watch the full exchange here.

Source: United States Senator John Kennedy (Louisiana)

WASHINGTON – Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) introduced a bipartisan bill to fix part of the Medicare billing structure that allows hospital systems to charge high hospital rates for care received at off-campus outpatient facilities.

“Hospitals are gaming the system to charge Louisiana patients and taxpayers more for out-patient, off-site care. That’s wrong, and I’m proud to work with Sens. Braun and Hassan to make it right by correcting Medicare’s billing policy,” said Kennedy.

“Hoosiers know our health care system is broken, and one problem we can fix right now is services at off-campus outpatient facilities being billed to Medicare at higher hospital rates. Fixing this problem will save taxpayers 40 billion over the next decade, and this bill will apply some of those savings to fixing our nursing shortage by creating a new program to pay for training,” Braun said. 

“Granite Staters who have been going to the same doctor for years are experiencing sticker shock when a hospital acquires a doctor’s office or clinic and all of a sudden starts charging extra fees for the same services. Our bipartisan bill takes on the health care industry to eliminate unfair fees, lower costs for patients, and save taxpayer dollars—and then we use those savings to invest in the health care workforce. Lowering health care costs for Americans is a bipartisan priority, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense bill,” said Hassan.

Due to Medicare’s billing structure, even if care is received at an off-campus outpatient facility, patients can receive bills that treat the care as if it was provided at a main hospital campus. This means the providers are charging patients and Medicare higher “hospital” rates when patients aren’t receiving in-patient care. 

The consequences of this artificial price hiking are expanding as hospitals acquire more and more small physician-owned practices and off-campus facilities. In 2020, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that, over the next decade, taxpayers will pay close to $40 billion in excess Medicare costs due to exorbitant facility fee payments.

 A provision in the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act makes these price inflations possible because that law established “site-neutral” payments under Medicare for services received at off-campus outpatient departments, but it exempted most hospitals.

The SITE Act would end the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act’s site-neutral exceptions. It would also prevent off-campus emergency departments from charging higher rates than on-campus emergency departments when standalone emergency facilities are located in close proximity to a hospital campus. 

The bill would require health systems to establish and bill using a unique National Provider Identifier number for every off-campus outpatient department. It would direct the Department of Health and Human Services to treat outpatient departments as subparts of the parent organization and to issue these subparts unique provider identifiers. The SITE Act would also remove liability for services rendered for payers who are not billed in accordance with this section’s requirements.

The bill would use a portion of the overall savings from this fix to help fill the nursing shortage by creating a graduate nursing education program that would provide payments for training costs. 

Text of the SITE Act is available here.