Senate to query regulators on financial reform
TEXT OF STORY
JEREMY HOBSON: The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act passed about six months ago under a Democratic Congress. And today, newly empowered republicans in Washington will be pushing to delay and defund the law. The topic will be front and center when regulators appear before the Senate Banking Committee to talk about the law’s implementation so far.
Our New York bureau chief Heidi Moore reports.
HEIDI MOORE: The Dodd-Frank Act set out to reform our entire financial system in just two years. So how’s that going?
LAURENCE LESE: They’re up to their eyeballs in alligators because there’s a whole lot of work to do.
That’s Laurence Lese, a partner at law firm Duane Morris. He says, so far, the Securities and Exchange Commission has written new rules to make executive pay more transparent. But it has roughly 70 other deadlines to meet in the next 11 months.
Kevin Petrasic, a partner at law firm Paul Hastings, says the law’s biggest challenge is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which doesn’t even have a boss.
KEVIN PETRASIC: There are numerous observers wondering, what’s taking so long?
Petrasic says the watchdog consumer agency is the linchpin of financial reform. How it decides to set rules for mortgages and credit cards will influence every other regulator. Dodd-Frank requires 11 agencies to make 243 new rules.
As for the law’s mission of preventing banks from being Too Big to Fail? It’s too early to tell.
In New York, I’m Heidi Moore for Marketplace.
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