[1]Three government agencies – the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC [2]), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System [3], and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC [4]) – have announced additional outreach meetings to discuss their collective effort to reduce regulatory burden placed on them by the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996 (EGRPRA [5]).
The next EGRPRA outreach meeting is scheduled for February 4 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas [6]. At the Dallas meeting and all EGRPRA outreach meetings, industry participants and panel groups will offer panel presentations, and audience members or interested parties will have the opportunity to comment at the end of each one.
Interested persons or audience members may also present views on any of the 12 regulatory categories listed in the public notice published in the Federal Register [7] in June 2014 that started the EGRPRA public comment process. Participants who do not wish to comment orally may submit their comment in writing at the meeting or through the EGRPRA website.
Several government leaders will be in attendance at the Dallas meeting, including Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry, Fed Governor Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg. Also scheduled to be in attendance is Commissioner of the Texas Banking Department Charles G. Cooper. State banking regulators are also invited to participate.
"Community bankers are encouraged to attend an EGRPRA outreach meeting to share their views on how to reduce unnecessary burdens in OCC, FRB, and FDIC regulations," the agencies jointly wrote in a November press release announcing the series of meetings.
The agencies are required by the EGRPRA to review their regulations at least once every 10 years in order to identify outdated or unnecessary regulations that are imposed on deposit institutions that are insured. The regulations are divided into 12 categories as required by the EGRPRA, and the first set of categories was published in the Federal Register for comment in June. Three more public notices will be jointly published by the agencies over the next two years for public comment on the remaining regulations.
The three agencies hosted the first EGRPRA outreach meeting in Los Angeles on December 2, 2014. Currently, meetings are scheduled for 2015 in Boston on May 4, Chicago on October 19, and Washington, D.C. on Dec. 2. More information on the Dallas meeting, including registration, agenda, and a webcast link, can be found on the EGRPRA website [8].