Sen. Cynthia Lummis

Community banks and credit unions are part of the backbone of Wyoming’s communities. They are the places where people keep their savings, where small businesses get loans and where young families realize their dream of home ownership.

Unfortunately, our community banks and credit unions today are subject to one-size-fits-all regulations that are more suited to Wall Street banks. The regulations are designed to keep consumers safe, but often focus on financial risks that are only faced by the largest banks in the country.

We need an appropriately focused regulatory regime for our community banks and credit unions that keeps your money safe, encourages lending and keeps money laundering out of our financial system. We must remember that community banks and credit unions bear the brunt of new regulations since, unlike the Wall Street banks, our local bankers do not have an army of compliance staff to call upon.

I went to Washington to be “all Wyoming, all the time” and I am keeping my promise. That’s why I joined my colleagues, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., to introduce the Taking Account of Institutions with Low Operation Risk (TAILOR) Act.

The TAILOR Act would require federal banking regulators to consider a community bank or credit union’s business model, risk profile and size when regulating it. This would simplify the federal rules that are currently straining dozens of banks in Wyoming.

If the TAILOR Act becomes law, it would require federal banking regulators to tailor rules and supervision for Wyoming’s community banks and credit unions to meet the realities of what our banks are and what they do, instead of forcing them to comply with the same set of rules and regulations that govern big banks in New York and elsewhere.

Additionally, the TAILOR Act would cut down on regulatory paperwork that banks have to fill out and require federal banking regulators to carefully study the modernization of bank regulations to account for changing bank business models and technology. These requirements would apply not only to future regulations but also to any regulations that the federal government has put in place over the past seven years.

I am proud to serve the people of Wyoming. But that means serving not only the people, but also the industries and businesses of the Cowboy State. I have used my position on the Senate Banking Committee to do just that, most recently fighting the Biden administration’s efforts to force banks like ours to comply with job-destroying and anti-American energy policies.

Recently, I questioned one of President Biden’s nominees to the Federal Reserve, Lael Brainard, about whether she would try to impose environmental rules on our banks, and I was happy to hear she unequivocally said she would not.

I will continue fighting for our community banks and credit unions, through legislation and through my committee assignments.

Like them, I am here to serve the people of Wyoming, all the time.

(Cynthia Lummis is the junior U.S. senator for Wyoming. She took office in January 2021.)