The House Financial Services Committee late last week passed bipartisan legislation that would provide an alternate way of defining “rural” for purposes of the CFPB’s qualified mortgage standard so a bank could make its case to the bureau as to why a jurisdiction should be fit into that category. H.R. 2672 would direct the CFPB to establish an application process under which a person who lives or does business in a state may apply to have an area designated as a rural area for the purpose of exempting certain loans from the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule if that area has not already been designated as such by the bureau.