The Automotive Service Association (ASA) is once again working to defend the Federal Insurance Office as the U.S House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services works to dismantle it with a series of six recently passed bills designed to reduce federal regulations and authority of the office.

One of the bills, HR 3861, Federal Insurance Office Reform Act of 2017, was introduced last year by U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis. as part of the package approved by a vote of 36-21. The legislation dilutes the authority of the Federal Insurance Office (FIO), which is part of the U.S. Department of Treasury.

ASA opposes the bill and was successful in protecting the FIO during the latest Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Many assumed that HR 3861 was dead for this session because the reform package did not contain House language that would have eliminated FIO. The committee’s current action is a similar attempt to curtail FIO’s impact on federal insurance regulation.

“We will need collision repairers to stand with us one more time this congressional session to protect a regulatory tool that is structured to help consumers and collision repairers,” said Scott Benavidez, AAM, ASA collision operations committee director from Albuquerque, N.M. “Congress was clear in recent weeks that FIO did not need reform, yet we are faced with an additional attempt to dismantle this useful federal agency.”