President Barack Obama would sign legislation to curb credit-card fees even if it contains a provision allowing visitors to national parks to carry guns, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today.
The U.S. Senate passed the credit-card measure yesterday, and the House is scheduled to give it final approval today.
Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who offered the gun amendment, said it was necessary to reduce crime in the parks. The Obama administration said last month it wouldn’t challenge a court ruling reinstating 26-year-old restrictions on guns in the parks. The ruling by a U.S. District judge blocked a Bush administration order allowing firearms that was backed by the National Rifle Association.
The unrelated gun amendment was attached to legislation, sought by Obama, that would require lenders to apply payments to balances with the highest interest rates first. It would also prohibit increasing a consumer’s rate on existing balances based on late payments to another lender, a practice known as “universal default.”
