• Key insight: House Democrats are asking regulators to extend the Community Reinvestment Act proposal's comment period to at least 120 days, saying the sweeping rewrite needs more time for public feedback. 
• Supporting data: The proposal would raise asset thresholds for compliance, narrow lending and service activities considered in CRA exams and make it easier for banks to receive an outstanding rating.
• Forward look: Comptroller Jonathan Gould said the proposal would refocus the CRA on its statutory purpose and prevent it from becoming "a social credit score for banks" or "a funding mechanism for activist NGO networks."

Democratic lawmakers spearheaded by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., urged the The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Thursday to extend the comment period for their proposed overhaul of Community Reinvestment Act rules to at least 120 days, citing concern that with how the Trump administration's proposed rewrite of the anti-redlining regulation was adopted behind closed doors. 

In a letter to FDIC Chairman Travis Hill and Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, lawmakers — including every Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee — told the regulators that the "expansive" pending rule, which spans over 400 pages, needs more time for review considering that it could also reduce the number of banks evaluated for community development activities.

"The proposal sets out to redefine asset thresholds for rule compliance; narrow CRA evaluation on lending activity; limit the range of services considered for purposes of the CRA service test; makes it easier for banks to receive an outstanding rating; narrow the number of banks evaluated for their community development activities," the lawmakers wrote. "Taken together, the proposed revisions likely will significantly impact which institutions are encouraged to meet the credit needs of their communities through activities that extend beyond lending such as community development activities."

The letter also raised concerns about the proposal's potential interaction with the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the bipartisan housing legislation Congress enacted this year. 

"More than 375 groups including financial institutions, religious groups, small businesses, local government agencies, and community organizations responded to the recent proposed rule with a letter noting 'serious concerns' and indicate that more time is necessary to complete their analysis," they wrote. "As we and other stakeholders analyze this new proposal, we request that the public comment period be extended to no less than 120 days to give members of the public more time for substantive review and comment on this sweeping proposal."

Congress passed the CRA in 1977 as a way to address de facto lending discrimination against communities of color. The act requires that banks be graded on how equitably they are lending to low- and moderate-income customers and neighborhoods in their service areas, typically determined by where they have branches and deposit-taking automated teller machines. Banks need to receive a satisfactory mark in order to merge with or acquire other banks.

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The metrics regulators use to measure banks' compliance with the law are widely believed to be out of date and in need of a refresh. The implementing regulations — last updated in 1995 — have not expanded many lower-income households' access to credit, according to a 2023 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. While the study showed the act's implementation drove more mortgage activity overall to low income areas, this did not drive greater borrowing outcomes — saying banks fulfilled CRA obligations by purchasing loans from CRA-exempt nonbanks rather than expanding credit. 

The first Trump administration made an effort to revise the rules, but the proposal, backed by then-Comptroller Joseph Otting, lacked consensus with the FDIC and the Fed, and the revisions pursued by the OCC alone were rescinded by the Biden administration. The Biden regulators undertook a comprehensive overhaul of their own that was finalized in 2023, but the current slate of regulators moved to rescind those rules in April 2025 after an industry-led lawsuit challenging the rule. 

The most recent proposal, issued jointly by the FDIC and OCC last month, would relax requirements for banks with under $10 billion in assets from reporting the full slate of CRA compliance data and would narrow what kinds of activities count as "credit" on firms' community reinvestment report cards. Importantly, the Trump-era rewrite also places new restrictions on grants banks give to nonprofits as part of their strategies to meet the needs of underserved local communities.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould characterized the recent proposal as an effort to refocus CRA on its statutory purpose, saying the changes would prevent the law from being used "as a social credit score for banks" or "as a funding mechanism for activist NGO networks under the guise of community development."