CUNA Chief Economist Bill Hampel will testify Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee's Securities, Insurance and Investment subcommittee regarding the need for credit unions to retain access to the secondary mortgage market as Congress mulls major reform.

The Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act, introduced June 25 by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), would wind down Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the entire FHFA within five years, sell off their assets and revoke their federal charters. Like the Protecting American Taxpayers and Homeowners Act soon to be introduced in the House, individual loans would be packaged into securities by private investors, although the House bill would also allow for Federal Home Loan Banks to serve as loan aggregators.

However, the Corker-Warner bill differs from the GOP-supported House bill in that the Senate bill would replace the FHFA with a Federal Mortgage Insurance Corp. that would retain some form of the federal guarantee currently provided by Fannie and Freddie.