Congress quietly removes pay caps on executives at taxpayer-backed banks
S. 1990 — CURB Act · Filed by Jim Banks (R-IN) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jun 9, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to give the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) explicit authority to set compensation for executive officers of Federal Home Loan Banks, overriding a prior statutory cap. Currently, the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 limits executive pay; this bill allows the FHFA Director to establish compensation deemed 'reasonable and comparable' according to regulations the Director writes.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to remove a statutory cap on executive pay at Federal Home Loan Banks and vest discretionary authority in a single regulator. This is a classic deregulation move — replacing a bright-line statutory limit with agency discretion — even though the title frames it as 'curtailing' unreasonable remuneration.
What the text implies
- The bill removes the statutory ceiling but does not require the FHFA Director to set lower compensation — it merely permits 'reasonable and comparable' pay as defined by Director-written regulations, which may result in higher executive compensation than the prior statutory cap allowed.
- Federal Home Loan Banks are GSEs with implicit federal backing and access to federal credit facilities; removing statutory pay limits on their executives shifts compensation risk from public oversight to agency discretion, concentrating power in a single regulator rather than Congress.
- The phrase 'reasonable and comparable' is undefined in the bill itself and will be defined by FHFA regulations — this delegates the standard-setting to the executive branch, reducing legislative control over public-sector executive pay.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Federal Home Loan Banks are government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) whose executives' compensation is now subject only to FHFA Director discretion and internal regulations, not statutory limits. This removes a public-interest restraint on executive pay at quasi-public institutions funded by taxpayers and backed by federal credit. Citizens lose a statutory floor on accountability and gain exposure to potentially inflated executive compensation at institutions with implicit federal backing.
Who stands to gain
- Federal Home Loan Bank executives
- Federal Home Loan Banks (as employers)
Named in the bill
Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Federal Home Loan Banks, Director of FHFA, Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, Section 1318(d)
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Jun 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jun 9, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 lobbying clients named this bill on 5 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $3,135,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 12 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 61% of bills with at least one filing.
Jim Banks, the sponsor, reported $559,626 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Nasdaq Inc — $1,460,000 on 2 filings
- Council of Fhlbanks — $1,265,000 on 2 filings
- American Federation of Teachers — $410,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (990 characters) on Aug 24, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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