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STATEMENT BY BRUCE A. MORRISON

ON COMMERCE COMMITTEE ACTION ON H.R. 10

I commend the Finance and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee of the House Committee on Commerce for deleting section 231 of the Subcommittee's draft version of H.R. 10. As I said in an October 20 letter to Subcommittee Chairman Oxley, "There is no factual basis for the proposed SEC registration requirement...SEC registration would raise the System's cost of funds significantly, hinder achievement of its housing finance mission and detract from its functioning as a cooperatively-owned reserve credit facility for its 6300 member financial institutions."

While the Commerce Committee also voted to delete the other Federal Home Loan Bank provisions from H.R. 10, this has little practical effect on their final consideration. They remain in H.R. 10 as reported by the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Federal Home Loan Bank Act issues. I can see no reason why the House Rules Committee or House leadership would elect to interfere with sending these amendments to the House floor as part of H.R. 10. In the interim, since they were approved by unanimous voice vote in the Banking Committee, they could well be considered separately from H.R. 10 by the full House at any time.

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