United States Senate
106th Congress
Press Release - 06 December 1999

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:	CONTACT: CHRISTI HARLAN
Monday, December 6, 1999	202-224-0894

COMMITTEE REPUBLICANS URGE FEDERAL RESERVE
TO DROP PLAN TO COLLECT DATA ON CREDIT APPLICANTS

Sen. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has joined Sen. Richard Shelby and other Republican members of the committee in urging the Federal Reserve Board to abandon a plan to repeal Regulation B and allow creditors to collect data on credit applicants' race, color, sex, religion and national origin.

"The credit process should be colorblind," Gramm said. "Allowing banks and other creditors to collect information about the race, religion or national origin of their would-be clients will once again raise the specter of abusive creditors injecting prejudice into the credit process. At a time when we should be rooting out discriminatory practices, this proposal will make discrimination too easy to be tolerated. The Fed should retain Regulation B."

Shelby, Gramm and other Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee spelled out their objections to the repeal of Regulation B in a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

"The Federal Reserve Board should not adopt the data collection proposal because it would produce incomplete and unreliable data," Shelby said. "More importantly, the proposal would further divide the citizens of this country by allowing banks to ask historically sensitive questions about race and religion. The Federal Reserve has no business getting involved in social policy."

Click here to view the senators' three-page letter to Chairman Greenspan.

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