WASHINGTON (2/22/16 UPDATED 8:45 A.M.)--The Hill today featured an op-ed authored by Credit Union National Association (CUNA) President/CEO Jim Nussle describing how regulatory burden is endangering America’s small credit unions.

The column was published on the first day of CUNA’s Governmental Affairs Conference, which runs through Thursday in Washington.

“America’s credit unions were not the cause of the financial crisis,” Nussle wrote. “On the contrary, our not-for-profit, member-owned, cooperative business model guides us to serve our members with attractive rates on savings, loans and credit cards rather than piling on risk to please shareholders with a higher dividend or rising stock price on Wall Street.

“Yet, since passage of Dodd-Frank in 2010, which led to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), regulatory costs for credit unions have risen by 39%,” he continued. While this hits all of America’s credit unions regardless of size and impacts the financial benefits they extend to members, it hammers small credit unions and the communities they serve particularly hard.”

Read the full text here.