The U.S. Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Thursday narrowly approved an amended version of The Financial Regulatory Improvement Act of 2015, voting by along partisan lines 12-10 to pass the measure to the full Senate.

The reform measure, which was broadly supported by both community banks and credit unions, directed the NCUA to hold budget hearings and study the impact of its risk based capital proposal on credit union mortgage servicing portfolios, among other more general provisions.

“We applaud committee members for moving the bill forward, and we welcome more progress being made on behalf of credit union regulatory relief,” NAFCU President/CEO Dan Berger said. “This is a positive development and a solid step forward in overcoming the regulatory overburden the credit union industry now faces. However, more needs to be done – and we are working on the development of a bipartisan approach to get the job done.” 

CUNA also offered laudatory statements.

“CUNA greatly appreciates the Committee’s commitment to meaningful regulatory relief for small depository institutions,” CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle. “We particularly appreciate that the legislation includes three specific credit union provisions and several other significant regulatory relief provisions to reduce the unnecessary and overly burdensome regulations that negatively impact credit unions, their members and their communities. “

The measure, backed principally by Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala), survived a Democratic attempt to replace it with  a substitute measure that Democratic supporters argued offered similar reforms but in a more targeted way.

A couple of the Democratic Senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) spoke out strongly against the Shelby proposal, with Warner expressing his disappointment several times with how the measure had been developed and promising to vote against all amendments to it – even some he believed in – as a way to protest the process.

In the end, the amended measure include a change from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) to raise the threshold for CFPB examinations from $10 billion from $50 billion and a change from Senl Mike Crapo that would bear federal financial regulators from participating in the Justice Department’s Operation Choke Point program.