The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved resolutions striking down a $5 cap on most bank overdraft fees and overturning a rule that would have given a federal regulator greater oversight powers over payment apps run by large technology companies.
The overdraft fee limit was struck down 217 to 211, with Representative Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania as the lone Republican to join the Democrats’ dissent.
The rule granting the government supervision over technology companies’ payment apps was overturned 219 to 211, on party-line votes, with Republicans voting to eliminate the rule and Democrats united in opposition.
The Senate approved parallel resolutions last month, and the issues now head to President Trump for his signature.
If Mr. Trump signs them,as is expected, the actions will vacate the two rules finalized at the tail end of the Biden administration, by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which monitors lenders and enforces consumer protection laws.
Lawmakers voted to eliminate the two rules through the Congressional Review Act, a 1996 law that permits lawmakers to reverse recently adopted regulations with a simple majority vote.
Banking trade groups celebrated the imminent demise of the overdraft fee limit, which had been scheduled to take effect in October. Those groups have argued that capping overdraft fees would have prompted many lenders to stop offering the service, which allows bank customers to take out cash, even if there isn’t enough funds in their account. But banks charge fees for that convenience.
Eliminating the fee limit will be “a significant victory for millions of Americans — especially the one in five without access to credit — who rely on overdraft services to pay for essentials and cover emergency expenses,” said Lindsey Johnson, the chief executive of the Consumer Bankers Association, in an email.
The consumer bureau estimated that the fee limit, which applied only to large banks and credit unions with more than $10 billion in assets, would have saved American households $5 billion each year by cutting fees that typically average around $35 per overdraft to no more than $5 at most lenders.
“Congress just made America more expensive for anyone struggling to make ends meet. Partisanship has come before common sense,” said Adam Rust, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group.
The House on Wednesday also approved a resolution, which passed in the Senate last month, to eliminate a consumer bureau rule giving the agency supervisory authority over digital wallets and payment apps run by large technology companies, including Apple, Google, Meta and PayPal.
The consumer bureau already has enforcement power over such systems if they run afoul of consumer protection laws, but supervisory oversight would give it greater visibility into the operations of the technology companies’ payment products.
That put the bureau on a collision course with Elon Musk, who is working to add a payment system to X, his social media platform. Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team, which is not a formal executive-branch department, made the consumer bureau one of its first targets, moving swiftly to gain access to the agency’s computer systems and assisting the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency.
The consumer bureau has been under attack by Mr. Trump and his allies, who have attempted to gut its operations and fire nearly all of its workers. A federal court has intervened and issued an injunction, which has allowed the agency to operate at a diminished capacity.
The Republican-controlled Congress and Mr. Trump have already used the Congressional Review Act twice this year to eliminate rules adopted by the Biden administration. The president invalidated two environmental restrictions, according to a tracking database maintained by the Center for Progressive Reform, an advocacy group.
Rules overturned through the act cannot later be replaced in future administrations, by similar rules. The first Trump administration used it to eliminate 16 Obama-era rules, and Mr. Biden wiped out three of Mr. Trump’s acts, the Congressional Research Service reported.
