Bill > S1916

This bill, known as the HELP Rural Communities Act of 2014, amends the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to allow individuals or businesses in a state to apply to have a specific county designated as a "rural area" for the purposes of federal consumer financial laws, even if it wasn't previously classified as such. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a government agency that oversees financial products and services, will establish a process for these applications and must consider various factors when evaluating them, including criteria used by the Census Bureau, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Agriculture, as well as opinions from state banking regulators and population density. Once an application is received, the CFPB must make it public for comment and then publish its decision, along with the reasoning behind it, in a publicly accessible database on its website.