H.R. 6955: Main Street Capital Access Act

The bill touches almost every piece of the federal banking regulatory framework, organized across eight titles.

On capital rules, it raises the Community Bank Leverage Ratio eligibility ceiling from $10 billion to $15 billion in assets and drops the required leverage range from 8-10% to 6-8%. Rural banks under $10 billion get an even lower floor — the lesser of the standard CBLR or 7.5%, phased in over two years. New banks get a three-year ramp-up to meet federal capital requirements.

On timelines, the bill imposes a 90-day clock on the Fed, FDIC, and OCC for bank holding company and merger applications. If regulators miss the deadline, the application is automatically approved. New banks requesting business plan changes get a 30-day clock with the same auto-approval default. Exams must be completed within 270 days and final reports delivered within 90 days of the exit interview.

On oversight structure, the bill creates an Office of Independent Examination Review inside the FFIEC, led by a three-member board appointed by the President. Banks can appeal major supervisory decisions for de novo review — meaning the appeal board evaluates the case from scratch, without deferring to the original examiner. The bill also orders a rewrite of the CAMELS rating system using objective criteria, with Congress finding that the current system "relies heavily on examiner judgment, which can lead to subjective and inconsistent ratings."

Other provisions ban climate-related stress tests, strip "reputational risk" from the supervisory toolkit, raise the small bank holding company threshold to $25 billion, bump enhanced-regulation triggers from $250 billion to $370 billion, exempt mergers resulting in banks under $10 billion from antitrust review, and loosen deposit-broker rules through a 50/40/30% tiered exclusion for reciprocal deposits.