Woodstock Institute has signed onto two letters supporting Section 1071 of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.  Section 1071 requires lenders to small businesses to collect and report on the racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation breakdown of their borrowers to the CFPB. Given the ample evidence of discrimination in small business lending, including in Woodstock’s own research on the topic, 1071 would help advocates identify both disparities and solutions for addressing them. A similar rule for home mortgage lending (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) helps advocates and government officials address analogous disparities in mortgage lending.

The first letter is led by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and is signed by 150+ organizations in support of the rule and in opposition to current legislative efforts to repeal it. Additionally, the letter outlines how this data will help address racial disparities in small business lending and debunks opponents’ claims that this data will impose excessive cost on lenders. To see the full letter and signees, click here.

The second letter is led by HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance. Notably, this letter also expresses opposition to H.R 2423, , the Farm Credit Administration Independent Authority Act. This bill would exempt the Farm Credit Administration from the CFPB’s Section 1071 rule. Woodstock opposes these legislative efforts at exempting the agricultural sector’s single largest lending system from having to report lending data. See below for the full letter and signees.

Woodstock has long supported Section 1071 as a means of confronting disparities in small business lending.