Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

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CLEVELAND, Ohio – Today, U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes (OH-13), an Akron Democrat, voted against the Congressional Review Act (CRA) joint resolution (S.J. Res. 18) that would roll back critical consumer protections from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and allow bank overdraft fees to be raised from the $5 cap established during the Biden administration. The resolution passed the House 217-211 and along party lines. It now proceeds to the desk of President Donald Trump for his signature to become law. If it becomes law banks could charge some $85 for overdraft fees per transaction, which occurred before both Obama and Biden took office and intervened with price caps.

Republicans argue that discarding Biden's $5 cap creates competition and helps to eliminate government mandated price caps and Democrats complain that it favors big banks and corporations over working and middle class people and America's poor.

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is a legislative loophole that gives Congress the power to nullify recent federal regulations by a majority vote. and is structured to avoid the legislative filibuster. Supporters of the measure say it minimizes partisan conflict while naysayers claim it can be tricky and can bring frivolous federal legislation without appropriate safeguards.

Sykes said that rolling back consumer protections put in place during the Biden presidency era will devastate everyday Americans.

“Undoing this commonsense policy from the CFPB will impose hundreds of dollars in pointless fees on households across the country, many of whom are living paycheck-to-paycheck,” said Rep. Sykes, one of three Black women in Congress from Ohio and the youngest of Ohio's 4-member Democratic Congressional Delegation.“Everything already costs too much, so why on earth would we further pad bank’s pockets by nickel-and-diming vulnerable customers with junk fees? We need to be clearing the way for families and workers, not billionaires and large corporations at the expense of the middle class.”

Poor people, Blacks, other minorities and single mothers will be disproportionately impacted by the consumer protections roll back, sources said Wednesday, and the effort, they say, is just more backlash against America's most marginalized groups by President Trump and his cronies, mainly Congressional Republicans.

In December, the CFPB took action to close an outdated overdraft loophole that exempted overdraft loans from lending laws. The agency’s final rule on overdraft fees applies to the banks and credit unions with more than $10 billion in assets that dominate the U.S. market. The reforms would also allow large banks several options to manage their overdraft lending program, including:

• Capping overdraft fees at $5;
• Offering overdraft as a courtesy by charging a fee that covers no more than costs or losses;
• Continuing to extend profit-generating overdraft loans if they comply with longstanding lending laws, including disclosing any applicable interest rate.

The final rule was expected to add up to $5 billion in annual overdraft fee savings to consumers, or $225 per household that pays overdraft fees.

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