HUD cannot make this change by rulemaking. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”) amended the Housing Counseling Statute by removing HUD’s discretion to certify counseling agencies or individual counselors. The Housing Counseling Statute now requires that all individuals that provide counseling for HUD Programs must be HUD-certified by way of passing a new written examination showing competency in each of the 6 areas prescribed. We cannot consider any exemptions to the individual certification requirement because the law does not provide any language for exclusion. Furthermore, because there is current legislation dealing with this topic before Congress, it is not proper for HUD to speculate or discuss the topic in proposed rulemaking, discuss it in debate with you all today or use it as the basis for crafting a final rule. While your comments are important on this issue, HUD would remind the commenters that all questions posed on the issue of allowing existing counselors to be exempt from certification or to be certified without having to pass an examination - will not be considered in finalizing the rule, even though it will still become part of the official public comments.