Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. MESSER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Missouri for his work on this very important bill.

The Constitution is clear: the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, yet time and time again, this administration has attempted to circumvent the constitutional rights of Americans to further their political agenda.

Today, under the guise of protecting consumers, the Department of Justice and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation are targeting payment companies to choke off credit for certain businesses they deem high risk, including ammunition and firearms stores, lending institutions, and other lawful businesses as well.

Instead of protecting consumers, this initiative is restricting consumer choice and crippling legitimate businesses. This policy makes financial service providers responsible for policing their customers. That is not fair to either banks or their consumers.

This commonsense legislation we are considering today will protect consumer access to banking services and restrict the administration from using the highly substantive notion of reputational risk to undercut constitutional rights and terminate the accounts of lawful businesses. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

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