Six pieces in September featured Patrick M. Brenner, President and CEO of the Southwest Public Policy Institute (SPPI), and Gregory A. Schroeder, its Executive Vice President, most of them on one question: what a regulator may weigh. SPPI also signed four coalition letters.
Our last two roundups missed the final seven pieces, from late July and August, and an August 5 coalition letter to the Federal Reserve.
The Wall Street Journal
“America’s Unaccountable Insurance Regulator”
Letter by Eric Ventimiglia, September 4
A letter to the editor from Eric Ventimiglia, Executive Director of Pinpoint Policy Institute, answering Brenner’s August 28 Cross Country column. It opened by saying Brenner was right, then argued that the NAIC’s accountability problem goes beyond disclosure: the association is reaching for powers Congress never gave it, including a framework to drop credit-rating providers without defined standards, when oversight of rating organizations belongs to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Pinpoint posted the letter on its site, as it had the column on August 30.
96.3 FM KKOB
Interview with Gregory A. Schroeder, September 23
Schroeder joined host Brandon Vogt to discuss who writes the rules for insurance and consumer credit. He opened with the August Cross Country column and its account of how a private nonprofit in Kansas City came to write many of the rules for New Mexico’s insurance market while staying exempt from filing a Form 990 since 1955. He then walked listeners through his two September op-eds: why an APR is neither a price nor a profit margin, and how the campaign against Enova’s bank deal kept a lender out of the supervised banking system without stopping a single loan.
On southwestpolicy.com: the interview
RealClearMarkets
“Elizabeth Warren Came to Dance On a Grave. The Corpse Was at Home”
Op-ed by Gregory A. Schroeder, September 19
Written days after Enova International withdrew its applications to buy Grasshopper Bancorp on September 14, following months of pressure from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 20 state attorneys general. Schroeder argued that the campaign stopped no loans: the same loans continue at the same prices, and what died was the version of Enova that the Federal Reserve would have examined and held to capital requirements. He grounded the case in the approval factors Congress wrote at 12 U.S.C. § 1842(c), and in New Mexico’s own record, where licensed small-loan companies fell from 531 to 266 after the state’s rate cap.
On southwestpolicy.com: the op-ed
DC Journal
“What Does a Pizza Have to Do With a Loan?”
Op-ed by Gregory A. Schroeder, September 8
Schroeder’s first op-ed since SPPI named him Executive Vice President in August tied the Linney’s Pizza debit-interchange case to consumer lending: both ask what it costs to provide something and who decides what the provider may charge. He ran Opportunity Financial’s second-quarter numbers, an annualized yield of 132.4 percent against net charge-offs of 52.3 percent of receivables, to show why a 36 percent ceiling cannot cover the cost of the loans. A charge-off rate that high warrants hard questions from examiners, he wrote; a senator’s dislike of a product is not one of them. The Derrick in Oil City, Pennsylvania, reprinted the column the following week.
On southwestpolicy.com: the op-ed
National Review
“When the Horseshoe Isn’t Just a Theory”
Op-ed by Patrick M. Brenner, September 3
Brenner found the two ends of the political horseshoe meeting in consumer finance: Sens. Bernie Sanders and Josh Hawley’s bill to cap credit-card interest at 10 percent, its House companion, and President Trump’s call for a one-year cap. Against Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s August letter urging regulators to reject Opportunity Financial’s $130 million bid for BNC National Bank, he set the New York Fed’s study of 36 percent caps and Federal Reserve research putting the break-even loan at $2,530. Merger review has no interest-rate veto, he wrote; if a rate should be illegal, Congress can pass the bill.
On southwestpolicy.com: the op-ed
AM 670 KMZQ
Interview with Patrick M. Brenner on Live & Local with Kevin Wall, September 1
Brenner told host Kevin Wall that Nevada’s housing debate has diagnosed the wrong problem: the question is not who buys houses but whether the state builds enough of them. He argued that the bill to restrict institutional investors, vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo and being redrafted for the 2027 session, would deepen the shortage, and that red tape and slow permitting hold back supply. Institutional investors are net sellers of homes, he noted, and the houses go back on the market for families to buy.
On southwestpolicy.com: the interview
University of Minnesota Law School
“Prof. Daniel Schwarcz Paper Discussing National Association of Insurance Commissioners Cited by Wall Street Journal Opinion Piece”
Article, August 28
The law school’s faculty news noted, the day the Cross Country column ran online, that Brenner’s column cited Daniel Schwarcz’s Connecticut Insurance Law Journal paper, “Is U.S. Insurance Regulation Unconstitutional?”, for the argument that the NAIC arrangement puts an unelected body in control of state insurance regulation.
American Banker
“Indebted Americans need help, not restrictions on settlement services”
Op-ed by Patrick M. Brenner, August 26
Brenner took on legislation that would add new rules for companies that help consumers reduce what they owe while exempting services, such as nonprofit credit counseling, that have historically favored lenders’ priorities over debtors’. He started from New York Fed research finding that roughly 60 percent of the 175 million American adults with credit cards carry a balance.
On southwestpolicy.com: the op-ed
The Hill
“The dangerous politicization of bank charters”
Op-ed by Patrick M. Brenner, August 11
Brenner answered advocates who would address a financial inclusion crisis by making it harder to start a bank. Millions of Americans remain underserved by traditional banks, he wrote, and if inclusion is the goal, the charter process has to stay rigorous, independent and fair. AOL syndicated the column, and RealClearMarkets featured it the next day.
