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"They don't call it the national reinvestment act, they call it the Community Reinvestment Act," said Iowa CCI leader Brenda LeBlanc at the National People's Action Senate Banking and Housing Briefing as she spoke to over two dozen senate staff and members of the press.

"We want banks to be rated on the local level, not the national level."

Localizing CRA ratings has become the crux of a yearlong fight in reforming bank loans and working to stop predatory lending practices.

On March 16 a NPA leadership team met with Federal Reserve Board member Ed Gramlich, Office of Thrift Supervision chair Ellen Seidman, Office of the Comptroller chair Jerry Hawke, and staff from the FDIC. At the meeting the groups won an agreement from the regulators to include NPA's CRA reforms in the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The ANPR is an initial posting of many of the issues that are being discussed during the current process of rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act regulations.

The first step in making sure that NPA's demands become regulation is getting them included in the ANPR. A national team of NPA organizations pushed for these regulatory changes to strengthen CRA through a series of seven hearings with federal regulators over the last twelve months. The five national demands will make national banks accountable for local loans and ensure redlining does not occur in any community.