Treasury must testify annually on community development lending
S. 2704 — CDFI Fund Transparency Act · Filed by Steve Daines (R-MT) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 4, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the Treasury Secretary (or a designee) to testify annually before the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee about how the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund operates, at the discretion of each committee's chairman. It adds a transparency and accountability mechanism to an existing 1994 law governing federal support for community development financial institutions.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative function is to mandate annual testimony by Treasury to Congress regarding CDFI Fund operations. It is a procedural accountability measure, not a substantive policy change to the fund itself.
What the text implies
- Testimony requirement is discretionary (at chairman's discretion), so actual oversight frequency may vary with committee leadership changes and priorities.
- No enforcement mechanism specified if Treasury fails to testify or provides incomplete information — compliance depends on political will.
- Testimony requirement may increase transparency but does not mandate specific metrics, audit standards, or public reporting formats beyond the testimony itself.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill increases congressional oversight and public transparency regarding how federal community development funds are deployed. Citizens and their elected representatives gain clearer visibility into Treasury operations affecting community lending, investment, and economic development — a direct accountability gain with no offsetting cost to public rights or protections.
Named in the bill
Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund), U.S. Department of the Treasury, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, House Committee on Financial Services, Community Development Banking and Financial Institutions Act of 1994
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Sep 4, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 4, 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
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $2,260,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 26 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 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Steve Daines, the sponsor, reported $901,144 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Independent Community Bankers of America — $2,170,000 on 1 filing
- Partnership for Job Creation — $90,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 16, 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 (664 characters) on Aug 18, 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 16, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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