On southwestpolicy.com: the op-ed
Consumer Bankers Association
“Closing the Yield Loophole to Protect Main Street Credit”
Newsletter in Main Street Ledger, August 3
The Consumer Bankers Association, a coalition partner, cited Brenner’s July National Review column in its item on whether banks should be able to charge for access to consumers’ financial data, as the CFPB prepares new rules on who pays. It quoted his distinction between a consumer’s right to their own data and a fintech’s claim on a bank’s systems, and his account of JPMorgan Chase’s proposed data-access fee, which ended in a negotiated price.
Santa Fe New Mexican
“N.M. should not ban or tax its way back to cigarettes”
Op-ed by Patrick M. Brenner in My View, August 2
A harm-reduction argument aimed at New Mexico’s nicotine tax debate. Cigarettes remain the most dangerous consumer nicotine product, Brenner wrote, and taxing safer products heavily sends smokers back to cheaper cigarettes. His rule was to tax in proportion to harm, highest on cigarettes and lower on the alternatives, with every product kept age-restricted.
RealClearMarkets
“The Costly Campaign to Politicize Bank Charters”
Op-ed by Patrick M. Brenner, July 28
The opening entry in the bank-charter argument SPPI carried through August and September, from the coalition letter to the Federal Reserve to the op-eds in The Hill, DC Journal and RealClearMarkets. It opened on House Financial Services Committee leaders, among them Chairman French Hill and Subcommittee Chairman Andy Barr, pressing the Federal Reserve on July 21.
On southwestpolicy.com: the op-ed
National Review
“There’s No Such Thing as Free Data”
Op-ed by Patrick M. Brenner, July 27
Brenner argued that the government should let banks and software companies negotiate the price of financial data freely as the CFPB reconsiders its personal financial data rights rule. A consumer’s right to his own data, he wrote, is not a fintech’s right to someone else’s infrastructure, and the JPMorgan Chase episode showed the two sides can bargain to a price without cutting consumers off from their apps.
On southwestpolicy.com: the op-ed
Coalition letters
SPPI Joins Coalition Urging Senate Committee Leaders to Reject the Railway Safety Act
Coalition letter to Senate committee leaders, led by Competitive Enterprise Institute, signed for SPPI by Gregory A. Schroeder, September 29
The letter asked the leaders of three Senate committees to keep the Railway Safety Act of 2025 (H.R. 928), and its mandate for two-person freight crews, out of the surface transportation reauthorization. The mandate would add cost without adding safety, it argued: the train that derailed in East Palestine already had a three-person crew, and Federal Railroad Administration reviews in 2016 and 2019 found no link between crew size and safety. SPPI joined 28 other organizations in signing it.
Read it at Competitive Enterprise Institute
SPPI Joins Coalition Urging FTC to Revise Its Personalized Pricing Proposal
Coalition letter to the Federal Trade Commission, led by National Taxpayers Union, signed for SPPI by Patrick M. Brenner, September 25
The letter asked the Commission to define personalized pricing narrowly, as a price set for one consumer from that consumer’s own data, to require evidence tying the data to the price and the harm before alleging deception or unfairness, and to protect discounts and routine price changes. The FTC’s own proposal calls the practice’s reach and effects unclear, it argued, and that record calls for case-by-case evidence, not presumptions. SPPI joined seven other organizations in signing it.
Read it at National Taxpayers Union
SPPI Joins Coalition Urging President Trump to Reject a Diesel Export Ban
Coalition letter to President Donald J. Trump, led by National Taxpayers Union, signed for SPPI by Patrick M. Brenner, September 23
The letter asked the President to reject a proposed ban on exports of diesel and other refined petroleum products, and called on Congress to pass comprehensive permitting reform. Diesel is priced in a global market, it argued, so a ban would disrupt supply chains without lasting relief at the pump, and refiners shut out of export markets would have less reason to raise output or add capacity. SPPI joined 27 other organizations in signing it.
Read it at National Taxpayers Union
SPPI Joins Coalition Urging Treasury to Close the Chinese Battery Component Loophole
Coalition letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, led by Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, signed for SPPI by Gregory A. Schroeder, September 1
The letter asked Treasury and the IRS to enforce the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s foreign-entity restrictions so that Chinese-controlled battery companies cannot claim the Section 45X or 48E tax credits through U.S. subsidiaries or contracts. Congress wrote those limits to build American manufacturing that does not depend on China, it argued, and the test should be who controls a company, not where it is incorporated. SPPI joined 12 other organizations in signing it.
Read it at Consumer Action for a Strong Economy
SPPI Joins Coalition: Judge Bank Applications on the Statute, Not the Comment File
Coalition letter to Federal Reserve Chair Kevin M. Warsh, led by American Commitment, signed for SPPI by Patrick M. Brenner, August 5
The letter asked regulators to decide the pending bank license applications on the criteria Congress wrote, among them capital, managerial resources and financial stability, and took no position on whether any should be approved. Opponents who long objected that partnership lending hides the real lender now oppose those lenders becoming directly supervised banks, it argued, which shows the objection is to the lending itself: a policy question for Congress. SPPI joined six other organizations in signing it.