With Congress out on vacation, the collections and repossession world can take a deep breath and relax for a few weeks with only the CFPB to worry about in the meanwhile. But that doesn’t end the collective lobbying efforts going on in DC and in the representative states of our elected officials. At the ACA International, they are maintaining this vigilance with a special focus on Congress’s destructive HR 2547 which passed in the House last May. In the International’s July/August 2021 edition of “Collector” magazine, their VP and Senior Counsel of Federal Advocacy, Leah Dempsey spells out just how dangerous and possible this “collections Killer” bill is.
On May 13th, “H.R.2547 – Comprehensive Debt Collection Improvement Act” or CDCIA, for short, Passed the House with a vote of 215 to 207, almost completely along party lines with only on Democrat voting against it. This bill sits waiting in a 50-50 senate with a tie breaking VP Harris vote in the wings. It is expected that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will bring it to vote. It can not be overstated just how damaging this bill is to the collections and repossession world.
HR 2547, aka; CDCIA, took 8 previously proposed consumer protection bills and consolidated them into one massive bill that would have crippling affect on debt collections and lending in almost every aspect of the industry including the FDCPA, TILA and FCRA. The 8 bills that make up this bill are;
- HR 2540, the “Small Business Fairness Lending Act”
- HR 1491, the “Fair Debt Collection Practices for Servicemembers Act”
- HR 2498, the “Private Loan Disability Discharge Act”
- HR 2537, the “Consumer Protection for Medical Debt Collections Act”
- HR 1657, the “Ending Debt Collection Harassment Act”
- HR 2572, the “Stop Debt Collection Abuse Act”
- HR 2628, the “Debt Collection Practices Harmonization Act”
- HR 2458, the “Non-Judicial Foreclosure Debt Collection Clarification Act”
If this bill passes the Senate, it will then be referred back to a joint committee of House and Senate members for final revisions before being brought again back to the House and Senate for final votes. After that, the bill would then head to the White House where the President would have ten days to sign or veto it. And I think we all know how that would go.
It’s been easy to forget or dismiss these threats as congress has been fighting over their infrastructure bill, but they have not gone away. These threats are very real.
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