WASHINGTON––U.S. Senators John Boozman (R-AR) and John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced the 1071 Repeal to Protect Small Business Lending Act, legislation to reverse a Biden-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule requiring banks to collect and report personal information, such as a business owners’ race, ethnicity and sex, or if a business was minority or LGBT-owned, when seeking a small business loan.

This reversal will increase access to credit for small businesses, save millions in compliance costs for lenders and remove disproportionately high regulatory burdens on community banks and credit unions. Further, the legislation prevents the CPFB from publishing certain personal information required under Section 1071 on its website, which threatened to compromise borrower privacy.

“Overzealous data collection and any requirement to publish small businesses owners’ personal information online creates unnecessary risk while burying smallbusiness lenders under costly layers of bureaucratic red tape,” said Boozman. “I am pleased to work with my colleagues to reverse further erosion of Americans’ privacy and ease the regulatory burden on banks that provide loans to entrepreneurs and job creators.”

“President Biden’s woke CFPB put small business owners’ information at risk by requiring their personal details to be exposed online. My bill would repeal the last administration’s misguided regulation so that job creators’ private information isn’t public, and government doesn’t stand in the way of Main Street’s access toloans,” Kennedy said. 

This legislation is also co-sponsored by Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Roger Wicker (R-MS), John Barrasso (R-WY), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Steve Daines (R-MT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). 

Congressman Roger Williams (R-TX-25) introduced companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Read the text of the bill here.