27. Financial Regulatory Agencies · Notable · Needs Congress

Repeal Dodd-Frank Section 1071 small-business data collection

Attempted

Printed page 839 27. Financial Regulatory Agencies

“Repeal Dodd–Frank Section 1071. This section, which relates to small-business data collection, imposes requirements on financial institutions’ lending to small firms, raises costs, and limits small businesses’ access to capital.”

What has happened

May 1, 2026 Attempted
The final rule narrows the collection sharply — merchant cash advances, agricultural lending and small-dollar loans are out; Farm Credit System lenders are out; the origination threshold rises from 100 to 1,000 covered transactions in each of two consecutive years; the small-business revenue ceiling falls from $5 million to $1 million; five discretionary data points (application method, application recipient, denial reasons, pricing, number of workers) are dropped; and compliance is pushed to 2028. It is effective 2026-06-30. But it is a narrowing, not an elimination: the Bureau states that the incremental approach "will also comply with section 1071" and advances its statutory purposes, so the collection regime stands and the statute is untouched. Congress has not moved either — H.R. 976, the 1071 Repeal to Protect Small Business Lending Act, was reported by the Financial Services Committee and placed on the Union Calendar on 2025-05-06 and has never been voted on; its Senate companion, S. 557, was referred on 2025-02-12.
- CFPB final rule: Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B)
  Primary Executive branch May 1, 2026
- H.R. 976, 1071 Repeal to Protect Small Business Lending Act, as reported (Union Calendar, 2025-05-06)
  Primary Congress May 6, 2025
Nov 13, 2025 Attempted
The Bureau proposed to reconsider the 2023 small business lending rule, having twice extended its compliance dates by rule first (2025-06-18, then 2025-10-02). A reconsideration of the implementing regulation is not a repeal of the statute the regulation implements.
- CFPB proposed rule: Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B)
  Primary Executive branch Nov 13, 2025
- CFPB final rule: Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B); Extension of Compliance Dates
  Primary Executive branch Jun 18, 2025
Apr 30, 2025 Attempted
The CFPB announced that it would not prioritize enforcement or supervision of its section 1071 rule against any lender outside the stay the Fifth Circuit had entered in Texas Bankers Association v. CFPB. That stay had issued on 2025-02-07 after the Bureau's new leadership told the court it did not oppose tolling compliance deadlines. Both are steps away from the collection regime, but neither touches section 1071 itself, which only Congress can repeal.
- CFPB: Keeps Its Enforcement and Supervision Resources Focused on Pressing Threats to Consumers (section 1071 rule non-enforcement announcement)
  Primary Executive branch Apr 30, 2025
- Texas Bankers Association v. CFPB, No. 24-40705 (5th Cir. Feb. 7, 2025) — unpublished order tolling compliance deadlines for plaintiffs and intervenors
  Primary Courts Feb 7, 2025

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Section 1071 of Dodd-Frank, codified at ECOA section 704B (15 U.S.C. 1691c-2), is still on the books. Everything that happened happened to the rule implementing it.

The full text of the final rule was read at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-05-01/html/2026-08494.htm (loaded 2026-09-01). Its summary of the final rule is the source of the coverage figures above, and of the Bureau’s own characterization: “a better, longer-term approach to advance the statutory purposes of section 1071 is to commence the collection of data with a narrower scope”.
The CFPB’s 2026 Regulatory Agenda, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/14/2026-16613/regulatory-agenda (current as of 2026-01-13), lists exactly one printed entry, RIN 3170-AB40 “Small Business Lending Data Collection Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act Reconsideration”, at the final-rule stage. It is an intention rather than a rung, and it has since been executed by the 2026-05-01 rule.
Litigation, read past the snapshot on 2026-09-03 (read-queue ticket 04): the 2026 rule has been neither enjoined nor vacated, and the old case is being wound up as moot. The bulk snapshot’s 2026-06-30 cutoff no longer bounds this item — CourtListener’s docket pages and its search API are live-indexed and were used past it.
- Texas Bankers Association v. CFPB, No. 24-40705 (5th Cir.): the 2025-02-07 stay tolled the Rule’s compliance deadlines “for plaintiffs and intervenors in this case”, never nationwide. In a joint status report of 2026-06-03 the parties told the court they “currently plan to ask this Court to declare this matter moot and to vacate the adverse district court opinion under Munsingwear/Bonner Mall in light of the mootness of the case”, deferring the joint motion “at least until 60 days after the new rule has gone into effect” so they can “assess whether there are any serious challenges to the new rule”.
- There is one Monticello Banking Company v. CFPB matter, not two. A party-name search of every federal docket on 2026-09-03 (caseName:Monticello AND caseName:"Consumer Financial") returns exactly one case: E.D. Ky. No. 6:23-cv-00148, filed 2023-08-11 and not terminated. It has been stayed by successive court orders rather than decided — ECF 50 stayed the action while a motion to stay was resolved, and ECF 55 “ORDERS that this action is STAYED until December 1, 2025”, requiring the CFPB to file a status report that day detailing the rulemaking. There has never been a merits ruling. The earlier note’s “two further challenges” was a miscount of two orders in one case; a later pass should not go looking for a second.
- No challenge to the 2026 rule exists. Searched by party name and by subject on 2026-09-03: a CourtListener RECAP search for "91 Fed. Reg. 23,530" and for "section 1071" filed after 2026-05-01 each returns zero. The negative reaches CourtListener’s RECAP coverage, which is the only federal-docket index on the allowlist. So the litigation still does not carry the Status — the ask is repeal by Congress — but the note can now say the rule is in force and unchallenged, which is a stronger statement of “the rule stands” than “any court action after 2026-06-30 is unknown”. Status Evidence for the wind-up: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.221627/gov.uscourts.ca5.221627.177.0_3.pdf (Joint Status Report, 2026-06-03), read 2026-09-03 and recorded here rather than in frontmatter, because the Status rests on the CFPB’s rule and on Congress, not on this filing.
H.R. 976’s history was taken from https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/BILLSTATUS/119/hr/BILLSTATUS-119hr976.xml: introduced 2025-02-04, ordered reported 27–22 on 2025-04-02, reported and placed on the Union Calendar 2025-05-06, no further action. Under the settled ladder a committee report and a calendar placement are still the bottom rung, which is why the congressional half contributes nothing above attempted.

Action: repeal
Object: Dodd–Frank Section 1071
ID: 2180